22. Iron Jack
IRON JACK
Sunday morning is lazy and long. It’s also a decision day.
Greta has to pick up her son in the afternoon, and afterward take him to her family’s weekly Sunday dinners. She missed last week because she was in Miami with me.
I make coffee in her big kitchen while I contemplate if I should head out now and spare her a difficult decision about kicking me out, hiding me, or being forced to meet her family.
I should go.
I pour the coffee, adding vanilla creamer to Greta’s, the way she likes it, and head to the bedroom.
Greta is up, sitting on the edge of her bed in a long T-shirt, and looking shaken.
I hesitate in front of her. Something’s wrong. “Everything okay, Little G?”
She smiles at the nickname. “Everything is fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
She looks away, and the pit of my belly liquefies. I don’t like seeing her like this. “Is it Caden? Me?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then she holds out her hand and opens her fist.
Inside it is the crumpled receipt from the pocket of my cut.
“I guess it fell out,” I say.
“It was on the floor.” She smooths it on her thigh. “I feel like you keeping it means it’s more important than you let on.”
I have to handle this right. I won’t lie. But I won’t involve her, either. “It’s not a member of the Kin.”
She looks down at it. “So who is it?”
How to answer that? “Someone from my past.”
“Why did the Kin have that credit card, then?”
This is easy to answer truthfully. “I have no idea.”
“I see.” She sets it on the bed. “Aaron Nelson, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She stares at it a moment longer, then seems to realize I have two steaming cups in my hand. “You made coffee?”
I suppress my sigh of relief that we’ve moved on and pass her the mug with creamer. “I did.”
“No house mouse to wait on you.” She sips and sighs.
“I didn’t have one in L.A. either. I can cope.”
“That’s right. I had a thought of what we could do today.”
“I’m game for anything.” And I totally am. I’m not sure what will happen once I follow up on that receipt.
“How are you on museums?” She scoots back against the pillows, carefully shifting her mug.
“Can’t say I’ve been to any,” I tell her. “Maybe some small thing on a field trip at school, but I don’t really remember.”
“If you’re up for going back to the city, we can go to the Met. It’s such a wonderful place, and I haven’t gotten to go without a kid in, well, eight years.”
“Then we’re going.”
“Good.” She sips her coffee. “I’ll have Jude take Caden to Uncle Sherman’s for the hand-off for dinner since we’ll already be in the city.”
So that’s how this is going to go. “I get to meet this elusive meddling uncle?”
“He wanted a report. I’m bringing him the kit and caboodle.” She laughs. “I’m very curious to see how the two of you square off. And it will be a more neutral and busy place for your first exposure to my son.”
I nod. “That sounds smart.”
“If Caden acts strange…” She looks out the window. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
I get it. If there is any resentment or weirdness in the kid, I’m not coming back with her. Maybe I shouldn’t anyway.
“I can always head out before any of that.”
“No, no, I want you to come to the dinner.” She sets down her mug and moves closer. “Absolutely, I do.” She kisses my cheek and hops off the bed. “I’m going to clean up and get ready. I can make breakfast while you shower.”
“Like hell for either of those things.” I set my coffee down and throw her over my shoulder. The T-shirt rides up, leaving her naked ass available for a quick swat. “We’ll do both of those things together.”
We enter the museum on a busy street in the middle of everything. New York is completely different during the day, the skyscrapers disappearing in the searing winter sun, people walking everywhere, talking on phones, or simply keeping their heads down.
They dress well, though, camel coats and shiny boots and leather bags.
I don’t feel out of place pretty much anywhere, so I mainly watch and take notes.
Inside the museum, people of all kinds wander in every direction.
Tourists, kids, gray-haired couples, tired moms. Nobody pays attention to the expensively dressed woman holding hands with a scruffy blond behemoth in a leather cut.
“I want to take you to arms and armor first,” Greta says, pulling off her red wool coat and draping it over her arm. “I think you’ll like it.”
The hall is massive with high ceilings. Down the center, full suits of armor depict men riding horses with long metal lances.
“The Harley-Davidson of equestrians,” Greta says. “I think their weapons are bigger than yours.”
I scoop her up for that, getting a squeal out of her.
“Put me down before they kick us out!”
I do, and we find ourselves in front of several free-standing suits of armor in various poses. I stand next to each one, mimicking their positions, arm in the air, one foot in front of the other.
Greta snaps shots with her phone, laughing. “They don’t even make armor big enough for you,” she says, surveying the space. “Not a one is tall enough, or broad enough.”
“You’d be a shock troop,” says a slender man in a turtleneck.
“Big, burly men like yourself would go out in front of the armored men with huge double-handed swords or poleaxes to lead the invasion or put up the first line of defense.” He points to a display case of long swords and lances.
“Like that one on the end. You would be integral to their strategy.”
“I would be down for that.” I approach the case, sizing up the heavy weapons. “I could see myself with one of these.”
We dash around the rest of the armor exhibit, then make our way to the Egyptian wing.
The space is huge, a whole wall of windows, and the temple is impressive.
Greta and I behave like kids, racing up the stairs, walking the low wall along the glimmering pool, and ducking inside the stone temple to steal a kiss someplace older than most anything in the world.
“We’re going to have to leave soon,” Greta says, “but I want to show you one more thing before we go.”
We head into another large room with wrought iron that towers overhead to form a wall. Inside is darker, more hushed, with statues everywhere, all lit with special lamps.
“This is the medieval sculpture room,” Greta says. “There is one statue I always have to see when I’m here.”
We walk through, perusing the various works. Most of them seem to be mother and baby. I’m guessing it’s the Virgin Mary, based on the robes and halos.
We pause before one with a plaque that reads “Virgin and child.” It’s beautifully lit, the Virgin Mary reading a book on her lap while the curly-haired Jesus gazes up at her with great love.
Greta can’t stop gazing at it, her arms clasped around her coat, face lifted. The light catches her, too, the planes of her cheekbones, the sharp nose and long lashes. Her red hair is bright in front and fades away in the shadows on the back.
She’s beautiful. I can’t stop looking at her.
A tear slips from her eye, and she quickly dashes it away. “I love this one. I always have.”
I look at it again, taking her hand. “You can feel the emotion in it,” I say, feeling clumsy. I don’t know anything about art.
“You can. That’s the best part. An ordinary moment, a mother trying to read while juggling a baby. Jesus on a regular day with his mother.” She swipes at her eye again.
“I’m glad you showed it to me.”
She slides an arm through my elbow. “And now we go face the Pickles.”
“Should we stop by arms and armor on the way out? I might need one of those poleaxes.”
She laughs and turns us toward the exit. “It isn’t a bad idea.”