My dad's younger brother by a couple of years, Joe was a mechanic who'd never married but had, over the years, gone through one long-term girlfriend after the next. Growing up, he was the cool uncle, and I can remember wondering why he'd never married. Now, I suspected he might have been onto something.

"I don't have any idea when she's coming back," I answered.

"The work must have been too stressful," my mom said. "She's not thinking right."

"How is she going to see London?" my dad asked.

"I don't know, Dad."

"Doesn't she want to see London?" my dad pressed.

"I should really call her," my mom fretted.

"You're not going to call her, Mom," Marge said. "This is their business. I'm sure that Vivian will be back to see London. And even though she hasn't told Russ when that might be, I'd guess it'll be within the next week or so. In the meantime, it's probably not the best time to pepper Russ with a ton of questions or to start making plans. As you can imagine, it's been a pretty rough week for him."

"You're right," my mom suddenly said. "I'm sorry. It's just such a shock, you know?"

"It's okay, Mom," I said. I watched my dad rise from the couch and walk to the kitchen.

"How are you holding up?" my mom asked.

I ran a hand through my hair. "I'm doing the best I can."

"Is there anything I can do? Do you need help with London?"

"No," I said. "I'm doing okay with that. It's not so hard, now that she's in school."

"Why don't I bring over some dinners for the week? Would that help?"

I knew she felt like she needed to do something. "That would be great," I said. "London likes your cooking a lot more than she likes mine."

I felt a tap of cold glass against my shoulder. My dad had a beer in each hand and was holding one out. "For you," he said. "I'm in the garage if you want to talk."

When I wandered out to the garage twenty minutes later, my dad motioned for me to sit on a stool while he took a seat on a toolbox. I'd brought out a second beer for both of us; there was something on my mind something I hadn't mentioned to either Marge or Liz and I wanted his perspective.

"I don't know if I can do this," I said.

"Do what?"

"Be a single father. Take care of London. Maybe it would be better if London went to live with Vivian in Atlanta."

He cracked open the beer I'd brought him. "I take it you want me to tell you that I'm in agreement with you."

"I don't know what I want."

"That's not your real problem. Your real problem is that you're afraid."

"Of course I'm afraid."

"That's what parenting is all about. Doing the best you can while being terrified of screwing up. Kids can turn hair gray faster than anything else, if you ask me."

"You and Mom weren't afraid."

"Of course we were. We just never let on, is all."

I wondered whether that was true. "Do you think I should fight for London like Marge said? If it comes to that?"

My dad scratched at the jeans he was wearing, leaving a streak of grease. "I think you're a damn good father, Russ. Better than I ever was, that's for sure. And I think London needs you."

"She needs her mom, too."

"Maybe. But the way you've been taking care of her? I know it wasn't easy, but you just got up and did it, and she's a happy little girl. And that's what being a dad is all about. You do what needs to be done and love your kid the best way you can. You've been doing that and I'm real proud of you." He paused. "Anyway, that's what I think."

I tried to recall whether he'd ever said anything like that to me before but knew that he hadn't.

"Thanks, Dad."

"You're not going to cry are you?"

Despite everything, I laughed. "I don't know, Dad."

"Why are you crying?"

I wiped at a tear I hadn't known was there. "It doesn't take much these days."

CHAPTER 15.

One Day at a Time

Unlike my friend Danny, I was around to experience my mom's angst as one by one, she lost the family with whom she'd grown up. I was thirteen when my grandfather died, eighteen when my grandmother died, twenty-one when the first of her brothers passed away, and twenty-eight when the last one slipped from this world to the next.

In each case, my mom bore the heaviest burden. All four were lingering deaths, with frequent trips to the hospital while poison was administered in the hopes of killing the cancer before it killed them. There was hair loss and nausea, weakness and memory loss. And pain. Always, there was too much pain. Toward the end, there were occasional days and nights spent in the ICU, with my relatives sometimes crying out in agony. My mom was there for all of it. Every night, after work, she would head to their homes or to hospital, and she would stay with them for hours. She would wipe their faces with damp cloths and feed them through straws; she came to know the doctors and nurses in three different hospitals on a first-name basis. When the time came, it was she who helped with funeral arrangements, and I always knew that despite our presence she felt very much alone.

