Nick had no plans for New Year’s Eve. He had no date and had spent the day at the office fretting idly about the remote possibility of Y2K complications. There had been none. He had tried throwing himself into preparation for a week of business meetings scheduled for early January but the effort had failed. He thought he was looking forward to the work,  having fallen into a self-deceptive cycle in which he focused on work as an escape from what seemed of late to be constant anxiety. Plus,  it was New Year’s Eve, and he had no date. Actually, that wasn’t quite true, wasn’t that bleak. He would be spending the evening with his son.

Driving in the pulsing traffic, delayed by one slow down after another, horns honking, lights flashing, Nick found his stress rising. He was burdened with the pressing need for some decisions, not just for Noah’s sake but to relieve his own chronic angst. Not that he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Noah: he certainly was, in fact, more so now that Noah had become so silent and troubled. The only time he felt the boy was safe these days was when he was beside him. But lately, the pleasure of his anticipation at seeing Noah had been laced with a haunting, acid concern. Something was so obviously wrong in Noah’s world, and Nick could not fully fathom just what his own responsibility was in this. The beautiful house on Stone Street was once again the setting of vituperative domestic eruptions, of endless recriminations, of constant ubiquitous warfare. Nick remembered vividly the unique fractiousness that had characterized the weeks between separation and divorce. It was a horror to balance the luminescence of the first season of love, its pitched agony so shrill and intense it seemed little mitigated in Nick’s memory even all these years later. Too intense a thing to last, he thought, yet indelible, unforgettable, and for Noah this time, too.

He winced at the thought; Noah, sensitive, vulnerable little boy, once more entangled in that awfulness, though this time perhaps in a somewhat peripheral role. Nick wanted desperately to spare him but was unresolved as to how to do that. So he rationalized. This divorce, after all, was not something happening to Noah’s own parents; perhaps it was not as difficult for the child as it would have been if Hugh had been his biological father, or if Noah had developed a serious attachment to him. It had only been a five-year marriage. Noah seldom spoke of Hugh. What do I really know, Nick wondered desperately. Noah was prudent enough to avoid discussing Hugh with his father.  Nick thought briefly of the soft, heart-shaped face of Allison, her eyes so like his son’s. Age has a lot to do with the intensity of the trauma of divorce. Nick had read that. Noah had been seven when his own father left, still so obviously dependent on his mother. Nick had been almost incontinent in his campaign to make himself available and accessible to Noah in the years that followed. Boys from eight to fourteen were the most damaged by divorce, hadn’t he read that? But what about divorce once removed? Does Noah worry that he will not see Hugh again? Nick found that the question hurt him, astringent to his own still unhealed wound. At least Hugh would be taking those damn guns with him, Nick thought, wishing them as far away from Noah as possible, wincing at the recollection of the September debacle. Now it made more sense, fall out from an ugly divorce.

An angry honking startled Nick out of his reverie. In the second he turned to glare at the other driver, he realized that he had been frowning already. The intensity of his helplessness washed over him, cold, wet, unexpected. My son lives in a house where they leave guns lying about for children to play with and there is nothing I can do …. He sucked in his breath and let impatience take over. In everything, he had control, success, insight, but in this, the most important thing of all, he was a bumbling fool, a puppet to the whims of parvenus. At least one of the parvenus was moving out.

He resolved to press Noah to talk more about his feelings. But Noah was truculently silent these days. He offered nothing willingly, seemed always guarded. When his father interrogated, he became stubbornly opaque. Nick found himself inadvertently gruff, at least lately, too pushy perhaps. Noah had once told him things spontaneously. Nick longed for those long-ago days. Now he was dutiful at best. There were no more impulsive confidences. Nick thought of Aaron Rosenbloom, the psychologist he had been seeing on and off for years. How was it that Aaron’s straightforward questioning seemed so soothing? Nick ended up telling him things he had resolved ahead of time that he did not wish to discuss. Of course, he was broadly willing, but then so was his son, he assumed. Aaron had a way about him – nonjudgmental compassion – that was it, a willingness to suspend judgment, that made one prattle on and stumble onto one’s own insights. He had recognized the same technique in Dr. Melfi when she worked with the mobster Tony Soprano on that new HBO hit.

