Seven Minutes to Noon

just catch the next bus.”
    Alice nodded and looked into the eyes of every stranger who spoke to her. Even the ones who didn’t, who held on to their resentment for the delay, eyeing her sullenly. She shrank from none of them.
    Finally she got back into her car and the man, her savior, stepped into traffic to pause it while she backed up and pulled out. She drove slowly and carefully down Court Street, turned on Degraw, and parked the car back in the lot.
    She was terrified of the car now, of the day, of what she may have done. She speed-dialed her obstetrician’s office, explained that she had been in a minor accident,and was told to come in right away. Then she called Mike and waited for him to come get her. Eyes squeezed shut, she prayed to any god that would listen. Begging for the well-being of her babies.

Chapter 11
    Alice climbed into the passenger’s side of Mike’s black pickup truck. Thick slabs of oak were strapped onto the uncovered back.
    “What happened?” The engine was revving but Mike didn’t drive. A streak of black grease ran haphazardly from his wrist halfway to his elbow, stopping abruptly. “Are you okay?”
    Alice nodded, pulling the seat belt as long as it could go and buckling herself in. The truth was she didn’t know if she was okay. She was afraid to speak; they had lost an unborn child once before; she was twice a mother now; she should have known not to take any risks.
    “Dr. Matteo’s waiting for me,” Alice said, stilling her voice against a strong undercurrent of distress.
    “What happened ?”
    She waited until he began to drive. She wanted to get there, not talk. As they wove through the quiet morning streets of their neighborhood, she explained. Mike listened, his forehead taut, but he said nothing until she had finished. Then he reached out to gently touch her knee before sliding the stick shift into a higher gear for a green-light cruise along Clinton Street.
    “I could have gotten your mother from the airport,” was all he said before they fell to silence. They both knew that. Alice had wanted to go. She shouldn’t have. It was that simple.
    Dr. Sally Matteo’s waiting room at Long Island CollegeHospital on Amity Street, where she kept morning hours once a week, was packed. Alice sat with Mike in a pair of unoccupied chairs. The dry warmth of his hand locked into hers had an almost narcotic effect on her, making her calm, sleepy.
    They kept quiet in the high chatter of the crowded waiting room. It was a different crowd from the Pierrepont Street office where Alice always went for her scheduled appointments. Here the faces were darker, people of color, a description that always made her think of the red patent-leather Mary Janes she had insisted on wearing to parties as a little girl instead of the white ones she despised. She realized instantly that this was a different Brooklyn from the one where she lived. There were two Brooklyns and they were superimposed over each other, sometimes contradicting, sometimes obliterating each other, rarely in agreement. Here, girls and boys didn’t get many choices, people didn’t live in renovated brownstones or buy hand-sculpted pewter knobs. Here, poverty simmered on the streets, a breeding ground for common tragedies that were not reported by the media. Here, naivety like hers — to have expected so much from a greedy world — would be laughed at, ought to be laughed at. She saw herself white, shimmering, vacant in a sea of color. Pale and fading.
    She couldn’t help hating herself, though she couldn’t say exactly why. It was just that Lauren was gone and she was still here. It made no sense at all. And what about Ivy? Was she alive? Was anyone caring for her?
    Alice rubbed her eyes and exhaled.
    Mike put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close to him and kissed her lightly on the side of her head.
    “We should call your mother,” he said.
    “Right.” Alice dialed Lizzie’s cell number and listened to the slightly too-loud voice intone: “Lizzie Taylor here. I’m probably out buying diamonds. Leave a message.” She was nineteen when she married Alice’s father, RichardTaylor, and had eagerly taken his name, transforming herself from Elizabeth Liptutz to Elizabeth Taylor with one gold ring.
    “Better take a cab from the airport, Mom. I can’t come,” Alice said. “Everything’s all right. But take a cab and I’ll meet you at home.” She regretted saying everything was all right. It would only