Saul Hersch awoke a little after one in the morning. He rose from his bed and used the toilet. Washing his hands at the sink, his eyes lit on a little pot of lip balm on the vanity top. Helena liked that particular style of lip balm, he remembered. It smelled of rose hips and ginger and made her lips shiny.
Mr. Hersch smiled at the thought of his daughter. Such a good girl. She’d married a doctor, of course, and she lived in Princeton, near her mother, but she drove up once or twice a month to visit with her old dad, and they’d go to Boston Chicken (a place he enjoyed but wasn’t too expensive—Mr. Hersch did not like the idea of his daughter spending money on him when she could be saving it for potential grandchildren) and out to a movie, or sometimes they would take a walk around Pavonia Newport Mall. The drive from Princeton took an hour, so Helena usually left in the evening, although sometimes she stayed overnight. When Helena slept over, Mr. Hersch liked to surprise her by taking her out to the International House of Pancakes for breakfast in the morning as a treat. After so many years, Helena probably wasn’t surprised by the IHOP trip anymore—how could she be?—but she was a good sport and always acted as though it was unexpected.
Mr. Hersch missed his daughter. She had her job in Princeton, of course, he understood that. Princeton had been her other home for most of her life, since her mother moved there to marry a physicist after the divorce. Helena was just thirteen then. It was hard to believe she was in her forties now. Time marches on, after all.
Walking back to bed, Mr. Hersch noticed that the door to the spare bedroom was closed, as it always was when Helena wasn’t there.
How strange. Hadn’t she come to visit earlier that day? She had planned to stay for a while, hadn’t she? Mr. Hersch opened the spare bedroom door. The bed was still made. Oh, dear. She’d returned to Princeton, and he hadn’t even remembered. Oh, curse this dreadful aging process! He went back to the bathroom. Yes, she’d certainly left her lip balm. He picked it up and ran his fingertips over the container. He wasn’t imagining it. It was real. She had been here.
What if she needed the lip balm? He’d never purchased it, but it looked expensive. It probably wasn’t easy to get on a Sunday. Many stores were closed on Sunday. Poor Helena might be looking all over for this, when he had it right here. She could hardly be expected to drive all the way back to Hoboken for the balm.
Very well. If Mohammed could not go to the mountain, the mountain would go to Mohammed.
Mr. Hersch retrieved his wallet and his keys from the dresser in his bedroom. He donned his brown bathrobe and tied it around his waist, putting the pot of lip balm into his pocket. On his way out of the building, he considered tapping at Jonathan’s door, but there was no reason to wake him. Let the poor boy sleep.
Outside, the street was deserted. Mr. Hersch walked to the end of the block and turned toward the park. A taxicab was cruising slowly down the avenue. When Mr. Hersch waved, the taxicab pulled over and waited.
“Could you drive me to Princeton, please?”
The driver, a dark-haired man of about fifty, shrugged. “Hop in.”
“Thank you.” Mr. Hersch settled into the back seat and took the pot of lip balm from his pocket to show it to the driver. “I have to go to Princeton, you see, because my daughter forgot her lip balm.”
The driver eased out from the curb and made the turn around the park. “What’s in it?”
“Lip balm.”
“You don’t just go running off in the middle of the night because somebody forgot their chapstick.”
“Is it the middle of the night?”
The driver stared at Mr. Hersch in the rear-view mirror. “It’s one-thirty a.m.! What’s your daughter doing at one-thirty in the morning that she’s gonna need chapstick for?”
“One-thirty! I thought it was later in the morning than that.”
“She a hooker?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Never mind.”
“Helena’s a good girl. Married, of course. His name is Grant. He’s a neurologist.”
“Your daughter’s married to a brain surgeon?”
“Oh, no, not a brain surgeon. The other kind of neurologist. Very nice young man. He works very hard, you know. And she’s got her doctorate in special education, or something like that.”
The driver shook his head. “I wish your daughter would talk to my daughter. My daughter’s boyfriend is not very nice. A bum. You always want the best for your children. This boy is not the best, not by a long shot.”
“I want grandchildren. And I want Helena to move up here. I have Jonathan, of course, but I feel so alone sometimes.”
“Without family, what do you have? Nothing,” the driver replied, answering himself. “Family is everything.”
“I’ve always felt that way. Now I’ve outlived just about everyone but my daughter and my ex-wife. If only Helena would have a child.”
“You love her very much. Taking a taxi all the way to Princeton in the middle of the night.”