Yet Noah told Nick so little and when he did Nick felt obliged, as his own dad had, to give interpretative input, to offer evaluation and judgment, helping his son begin to see things as he ought. Of course, Noah did seem to be a pretty straight thinker on his own, but wasn’t that the risk of the conscientious parent? Thirteen years old, almost fourteen. Nick could remember himself at that age. He was essentially the same person as he had been then, less tentative certainly, but constructed of the same mettle. Less a Republican, as well. JFK had been such an appealing figure; he remembered his enthusiasm, remembered too his father’s hostility toward the young Catholic and toward Nick when he spoke well of him. That summer – 1960 – had been the summer of that Catholic kid he thought of so often when he masturbated. Of course, he would never have told his father of that experience. It had happened at camp. He’d not expect Noah to reveal such a thing, certainly not.  Nick wondered what went on in Noah’s life when he was not with him, wondered too if Noah ever needed him to know things that he could not speak. Maybe he confided such things to Caroline.

What do I expect, he wondered, turning onto Stone Street. I’m his father, not his buddy. Yet he had hoped it would be different, that one of the unexpected bonuses of their odd-couple relationship would be a kind of friendship. Yet it appeared to be Caroline who had his loyalty. Savagely protective when questioned, silent on the subject of his life with his mother, Noah was more secretive these days and Nick was hesitant to press him, afraid it would push his son prematurely into the full-blown sullenness of adolescence. And there was that awful episode with the gun.

In the driveway, Nick pulled in behind Hugh’s car before he realized that its motor was still running. Someone sat in the passenger’s seat. An adult. A woman already? Nick registered it with bleak irony. They were both exiled fathers now who would pass one another in this driveway as they fetched the siblings, Allison and Noah, fragments of the ever-changing modern family. It has come to this.

He was out of the car and up the back steps before he realized there was a problem. Hearing the Shorters shouting, Nick hurried, automatically assuming he could help, then halting in ghastly trepidation as he realized he was barging into one of those uniquely ugly, pre-divorce altercations. Where the hell is Noah? They are probably carrying on like this right in front of Noah. Indignant, he pushed open the back hall door which had been left ajar.

Inside, astonishment froze Nick as he came upon his ex-wife and her soon-to-be second ex-husband, each pulling on one of their daughter’s arms. The little girl, a chubby toddler, was screaming in terror and pain. Her parents were oblivious to Nick’s entrance; this was no feint but a deadly tug-of-war.

“Caroline,” Nick interjected, the assertive if unwilling referee.

Hugh whirled in Nick’s direction. His face already ruddy with rage, it instantly reddened further with embarrassment. He dropped his daughter’s arm and the little girl broke from her mother. A wild thing freed unexpectedly while battling a trap, she looked frantically to Nick, whose intervention had freed her. For a horrifying moment, he thought she was going to run to him. He barely knew the child; uncomfortable and apprehensive, he instinctively turned away from her. She flew from the three adults into the half-darkness of the kitchen beyond. It was then that Nick spotted Noah standing in solemn witness, his face as white as the refrigerator behind him. Noah opened his arms to his sister, not with drama so much as practice and she barreled into him and spun herself between him and the refrigerator. Noah became her buffer. His expression was more weariness than fear.

“Hi, Dad.” His voice was weirdly calm. Eerie.

“Hello,” Nick stared past them all, his eyes riveted to his son, the impact of Noah’s function in this scene made emphatically clear. For a second Nick felt a powerful pride, then an explosive rage.

“Caroline, what’s going on here?” he asked stupidly, absurdly authoritarian. Who was he, the Blackbrook Vice Squad? They could throw him out. It was their house.

“Nothing that is any of your business, Nick,” she snapped, clearly ready to take him on; no shadow of Hugh’s embarrassment was evident on his wife’s face.

“Not my business?” Nick snapped. “One of these kids you’re fucking with is mine!”

Nick’s bellow was an unfamiliar boom. Allie began to keen softly.

