"What are you talking about?"
"Your father"s temper. Are you such a goody-goody? You thought your mother had a nose job; your father punched her."
I know exactly what she"s talking about, and she"s entirely right-my mother broke her nose, but I thought she"d been in some kind of accident.
"Why?"
"Who knows," Lillian says. "Sometimes he just exploded."
"This is not what I expected."
"Your parents protected you and your brother. Your uncle Louie was another one, a nogoodnik always trying to make a deal. And his wife, what did she know, carrying on with the accountant from the temple."
"The guy with the b.u.mps-like blisters or warts?" I say, again dimly recalling.
"They were fatty tumors, and he was a very nice man, nicer than your Louie, but that doesn"t make it right. He was married. His wife was a clubfoot mute; he won her in a poker game."
I can"t help but laugh.
"I fail to see the humor. He loved her, took very good care of her, and they had four children."
"Do you remember that we used to celebrate the High Holy Days together, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and then, suddenly, we didn"t?" I ask.
"Yes," she says. "Of course. It"s all about matzoh b.a.l.l.s." Lillian pauses and then looks at me, filled with pity, frustration, contempt. "Why can"t you take responsibility for what your family did? I was hoping you were coming to apologize."
"I"m sorry."
"For what?"
"For whatever it was that you felt happened that wronged you-I am sorry. Very sorry."
"I"m not sure you mean it."
"Well, I"m not sure I understand exactly what happened, but the fact that you"re hurt-I"m very sorry for. I came with an open heart. I can"t exactly apologize for something I didn"t do."
"You came because you had nowhere else to go. If things were going great, we never would have heard from you."
I am not feeling very well. Her accusations, the tension, the whole d.a.m.n day with the trip into the city to get the soup, the drive out here, the fatigue, the finding out, all of it has been a lot-too much. "Aunt Lillian, I should go now, but if you"d like, I"ll come again."
"It"s not necessary," Lillian says. "Give your mother my best. Where is she?" she asks as though it"s slipped her mind.
"She"s in a home."
"And what condition is she in?"
"She seems to be improving."
"Tell her I"m sorry about the soup; cooking the b.a.l.l.s in water first or in the soup is fine-in the end, what the h.e.l.l does it matter?"
"Thank you," I say. "I"ll tell her. By the way, she wanted me to ask you about a pair of earrings...."
Lillian throws up her arms. "Not that c.r.a.p again. Is that what this was all about? You came all the way out here to make nice, you bring me some soup, and then, just as we"re about to say goodbye, you come in for the kill? I should have known...."
She storms out of the room. "Aunt Lillian," I call after her. "I wasn"t trying to give you a hard time, I just asked because my mother wanted me to."
She comes back carrying her ancient jewelry box. "And you do everything your mother asks."
She puts the box down on the table, opens it, and extracts the pearl earrings, the bracelet, and the necklace with the ruby.
"She wondered if that one was lost."
"Your father sold it to me," she says. "Can you imagine, he sold me his wife"s jewelry. He wanted to keep it in the family."
Lillian gives me what my mother was looking for and more. "Some of it your mother gave me, some she wanted me to hold for safekeeping, but I don"t want it, I don"t want it on my conscience, I want nothing to do with any of it, I never did."
She grabs my head with both hands, pulls me down to her level, and gives me a wet kiss. "You"re still a little r.e.t.a.r.d," she says, pushing me towards the door.
When I speak to Nate a few days later he asks, "Are you coming for our Winter Field Day?"
"Am I?" I"m just beginning to feel back to normal, or not really normal, but whatever it is that"s filled in for normal for the last month or so. I can"t say I feel like myself at all; in fact, I can"t actually remember what I ever felt like, and what "myself" might mean.
"My parents always came for Field Day," Nate says.
"When is it?"
"This weekend. It starts Sat.u.r.day morning and ends after church on Sunday."
"Do Jews go to church?"
"It"s nondenominational," he says.
