The Most Dangerous Thing

Karl is a surgeon. Karl is handsome. Karl goes to third world countries on his “vacations” and makes miracles. Five years ago, as the subject of immigration heated up, Karl revealed that he had entered the country illegally as a child, obtaining citizenship status under the Reagan-sanctioned amnesty of 1986. He testified before Congress. He wrote op-eds for the New York Times, although with considerable help from Gwen, who made his language less pedantic and high-handed. Karl may not have a god complex, exactly, but he has a touch of Zeus in him, flinging his words like thunderbolts. He wrote a memoir, this time with the help of a not-so-ghostly ghost. The memoir led to a cable television show, and while it wasn’t a huge hit, it scored solidly in the ratings, renewed year after year. Every journalist who wrote about the show seemed obligated to include the detail that it was the rare case where a Hollywood actor wasn’t quite as good-looking as the real person he portrayed.

Seven years ago, when they started the process that would bring Annabelle into their household, Gwen thought, hoped, prayed that a child would change the balance in their lives, that their professional selves would recede somewhat. She was right, and yet she was wrong. Karl adores Annabelle, despite initially resisting Gwen’s choice of China. Why not his native Guatemala? (Gwen claimed she feared that country’s bureaucracy, but the truth was she couldn’t bear to have a daughter who would be like Karl, but not her.) What about Zimbabwe, where he had performed yet another surgery? He wanted to find the child that needed them most, he wanted to save someone. But Gwen understood that a child would save her. If they had a child, at least one person would find her essential.

“How was the freel?” Annabelle asks, mouth full of toast.

“The what?”

“You said you were going”-she swallows-“to a funeral yesterday. For your friend.”

“Oh. It was very sad. It’s always sad when people die. But I saw some old friends.”

“Your best friends?” Annabelle is entranced with the idea of best friends. Since entering kindergarten this year, she has had no fewer than five. She tries them on like hats. She has a heartless quality. Nature or nurture? Gwen or Karl?

“Yes, I guess so.” Does Gwen really want to affirm Annabelle’s belief that best friends are interchangeable, disposable, that they come and go like trends? “We were best friends until high school, when we went to different schools.” True, but a lie. She was suggesting to Annabelle that the different schools changed the nature of their relationship. But Gwen and Mickey had never attended the same school, and their friendship was irrevocably broken before they started high school.

“Who’s your best friend now?” Annabelle asks her mother.

“Miss Margery, I suppose,” Gwen says, although she considers all her female friends equally close. Which is to say-not very. But Margery is the one she would call if there were major trouble. She’s the one she called the night she decided she wanted a trial separation from Karl.

“Did he cheat on you?” Margery asked. Everyone starts there. Everyone expects it. He’s too damn handsome. Gwen’s looks are holding up well, and Karl is ten years older, yet it’s clear that everyone thinks she’s competing above her weight class.

“No, not really.”

“Not really?”

“A woman’s after him, but he really doesn’t get it. I mean, he has no clue. He’s pretty naive that way.”

“How do you know, then?”

“He’s so naive that he showed me her e-mails because he thinks they’re funny. He’s, like, ‘She’s such a good writer. You should hire her, give her a column.’ I had to explain to Karl that women don’t write funny, flirtatious e- mails about being newly single to their old boyfriends in order to get the attention of their editor wives.”

“Someone from high school?”

“College.”

“Had they seen each other recently? At a reunion? Did he e-mail her first?”

“No. And no. Margery, that’s not the point.”

“What, then?”

What, then . She toys with the story in her head. It still hurts, thinking about it, but she knows others would find her overly sensitive. Babyish, even.

It was last month. Karl came home from one of his full, full days. The White House had called. Not the president himself, but still . And now there was going to be this documentary, serious stuff, made by an Oscar winner. Two hours of Karl’s life, his real life, not the cotton-candy version on the cable network, with all the fake romances and intrigue thrown in. Gwen listened, happy for him, happy for their life. Gwen never had a problem being happy for Karl. Annabelle put out place mats in the renovated kitchen alcove, where they preferred to dine. It’s a lovely house. A lovely house is practically obligatory when one is the editor of a consumer service magazine, but that doesn’t make obtaining and maintaining one any easier. Their life, at that moment, looked like the kinds of lives in Gwen’s magazine. The house and the magazine had just come through a year of turmoil but were relatively solid now. (It was two weeks before the retaining wall gave way and the basement filled with mud.)

As they ate dessert-homemade apple pie with a cheddar crust, made by Gwen-she started to tell Karl about her problems with a fairly big story, something a little tougher than the magazine usually did. She had a showdown with the publisher, the money guy, and had persuaded him to see things her way, although he wouldn’t let her make it the cover story. Still, it would run as written. It would make news.

“I met with the publisher about the Figueroa story today,” she began.

He nodded absently, pulled out his BlackBerry, and began scrolling through his messages as he left the room. Annabelle, who had started to clear the table, didn’t notice.

And that was the problem.

I can’t do this to her, Gwen thought. I can’t let my daughter grow up in a household where Daddy matters, but Mommy doesn’t, where only one person’s day matters. She’ll make bad decisions, she’ll choose the wrong men. Just like I did. Twice. Once. Twice.

Back in the kitchen, which looks quite perfect, although now there’s a pervasive dank smell from the basement problems, she still feels the same way. Everyone keeps telling her she has to stay for Annabelle’s sake. If she were to tell them why she left Karl, would anyone agree that it was for Annabelle’s sake? Probably not. Besides, it’s not the whole truth. But it’s part of the truth, a big part.

Then again, parsing out the truth-deciding what needed to be told and what could be held back-wasn’t that the beginning of the end for Gwen, Mickey, and the Halloran brothers?

Chapter Six

Summer 1978

S ean-of course-found the fact in a book, and although he could never find it again, that didn’t make it not so: our own Leakin Park was one of the largest parks within a city’s limits, 1,200 acres or so when combined with Gwynns Falls Park. We loved telling that fact to out-of-town guests, who always countered: What about Central Park? But Sean had an answer for that, too: Central Park was a paltry 843 acres. Still, our visitors-cousins and the like-were seldom impressed. To them, it was just a bunch of trees and hills. Even if we took them to the tamed part that had tennis courts and ball fields and a little train and the wonderfully spooky chapel on the old Crimea estate, they remained bored. But that was the thing about our park, as we thought of it: It required day-in, day-out commitment to find its treasures. It was a place that rewarded persistence and stillness. In the summer of 1978, we pushed farther and farther into the park every day, Mickey at the lead, and each day brought a discovery.