The Goldfinch

She started to say something—and then clapped her hand to her mouth as the cab lurched to a stop at the light, throwing us forward and then back hard against the seat.

“Hang on,” I said to her, and then leaned up and knocked on the greasy plexiglass, so that the driver (a turbaned Sikh) started in surprise.

“Look,” I called through the grille, “this is fine, we’ll get out here, okay?”

The Sikh—reflected in the garlanded mirror—gazed at me steadily. “You want to stop here.”

“Yes, please.”

“But this is not the address you gave.”

“I know. But this is good,” I said, glancing back at my mother—mascara-smeared, wilted-looking, scrabbling though her bag for her wallet.

“Is she all right?” said the cabdriver doubtfully.

“Yes, yes, she’s fine. We just need to get out, thanks.”

With trembling hands, my mother produced a crumple of damp-looking dollars and pushed them through the grille. As the Sikh slid his hand through and palmed them (resignedly, looking away) I climbed out, holding the door open for her.

My mother stumbled a little stepping onto the curb, and I caught her arm. “Are you okay?” I said to her timidly as the cab sped away. We were on upper Fifth Avenue, by the mansions facing the park.

She took a deep breath, then wiped her brow and squeezed my arm. “Phew,” she said, fa

People streamed around us on the windy corner: schoolgirls in uniform, laughing and ru

We stepped aside to avoid the soapsuds that a janitor was dumping from a pail on the sidewalk in front of his building.

“Tell me,” said my mother—fingertips at her temple—“was it just me, or was that cab unbelievably—”

“Nasty? Hawaiian Tropic and baby poo?”

“Honestly—” fa

“Why don’t you ever just ask if you can sit in the front seat?”

“You sound just like your father.”

I looked away, embarrassed—for I’d heard it too, a hint of his a

But—with a shudder almost, a visible wave of nausea—she shook her head. “Air.” Dashing mascara smudges from under her eyes. “The air feels good.”

“Sure,” I said, a bit too quickly, anxious to be accommodating. “Whatever.”

I was trying hard to be agreeable but my mother—fitful and woozy—had picked up on my tone; she looked at me closely, trying to figure out what I was thinking. (This was another bad habit we’d fallen into, thanks to years of life with my father: trying to read each other’s minds.)

“What?” she said. “Is there someplace you want to go?”

“Um, no, not really,” I said, taking a step backwards and looking around in my consternation; even though I was hungry, I felt in no position to insist on anything.

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”

“Maybe—” blinking and agitated, what did she want, what would please her?—“how about we go sit in the park?”

To my relief, she nodded. “All right then,” she said, in what I thought of as her Mary Poppins voice, “but just till I catch my breath,” and we started down toward the crosswalk at Seventy-Ninth Street: past topiaries in baroque planters, ponderous doors laced with ironwork. The light had faded to an industrial gray, and the breeze was as heavy as teakettle steam. Across the street by the park, artists were setting up their stalls, unrolling their canvases, pi

We walked along in silence. My mind was whirring busily on my own troubles (had Tom’s parents got a call? Why hadn’t I thought to ask him?) as well as what I was going to order for breakfast as soon as I could get her to the diner (Western omelet with home fries, side of bacon; she would have what she always had, rye toast with poached eggs and a cup of black coffee) and I was hardly paying attention where we were going when I realized she had just said something. She wasn’t looking at me but out over the park; and her expression made me think of a famous French movie I didn’t know the name of, where distracted people walked down windblown streets and talked a lot but didn’t actually seem to be talking to each other.

“What did you say?” I asked, after a few confused beats, walking faster to catch up with her. “Try more—?”

She looked startled, as if she’d forgotten I was there. The white coat—flapping in the wind—added to her long-legged ibis quality, as if she were about to unfurl her wings and sail away over the park.

“Try more what?”

“Oh.” Her face went blank and then she shook her head and laughed quickly in the sharp, childlike way she had. “No. I said time warp.”

Even though it was a strange thing to say I knew what she meant, or thought I did—that shiver of disco

“No, no, puppy, just the neighborhood.” Tousling my hair, making me smile in a lopsided, half-embarrassed way: puppy was my baby name, I didn’t like it any more nor the hair-tousling either, but sheepish though I felt, I was glad to see her in a better mood. “Always happens up here. Whenever I’m up here it’s like I’m eighteen again and right off the bus.”

“Here?” I said doubtfully, permitting her to hold my hand, not normally something I would have done. “That’s weird.” I knew all about my mother’s early days in Manhattan, a good long way from Fifth Avenue—on Avenue B, in a studio above a bar, where bums slept in the doorway and bar fights spilled out on the street and a crazy old lady named Mo kept ten or twelve illegal cats in a blocked-off stairwell on the top floor.

She shrugged. “Yeah, but up here it’s still the same as the first day I ever saw it. Time tu

I maintained a respectful silence. The passage of time had been much on her mind lately, maybe because her birthday was coming up. I’m too old for this routine, she’d said a few days before as we’d scrambled together over the apartment, rummaging under the sofa cushions and searching in the pockets of coats and jackets for enough change to pay the delivery boy from the deli.

She dug her hands in her coat pockets. “Up here, it’s more stable,” she said. Though her voice was light I could see the fog in her eyes; clearly she hadn’t slept well, thanks to me. “Upper Park is one of the few places where you can still see what the city looked like in the l890s. Gramercy Park too, and the Village, some of it. When I first came to New York I thought this neighborhood was Edith Wharton and Fra