Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano Page B

to tug away occasionally. She skips a distance and then stops each time at the same exact point, turns, and walks back to her siblings.
    She is tied to the tree. All the children are tied to the tree. They have white sashes around their waists that lead back to a fat white loop around the tree trunk.
    These are the Ballen children. They lived in Paterson near where Patrick grew up. As a child, Patrick was friends with the children’s mother. The father was a drunk, usually gone. Patrick, the children, and I stopped by their house once, on our way home from a visit with Patrick’s parents. We were dropping off some kind of food, perhaps a casserole, or a pie, from Patrick’s mother. I was never comfortable in that neighborhood. It was so different from where I had grown up. The tiny cramped grocery store Patrick’s mother ran. The two cramped rooms upstairs where Patrick and his brothers and parents had lived. The tiny, poorly constructed houses that ran up and down the surrounding streets, filled with Irish. The Ballens’ house was no more than a shack. We pulled up in our shiny Ford that afternoon, and the children piled out before I could stop them. Kelly, Pat, Meggy, Theresa, Johnny, Ryan. I had wanted this to be a quick drop-off and drive away. I followed reluctantly, not wanting to be rude. Mrs. Ballen opened the door, beads of sweat on her forehead, wiping her hands on a filthy dish towel. She flushed to the roots of her hair at the sight of us. She took the casserole, or pie, or whatever it was and said thank you. Johnny said, “Where are your children?” Mrs. Ballen, looking more and more uncomfortable, said, “Around back.” And we all followed Johnny, not knowing what else to do. After all, what did I have in common with this woman? Patrick said something to Mrs. Ballen about his law practice and she nodded. I think he had done some pro bono work for her at one time. We heard her children—one crying, several laughing, a few squeals—as we walked around the side of the shack. We rounded the final corner, and saw them. Tied to the tree in the middle of the yard like a pack of dogs. Mrs. Ballen, her skin still bright red, said in apology, “It’s the only way I can keep track of them.”
    I had hated that afternoon. Those twenty excruciating minutes with Mrs. Ballen and her children. Piling our own children back into the Ford. Driving out of Paterson, past the waterfall, back to Ridgewood and our neatly ordered, comfortable home where Willie had dinner waiting. Why would I see those children now? I hadn’t thought of them in years. I had never seen them, or Mrs. Ballen, again. I knew she had died young of a heart attack, the poor woman. I had no idea what had become of her offspring, who would now be in their forties and fifties, the same age as my own children. And yet here they are, tied to a tree outside my window.
    I don’t look away. After all, if God or Patrick thinks this is something I need to see, I will not argue. I can stand to be uncomfortable. I simply rearrange myself in my chair and watch. The Ballen children are there for nearly an hour. After a while, the older children notice me. The oldest girl and the twins wave their arms in my direction, then point at their waists. They want me to untie them. They want me to set them free. The twins stand up straight, two lovely little boys, and press their palms together in front of their chests. In prayer, in supplication, in hope.
    “I’m sorry, I can’t, I don’t know how,” I say, over and over, until the vision ends, until the children disappear, until I am left alone.
    AFTER THIS sighting, I pay a visit to my son Ryan. Something about the murkiness, the timelessness of that vision, leads me to him. As it is, I visit him every Tuesday afternoon, rain or shine. That is our schedule. He serves Pepperidge Farm cookies and tea, which I eat and drink with as little motion as possible, hoping the birds overhead won’t notice I’m there. He