I nursed my fury, laced though it was with compassion as the rhythm of the words called up the Antonio I had once loved. I countered these flashes with the memory of his robotic voice, his locked-up eyes that gave nothing away, allowed nothing in, until the final bitter knowledge: “You don’t want to have one with me.” What it had cost me to walk out of his apartment, and what it had cost me in the ensuing years going it alone! Only a saint would have returned his call the next day; only a martyr would have fed his need to justify himself and be forgiven. I could not have borne a minute more, just as I could not bear the spin he was putting on it now. My wish is that you would have found a way to tell me of Maddy’s existence.

Antonio, the wronged party! Antonio would have liked an annual report on the child he abandoned! If something in the tone of his letter troubled me, I thrust it out of my mind. The idea of meeting him began to work on me from inside, twisting out of shape every other relationship in my life.

19

My father crouched in the hallway, snapping the leash onto Barney’s collar. His hair was completely white over the pink of his skull and still held the ridges of the comb. I moved toward the door. I did not like looking down on my father’s head. It was Sunday afternoon, and the annual Blessing of the Animals was taking place at the National Cathedral. When my brother and I were small, we’d gone on a yearly pilgrimage to this conference of creatures. I had taken Maddy as well, though not consistently and not for many years. I proposed to my father that we go for our walk there while Rose was at her monthly book group.

“They had an iguana last year,” he said, heaving himself upright and ignoring my offer of a steadying hand. “What’ll it be next, stick insects?” He bent over again to retrieve something from the floor. “Vultures!”

“Oh, they can’t allow birds of prey.”