Read North River for Free Online Page B

the hard snow that had blown in through the night. She pulled the gate shut. Steam was easing from her heavy lips. She stomped her boots on the mat and, as Delaney held the vestibule door open, passed into the hallway. Delaney closed the second door behind her.
    “This is him, huh?” she said, and smiled.
    “This is Carlito.”
    She grinned more widely, showing hard white teeth, and turned to Delaney.
    “Okay. Where’s the bathtub?”
    Still in bathrobe and work shirt, Delaney brushed his teeth and washed at the sink while water ran into the small bathtub. An old showerhead rose above the tub. Steam drifted from the running water, and he used his fingers to wipe a space in the fogged-out mirror. The bathroom door was still open, and he saw Rose drape her coat over a chair. She looked thinner in a long dark dress that went below her knees, over the men’s boots. Then she pushed into the bathroom and placed the cheese box at the foot of the bowl. She removed the boy’s clothes, dropped them on the floor, and wrapped him in a large beige towel to keep him warm. The boy’s eyes were wide. What was this?
Who was this?
How many people were there in this world?
    “Okay, get out,” she said to Delaney. “Get dressed. I gotta wash this boy.”
    Delaney wiped his face, dried it, smiling as he shut the bathroom door behind him. He pulled on trousers, a clean shirt, socks, and boots. He could hear her low affectionate voice through the door: “What a handsome boy. All nice and clean now, you’re gonna be nice and clean. Hey, what’s this thing? What you got there? Nice and clean now. And your hair? Gotta wash that too. Pretty blond hair. Can’t wear it dirty.”
    Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Angela.
    There was a slight New York curl in her voice, “doity” instead of “dirty.” She dropped the
d
off every “and.” The
h
was banished from “thing.” She must be here a while. She’s definitely not just off the boat. Then the telephone rang for the first time in many hours. He lifted it.
    “Hey, it’s me,” Monique said. “I’m at the telephone company. I told them we need the goddamned phone. I told them, hey, the man’s a
doctor,
people could die. Then I shot three guys at the front desk.
That
worked.”
    Delaney laughed.
    “What would I do without you, Monique?”
    “You’d be doing house calls, that’s what. The patients must be going nuts trying to get through to you. I’ll be there in maybe twenty minutes.”
    “I’ve got a surprise waiting for you.”
    “I don’t like surprises.”
    “You might love this one.”
    “See you.”
    She hung up. He buttoned his shirt. How long have you been here, Monique? How long have you been nurse and secretary and bouncer? Since we laid out the office. Since before the goddamned Depression. Since Hoover was president. Since the time when Molly found her secret garden on the top floor, her aerie, her retreat. Away from Monique, who annoyed her with her energy or her precision or her daily presence. Away from the patients. Away from me. The bathroom door opened and Rose was there, smiling a lovely smile, her face glistening from the small steamy room, snuggling the boy with one arm to her generous breasts and lifting clothes from the stroller with her other hand. Carlito was smiling too, pointing a finger at Delaney, then curling it. She dressed him quickly in two shirts and corduroy trousers.
    “Now, where’s the kitchen?” she said.
    Delaney led her downstairs again to the kitchen, the boy back in her arms.
    “This is small,” she said darkly.
    He tried to explain how he needed space on this floor for a waiting area, a consulting room, a small bathroom for patients, but she wasn’t really listening. They went into the kitchen and she put the boy down on a chair. And Carlito pointed to the pantry.
    “Co’flay,” he said.
    “You want co’flakes? Okay, boy. ”
    How did she know co’flay was cornflakes? The telephone rang and Delaney hurried into the