Butterscotch

BUTTERSCOTCH

Alex Munoz was surprised when he learned the first stop was a club in the meatpacking district, a place called Shine. At this hour, the line of people waiting behind the rope to get in was short. Isabelle asked him to wait for her. To his surprise, she spoke one word to the bouncer at the door and he let her in. She emerged a moment later and got back in the cab.

“I bet those girls in line would like to know what you said to get in,” Alex told Isabelle.

“I doubt it would do them any good,” Isabelle said. “I told him my husband Sid and I used to come here to dance after he came home from the war in the Pacific. It was The Bowery Ballroom, then. Are you married, Alex?”

He was right. She was a talker. Tonight, he didn’t mind. He’d assumed, from the amount of luggage she’d asked him to carry from her apartment, that it would be an airport run. Instead, she’d handed him a list of addresses written in a small black moleskin notebook and told him he was free to choose the most expedient route, as long as the last address on the list was the final destination. It was in Westchester. Another was on the way, in Younkers. The rest were in Manhattan. He could have run the clock on her and she wouldn’t know the difference, but he was going to make his nut either way, and it beat driving for hands or waiting for drunk drops or bingos. He might even make enough to convince Rosa to hold off.

“We’re not together,” Alex said. “We’re getting divorced, but right now, we’re saving up to pay the lawyers.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you have children?”

“Two boys,” he told her. “They live with their mother.”

“Have you tried counseling?” she asked him. “I suppose it’s expensive.”

“It’s free at the V.A.,” he said, “but I need to get my own shit together first.”

“You’re a veteran?” she said. He’d found that working the fact that he’d served in Iraq into the conversation often led to greater tips. Most people said, “Thank you for your service.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she said.

He drove her to a place that used to be an Italian restaurant called Carmine's, Isabelle said. She and her husband would go to Carmine’s once a year on their anniversary.

He drove her to an address on Grammercy Park, where she and her husband had once lived. She pointed out a building that had the oldest operating elevator in New York City. Edith Hamilton had lived there. Who? She’d played the witch in“The Wizard of Oz.” He told her he’d never seen it. She asked him where he’d grown up, because he couldn’t have grown up in the United States and not seen “The Wizard of Oz.” He told her Mexico, but he’d moved to the United States with his family when he was ten.

At Grand Central Station, she told him to wait at the curb while she went inside to have a look around. When she was young, she would meet her husband under the clock for dates during their courtship when he lived in Astoria.

While he waited, Alex looked at the small black notebook she’d given him and, curious, Googled the last address in the notebook. Google confirmed what he’d suspected. The address was for a place called Transitions Long Term and Palliative Care, a hospice facility in Katonah. The notebook was a bucket list.

He saw a young couple buying pretzels from a corner food wagon. Two gay men walked a pair of silky Afghan hounds. A nun shuffled slowly down the street, pushing a shopping cart filled with garbage bags. He wondered what was in the bags. He wondered if she was really a nun. He wondered if he’d actually seen what he thought he saw, or if he’d just imagined it. New York City could get to you.

He reread the text he’d gotten from Rosa:

No more time, Alex. I met with my attorney today. He advised me to seek full custody. Given current circumstances, I think this best.

The meter was at $144.00 and climbing.

Isabelle told him she wanted to go to South Street Seaport next. She asked him if he knew when the last ferry to Staten Island ran. He told her they had time. He took the Henry Hudson, where at this hour, traffic would be thin, and he knew how to time the lights.

“Who lives on Staten Island?” he asked. “I mean, are you going to see family?”

“I've outlived my family,” she said. She pointed at the photographs on his dashboard. “Those are your sons?”

“That's Hector,” he said. “He's seven. And Guillerno. He's six. Hector's a good kid, but Willie just does what he wants.”

When she asked him to wait outside the ferry station, meter running, of course, but that she would be a while because she wanted to ride the ferry, he said he would ride the ferry with her. He said he wanted to because he hadn’t ridden it since he was a kid, but the truth was, it wasn’t safe for a woman her age to ride the ferry alone at this hour. He wanted to ask her why she was going into hospice, but he assumed she would tell him if she wanted him to know.

She told him on the boat that she and Sid had lived on Staten Island when they were first married. He’d been an engineer who helped design the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, with an office in the Battery. She’d taught English at a school on the Upper West Side. They rode the ferry together five days a week, both ways, for over thirty years. It was a moment of serenity at the beginning and end of each day, because there weas nothing you could do to make the ferry go faster. You could breathe, and the air was always fresh.

“You strike me as someone who needs serenity in his life,” she said.