“Watch your language,” Caroline barked absurdly.

“Knock it off, Dad,” Noah added. He heard the echo of his own voice in Noah’s, the familiar authoritative resonance. As it should be. Flabbergasted into silence, Nick felt his anger dissipating, air from a  balloon. He felt diminished, almost silly. Who did he think he was?

Knock it off, Dad. Had Noah said that? Of course, he had and rightly so. Noah’s hand fumbled with his sister’s head, reassuring and protective. Practiced. That’s what horrified his father; that he seemed so practiced in this role.

“Caroline, I’m leaving. I will have my lawyer get in touch with you. And know this: you will not keep me from my visitation rights!”

And with that Hugh Shorter slammed out of the matrimonial home.

Nick noted that it was his rights and not his daughter that concerned him, noted too that Caroline had apparently learned nothing from her first divorce, that some of the altercations in that prequel had taken place in this very room. Had Noah heard them back then?

“Caroline,” he said her name softly, firmly with but with deliberate sympathy he hoped. She snapped around.

“Don’t start, Nick!”

“I’m not starting anything, but you know that you will have to work out visitation….”

“Stop!” she shrieked, covering her ears. “Stop! Stop! Stop! This is not your business, Nick Krasnow. Get out of my house!”

Nick wanted desperately to do just that but would not go without Noah and Noah had not yet budged from the refrigerator where he stood shielding his sister, whose stunned little face peered out from behind her brother’s arm. How could he get Noah to leave Allison?

“Cal…” he tried again, this time with the nearly-forgotten diminutive of their long-age intimacy. It softened her. She threw herself into a kitchen chair, her head in her arms on the table. “Cal… how about if Noah and I take Allie with us to dinner?” Where did that come from? Nick astonished himself.

From the corner of his eye, he read the unmistakable flash of emotion on Noah’s face. Gratitude. “Could we bring her back tomorrow, Dad?” the boy interjected quickly. Nick was instantly resentful. He did not want her. What would he do with this traumatized little stranger? He looked from Noah to Allison, her face a scaled-down version of his son’s. That similitude made Nick uncomfortable; it always had.

The only option was to bolster her mother into some sort of shape. He touched Caroline’s shoulder which shook with emotion if not with sobs.

“Do you want me to take her, Cal?” he asked gently. She lifted wet brown eyes to him. Noah’s eyes, Allie’s eyes. That look of helpless surrender to one so much stronger and wiser than herself. Her hero. It made him scornful now but he did not allow that to show. Once it had had such power over him, had rendered him instantly competent and protective.

“Oh, Nick, that would be wonderful. I just need some time to myself.”

“Okay. Noah, get Allie’s pj’s.” But Noah had grabbed the two backpacks already waiting on the floor beside him. So Allie had been set to go with her father. Whatever had happened between them had happened quickly; he thought of the strange woman in Hugh’s car and of Caroline’s volatility. Nick looked her squarely in the eyes.

“You want us to take her?”

“Please, Nick, please.” Dewey-eyed, the practiced aura of helplessness exuded with her assent. Right. Of course, she wants me to take over. Has anything changed?

Driving away from Stone Street with Noah and Allie, Nick felt raw, exposed, put upon. Noah had fetched his sister’s car seat from Caroline’s car and connected it to the seat belts in the backseat of Nick’s before his father had even begun to recover his composure. Noah was peculiarly efficient, careful and expert with his little sister. Practiced, Nick thought again, sourly. It was outrageous but Nick did not know who he was outraged at. Certainly not Noah, who was trying so hard to please, obviously fearful that his father, too, might explode before they left.

“Get in front,’ Nick snapped at his son and was instantly sorry. Noah looked at Allie, who was wide-eyed but seemed less fragile, then to his father who was glaring despite himself. Some wordless communication took place between the children and Nick was reduced by it to sheepish frustration. Noah was so thoroughly in charge. He said nothing yet he generated an absolute reassurance in Allie, who popped her thumb into her mouth and accepted that Noah would position himself in front of her in the front seat. Her eyes followed him, glazed over sleepily as Noah took his usual place beside his father. Nick had slammed the car door, angry again, resentful of Allie, then humiliated by his own inappropriate emotions. His son sat hunched and uneasy beside him, his neck seemingly elongated, a vulnerable and overtaxed stem.

