A Doubter's Almanac (63 page)

We made it all the way to the bridge, where he stopped finally and looked out over the slowly moving water. It puckered here and there where the fish were rising. Along the edge, the shore grasses rustled. In the distance, a tiny, dark triangle appeared and began drifting downstream toward us. As it neared, Dad said, “What do you suppose it is, kids?”

“A beaver,” said Emmy.

It might have been the first thing she’d said to him since she’d arrived.

Dad smiled. “That’s right, young lady. How’d you know?”

But she didn’t answer, just shrugged and turned to look back over the creek.

—

“H
E LIKES HAVING
you here,” I said.

“He just loves women,” answered Audra. She set her makeup bag on the counter and leaned down before the hotel’s tiny mirror. “I happen to be the youngest legal one in the vicinity.”

“That you are, and that he does. And you’re a beautiful one, too.”

“Well, thank you.” She turned from the mirror. “How do you think the kids are taking it, seeing him like this?”

“I think it might be the only chance they’ll get.”

“That’s what Niels said, too.” She reached for my hand. “Your dad’s trying hard with them, you know. He’s trying very hard to be decent.”

“I know, Aud. And Em can barely look at him.”

“Actually,” she said, “I don’t think Em can keep her eyes off him. Haven’t you noticed? Today, I saw her standing on a stool to watch him out the window.”

“Well, he’s more interesting than the squirrels.”

“She was hiding behind the curtain so he wouldn’t see her. He was on the porch about a foot away.”

“Did he see her?”

“No. He was concentrating. It’s not easy to open a pack of cigarettes with one hand.”

I laughed. “Well, at least she keeps her distance. That might be a good thing, in the long run.”

“Do you think so?”

“I don’t know, actually. I really don’t know
what
to think.”

“Well, I think she keeps her distance because she’s utterly fascinated by him,” she said. “There’s something so raw about him, Hans. Something so completely raw to the world. I think she recognizes it.”

—

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Niels came bounding out onto the porch. He opened his fist to Emmy, who hardly looked up from her book; then he came skipping across the floor and opened it to me. “Look what Grandpa made me!” He brought his hand to his mouth and let out a trill. “It works!”

“Apparently so,” said Emmy.

“Look, Em! It’s got two frequencies!”

“Dork.”

“He made two different-sized holes!”

“I’m reading.”

When he blew it near her ear, she raised a foot to kick him; but he tore back through the door and down the path. The screen banged shut, and he let out another two-toned blast.

I was watching Emmy. After a time, I said, “What book do you have there, sweetie?”

“Swiss Family Robinson.”

“I see.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You can read what you want, Em. I don’t care.”

“Thanks.”

She turned a page.

“Did your mother say something?”

“Shhh!”

“Well, it’s okay, you know. As far as I’m concerned, you can read whatever you want.”

She didn’t look up. I leaned forward. It was indeed what I thought: Zygmund and Fefferman’s
Trigonometric Series
.

“You know,” I said, “when
I
was a kid, Aunt Paulie used to think that Grandpa paid more attention to me than her.”

She set down the book. “Aunt Paulie used to think that?”

“Yes, she did. I don’t happen to believe it myself. I think he paid his own kind of attention to both of us. But that’s how your aunt saw it. I wonder if she mentioned anything to you.”

She screwed up her face. “It’s weird that Aunt Paulie was your sister.”

“She still
is
my sister, Ems.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Aunt Paulie used to be a lot like you, you know. She was great in math.”

“I’m not great in math.”

“Excuse me?”

“Grandpa’s better.”

“Oh, I see.” I glanced into the house, where Dad was asleep on the living-room sofa, his head thrown back against the cushions. “You could do anything in the world that you wanted to, you know. Mathematical or otherwise.”

“Okay, Dad.” She picked up the book.

“Your grandfather loves you, Em.”

“Thanks.”

“Things were different when he was young.”

“Mm-hmm.”

I reached out and laid my hand over her foot. “He’ll whittle one for you, too, Em. You know that, right?”