The second to the last stop was a place called Temple Israel Cemetery. It had started to rain. He held the umbrella for her and used his phone as a flashlight. The markers had stars of David on them, and lettering in both English and Hebrew. They found the stones she was looking for.

SAMUEL L. BERMAN 11/4/1926-1/6/2012 DAVID M. BERMAN, 5/3/1957 - 10/17/1975

JULIA D. BERMAN, 5/3/1957 - 10/17/1975

“They were twins?” He hated himself for asking such a stupid question. “What happened?”

“It was a car accident,” she said. “Their friend lost control of the car and it swerved into oncoming traffic. They were all instantly killed. And no, there was no alcohol or drugs involved. That's what everybody asks.”

“I can't imagine,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “You still have yours.”

He started to cry. It caught him by surprise. He felt embarrassed.

“Crying is good,” she said. “When I hear someone tell me they never cry, I feel sorry for them. They're missing something important.”

He told her he was just feeling sorry for himself. She said he was allowed to. He told her his story. His boys were all he had, but Rosa didn’t feel safe when he was around her or them. He was nervous all the time. He had flashbacks and anger issues. Dr. Kovar at the VA hospital was trying to help him. Rosa was scared of him. He was scared of himself. He couldn’t risk going to court because he wasn’t a citizen, despite being a veteran. There were problems with his status. He could be deported.

The sun was trying to rise, but the skies were overcast and grey.

He told her he wanted to show her something.

He drove to a bus stop in Queens, where they saw a school bus pull up, and then he saw Hector and Willie get on the bus. Technically, he was violating a restraining order, but he wanted Isabelle to see. Their yellow raincoats matched the school bus.

She told him they were beautiful boys. He agreed.

At the hospice center in Katonah, he pulled under the carport and went to the trunk to get her bags.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked.

“Nothing. I should pay you.”

The meter was just under five hundred dollars. She insisted on paying him in cash.

“I love you, Alex,” she said. “I don't know why people don't say those words more often. It doesn’t cost anything and it’s the best thing we can give each other.”

“I love you too, Isabelle.”

“You're going to be okay. You're a good man. You've just taken a few wrong turns.”

“That's not so good for a cab driver,” he said.

He was filling the gas tank before returning the car to the garage when he saw something on the back seat. It was common for people to leave behind their phones, or articles of clothing, or wrappings from food they’d been eating. This was a manila envelope. When he opened it, he found a large sum of money. He counted out two-hundred hundred-dollar bills. $20,000. Also a business card for BENJAMIN MARKOWITZ, ESQ. On the back of the card, the handwritten word 'Butterscotch.’”

He called the number on the card. He told the lawyer what he’d found, that he’d picked up a woman named Isabelle Berman, and she’d left something in the cab that Alex needed to return to her. The lawyer asked him if there was a word written on the card. Alex said the word was “butterscotch.” The lawyer asked Alex to come to his office in White Plains.

“Were you aware that Isabelle had no living family members?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes sir. She said her kids were killed in a car accident and her husband had died too.

“I’ve been handling her estate planning,” Attorney Markowitz said. “My instructions were to meet with whoever called and said the word ‘Butterscotch.’ She told me she was going to try to find someone she thought was deserving. She preferred leaving her estate to someone she chose in person, rather than to a charity. I gather that person is you, Alex.”

“What do you mean by ‘estate?’" He knew what the word meant, but what was happening was still unclear.

“Everything,” Markowitz said. “Her savings, her investments and her brownstone and everything in it. She had some paintings too. Isabelle and her late husband were what they call ‘quiet collectors.’ I can’t tell you the exact value until we’ve had them appraised.”

“Do you handle child custody cases?” Alex asked. “Or immigration?”

He drove north on 684. When he reached Transitions Long Term and Palliative Care, he told the woman at the desk that he was looking for a woman who had just checked in earlier today.

“Isabelle Berman.”

She asked him to wait.

A moment later, an older man in an expensive looking suit invited him into his office.

“I'm very sorry to have to tell you this,” he said softly. “Mrs. Berman left us this morning.”

“There's some kind of mistake,” Alex said. “I just dropped her off.”

“There's no mistake, I'm afraid,” the man said. He explained that it was something they saw frequently. Sometimes, people die when they choose to, he said. They wait until their birthday, or until they've accomplished something they needed to finish. Then they just let go. They don't want to wait any more for the inevitable.

When he got over his shock, Alex found a diner in Mt. Kisco and ordered a butterscotch sundae. Isabelle had told him it was her favorite thing to eat, “the best thing ever.”

She was right.

He’d never tasted anything like it.