Remember the Time (37 page)

Pride wasn’t something he was feeling right now, as he reviewed his performance with Kate, and his confrontation with Mike. He never wanted to feel like this again. He made a vow to himself to never again do anything that would erase the pride his mother felt for him. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth. Not now. It would be more than she could take after all that had come down this day. The concept of hiding the truth to prevent pain was suddenly made crystal clear to him, and Matt grew up a little more just then.

His mother was downstairs in the kitchen. He could hear her pulling pots out of the cupboard, getting ready for dinner. He sat at his desk, staring at the unopened envelope in front of him. What new hurt was this going to inflict, that it had been meant for his uncle only?

Matt put his fingers on it, as if he could get some sense of what it would tell him. Finally, he opened his pocket knife, slit the envelope, and read the letter written in Paul Armstrong’s familiar, spiky handwriting.

Matt held the letter with one hand, the open passbook in the other, and he gazed at both in disbelief. A little over 65,000 dollars sat in an account in his name. A final deposit of four hundred dollars had been made March 6, 1994, just a few days before Paul had died.

Everything had grown very quiet. The blood rushed in his ears. It was the only sound he heard for some time. Then his face scrunched up like a little child’s and he began to cry.

Sheryl had been calling him down for dinner. When he didn’t answer, she ran upstairs and pushed open his bedroom door to find him there, sobbing, his face hidden in the crook of his arm. He still held Paul’s letter and the passbook.

“Matt? Sweetheart?” Her fingers touched his hair, the back of his neck. He turned and buried his face in her stomach. “Do you understand a little better now? He did care. This was the best he could do.” Matt shook his head back and forth, but she went on. “I always kept out a hundred dollars. Remember the time you wanted that
new glove and shoes, and I told you I’d help pay for half if you saved the rest? And you mowed lawns and did yardwork for two weeks? It was really Paul who paid the half. It was always Paul’s money that got you those extra things you wanted. That hundred helped pay for your clothes, and books for school, and camp.

“The rest of the money went into that savings account. It was going to be for college, but you got that scholarship. It’s yours now. You’ll be making good money in a few years, if things go the way you hope, but you’ll always have it to fall back on.”

Pulling away from her, he said, “I don’t want it! It’s guilt money.”

Sheryl looked at him in dismay. “But he really wanted you to have it, Matt. He didn’t have to send anything.”

Flinging the little book across the room, he shouted, “Fuck him! I can live my life without it. He’s nothing like I thought he was! He’s fucking nothing!” Matt stood and strode across the room to the framed baseball card. He ripped it off the wall and threw it on the floor.

Sheryl flinched as the glass shattered, but she raised her voice above his. “Matt, he was human. He wasn’t perfect. No one is!”

“How come you’re on his side all of a sudden?”

“I’m not. Believe me, I’m not! But I know those photos of you and the letters I sent meant the world to him. You were the good part of him, no matter what else he did.”

Matt whirled around to face her. “He treated Kate like shit,
didn’t he
?” When she didn’t answer, he yelled,
“Didn’t he?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I knew it! He had Kate, but I bet she wasn’t enough for him.” Fists clenched at his sides, he said, “I don’t want to be like him. Tell me I’m not like him!”

“You’re not, Matt.”

But he was so afraid that he was. In a tight voice, he said, “I don’t want the money. I want you to have it. You’re the one who deserves it.”

“God, I wish Mike were here. Maybe he could help you more than I can.”

Matt thought about what he might have done to Mike and Kate and their love for each other. He thought of Christmas without his uncle. And he suddenly blurted out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything!”

“What are you talking about, Matt? You haven’t done anything wrong. None of this is your fault.”

“I don’t think Mike feels that way.”

“It’s not going to make any difference to Mike. He’ll always love you. I already told you that.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have a really merry Christmas this year, aren’t we, Mom,” he said sarcastically.

Sheryl checked the anger she suddenly felt. “Please come down and have dinner with me, Matt. We can talk some more.”

“Sorry, Mom. I don’t feel much like eating. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“All right, Matt. If you get hungry, there’s chicken and dumplings.” She started toward the door. “I was going to decorate the tree tonight. I’d like your company.”

Two hours later, as Sheryl strung the garlands around the tree she and Matt had cut down two days earlier, he quietly entered the living room. Without a word, he took one end of the string of silver beads from his mother.

She looked up at him and a tentative smile played across her lips. “Make sure it’s straight.”

He smiled a little himself. “You say that every year, Mom.”

T
hey had finished trimming the tree to the sounds of Christmas carols and occasional teasing, but Matt knew something was missing. It was his third Christmas since his mother and father had divorced and he still had a hard time with it. He tended to imagine his father alone in his town house in Savannah, putting up some pathetic artificial tree, no one to open presents with on Christmas Day. Actually, nothing was further from the truth, and Matt knew this, but the drama of it seemed to alleviate his own feelings of loneliness.