“Hells bells, it’s finally quiet,” Nick said heartily to break the strained silence. Noah turned and grinned at him tentatively. “Where to for dinner?” Nick asked conspiratorially, having mastered his frustration. “Papa Gino’s?” Noah loved pizza and Nick wanted to indulge him.

“Yeah. Allie loves pizza,” Noah answered immediately, deflecting his father’s caretaking to his needier companion. Nick felt an instant sour resentment. Again. He sighed heavily and with a trailer of exasperation, slammed the car into gear and pulled onto Stone Street. Noah retreated further into his shoulders.

At the restaurant, Noah took care of Allison without any assistance from Nick. From disconnecting her from the car seat straps to cleaning the dollops of tomato sauce from her jersey, Noah was careful and expert. Allison accepted the arrangement as familiar. Nick wondered how much of these babysitting chores Noah had had to do lately. What the hell is the matter with Caroline? At the same time Noah handled his sister’s unspoken, compelling needs, he answered his father’s rudimentary questions about school and friends and whether he had spoken with his Krasnow cousins this week. His eyes were pinned on Allie, seemingly fearful that something would go wrong with her. He answered his father without accompanying eye contact, but the treatment of both seemed somehow an extension of the same function. Noah was caretaking. It infuriated Nick who found himself ignoring Allie or at least excluding her, although it wasn’t exactly deliberate. This delicate, small-scale version of Noah who impelled her brother’s solicitude seemed a repugnant foil to Nick, whose resentment was too strong to allow him to initiate a relationship. Noah, however, had no choice, so he bridged the gaps between them and the effort pained his father to greater fury.

Nick did not know his own child tonight, much less Allison. He looked at her as she studied her brother. Her great brown eyes were so solemn, so like Noah’s own, yet Noah had been a cheerful child, rowdy and demanding. Not Allison. She was silent and sober, compelling her brother’s attention without saying anything. By depending. Nick thought once of that first image he had seen: Allison, her little body splayed as she formed a human rope between Caroline and Hugh. Nick had to close his eyes against the image. And Noah watching the whole thing from the shadows of the kitchen. Goddamn, what are they doing to the children?

He tried to focus on modifying his impatience but it was difficult. Driving from dinner to his own house he wondered about his obligation to Allison’s father. Hugh was working on those row houses down by the old Navy Yard in Charlestown. Nick was tempted to drive there now, momentarily sure that Hugh would have gone there to console himself. We could bring Allie there, Nick plotted and was immediately annoyed. What do I know of Hugh, he asked himself impatiently. I go to work for comfort and distraction, maybe Hugh prefers a bar or the company of that woman in his car.

So he took Hugh’s daughter to his own house and watched with prickly jealousy as his son like some underprivileged, put-upon sibling performed his fastidious care-taking ritual. Miniature parent. Nick offered to help bathe her, but Noah was firm, almost panicky in his refusal, so Nick left them alone and half-sulking, half-fuming he took himself to his study while the children were occupied in the bath. He sat at his computer, checked his emails. There were responses to his ad in the personals. For a second his spirits rose in anticipation, then the children were in the doorway, two beautiful, look-alike cherubs in blue PJs, Allie’s the sleeper kind with feet. Noah’s neck looked more reed-like and delicate to his father, his bare white feet enhanced the vulnerability and frustration flooded Nick’s momentary tenderness. Who the hell am I angry with? He castigated himself. Noah? Or Allison, poor thing?

Truth be told he was sort of angry with Allison and that realization humbled him. He did spontaneous penance, bending to scoop his son’s small sister up by her chubby middle and tossing her over his shoulder in a playful gesture that had never failed to make Noah and his cousins gleeful.