In the weeks and months following that fourth funeral, I suppose that I thought she would rebound in the way she always had before. On the surface, she hadn't changed she still wore aprons and spent most of her time in the kitchen when Vivian and I visited but she was quieter than I remembered and every once in a while, I would catch her staring out the window above the sink, isolated from the sounds of those of us nearby. I thought it had to do with the most recent loss; it was Vivian who finally suggested that my mom's grief was cumulative, and her comment struck me as exactly right.

What would it be like to lose one's family? I suppose it's inevitable in everyone's family there is always a last survivor, after all but, Vivian's comment made me ache for my mom whenever I would see her. I felt as though her loss had become my loss, and I began swinging by more frequently. I'd drop by after work two or three times a week and spend time with my mom, and though we didn't talk about what she and I was going through, it was always there with us, an all-encompassing sadness.

One night, a couple of months into my new routine, I dropped by the house and saw my dad trimming the hedges while my mom waited on the porch. My dad pretended not to have noticed my arrival and didn't turn around.

"Let's take a drive," my mom announced. "And by that, I mean that you're driving."

She marched toward my car and after opening the passenger door, she took a seat and closed the door behind her.

"What's going on, Dad?"

He stopped trimming but didn't turn to face me. "Just get in the car. It's important to your mom."

I did as I was told and when I asked where we were going, my mom told me to head toward the fire station.

Still confused, I did as I was told and when we were getting close, she suddenly told me to turn right; two blocks later, she directed me to take a left. By then, even I knew where she wanted me to go, and we pulled to a stop next to a gate that was bordered on either side by wooded lots. Before us stood the water tower, and when my mom got out of the car, I followed her.

For a while, she said nothing to me.

"Why are we here, Mom?"

She tilted her head, her eyes seeming to follow the ladder that led to the landing near the top.

"I know what happened," she said. "When Tracey and Marge broke up. I know she was brokenhearted and that you met her here. You were still a child, but somehow, you talked her down and brought her back to the dorms."

I swallowed my denials, something easier said than done. Nothing I could say would matter; this was my mom's show.

"Do you know what it's like to think that my daughter might have died here? When she told me, I remember wondering to myself why she hadn't called me or your dad. But I know the answer to that, too. You two share something wonderful, and I can't tell you how proud that makes me. We may not have been the best parents, but at least we raised you both right."

She continued to stare at the water tower. "You were in so much trouble, but you never said anything to us. About where you'd been that night. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said.

I saw a deep sadness in her expression as she turned toward me. "You have a gift," she said. "You feel so deeply and you care so much. And that's a wonderful thing. That's why you knew exactly what to do with Marge. You took her pain and made it your own, and now you're trying to do the same thing with me."

Though she trailed off, I knew that more was coming.

"I know you think you're helping, but no matter what you do, you can't take my sadness away. But you are making yourself miserable. And that breaks my heart, and I don't want you to do that. I'm getting through this one day at a time, but I don't have the strength to have to worry about you, too."

"I don't know if I can stop worrying about you."

She touched my cheek. "I know. But I want you to try. Just remember that I've made it through one hundred percent of the worst days of my life so far. Just like your dad, and Marge. And, of course, you have, too. And how we get through them is one day at a time."

Later that night, I thought about what my mom had told me. She was right, of course, but what I didn't know was that as challenging as life had sometimes been, the worst days were still yet to come, and they would be the worst of all.

Nine thousand, three hundred and sixty minutes.

That was how long it had been well, approximately, anyway since my world turned upside down, and to me, it felt as though I'd been hyperaware of the passage of every single one of them. Every one of these minutes in the past week had passed with agonizing slowness, as I seemed to be experiencing them with every cell in my body, every tick of the clock.

It was Monday, September fourteenth. A week ago, Vivian had left me. I continued to dwell on her obsessively, and the night before, I'd had trouble sleeping. Going for a run helped, but by the time I'd returned, I'd lost my appetite. In the last week, I'd dropped another seven pounds.

Stress. The ultimate diet.

Even as I made the phone call, I think I already knew what I was going to do. I told myself I simply wanted to know where Vivian would be traveling this week, but that wasn't true. When the receptionist at Spannerman answered, I asked to be connected to Vivian and reached a woman named Melanie who identified herself as Vivian's assistant. I didn't know my wife even had an assistant, but apparently there was much I didn't know about her, or maybe, had never known at all.

I was told that Vivian was in a meeting and when Melanie asked my name, I lied. I told her that I was a local reporter and wanted to know whether she would be around this week to speak. Melanie informed me that Vivian would be in the office today and tomorrow, but after that, she would be out of the office.

