The Angel Esmeralda - By Don DeLillo Page 0,15

and takes the little boy. No one had time to react. They get in the car and they’re gone. I just said, ‘Evelyn.’ She went right off to telephone.”

He was running in place now and she moved closer, a middle-aged woman with an inadvertent smile.

“I recognized you from the elevator,” she said.

“How do you know it was his father?”

“It’s all around us, isn’t it? They have babies before they’re ready. They don’t know what they’re getting into. It’s one problem after another. Then they split up or the father gets in trouble with the police. Don’t we see it all the time? He’s unemployed, he uses drugs. One day he decides he’s entitled to see more of his child. He wants to share custody. He broods for days. Then he comes around and they argue and he breaks up the furniture. The mother gets a court order. He has to stay away from the child.”

They looked toward the slope, where the woman stood gesturing on the blanket. Another woman held some of her things, a sweater, a large cloth bag. A dog went bounding after seagulls down near the path and they lifted and settled again nearby.

“Look how heavy she is. We see more and more of this. Young women. They can’t help it. It’s a condition they’re disposed to. How long are you in the building?”

“Four months.”

“There are cases they walk in and start shooting. Common-law husbands. You can’t separate a parent and expect everything works out. It’s hard enough raising a child if you have the resources.”

“But you can’t be sure, can you?”

“I saw them both and I saw the child.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She didn’t have a chance. He grabbed the boy and got back in the car. I think she was totally frozen.”

“Was anyone else in the car?”

“No. He dropped the boy on the seat and they were gone. I saw the whole thing. He wanted to share custody and the mother refused.”

She was insistent, wincing in the light, and the runner remembered seeing her once in the laundry room, folding clothes with the same dazzled look.

“All right, we’re looking at a woman in a terrible stricken state,” he said. “But I don’t see a common-law husband, I don’t see a separation, and I don’t see a court order.”

“How old are you?” she said.

“Twenty-three.”

“Then you don’t know.”

He was surprised by the sharpness in her voice. He ran in place, unprepared and dripping, feeling heat rise from his chest. A police car swung up over the curbstone and everyone at the blanket turned and looked. The woman came near collapse when the policeman got out of the car. He moved in a practiced amble toward the group. She seemed to want to drop, to sink into the blanket and disappear. A sound came out of her, a desolation, and everyone moved a little closer, hands extended.

The runner used the moment to break off the dialogue. He went back to his laps, trying to recover the rhyme of stride and respiration. A work train passed beyond the trees on the other side of the pond, grave horn braying. He made the wide turn at the south end, feeling uneasy. He saw the small girl trail her father along a narrow path that led to an exit. He saw a second police car on the grass far to his left. The group was breaking up. He crossed the bridge, trying to spot the woman he’d been talking to. Ducks sailed in wobbly lines to the scattered bread.

Two more laps and he could call it quits.

He ran faster, still working at a cadence. The first police car left with the woman. He saw that the far end was empty now, sliding into deep shade. He made the turn, knowing he’d been wrong to cut the conversation so abruptly, even if she’d spoken sharply to him. A traffic cone jutted from the shallows. The runner approached the bridge.

Several strides into the last lap he veered onto the slope, gradually slowing to a walk. A policeman leaned on the door of the cruiser, talking to the last witness, a man who stood with his back to the runner. Cars hurried past, some with headlights shining. The policeman looked up from his notebook when the runner drew near.

“Sorry to interrupt, officer. I just wonder what the woman said. Was it her husband, someone she knew, who snatched the child?”

“What did you see?”

“Just the car. Blue with one discolored fender. Four-door. I didn’t see the