“Come on, troops, let’s find ourselves a game to play.” He began with hearty goodwill but Allison’s bleat of distress halted him. Hurt, he lowered her to the floor and she scurried to her brother. Whatever emotion had caused her to cry was not revealed in her face. She looked forth mildly from her safe haven, unexpectedly curious about Nick, warming to him perhaps. Nick forgave her easily. Poor thing, she was forgiving him, too. They were both intruders, players in their own tug-of-war for Noah.

“Dad, Allie and I just want to watch some tv if that’s okay.” Noah sounded suddenly weary and it touched Nick, who felt weary himself. They had all been on an emotional roller coaster. He felt resigned to his own bewilderment, yet felt with certainty that the best thing to do for these two right now was to let them rest from all the raw stimulation of real life, to offer them sanctuary and the escape of television if that was what they wanted. It was at best a shoring up, but seeing it and resolving to follow through on the insight made Nick feel better. Within a few minutes, Allie was propped on pillows on the couch with Noah tucking a tartan around her and then pulling the bottom over his own naked feet.

“ You warm enough?” Nick questioned gruffly, compelled again to reclaim the role of parent. But Noah shook his head, distractedly surfing with the remote. He flipped quickly through the offerings until he found what he was looking for. Suddenly, a dim-witted Homer Simpson appeared in all his comedic inanity; he was without his family, hopelessly trying to extricate his car from a Denver boot. His windshield was thick with tickets and the car was apparently stranded between the Twin Towers in New York City, far from Springfield. Nick thought of telling the children that he had been there, that he had eaten in the restaurant at the top of the South Tower, that it had been like eating in a parked airplane. But just then Homer was bolting for the nearest public restroom and as plot would have it, that was at the top of one of the towers. Nick snorted at the absurdity. Just as suddenly Allie and her brother were laughing along with the soundtrack. Of course, a policeman showed up while Homer was indisposed. Kids do you still like potty humor, he thought. The laugh track seemed to steady them. It felt like they were lost to him but recovering themselves in the celluloid netherworld.

“Is it funny?” he asked, tentative in his loneliness.

Noah stared at the TV, completely absorbed, but Allie, her recovery now quite obvious glanced momentarily at her host and offered some obscure comment pointing helpfully at the silver screen where Lisa and Bart, accompanied by their mother were sightseeing while Homer drove his car from between the twin towers without removing the Denver boot. Nick winced as the boot scraped away at the car. Didn’t seem all that funny to him, but they were laughing together, without him, and he felt too cumbersome and old and foolish to penetrate their union.

He watches too much TV when he’s with me, Nick thought as he took himself back to his study. Caroline was grimly restrictive about what they could watch so Nick enjoyed indulging Noah. But sometimes it seemed as though he was transported by it, as though he was no longer available, had escaped to another planet perhaps. Escaped what? Me? Nick had chafed at his own parents in adolescence. But that was different; this was supposed to be different. And Noah had other things far more serious to escape. The thought shook Nick yet again.  High seismographic reading. How can I protect my own son he wondered desperately

Nick’s found the lawyer’s phone number and dialed it, but as it rang he pressed the red button. Was this an emergency? New Year’s Eve?  He had not called the guy at home in over six years. The crisis of his own divorce and its aftermath had eventually played out. Surely this would as well. Next week when he came back from London he would call and ask about the possibility of suing for custody of Noah.

Next, he located Dr.  Rosenbloom’s number and sat at his desk staring at it. Could he call Rosenbloom at home at night for what wasn’t an emergency? And reveal that he was home alone with these children?  No, it just wasn’t an emergency, plus it was New Year’s Eve. One did not need to make an emergency call on a holiday. Damn Caroline, he thought,  damn the woman to hell.

Suddenly the phone in his hand rang and it was Caroline. Pliant, sweet, docile,  relieved, she had called to thank him for taking Allison, for allowing her some real rest. She was under so much stress, she told him without petulance, she could use one of those back rubs he used to give her; did he remember those? Within seconds Nick was mollified, his anxiety over Noah salved as he assumed this familiar role, adviser, manager, champion. This man knew instinctively what to do, suffered no inkling of self-doubt.