I then called Marge and asked if she would pick up London from school and later, bring her to dance. I told her that I was going to see my wife, but that I would be home later tonight.

Atlanta was four hours away.

I'm not sure how I imagined my surprise visit might go. In the car, one prediction replaced the next. All I knew was that I had to see Vivian; there was a part of me that hoped the hard-edged exterior she offered to me on the phone would melt away in my presence and we would find a way to salvage our relationship, our family, the life I still wanted to live.

My stomach clenched in knots as I drove, evidence of a simmering anxiety that made the drive more difficult than it should have been. Thankfully, traffic was relatively light, and I reached the outskirts of Atlanta at a quarter to twelve. Fifteen minutes later, with my nerves jangling hard, I found the new Spannerman building and pulled into the parking lot.

I found a space in the visitor section but hesitated before getting out of the car. I didn't know what to do. Should I call her and tell her I was downstairs? Should I enter the building and show up at the reception desk? Or storm past the reception and confront her in the office? The countless variations on our conversation that I had imagined on the drive always began with me sitting across from her at a table in a restaurant, not with the steps that led up to that point.

My mind, I knew, wasn't quite up to par these days.

Vivian would certainly prefer that I call; that way she could perhaps put me off entirely. For that reason, showing up inside seemed preferable, but what if she was in a meeting? Would I leave my name and sit in the waiting room, like a kid who'd been called in to meet the school principal? I wanted to head straight for her office, but I had no idea where it was, and something like that would cause a scene, which might even be worse.

I forced myself from the car as I continued to ponder my choices. All I knew for sure was that I needed to stretch my legs and use the restroom. Spotting a coffee shop across the street, I jaywalked through the stalled traffic to reach the other side. When I left the coffee shop and crossed the street again, I made the decision to call Vivian from the building lobby. That's when I saw them Spannerman and Vivian in a brown Bentley, getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, onto the street. Not wanting them to see me, I edged closer to the building and ducked my head. I heard the roar of the engine as it finally pulled out, inching its way into traffic.

Even though I didn't have much of a plan in the first place, the little I did have was going up in smoke. Despite the lack of appetite, I supposed I could grab a bite to eat and try to catch up with her in an hour or so, which seemed preferable to waiting around, and I started back to my car.

Pulling out of the lot, I noticed that the traffic had barely moved and I could still see the Bentley about eight cars ahead of me. Beyond it, I saw there was some construction going on; an eighteen-wheeler loaded with steel girders was backing onto a work site and the traffic on the street had ground to a halt.

When the truck cleared the road, traffic started moving again. I followed along, conscious of the Bentley in front of me, watching as it made a right turn. I felt like a spy or rather, a creepy private investigator when I took the turn as well, but I told myself that since I wasn't going to confront them at lunch or do anything crazy, it wasn't a big deal. I just wanted to know where they were eating I wanted to know something about the new life my wife was leading and that was normal, something anyone would do.

Right?

Nonetheless I could feel my anger growing. Now there was only a single car between us, and I could see them up ahead. I imagined Walter talking and Vivian responding; I pictured the same joyful expression she'd worn when on the phone with him after her argument with London and my anger transformed into feelings of disappointment and sadness at all I had lost.

Why didn't she love me?

They weren't on the road long. They took a left, and then quickly turned into a parking garage beneath a splashy high-rise called Belmont Tower. It had a doorman out front, the kind you see in New York, and I drove on, finally pulling into a restaurant parking lot just up the block.

I killed the engine, wondering if there was a restaurant inside the high-rise. I wondered if it was the location of the corporate apartments. I wondered if this was where Walter Spannerman lived.

Using my phone, I found the information: Belmont Tower was a Spannerman project, and there was also a video link. I clicked it and saw Walter Spannerman boasting about the building amenities; as his final selling point, he proudly announced to viewers that he'd chosen to live on the top floor.

I stopped the video, but like a man choosing to march unassisted to his own execution, I stepped out of the car and made for Belmont Tower. I signaled to the doorman when I was close and he approached.

"It's a beautiful building," I said.

"Yes, sir. It really is."

"I was wondering if there's a restaurant in the building? Or a dining club for the tenants?" I said.

"No, there isn't. However, the building has a relationship with La Cerna next door. It's a five-star restaurant."

"Are there any apartments for rent?"