Mr. Hersch smiled. These were his last years. As clouded as his mind might be, he was aware of his frailty. Sylvia, Helena’s mother, was much younger, in her late sixties. Sylvia would outlive Saul by a good twenty years. Why couldn’t Helena and Grant move up to Hoboken? Why couldn’t his family be near him for however long he had left? He loved Jonathan, of course, like a son, but Helena…
“Sir? Are you crying?”
Mr. Hersch wiped at his eyes. “How long to Princeton?”
“No traffic. Maybe forty minutes.” The driver glanced up at his mirror. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be better once I’m with Helena. It’s funny. I used to be the one she looked up to. Now I go to her for solace.”
“The way of the world, my friend.”
Mr. Hersch removed the lip balm from his pocket and looked at it. There was some writing on the bottom. Squinting in the glow of a streetlight, he could now make out that the cosmetic had been purchased at a large chain drug store, open seven days a week. What a foolish old man he was! He remembered his worry and concern when he’d found the little pot in the bathroom. He hadn’t been as lucid then as now. The periods of vagueness appeared to come and go. The result was that Saul Hersch questioned his every thought, whenever he had the clarity to do so. Certain times he questioned more than others, he thought wryly. Ah, well. He would arrive at Helena’s doorstep in his pajamas and bathrobe, bearing lip balm on this midnight errand of mercy, and his daughter would open the door and look upon him with pity in her eyes. She would thank him for the lip balm, of course, and act as though everything were fine. He, too, would act as though everything were fine. She would find him there, and he would say, “Hi. It’s me,” and she would reply, “Hi, Me,” just as they had for over thirty years, and they would pretend that nothing was awry. And then he would silently cry himself to sleep in the spare bedroom of Grant Spitznaugel and Helena Hersch-Spitznaugel’s home.
The spare bedroom had very comfortable pillows, he remembered. Big and soft, they contoured to fit the sleeper’s head, aiding posture. Very comfortable, he yawned to himself, warm and…
“Sir? Sir?”
Mr. Hersch blinked. He was in the back of a car. A taxicab. How had he gotten there?
“We’re here, sir. You fell asleep.”
Where? Mr. Hersch leaned forward to look out the window. A familiar house—a big, rambling two-story with a fountain in the front garden. “This looks like Helena’s.”
“Do you want me to go ring the bell for you?”
Mr. Hersch felt in his pocket. “No, I have a key. Thank you for driving me. How much?”
They settled the tab, Mr. Hersch tipped him, and the driver waited until Mr. Hersch had unlocked his way into his daughter’s house before pulling away.
Grant had installed a touch-pad alarm system, but he and Helena had accidentally set it off so many times that the police stopped coming for the alarms. While the house was equipped with intimidating-looking security, all Mr. Hersch needed was a key to get in.
No reason to wake poor Helena. Mr. Hersch knew where the spare bedroom was, and he could take a train back in the morning. Why had he come here, anyway? He didn’t think Helena was expecting him. Then again, perhaps she was. Mr. Hersch made his way to the master bedroom and tapped softly at the door.
There was no answer. Were Helena and Grant even home?
Mr. Hersch eased the door open and peered inside. Two heads, close together, on the pillows. Ah. They were asleep. Better not to disturb them, then. He closed the door and shuffled off to the spare bedroom and its contoured pillows.
Where he could not sleep. The bed was firm and supportive, the pillows as luxurious as he remembered, but slumber eluded him. After an hour or so of tossing and turning, Mr. Hersch got up from the bed and went back downstairs to the den.
Grant had a big-screen television in the den. Mr. Hersch had some trouble operating the remote control, but eventually he found a documentary channel with an interesting program about penguins. It was quite interesting, though he had to leave the sound very low in order not to wake his daughter and her husband.
He dozed intermittently. Drowsing was easier in the recliner than in the bed, for some reason.
At seven, Mr. Hersch got up and made coffee. This was not as complicated as it sounded. The coffee machine was a sleek, tall cylinder of chrome that was always set up the night before. All one had to do was switch it on. Mr. Hersch was primarily a tea drinker, but coffee was a pleasant change from the ordinary, and Helena’s coffee gadget made a cracking pot of coffee. Mr. Hersch found a container of half-and-half in the refrigerator and sugar in a stainless steel canister on the countertop. Delicious!
Coffee in hand, Mr. Hersch returned to the den and a particularly nice program about the history of flea circuses. Not long afterward, he heard someone padding into the kitchen. “Morning!” he sang out, not wanting to alarm Helena and Grant. “It’s me!”