“You’re so weird.”

“He will. He’ll make one for each of you. I’ll make sure he does.”

She turned a page. A few moments later, without looking up, she reached into her side pocket and held her hand out in my direction. “He already gave it to me,” she said.

—

“M
AY
I
ASK
you something, Dr. Gandapur?”

“Of course.”

The two of us were on the dock, waiting for another sunset. Through the broken clouds, the flaming disk was dulling into a copper penny before it dropped into the slot.

“I understand,” I said, “that no test is perfect. I know all about specificity and sensitivity. I know all about outcome and probability.”

“I’m sure there are few in the world who know it as well,” he replied—then added, “Except, perhaps, your father.”

“But I have to ask. You didn’t send Dad for any tests recently, did you?”

“I could not have, Hans. He would not allow it.”

“He wouldn’t?”

“Those were not my wishes, you see, they were his. And they have always been. No testing. No treatment. He forbade everything from the beginning. In his situation, I could hardly say I disagreed.” He set his hands into his pockets. “Is there a reason you ask?”

“No, no—I was just wondering. That’s what I thought.”

He turned from the view now, regarding me with his wrinkled eyes. “You’re a good son, Hans,” he said. “God bless you.” Then he lifted his hand to my shoulder. “And God bless your father, too.”

—

O
N THE PORCH
that night after dinner, Dad was shoveling down one of Paulie’s custards. His thready hair was damp with sweat, the ridges of his skull showing through when he sucked at his fingers. “Why don’t you all get the hell out of here,” he said suddenly. “All you leeches!”

“Milo—” said my mother.

“Get off me!”

“What’s the matter, Grandpa?” said Niels.

We’d been gathered on the porch, watching the moon come up over the lake. It had been a fine day.

“I said get out of here. All of you—
out
!”

“What is it, Grandpa?”

He looked straight at Niels. “I want a roll in the hay with your mother, that’s what.”

Audra burst out laughing. Paulie reddened, then herded Niels and Emmy through the door.

Mom blanched. Then she turned away, blinking.

—

W
HEN
I
ENTERED
the kitchen, the kids looked startled. A Tigers game was on the radio, and Niels jumped from his seat to turn down the volume. Emmy looked away.

“What are you two doing inside on a day like this?”

“Orioles-Tigers,” said Niels.

“Well, who’s winning?”

“Don’t know.” He moved quickly to the window and looked out at the water. Behind him on the table, where Emmy was sitting, was a glass that Dad had been using, and alongside it an ashtray crammed with his cigarette butts. I looked at the two of them. “Was Grandpa listening with you?”

“He’s asleep,” said Emmy. “He’s on the couch again.”

Niels said, “The president of Harvard tried to make curveballs illegal.”

“What was that, Niels?”

“President Eliot. He said a curveball should be against the law for pitchers from Harvard because it was disevil.”

“Deceitful,” said Emmy.

“Come on, Em.” He was at the door already, tapping his fingers. “Let’s go swimming.”

The door slammed, and a moment later Niels was down at the water; but Emmy didn’t follow him. As I cleaned the table, she stayed near me. I tossed away the cigarette butts and wiped down the mats. When the plates were all in the rack, I laid my hand on the top of her head. “Ems,” I said. “You didn’t try any of that, did you?”

“Any of what?”

“What was in Grandpa’s glass.”

“Oh, no. Of course not.”

“Good.”

I picked up the newspaper and straightened the chairs. As I scrubbed the pots, we both watched Niels. He was skipping rocks. He was concentrating, the way he concentrates on everything—searching for each new stone, weighing it in his palm, rehearsing the sidearm flick two or three times before he released. But nonetheless, every few throws he looked up to see if Emmy was still in the house with me.

She was. Standing quietly against my side. Finally she said, “Niels tried a little, though.”

—

T
WO A.M.
H
IS
bed empty. In the dark, I felt through the sheets. Blankets twisting from the mattress. When I turned on the light, his pillow was kicked against the wall.