"Church means that it"s Christian."
"I like it," he says.
"Do I bring the dog?" I ask.
"No, someone stays with the dog."
"Does Ashley come?"
"Didn"t they leave you a manual or any kind of instructions?"
"None," I say. "I"m flying blind. I"ll figure it out-just need to know the parameters. Anything you need me to bring you-something you want from home?"
"Like what?"
"A favorite sweater, your copy of Catcher in the Rye?"
"No," he says, as though the question is stressful. "I"ve got what I need."
A weekend in the country sounds good-permission to get the h.e.l.l out of here. I don"t know how it happened, but I"m totally trapped in George"s world, worried that if I leave for a moment, whatever is left will all fall down.
While Nate and I are talking, I"m Googling the school; it"s far more prestigious than I was imagining. Among the alumni are several of Nixon"s former Cabinet and staff members.
"Do you know anyone at the school named Shultz?"
"As in Peanuts Schulz?"
"No," I say. "What about Blount? Or Dent?"
"Who are they?"
"Historical footnotes."
"Not ringing any bells," Nate says.
"No worries. I"ll see you on Sat.u.r.day," I say, signing off.
The school"s Web site has a list of local accommodations; I start calling, but all the hotels and B&Bs are booked. By the time I speak to the woman at the Wind Song, I"m imagining sleeping in the car. It"s fine, I"ll bring some pillows, the arctic sleeping bag, extra blankets, some Ambien, and find a safe place right on campus.
"Is there anything you can do to help me?" I beg. "I can"t let this kid down, I"m all he"s got, his mother died, his father is under lock and key-do you have any ideas?"
"My daughter"s room," the woman says. "We don"t usually rent it, but there"s a twin bed, I can let you have it-a hundred and fifty a night, breakfast included, shared bathroom."
"Perfect," I say.
"Actually," she says, pausing-and in the background I hear voices-"I was wrong, it"s a hundred and eighty a night. Like I said, we don"t usually rent it, but my husband is reminding me that last time we did, it was one eighty. There"s a new mattress."
"Can I give you my credit card?" I say, fearing another uptick in the price if I don"t act fast.
Determined to do a good job playing the parental subst.i.tute, I borrow a tie, shoes, and a sport coat from George"s closet and depart promptly at 6 a.m. on Sat.u.r.day. It takes two hours and twenty minutes to crawl to the edge of Ma.s.sachusetts. At the gates of the academy, parents in their Mercedes wagons and weekend toy sports cars are directed to the main building, where coffee and Danish are being served. Young men with names like Scooter and Biff greet their parents, gruffly hugging their corduroy fathers and politely pecking the boiled-wool mothers. They all have the same heart-shaped faces, deeply American, impenetrable. There are four Asians, three blacks, and that"s it for diversity.
The school is laid out like an olde English village and makes the college where I teach look like an urban vocational school buried in one of the five boroughs that at best would teach men and women how to change oil and fix TV sets. The main building is a mansion, grand, imposing, with enormous oil portraits of the school"s founding fathers hung high, large flower arrangements on ancient wooden cabinets. Everything is dark-there"s a lot of deep, dark wood paneling, secret pa.s.sageways, old leather sofas and chairs. On long tables dressed in starched white tablecloths they"ve laid out quite a spread. Nate finds me in the coffee line; I"m grateful to spot a familiar face.
"The Danish are really good, you should have one," I say, unsure of the protocol regarding my hugging him or not-I a.s.sume not.
"I already did," he says. "They bake them every weekend. There"s a pastry chef on staff."
"How did you end up at this school?" I whisper.
"You mean, what"s a loser like me doing in a place like this?" He pauses. "I test really well, and Dad used to be "someone." The Chairman of the Board of the network is a very active alum."
"You have friends here?"
"Yes," he says. "I"m happy here, happier here than at home."
"And Ash is at a place like this too?" I ask, chewing through a cinnamon bun.