“Caroline, I remember. Not just you but Hugh too is under enormous stress ..” he barreled ahead despite her attempt to protest.  “But we absolutely have to work to spare Noah… To spare both children… and to that end, I will help you as much as I can. Really. Do you need money?” It was a time-honored panacea and allowed him to dodge easily around the back rub reference. It sounded foolish to him, but Caroline herself murmured something grateful which was neither affirmative nor negative. For an alarming second, he envisioned her thinking he was offering to treat her to a facial or to a leg waxing or some such trifling indulgence – a massage perhaps. In pursuit of peace but of integrity as well, he pressed direction on her.

“How about a therapist? I’m sure you’re seeing one yourself but how about letting me arrange for family therapy for you and the children? They are the ones who are under the most stress…” But he knew that any diminishment of her burden would not go over well, so he qualified quickly, “For them, it is all so confusing.”

She agreed, consoled as much for his masterful intervention as by any desire she may have actually had of alleviating her children’s distress. She asked him to keep Allie for the New Year’s Day party at his brother’s house. Before he could answer, she told him he’d cheered her up, that she thought she’d get dressed up and go to the Belmont Club for a drink to usher in what had to be a better year. 

 Nick himself felt oddly elated when the call was over. But the flush was short-lived. When his brother Peter called, he told him the story of the afternoon, his narrative climaxing as the hero saves the day by rescuing the little damsel. He embarrassed himself by taking too much of the heroic role away from Noah, who was his sister’s tireless, selfless champion, who protected her from her father and from his own. By the time Nick recounted the denouement, Caroline’s last phone call, a jaded weariness had entered his recitation. The patina of triumph he willed into the telling fell flat before Peter’s silence. Again Nick felt powerfully exhausted and attempted to avoid what he knew would come from Peter. He wanted nothing so much as to get the kids to bed and then to go himself. But Peter, good brother that he was. would not be put off so easily

“Nick, call the lawyer next week, will you? Caroline hasn’t changed. One weekend without her kids is not going to make her over into the sensible parent.” Such was Peter’s ruthless assessment. 

Nick did not call the lawyer in the morning or the next.  The second day of the new year he was running late with just enough time to give Caroline another moment of supportive advice while he trundled her silent daughter into the house, then rushed off to drop Noah at West Middle before heading into Boston. He had an early meeting. Before he knew it was lunchtime and he was sitting alone in his big office for the first time with a moment to reflect. Outside the huge bay windows, small figures moved across Financial Plaza, bundled against the wind. At that moment Nick felt content, powerful,  confident as he always did after a successful interlude sitting in this chair. But with the vacuum, the angst returned, wraith-like at first, nebulous. What was this? Why was he worried? Recollection of the night’s events swept into his consciousness. “Shit,” he muttered as he remembered; glumness and self-doubt returned.

Should he sue Caroline for custody of Noah? Could he even? Who the hell did he think he was? Mr. Mom? Dustin Hoffman playing that father and Kramer vs Kramer? He remembered all too well what had happened to Ted Kramer’s career. Nicholas Krasnow was the colossus of his company because he was ambitious and  thrived on his work, willingly spent much time at it, not just long hours in his office but at least one night a week in New York, at least a week a month in Europe. What would I do with Noah? Board him out? What about boarding school? The idea simmered for a moment and then dulled. Right, I’ll just take Noah away from his mother whom he loves, from his sister who he is almost fanatically devoted to and put him in a boarding school, just in case he hasn’t had enough grief for one lifetime? Wouldn’t he just love me for it?  If only I’d remarried, he mused, thinking he needed to put in more time on Match.com. After all, he was a charter member. But it’s a goddamn part-time job. Just then his secretary buzzed and the sound reminded him of his recent contact with that New York prostitute.   He had already forgotten her name, but not her business acumen, not the silent sting of humiliation he’d felt at being taken so far before he realized who and what she was. Great, I’m about as good at evaluating women as I am at solving Noah’s problems.  He flipped the intercom and asked his secretary to call Dr. Rosenbloom’s office for him and make an appointment. That done, Nick turned his indefatigable energies to the rewards of work. 

copyright ©Meredith Powers 2015-2025