16
The house was dark when we got out of the car—a plush Mercedes Xavier had rented while he was staying in the city. He loomed behind me, and suddenly I felt so small and my house felt so small in comparison to everything I knew this man had. I wondered again why I’d let him talk me into taking him back here, even if it was empty and Sofia wasn’t here to see him.
By New York standards, it was actually a fairly big place. A three-story townhouse half a block from a park, consisting of a basement apartment and the two bedrooms up top (and a half, if you included my little area). Sure, it was maybe a quarter of the size of the grandiose brownstone where I’d run into Xavier, but still nothing to laugh about. Red Hook was an up-and-coming area too, known more now for its restaurants and galleries than for its previous life as a stronghold of crime and poverty. My brother had done well for himself.
“The basement’s rented,” I told Xavier as I unlocked the door. “My brother, Sofia, and I have the rest.”
He followed me inside, peering over the foyer toward the staircase, then down the skinny hall. At first, I felt shy by its shabbiness—the cracked plaster here and there, too many coats hung on the rack, the pile of shoes near the doorway. I thought of the kitchen still stuck in the 1970s, the dining nook that barely fit a table for four, and the living room with the TV awkwardly mounted over the fireplace. None of this would come anywhere close to the finery Xavier was accustomed to now.
But I pulled my shoulders back and forced myself to stand up straight. It took every penny Matthew had and countless weekends of working on the place to make it livable. But he had, and then he had shared it with me and Sofia.
I’d never be able to make it up to him.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked as I led Xavier into the kitchen. “Wine? Tea? I think Mattie has some beer in here somewhere.”
“Water’s fine.”
I pulled the Brita out of the fridge and poured him a glass, then set the kettle on to boil. Xavier wandered about the living room, taking in the tiny deck overlooking the yard Matthew wanted to turn into a garden someday, then turning back to peruse the black-and-white photos of Florence Matthew had hung in one corner. I tried not to overwhelm this place with photos of Sofia, saving most of them for my small space upstairs. While we were a family unit of sorts, my brother was still a bachelor. A single thirty-something man didn’t need to define himself via his four-year-old niece.
Her father, however. That was a different story.
“It’s all right,” Xavier said, returning to the counter while I started steeping tea for myself. He accepted the water and glanced around the kitchen with open curiosity.
I looked around, imagining his disgust. “It’s fine. Not what you’re used to, I’m sure. But it’s safe, like I said, and in a good neighborhood. Bigger than I could get on my own, that’s for sure.”
“It reminds me of my mum’s flat in Croyden. The one above her restaurant where I grew up. This kitchen, though.”
I offered a sheepish smile. “It’s old, I know. I don’t think it’s been updated in about forty years. My brother’s been remodeling the rest of the place first, little by little.”
Xavier looked surprised. “This place has been remodeled?”
“Yes, it has! It was basically studs when he bought it. Mattie had to rip out most of the lath and plaster and redo the wiring. He did the basement first so he could take on a tenant, and then spent the better part of a summer getting the rest of the house habitable. The kitchen is the last step.”
That summer had been hard on both of us. We were still living in Matthew’s old apartment in Sheepshead Bay, where Sofia and I shared a bedroom while she was going through the terrible twos times about twenty. The summer had turned the city into a sauna. Money had been so tight we couldn’t afford to run the air conditioner more than an hour a day or so.
I ran a hand over the yellowed Formica counter. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
“Where does she sleep?”
I didn’t have to ask who he meant. He had asked to come here to see her space, after all. To see who his daughter was.
“Follow me,” I said and led the way back toward the foyer and up the stairs.
Xavier followed step by step, taking in the family photographs lining the staircase, glancing into Matthew’s sparsely decorated room to the left, the bathroom at the center, and then slowing as we entered Sofia’s room at the other end of the hall.
It was a typical little girl’s room. I’d done my best with limited funds, painted it gray with lilac-colored drapes I’d found at the Goodwill and a matching lilac-sprigged quilt rumpled on her little white daybed. In one corner, a dollhouse sat atop a child’s table, strewn with little people, their clothes, and other bits and bobs she liked to insert into their world. Next to that was a vintage chest open on its side. I’d found it on the street, cleaned it up, and painted it white, then installed a bar across one side where Sofia could hang the few princess costumes she had collected from family and friends. The rest of the room consisted of a small closet, a knee-high shelf with a variety of picture books, and a purple shag rug from Ikea.
Unlike the rest of the house, however, the walls were almost completely filled with images. Sofia wanted nearly every bit of art she made at school hung up for people to see, every picture we printed right along with it. After more than two full years at her current center, almost every space in the room was covered with construction paper, finger paintings, scribbled sketches, and grainy photographs. It was messy and chaotic, and I loved her all the more for it.
“She likes princesses?” Xavier pointed at the open chest, where a particular sparkly gown had fallen off its hanger.
I snorted. “Try obsessed. It’s a four-year-old thing. I read her Cinderella once, and she has demanded a weekly recitation ever since. She wants to be a princess when she grows up.”
“She’ll love England, then,” he said with a funny, unreadable face. “I’ll take her to Buckingham Palace.”
I tried to smile, though a certain tightness in my chest arose at the idea of Sofia going anywhere without me.
“It’s small,” Xavier noted as he strode around the rest of the room, which took him exactly four seconds.