"Hers is different. The girls live in small houses, not dorms. It"s a bit less compet.i.tive, more homey."
"Your mom did a great job finding the right places for you guys." I slip a bagel with cream cheese, wrapped in a cloth napkin, into the pocket of my sport coat. My hand b.u.mps into something. "Tessie sent this," I say, pulling a well-chewed rawhide from my pocket and handing it to Nate. He smiles. As we walk out of the building, Nate points out the library: "We have approximately one-point-five million volumes and an active interlibrary loan system."
"Better than most small colleges and where I teach," I say.
"Wait until you see the pool," Nate says.
Outside the field house, a man dressed like a court jester hands out parchment scrolls tied with a ribbon, like something they would have pa.s.sed out in Rome long ago.
"It"s the program for today"s events," Nate says. "It begins with the dedication-used to be the firing of the first arrow, now it"s the Headmaster"s cannon. He"s from Scotland."
Moments later, there"s a droning of bagpipes, and a pair of pipers slowly crosses the hill opposite us, followed by the Headmaster, marching in his plaid kilt, pumping his scepter up and down, keeping time. "He"s naked under there," Nate whispers, "that"s the tradition. And he"s hung like a horse and makes sure everyone knows it." From the gra.s.sy knoll, the cannon is fired, and reflexively I duck. "Let the games begin," the Headmaster declares.
"Do you have a sport?" it suddenly occurs to me to ask.
"Sure," Nate says, "ice hockey, lacrosse, tennis, I"m on the inter-school fencing team, and swimming-we"ll do both of those today. I also do hurdles and the pommel horse. And I signed us up for father/son rock climbing."
"I didn"t even know you liked sports," I say. I really only ever saw the kid playing video games.
In the field house, the coaches remind us that "these games are intended as demonstrations of our programs rather than compet.i.tive events. Within the school we work to build teams so our boys can bond." The coaches spew catchphrases such as "environment of success" and "a prize for every player, medals for all who partic.i.p.ate." But, despite the coaches" talk, everyone is clearly keeping track of who wins and loses.
"Which one is yours?" one of the parents asks me, nodding towards the cl.u.s.ter of boys.
"I"m with Nate," I say.
And I feel the theoretically imperceptible recoil. "Of course," he says, and nothing more; they all know what happened.
I look at Nate-tall, tousled. The other boys are a range of shapes and sizes and pimple patterns. Nate is among the better-looking, attractive in a way that the others are not. In sport he is neither the best nor the worst; what is clear is that he is the one they all want on their team. He"s a reliable performer, steady, true, with no need to sacrifice the team for personal gratification. I feel an unfamiliar sensation of pride, a rising in the chest, a pleasant reflux as I watch Nate b.u.t.terfly-stroke across the pool. I cringe, during the fencing exhibition, when the other boy lunges forward, "stabbing" Nate, and the "a.s.sault" is called to an end.
At lunch, various boys and their mothers stop by our table. "If you ever need a place to go during the holidays, you can always come ski with us," one mom says. Another squeezes his shoulder and asks, "Are you holding up?"
"I"m doing well," Nate says.
"Of course you are," she says.
I"m eating my second piece of cake, simply because it is there, because there were four kinds of cake to choose from and two seemed reasonable. I am eating cake when Nate fills me in about the father/son rock climbing.
"It"s right after lunch," he says, clearly looking forward to it.
"It"s a tradition," I say sarcastically as I"m pushing my plate away. Too late, one whole piece of cheesecake is gone and half of the chocolate layer.
"Yes," Nate says. "It"s on a man-made indoor wall three stories tall. The fathers aren"t expected to go all the way up, but some will-even if it kills them, some will always exceed expectations."
"I"m not that man," I say bluntly. "How about I stand at the bottom and watch you."
"Can"t," Nate says. "It"s a hundred percent partic.i.p.ation."
"I recently had a minor stroke and am supposed to avoid overexertion," I say.