Part 13 (2/2)

They were.

”We'll call a little later, Nick. Let me talk to Mark first. We'll be back in touch.”

”Who died?” Lyle asked, before I even hung up the phone. I told him.

”Jesus Christ.”

”Car accident.”

”Holy s.h.i.+t.”

”Yeah. Holy s.h.i.+t.”

I turned off the bacon. And kissed my husband's motionless head before going in to talk to Mark.

”This is the part where Anne learns for certain that she's going to die,” Johnny Sanderson had coached us, every afternoon. ”No more chances. She's doomed. You should show a little emotion at this point.”

And Terry would hold his face in both his hands, his shoulders heaving in enormous, racking, make-believe sobs.

But in real life, it was all silent hours. Vacant stares.

As soon as we learned Terry was sick, my house stopped being the daily gathering place. Everyone but me seemed to know what was coming. He stopped being the boy who would throw himself into anything that seemed like fun. And one by one the other children began avoiding us. We had played together all our lives, and then it ended. There was no more ease between us. Not even between my brother and me. I didn't know how to speak to the quiet, solemn boy he had become. And he didn't seem to need me, anymore.

I sat next to my son where he lay stretched on the couch. ”Hey, bud.” I took the book from his hand as I spoke, and lay it open on the tabletop. ”Something's happened, sweetheart. Something bad.” His face was still sleepy, unwashed, his brown hair a little messy. sat next to my son where he lay stretched on the couch. ”Hey, bud.” I took the book from his hand as I spoke, and lay it open on the tabletop. ”Something's happened, sweetheart. Something bad.” His face was still sleepy, unwashed, his brown hair a little messy.

I don't know. Maybe Jeff Mandelbaum's mother saw a different side of her son after my brother died. Could detect a new thoughtfulness in his eyes. Maybe Molly Denham cried herself to sleep for weeks. Maybe Johnny Sanderson's heart was broken. I never knew. They never told me. Johnny did go on to be a history professor, like he always said he would. Made a name for himself at the same university where our fathers had taught. But maybe his life wasn't exactly the way he'd always imagined it, because of what happened to my brother when we were kids.

My son's face changed as he took in the news.

”He's dead dead?”

I nodded. He shook his head.

”No. That's impossible. Just yesterday...”

I nodded again; and he still shook his head. Coco had come into the room in her nights.h.i.+rt. Just behind her, I could see her friend in pajamas holding a hairbrush to her head.

”What's going on?” Coco asked.

”Nothing,” Mark said. ”Go away.”

”Dad's in the kitchen, hon. Go on-he'll talk to you.” And grasping my urgency, she left; but for a moment her friend just stood there staring at us, the brush caught halfway through her hair. Then she too turned and walked away.

”Mom, he can't be dead.”

I didn't speak.

Can't be. I know that feeling.

Can't be.

But is.

I don't think about Terry every day, anymore. And sometimes I'm stunned by that fact. It isn't only the discomfort of disloyalty I feel, it's the fact of utter disappearance after death. The idea that as loved as we may be, we may also be forgotten. If only for a day here and there. don't think about Terry every day, anymore. And sometimes I'm stunned by that fact. It isn't only the discomfort of disloyalty I feel, it's the fact of utter disappearance after death. The idea that as loved as we may be, we may also be forgotten. If only for a day here and there.

More than a decade ago, as soon as I thought Mark was old enough to ask me questions, I made the decision to put away the picture of my brother that I had carried from my parents' home to college, in and out of my first brief marriage, in and out of the first apartment Lyle and I shared, and finally into our family home. I took it down off the bookshelf, where it sat between my old books-all the orange-spined Penguin cla.s.sics, Shakespeare, Woolf, all that-and Lyle's many chemistry texts. It just seemed to me to be too hard on the children, too hard on Mark particularly to have that happy boy face smiling down, and to know what had happened to that other boy. The lines between him and my own son were too easily drawn. I was afraid my brother's face would become a fearful thing for them. And maybe for me as well, with kids of my own. So I put him in the dresser drawer I use for the few really fine scarves and gloves I possess, the softest place for storage I could find.

But of course the children have always known that I had a brother and that he died. A brother named Terrance, Terry. They know about him without my ever having had to tell either of them. Uncle Terry, he would have been. It's family information. The kind that travels in the air that children breathe.

At Peter's funeral, we lined up in a row, my husband, my two children, and I. Mark and Coco wore the dress clothes I had bought for Thanksgiving, which is fast upon us now. Another drive to Ma.s.sachusetts. A family visit home. I'll have to phone my parents, I know, and tell them what happened. I haven't done that yet.

We never did call Nick back, the morning that we heard. And I don't think Mark's spoken very much to any of his friends since then. Not about Peter. He goes off to school, and comes right home. Heads straight for his room and closes the door. Coco's asked me if he's going to be okay, and I tell her that he will. And I know that he will. It just takes time, I tell her. It's only been a few weeks. It'll take some more time.

I forced myself to go up to Peter's parents as they stood beside their son's casket, and to say the things you say. Lyle came too, of course, and shook their hands. Mumbled something. Bit his lip. Stepped away so another family friend could do the same. I didn't force the kids, but eventually Mark made his way over. The mother and father both hugged him, hard, and Peter's kid brother shook his hand, with an empty expression on his face. Mark didn't come back to us right away. He just wandered to a corner of the church and stood by himself for a while.

The truth is that sometimes even more than a day goes by before I remember to think of my brother. It's only natural, I've told myself, time and time again. It's human nature, I've thought-as though there's consolation to be found in that. And maybe there is. Maybe it's a gift to be able to let go of the remembering. Some times. Some things.

”What was it like, Mom?” Mark asked me for the first time ever, yesterday. ”What was it like when Uncle Terry died?”

I took my son by the hand, into my room. I opened the dresser drawer and there he was, smiling out from above the softly folded scarves, the empty fingers of my own gloves seeming to want to hold him there.

”It was hard,” I said to Mark, as he lifted the picture toward his face. ”There is no secret answer. It was terribly, terribly hard.”

When I got to Henry VIII in high school-European history, tenth grade-Molly Denham and I were in the same section. She still had that long, straight hair to her waist, and she wore overalls most days. The rap on her was that she smoked a little dope, but not more than most kids. We weren't really friends, anymore. And neither of us said a word to the other, not a single word, as the wives were taught, one by one. It was as though we had never spent those hours together. As though she had never held and kissed my hand. Never asked for my forgiveness, which I so freely gave. And neither of us had watched my brother in that dress, pregnant and cooing seductively to his sire.

There are things that go on, I believe, important things that make only an intuitive kind of sense. Silences, agreed to. Intimacies, put away.

”Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Miss Rafferty wrote the rhyme out on the board while Molly Denham and I dutifully copied it into our notebooks, as though we might otherwise forget.

The History of the World.

I.

ADDING UP THE SILENCES would be an unkind thing to do. would be an unkind thing to do.

Still, if Kate Rodgers were were to add up all the pauses in her brother Arthur's speech, all of them, over the last nearly sixty years, it would make for several days at least, several days of her own life spent waiting for the creaky gears of his brain to locate the proper word. He's struggling now to find to add up all the pauses in her brother Arthur's speech, all of them, over the last nearly sixty years, it would make for several days at least, several days of her own life spent waiting for the creaky gears of his brain to locate the proper word. He's struggling now to find tollbooth tollbooth, and Kate is again waiting, wanting to give him a chance. And, as she waits, she thinks about his brain in just those terms-like a watch that's been dropped and possibly stepped on, so the gears still move, but with a hitch. The kind of hitch in the works that makes you lose a few minutes every day.

”Tollbooth.”

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