Free Five Night Stand: A Novel by Richard J. Alley Page A

them high in the air to squeals of delight from the children.
    His first day back was always a holiday for the family. No matter what they had going on at school or work, they took the day off and Oliver would take them to the park; to the Met, where he’d search out paintings of places he’d just visited; and out for ice-cream sundaes for lunch. They called those Ollie’s Days, and the kids, worn numb by an afternoon of activity and movement, would fall fast asleep in the evenings, leaving time for Oliver and Francesca to reunite, to explore each other the way Oliver had just explored half the world and Francesca book after book.
    He believed then that those hours made up for the weeks and months away. Yet it was only a matter of days until Oliver was back to work, only instead of hopping a steamer for Europe, he was on the Lexington Local to the Village. There, he’d spend nights playing clubs, at late-night recording sessions, or in strange women’s beds.
    “New York is where it is, baby; I got to keep my chops in my own city,” he’d say.
    “I thought Los Angeles is where it’s at, or Kansas City, or Madrid,” Francesca would counter. “Where’s it going to be next week, Ollie? Near or far, or does it even matter?”
    And then he’d leave, first kissing the tops of the kids’ heads while they still sat eating their supper.
    These days, he walks around his quiet apartment that Francesca always kept so tidy, looking at family pictures and Francesca’s great wall of books. He realizes that even if he had that time back in his pocket, he doesn’t know what he’d change, even with the advantage of hindsight. The music and emotions of being onstage had coursed through his veins, and it was a force that was not easily tamed. We all make our beds, he’d often said, and then we’re told to lie down on them.
    Oliver goes back to the bedroom he’d shared with Francesca, though not for many years now, and lies down on his side of it for a nap before his second night of shows.

    When Agnes leaves Mount Sinai, all she can think of is a shower. As sterile as the rooms she’d just left were, all she wants to do now is wash. Instead of her hotel shower, though, she finds herself walking south along the park, allowing the rushing, swirling air from passing traffic and bodies to brush against her and scour away the past hours. At the bottom of Central Park, she descends underground for the Lexington Local to Greenwich Village. Standing on the platform, she’s amazed there are no barriers between the waiting crowd and the gully where the tracks lie. She fantasizes about stepping off, considers an end to the pain and the tremors—dreams of an end to the unknown, just as she had while leaning against the glass of her hotel window the night before. How satisfying it would be to know, to be absolutely certain of when and how her life might end. She longs to meet that train head-on. The fantasy tugs at her and she steps toward an onrush of air as a horn blasts and light appears around the tiled curve to her left. She closes her eyes, brings her hand to her face, and feels the numbed fingers tremble against her cheek.
    Emerging from below, going from the gleaming glass of Midtown Manhattan to the low brick and crooked valley of the Village, is like traveling into the past. Though the handbills are only weeks old, the sense of time and place, she imagines, is half a century earlier. She listens to the voices around her, the languages of the city and of cities throughout the world. She has the sudden urge to travel and see all of those cities before it is too late. The realization of time escaping leaves her breathless for a moment and she stops to lean against a lamppost. The picture windows nearby offer food, furniture from decades before, and clothing and eyeglasses at the height of fashion. A tobacco store shows off boxes of highly polished wood and gleaming lacquer, and through the windows of a barbershop she watches a