MORNING
1 THE INTRUDER
It was still dark out when Martin and his daughter, Ruby, sat down on opposite sides of the living room floor, closed their eyes, and tried to forget each other. Ruby, twenty-four, had moved back home only a week ago, and this was the first time she had agreed to meditate with her father. But instead of being present with his inhalations and exhalations, Martin found himself leaping into the future, stupidly hopeful that after they’d finished meditating, Ruby would hug him and say she could already feel her sense of wonder swelling and her anxiety ebbing and her inner light growing more numinous, and oh, even though her dad was just a building super he was smarter than any of her college professors, he was the smartest guy she knew, and she was so grateful to him. An embarrassingly needy fantasy. Martin’s job often involved trafficking in the small embarrassments of others—in the last week alone, the corporate lawyer in 4D had called screaming with fear about a water bug in the hallway, the financial analyst in 9A had called about her tampon-clogged toilet, the hedge-fund-portfolio manager in 6C had admitted he’d drunkenly tossed his keys on the subway tracks—but he still never felt fully prepared for how humiliating his own thoughts could be, especially when they revealed his desire for the approval of his daughter.
Anyway, why seek her approval at all? Ruby was a mess—deep in debt, newly jobless, nervous about her interview today, and angry at finding herself back living with her parents in the basement apartment after years of steps toward some higher elevation. Martin should expect no hug from her, no declaration of gratitude. Of course, it would be nice if the meditation helped her a little. Maybe she would look up afterward and smile at him.
Only a few minutes in, Ruby coughed. Martin opened his eyes.
“So,” Ruby said, “I’m not feeling happier yet.”
“Meditation’s actually not about feeling happier.” He used the same gentle voice he had used on the couple in 7B when he told them they would have to pull up the blue Brazilian marble tile in their bathroom because of a leak. “Meditation’s about looking inward. It’s about increasing self-awareness.”
“Oh, Dad,” Ruby said, “if you were self-aware, you’d recognize this whole enlightened-guru thing is just your secular Judaism deteriorating into some half-baked New Age muck.”
“That New Age muck helps lower my blood pressure.” The gentle blue-tile-pulling voice was gone. “I need nice low blood pressure, Ruby, so I don’t lose it when yuppie tenants scream at me about rats nibbling away at their cheese straws.”
“God, the rats.” She stood up from the floor. “Can we not talk about the rats again?”
“Lower your voice. Your mom’s still asleep.”
“Mom’s always saying she never had the patience for meditation and you don’t push it on her.”
“She’s not the one anxious and awake before the sun’s even up.”
Ruby plopped onto the couch. “Maybe I can try being mindful from over here? The floor is cold.”
Of course the floor was cold. It was early March, the chill outside somehow made rawer by the nearness of spring, the hope for better weather. Still, Martin was pretty sure you were supposed to meditate on or close to the floor, no matter how cold it was. You could sit on a meditation bench, like Martin did, or a pillow, but you had to remain low to the ground. You definitely weren’t supposed to go around seeking inner peace on couches, and especially not on that couch, which was an ugly couch, upholstered in a butterscotch-orange velour fabric with a print of an old mill and a couple of paunchy cows. Debra had forced him to drag it in from the courtyard’s alleyway years ago (“It’s not hideous, Martin, it’s retro!”). The sad cow eyes repeated on the fabric behind his daughter somehow made him even more irritated with Ruby. “You know what happens if I do lose my cool in front of the tenants?” he asked her. “I lose this job.”
“You’ve been the super here forever.” She looked down at him. “They wouldn’t fire you now. You’re basically an Upper West Side institution.”
An Upper West Side institution. Like the Museum of Natural History, where Ruby’s job interview was today. Maybe she would mention Martin to the museum people. Maybe she would joke, “You should put my dad in a diorama.” He felt the meditation bench digging into his thighs and said, “Actually, Ruby, the management company would fire me in a heartbeat if I shouted at a tenant. They want a younger guy. If I lose my cool, I lose this job. And if I lose this job, we lose our insurance and we lose this apartment.” And if they lost this apartment, Martin and Debra would be homeless, at least for a little while. So much of their savings had gone to Ruby’s college education. Leading to what? Now she sat there on the couch, wearing baggy jeans and a large T-shirt for a charity race Martin was sure she hadn’t run, its front polka-dotted with the slogans of corporate sponsors. The shirt must have belonged to John, her ex-boyfriend, who had recently kicked her out of the apartment they’d shared in Brooklyn. Why was his unemployed daughter here in the basement wearing an oversize T-shirt covered with the names of massive banks?
“Wow, Dad. What a glare.” Ruby sat straighter on the couch. “I’m not sure the meditation’s working for you.”
“Maybe don’t be so snotty about my meditation practice while your mom and I let you stay here.”
“Please.” Ruby lifted her hands, as though the pink stretch of her palms should be enough to earn his compassion. “I feel pathetic already. Don’t guilt me.”
But his guilting must have possessed some power, because she hopped off the couch and sat down on the floor again, joining him once more in the muck of his spiritual practice. She bent her head and would not look at him. He closed his eyes, focused on his inhalation. At least Ruby was showing more signs of shame than she had last week. “I’m not your human daughter anymore,” she had said to Martin and Debra as she moved back in, dragging old grocery bags full of clothes through the door. “It turns out you birthed a living, breathing think piece. The failure to launch millennial blah-dee-blah.” She had looked expectantly at her parents, but neither one of them had laughed. Her words had sounded rehearsed to Martin. Bravado paired with self-deprecation—was this all her education had taught her?
Ruby had graduated from college just after the 2008 recession hit and she was still mired in debt. Martin and Debra had contributed what they could spare. Stupidly, the specter of debt had been the least of Martin’s worries when Ruby first moved away to attend her very expensive university on a partial scholarship. At the time, he had most feared that she would start to behave like the tenants in the building. When she called home to say that her dorm looked like a castle or to gush about some art history course (“Truly, Professor Sharondale’s reconceptualized my understanding of dioramas as a creative force . . .”), part of him could only hear the call she might make after she hung up, a call to a maintenance man like him—some guy without a college degree—complaining about the appearance of mold in the dorm bathroom or about a dead light bulb.