The Sheep Meadow: Friday, 11:30 am
Thanks to my ability to compartmentalize, I focused on my work when I reached the office on Friday. As usual now that Kerry and I both came into Grand Central, I kissed her in the Terminal’s Concourse and then walked the mile or to my office. I had plans to have lunch with my mother.
At about eleven-thirty, I lightly knocked on the doorframe to my boss Marc’s office. Marc had okayed yesterday’s early departure but I hadn’t had the time to explain. I had taken to dropping into his office now and then to talk about things; I think he liked that I saw him in a mentor’s role, and so I wanted to let him know what was going on. After I did, he told me to go see her and take as long a lunch as I wanted. “Look, it’s Friday, throw some work into your bag and take it with you. If you can work on it Sunday”—he knew of the next day’s wedding—”I’ll be happy. Now, get out of here till Monday.”
As I put a few reports into my bag, I dialed my mother.
“Mother, do you have comfortable shoes?” After being assured that she did, I told her, “wear them and something comfortable. We’re going walking. Can you be in the hotel lobby in 15 minutes?” Getting a “yes,” I headed out and gave have-a-good-weekend waves to those I passed as I went.
It took a moment to recognize her when she crossed the lobby but it was my mother, wearing shorts, one of my faded Stanford T-shirts, and running shoes. One of those Aussie broad-brimmed hats, and a pair of sunglasses in her left hand and a smart bag over her right shoulder. “You look like a tourist, mother. All you need is a selfie-stick, a map, and a disoriented look and you’d look straight out of central casting. And I like the shirt.”
I got a smile and a hug.
Off we were to the subway station and riding uptown. We were both quiet, feeling the car vibrate as we headed north and still quiet when we climbed the two flights to Lexington Avenue. Once there, I told her that we were going to the Park. We got a couple of to-go sandwiches and water at a deli and headed west. She and I exchanged small talk as we walked and then as we entered the Park next to the Metropolitan Museum. We briefly sat on a low wall between the Museum and the Park Drive and ate the sandwiches.
There was a particular place I wanted us to go and after we finished eating, we turned south along the path. Strolling next to one another holding hands—somewhere along the way I reached for her left hand—the path opened to the Boat Pond, long an oasis for me, where I sat during long walks I took while in law school. Families were wandering about and children clamoring on the Alice in Wonderland statue to the left as we reached the pond, where model sailboats meandered about. But my special place was the life-sized Hans Christian Andersen sculpture west of the pond.
No one else was there and, without thinking, I asked my mother to stand next to the seated Andersen and I took a photo of her. She came to me a little weepy and reached for my phone, and I handed it to her, and she swiped to see the photo and asked if she could take one of me and I sat next to Hans, and she took my photo. Taking her phone out, she took one for herself. She then looked around at a pair of approaching tourists and quickly turned back to me and asked, “Is it okay?” and when I nodded she stopped the tourists and asked if they could take a photo of the two of us and when one of them said “of course” she came to me where I sat, put her left arm around me, and the photo that I knew would soon be her wallpaper was snapped.
And one of the tourists said, “You look like sisters” as they left, and both my mother and I smiled. That was the easy part. Now we had to talk.
We sat at one of the benches behind the statue, away from the pond, and I turned to look at her.
I told her of the struggles I had with myself and with Kerry. How I treated Kerry horribly because of my doubts and stubbornness. That ultimately I needed Kerry to be in my life, even if only as a best friend and not as a lover. My mother cringed a bit at that last word, which I made sure to use to get her to understand all that Kerry and I are. “And I would have been happy if she was just my best friend and I am so much happier than I could imagine when she and I became lovers.” No cringe now.
“But here’s the thing, mother, I might have been happy if Kerry were not fully committed to me and to who I was. Am. Not fully committed.” I had rehearsed this dozens of times over the last twenty-or-so hours. “I cannot, though, be your daughter unless you are fully committed to me. I’m sorry, I’m sure what Eileen told you of my relationship with her hurt you and I don’t want to replace you but Eileen has filled a huge hole in my life.
“Now it is only you and me. I know it’s hard for you to move on from the beliefs you’ve long held. I did not say to ‘throw them away.’ I can’t ask you to simply discard them.”
Before she could respond and after I said she needed to think about it, I got up and she followed. We wound our way, quietly, toward the Sheep Meadow, the large green field filled with people on blankets and throwing Frisbees, the sheep long gone. We entered through the fence and found an open space and I suggested we just sit on the grass and we did.