No one replied, “Hi, Me.”
Peculiar. This was Helena’s house, was it not? Of course it was. He had let himself in with the key, he had seen them sleeping in their bed. There on the shelf was their framed wedding picture—well! It lay face-down on the shelf. He must have accidentally knocked it over at some point. Mr. Hersch righted the photograph and made his way into the kitchen. The kitchen was empty. He heard footsteps scrambling up the stairs.
Mr. Hersch made his way to the foot of the staircase. “Helena? Grant? It’s all right! Only me.”
Grant came down the stairs, tying his robe. “Hello, Dad. Did you come back during the night?”
“Yes. I made coffee. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take you kids out to IHOP. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Sorry, Dad, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Where’s Helena?”
“Haven’t seen her yet this morning. Took a taxi last night to bring her this.” He held out the pot of lip balm. “I hope I didn’t shock you kids by turning up like this.”
Grant took the little pot and studied it carefully. “Did Helena come with you?”
“No, as I said, I haven’t seen her.” Something about this didn’t feel right. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure. Why don’t you make me a cup. I’m going to make a phone call.”
“At this hour? Well, I suppose you doctors are used to telephoning people at all sorts of crazy hours. You go on, Grant. I’ll fix your coffee right up.”
Grant left the room, returning a few minutes later.
“I couldn’t remember if you preferred milk or half-and-half, so I took a chance and used the creamer. Plenty of sugar, and I added some nutmeg from the spice rack. This coffee will knock your socks off.” Mr. Hersch laughed. “We used to say that, back when I was younger. ‘Knock your socks off,’ and ‘swell.’ Now I expect I sound as old as the hills, talking like this to you.”
Grant accepted the coffee.
“Try it.”
Without a word, Grant sipped the coffee.
“Is it all right? I can make you another if you don’t like it. Too much sugar, maybe?”
His son-in-law set the cup down on the counter. “Dad, who just answered the phone at your house?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“I called there just now, and a man answered. Who was it?”
“Oh, dear. Jonathan, perhaps. I didn’t tell him I was leaving. I should call him. He’ll be wanting me to take my pills. I hope he’s not upset.”
“It wasn’t your friend Jonathan. I’ve heard his voice before.”
“Perhaps you dialed a wrong number.”
“I used the speed dial.”
“A crossed wire, perhaps. I don’t know. I don’t understand telephones nowadays, with the satellites and digital gizmos and all. Try again.”
“I did.”
“Well, did you ask the gentleman who he was?”
“Helena’s not answering her cell phone, either.”
“Why are you calling her cell phone?”
“Where’s Helena, Dad? Did she come with you?”
“Heavens, no. She is here,” Mr. Hersch replied. “I may be getting on, but I am certain that my daughter is here.”
“She’s not here.”
“Then whom did I hear in the kitchen before you came downstairs?”
Grant colored slightly. “You must have imagined it.”
“When I came in last night, I looked in on you both. Helena is here.”
Grant took a long sip of coffee and smacked his lips. “Tell you what, Saul. You get dressed and meet me out by the garage. We’re going to drive back up to Hoboken.”
“I didn’t bring any clothes, I’m afraid.”
A raised eyebrow. “You came in your nightclothes?”
Mr. Hersch shifted on his feet. “I’m afraid I did.”
“Well. You finish up your coffee, then, and I’ll throw on some jeans, and we’ll drive up to Hoboken together.”
“Why? I just got here. Let’s make a day of it. We’ll all go to IHOP. I’ll pay, of course—”
“Oh, that sweetens the deal.”
“Don’t be snippy. We’ll go to IHOP, and then perhaps the museum. Princeton has such a lovely history—why, did you know that Grover Cleveland lived here?”
“Saul, there’s a strange man in your apartment. Helena’s not answering her phone. I’m very concerned about your daughter. Do you understand that?”
“Oh, dear. Are you saying she could be in trouble?”
Grant barked an angry laugh. “There’s trouble, all right.”
“Oh.” Mr. Hersch considered this. Perhaps he wasn’t as lucid as he thought. “But you’ll put everything right, won’t you?”
Grant set his jaw. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, one way or another. You’d better believe it. Get in the car, Saul. We’re taking you home.”
Mr. Hersch’s eyes lit up. “And we can stop for pancakes on the way!”
They didn’t.
Copyright 2006 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.
Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.