The bathroom vacant. The wheelchair angled into a corner of the hallway.

“Dad?”

Outside, finally, in the beam of my flashlight, there he was, at the end of the dock. He was kneeling before the water, his pajamas bunched to his knees, his cast hooked around one of the bench posts behind him. He turned. In the other hand was his limp, edemic penis, that arm still vaguely pumping.

—

“W
ELL, AT LEAST
the kids didn’t see it,” said Audra.

“Count your blessings.”

She took my hand. “In some ways it’s a sign of life, Hans.”

“Or the reverse.”

Out on the porch, we could see him on the daybed again, struggling to light another cigarette.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “The other night—when he said that stuff about rolling in the hay—do you think he thought you were my mother?”

“I don’t know, actually.”

“Or do you think he might have thought that Niels was
me
?”

“I don’t know, honey. I really don’t.”

I looked out at him on the porch. “Or did he actually mean
you
?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” After a moment, she said, “He’s not used to having people in his house, either. It must be confusing. It must tire him out.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

She took my hand. “Hans,” she said, “I was thinking—maybe it would be better if I took the kids home early.”

I nodded.

She said, “I’m so sorry.”

“The thing is, now I wish they’d met him earlier.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s one of the things I’m sorry about.”

The Curse of Knowledge

W
ALKING DOWN TO
the water with me one morning, he slipped, his feet shooting out from beneath him. But I caught his shoulder and lifted him back up. Then I guided us the rest of the way down through the trees. At the shore, I held his elbow.

He shook it. “Enough.”

In the house now, he moved as though irked by everything. Picked up papers and dropped them. Flipped light switches. From the hallway, we could see him whenever he used the toilet. He no longer bothered to close the door, just propped himself against the wall and waited interminably for relief, his scoliotic back angled over the bowl. Cle had returned from her trip now, but with Audra and the kids gone, Dad had tossed aside all modesty. He’d just stand there in the dull light, turning now and then to shrug. The medicine scorched his bowels, too. Sometimes he would just sit on the toilet and stare, a curl of cigarette smoke rising into the fan. Cle would get up and shut the door.

One morning I watched him try to turn off the hot-water faucet. He leaned against the sink like a being from another galaxy. The knobby fingers clumsily rotating the handles: first one, then the other, then the first again, turning all of them the wrong way in comical succession until finally I stepped in to help.

—

I
N THE SHED,
I found Paulie sitting in his chair. Her hands were at her temples, and she was leaning over the blotter. Without looking up, she said, “You have beautiful children.”

“They have their moments, Paulie.”

The room smelled the way my sister used to: mud and herbal shampoo. She was in overalls.

“I’m trying to imagine,” she said.

“Imagine what?”

“His existence. I’m trying to fathom it. Look at this.” With her foot, she pushed the top off one of the file boxes that were on the floor behind her, and I saw the red wax seals on the bottle corks. It was hard to believe they were still out here. “He spent all his time boozing. It’s not even a surprise anymore.”

“I know, Paulie. It was a symptom.”

“Of?”

“Of his pain.”

She stiffened. Then she said, “All our lives, Hans—all our lives, Mom was the one who did everything.”

“Well, that’s how it goes sometimes.”

“Are you serious? Do you really think that our family was just
how it goes sometimes
? Mom slaved for him. She took care of him. She tried to take care of his career. She took care of everything, so that he could do one great thing. And he had a chance to.” She kicked the box. “But all he did was drink. All he did was fucking
drink
.” She looked up at me. “Then he abandoned us.”

“That’s not the whole story.”

“And now Mom wants him back.”

“What?”

“She does, Hans. I can see it. She can’t even help herself.”

She dropped her head, and when I looked past her I noticed that the room had been gone through: his papers had been shuffled; books were sideways on the shelves; up in the rafters, the lids had been tipped up on his boxes.

“Paulie?”

“Yes?”

I pointed toward the ceiling. “Didn’t you know about all this?”

“About what he was doing out here? Of course I did.”