The evaluator, a Ms. Sonja Vang, followed me. I whistled for Meadow. She peered around the tree and pleadingly shook her head no.
Please? I mouthed.
No. No.
For me?
No.
I turned to Ms. Vang, who was gazing at me evenly, and said, “Meadow can be shy at first. She’ll come around.”
The woman shrugged and rested her splints against the edge of the picnic table.
“To me,” I began, “fatherhood is no onus. It’s not a burden. Some men, I know, take a kind of martyred pleasure in feeling trapped by the family? They like to believe — and this is just my armchair analysis — that were they not trapped by the family, they would be, what, disabling bombs somewhere, breaking a world record, what have you. This belief enables them to a) come up with an explanation for their lack of personal success and b) get out of the more tedious aspects of child rearing — you know what I mean, the bottom wiping, the shushing, the nagging, in general, the relentless being aware of the child — by suggesting that they have been dragooned into the role, away from a higher purpose. Do you know what I mean?”
I smiled, waiting for encouragement. Sonja Vang made no movement except to adjust her bottom against the picnic bench. She was panting slightly. I had my first flash of doubt. Had The Opposition planted a mole?
“From the moment Meadow was born,” I continued, “I was involved with her care. Not because I thought I should be. It was because I wanted to be. When the recession hit, I spent a year at home with her, as her primary caretaker — a stay-at-home dad — which in any court of law would qualify me for custody, though I don’t have to tell you that, right? And so — right — it was my close attention during that year which yielded what I have come to see as a unique understanding of her needs, and the way her mind works. Children aren’t mysteries. We don’t have to teach them sign language, like gorillas. No. We only have to pay attention to what they’re already saying. Do you know what I mean?” I checked to see if Ms. Vang knew what I meant; she was rubbing her eyes with the back of her splint. Helplessly, I continued, “Fathers don’t have to be ‘like mothers.’ Men aren’t soft. Men don’t smell good. You know, floral. But a good father can take a kind of abstract, human interest in the child that a mother is incapable of taking. A good father can help a child develop her aptitudes vis-à-vis a broader social backdrop. I have located a study”—and here I pushed forward several pages, printed off the Internet—“that has proved that children of both genders show better psychological health when living with the father as the custodial parent, due to — well, you can read it yourself.”
The woman removed a case from her battered handbag and withdrew reading glasses. She peered down at the report.
“Your splints,” I said, finally unable to bear her silence. “Did you fall?”
She did not look up. “Repeated stress.”
I pushed forth my next bit of evidence. “Now, I’m just plain old bragging here, but I wanted to show you this piece of paper. Given to me when Meadow was three. The results of an IQ test, done over at the medical center, by old colleagues of mine, on a lark.”
A shadow of irritation crossed the woman’s face. I had the sense I should wrap it up.
“This material is significant only in that I feel, as a scholar myself — and I won’t bore you with the details of my own research here — I feel more than ever required as Meadow’s father. This gifted child needs two parents to — jointly, and with all the resources they can muster — lead her through—”
“Excuse me,” Ms. Vang said. “Where is the child?”
I blinked back at her. “Meadow? She’s here somewhere.”
“Because I’m here to observe the two of you. Together. You know, playing and stuff. Being together.”
“Of course.”
“I’m not a jury, Mr. Kennedy.”
“No, no you aren’t.”
“And I’m not innerested in theories about parenthood.”
“No, of course not.”
I turned and scanned the playground desperately for Meadow.
“And with the divorce rate in the United States at about fifty percent,” she continued, picking up steam, “higher than any industrialized nation, I do brisk business. And mostly what I see in these custody battles are people who think too much. People who could easily sort out their differences if they weren’t so full of ideas. People who’d rather be right than happy.”
I stood, panicking now, the woman close at my side. Meadow was nowhere to be seen. She was not on the play structure, the rock climber, the swings. A stampede of young men with their shirts off blew through the playground, the Saint Rose cross-country team.
“This is awful,” I said, walking briskly downhill toward the water fountain, where I was sure I’d find Meadow petting the dogs. “Sorry to make you walk so much.”
Unsurprisingly, Ms. Vang withheld reassurance.
“Meadow is always wandering off. Just ask her mother. She’s always petting someone’s dog. Admiring someone’s bicycle.”
“Should watch out,” grumbled the woman, loping beside me. “What I’ve seen done to children would give you nightmares.”
“So how did you get into the business?” I asked.
“I started out in law enforcement.”
“Aha.”
“And then I was managing my father’s seafood business, but then he died.”
“Oh.”
“So I made lemonade. Went back to school. Found my calling.”
Several dogs nosed around in the fountain, their owners milling nearby. No Meadow. Finally, abandoning all pretense of composure, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted her name. People stared. A park attendant pruning rosebushes reached for his walkie-talkie. The barbarous woman who held my fate in her hands settled her buttocks down upon the granite rim of the fountain — built by some magnate in honor of his dead father — and looked at me with flat eyes, and I thought, Screw you, screw you, I never had a chance with you anyway.
And that’s when I saw my daughter. She had been very close to us all along, right over our heads, having climbed the large beech in which our kite was stranded. I could see her now clearly, now that I was so far away, at a distance that seemed to increase exponentially with my own dawning regrets. As she inched out on the branch, her hand seeking the kite string, her eyeglasses flashed in the sun. The lenses were like mirrors flashing code: Am completely confused. Will try this. She was a child in the sky. I had put her there. And although seeing her totter on the branch was a blow to me, I saw, as I never had, how much worse things could get.
CAROUSEL
The rest of the story can be told summarily.
Meadow did not fall. The kite was not retrieved. The independent evaluation was not favorable to me. Sensing a window, The Opposition regrouped, and meanwhile my weekend visitation came and went Meadowless, and there was nothing I could do about it, nothing whatsoever. Despite the fact that Thron told me the threat was ridiculous, that losing visitation altogether was impossible, I fell into a depression worse than the one that had brought me to him. For two weeks, I did not leave the house. Unless you count going to the liquor store and Dunkin’ Donuts. After a couple of angry calls, my last active client — a yogic master looking for commercial space — moved on to someone else.
May came. One morning I left the house and just started walking. I walked all the way down New Scotland, right into town, and several hours later found myself standing in front of the New York State Museum. With its top-heavy modern design, and hundreds of joggable stairs rising to a monumental balcony, the building is hard to miss. From the museum balcony, you can get a clear view of all four mountain ranges that surround the capital region: Adirondack, Green, White, and Berkshire. Everywhere up here, you’re surrounded by mountains.