But not this year. This year there was no Mike to join in the good-natured baiting of his mother. This year he’d met Kate, and had wished for a holiday that might include her. This year there was the specter of Paul hanging over them all. And as Matt hung his favorite ornament, a blown glass baseball, he felt a sudden wave of hatred for Paul Armstrong so strong that he knew he had to get out. Had to think. Had to try to make some sense of it all.

He told his mother he was going out to meet a friend, and left the house before she could question him. The MG was balky in the subfreezing temperature, but it
finally started with the choke pulled out fully, and it roared away into the night.

There was no friend to meet. Nowhere to go, really. He drove through the deserted streets of downtown Staunton. Streetlamps were trimmed in silver tinsel. Plastic golden bells hung from the traffic lights. The heads of the parking meters were covered with candy-cane striped bags, wishing the citizens a merry Christmas. The city’s gift to its inhabitants was free parking for the holidays. Passing the lighted revolving sign on the bank, Matt was informed that the time was 10:33 and the temperature was 28 degrees.

He ended up on Kate’s street. Matt slowly drove past her dark house, then around the block and coasted to a stop. He killed the engine at the far corner of her lot, on the street that intersected Frazier, and was just getting the courage up to get out of the car—to knock on her door and see if she’d talk to him—when a car’s headlights penetrated the darkness.

Matt sank down, and the car continued up the street. Matt had been holding his breath and now let it out in a rush. Time seemed to pass slowly—“erosion” was the word that came to mind. Twenty-five minutes had ticked by on the MG’s clock while he battled with himself. But he was cold, his feet felt numb, and Matt finally got out of the car.

His knock brought nothing but Homer to the door. The doorbell made the dog whimper. He was truly freezing now, yet unwilling to go home. As angry as he was at what Paul Armstrong had done to his memories, Matt still harbored a morbid fascination for him.

He let himself into Kate’s house with the spare key. When the dog saw who it was, he wagged his tail so hard his entire body undulated with delight. “Hey, boy.” Matt rubbed the dog’s head, then went into the kitchen for the flashlight.

Homer followed him up the stairs and into the tower
room. With the flashlight pointed at the floor, Matt tried to decide what his next move should be. He was still searching for some clue as to why Paul had acted the way he did. Still looking for something to give him hope that Paul Armstrong had some good points.

He crossed in front of the window and the light in Mike’s bedroom caught his eye. Matt was irresistibly drawn to the scene he beheld.

Mike and Kate as one. Like a scene from a movie, their love unfolded before him, and Matt found it hard to equate this man and woman, and their passion, with his uncle and Kate. Mike’s head dipped down to take Kate’s mouth in a lingering kiss, and the film Matt watched flickered into slow motion and then freeze-frame as they broke apart. Kate moved first. Matt watched as she disappeared. Mike followed, and Matt knew they had found the bed.

He turned away, feeling like an intruder. Feeling a pang of jealousy. Feeling very alone. He knew how this movie ended, and he was ashamed he’d watched this long.

They had somehow managed to forgive each other. Matt couldn’t help wondering what Kate had told his uncle. If Mike had granted Kate a pardon, would he do the same for him?

Matt sank to the floor and felt Homer’s damp nose nuzzle his hand. He pushed the dog away, also trying to push away the image of what Mike and Kate were doing, but it wouldn’t leave him. And then a superimposed picture materialized in his mind and he saw his mother and Paul Armstrong together. A painful sob erupted from deep inside him and he wished out loud that he’d never learned the truth. Everything in his life was now tainted by one insignificant moment in Paul Armstrong’s life.

Matt raised his head as bitter tears flowed freely down his cheeks, and he cried, “I hate you! I hate what you’ve done. You hurt everyone you touched, you son of a
bitch!” Standing, Matt picked up the first thing his hands encountered. The carved box flew across the small room, spewing its contents in a deafening clatter. “I don’t want to be your son!” he sobbed. “There was
nothing
good about you! Nothing!” Matt slumped to the floor overcome by exhaustion and anguish, and fell into an unrestful sleep.

The tower room was cold. Cold enough for him to see his breath, frosty and white, in the shaft of moonlight through the window. Cold enough for him to wish he’d snagged a blanket on the way up all those hours ago.

Matt shivered uncontrollably and sat up. He huddled in a corner and listened to the wind buffeting around the house. The flashlight sat upended beside him. He’d needed it earlier, but now the sky had cleared and he could make shadow puppets in the moon’s bright rays. Sitting there, surrounded by gloves and trophies and the musty smell of old paper, he was reminded of childhood games of hide-and-seek in the attic of their old house in Clinton. A tear threatened to leak from his eye. Breathing deeply, he carefully stood and stretched his legs.