Ask Him Why (24 page)

Then we talked about Jenny for the rest of the session.

And I was good with the way we left it. Because I knew exactly when I would be ready. Never. So I’d just ask Joseph to contact me then.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

April 22, 2013 1:12 a.m.

Joseph,

I’m hearing from Ruth that you’re going to try to get in touch.

Don’t. Really, don’t. I know it sounds terrible. But I feel like I learned a good lesson a long time ago: if someone hurts you, and you let him back into your life again, he’ll hurt you again.

Just so you know, Ruth already told me her supposedly exculpatory message from you. How you didn’t get in touch because you couldn’t. But it was bullshit. You were sentenced, he’d left the family
. . .
you could have done anything you wanted. It didn’t change my thinking one bit. It just stirred up all that very upsetting old crap that I want very badly to leave behind.

So, please. Respect me on this.

Aubrey Rogers

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

April 22, 2013 3:01 a.m.

Mr. Universe,

Two answers.

One, yes. I’ll respect that.

Two, I’m holding out hope that you’ll change your mind. Not even about me in general. Just about giving me fifteen minutes or so to get something said.

I wanted to tell you when I came home ten years ago, but the only time we got to talk was that time when I woke you up. I didn’t want to make it hard for you to get back to sleep. I thought I’d have a million more chances.

I learned a good lesson a long time ago, too, Mr. Universe: never assume you’ll have a million more chances.

You see, nobody asked me why I did what I did. Literally nobody. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Such an obvious question. And there was a reason. A very specific reason. And it had nothing to do with fear, or with wanting to undermine the war effort as a whole. But I think everybody was so sure it did
. . .
I think that’s why nobody asked me. They just assumed I was a coward and a traitor.

I’m not saying I didn’t feel fear. I think everyone over there, if they were being honest with themselves and each other, was scared. I’m not saying I wasn’t; I’m just saying I went out every night, scared or not. Until the night I didn’t. And when I didn’t, fear had nothing to do with it.

I don’t want to tell everybody in the world this story, Mr. Universe. Only you. Because it’s about you. You have a part in this story. I would tell Ruth if she wanted to know, but it’s really not about Ruth, and I think when she heard it, she’d understand why.

Thing is, brother—and make no mistake, you’re still my brother, no matter how much you wish you weren’t—it will completely explode your idea that I didn’t love you enough.

So you have to be ready to let that in.

Doesn’t have to be soon. Has to be before one of us dies, though. And it pays to keep in mind that we only think we know when that will be.

Okay, I admit it. This is a long-winded, long-ass e-mail from a guy who said he’d respect your wishes. Well, I will. From this moment on.

I won’t write, e-mail, call, or visit unless you tell me you’ve changed your mind.

Your brother,

Joseph Stellkellner

Now suddenly I had no idea if signing your last name was a perfectly acceptable practice among brothers, or if he was making fun of the times I’d done it in my letters to him.

I wrote seven responses. Didn’t press send on any of them.

I knew if I did, I would just be opening up an ongoing argument that would lead to all manner of information. Ultimately, I ignored his e-mail. Argued with him in my head, instead.

In time, the fight in my head got tedious. Then it slowed down.

Then I was delightfully unperturbed by my former brother for seven calm, blissful, Joseph-free months. At least, when I didn’t think about it. Which frankly was not as often as I would have liked.

Part Five

What Would Aubrey Do?

Autumn 2013

Chapter Twenty-One: Ruth

I should have known something was very wrong when I first answered the door, and, well . . . I guess I did. I just didn’t know what.

Sean and I had invited both Aubrey and my mother to come to our house for a family Thanksgiving. Needless to say, when I heard the doorbell on the Monday morning before, I didn’t expect the unannounced visit to have anything to do with that upcoming family gathering. Who would?

I put Maya in her playpen, which had been purposely situated so she could see me while I went to the door.

I opened it, and there stood my mom. Well, actually “stood” wouldn’t have been so bad—she rushed me. She charged through the door, threw her arms around me, and rocked me back and forth.

I was too stunned to say anything.

She said plenty.

“Ruth. My baby. My little girl. Oh, Ruth.”

I wasn’t hugging her back, because my brain was still sprinting to catch up, and I was weirdly aware of my own forehead, which was doing things I don’t think it had ever done before. I was thinking,
Maybe that’s how wrinkles get their foot in the door.

I was also vaguely aware of Maya calling out “Ge-mah,” a loosely woven “grandma” sort of word with a strong emphasis on the second syllable.

I gave up waiting for Janet to back up on her own, so I gently took her by both shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. She had a tissue tucked in one hand, and she began carefully wiping under each eye without smearing her mascara.

“Mom, what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? You invited me for Thanksgiving.”

“Right. And that’s Thursday. And this is Monday. You’re three days early.”

She didn’t answer. Just swept past me and lifted Maya out of her playpen and hugged and kissed her, which I was used to. Maya always got lots of hugs and kisses from Janet. To the best of my recollection I only once had before that day, including when I was Maya’s age.

“Mom. Not to be a pest about this, but can you please go on to explain why you showed up for Thanksgiving dinner three days early? Are you planning on staying here all the way through?”

“Yes; be a doll, honey, and go get my bags out of the car. I have some presents for you kids, too. And the baby.”

“Mom, it’s Thanksgiving. We’ll get together again at Christmas.”

“God willing,” she said.

She handed me her keys and tried to brush right by me into the kitchen, still holding the baby. I grabbed her by the sleeve of her expensive sweater, and when she hit the end of that tether she just kept pulling, which was indescribably strange.

“Honey. Ruth. You’re stretching out the fabric.”

“No,
you
are,” I said. “You’re supposed to stop when somebody does that.”

She stopped pulling, but she continued to face the kitchen, never turning her face in my direction.

“You need to talk to me,” I said. “Something’s going on. What is it?”

“Oh, honey, not now. We have to wait till your brother Aubrey gets here. I simply don’t have the strength to go through it twice. It’ll be too difficult to say it the first time.”

She still wasn’t looking my way.

“That won’t work,” I told the back of her head. “You can’t just march in here and say there’s bad news and you’ll tell me in three days.”

“I don’t want to go through it all again when Aubrey gets here.”

“You have three whole days to rest up in between.”

I watched her deflate and knew I’d broken her down and she was going to talk. Her head pitched forward a few inches, her shoulders rounded. She turned halfway in my direction and held Maya out to me.

“Here, take the baby,” she said. “Put her back in her playpen. They understand so much, even when they don’t know the words.”

I noticed my old pattern with heartburn was setting up again, and when I took the baby, my hands shook slightly.

Just like Janet to insist on tea—also known as another few minutes of torture.

I brought everything to the living room on a tray—teapot, cups, milk and sugar, spoons, those tiny plates you can put your tea bag on when it’s brewed dark enough. I never did all that—in fact, I mostly handled coffee or tea with a guest by using a simple “Well, come on into the kitchen, then.”

But this was my mother, and I had watched her do this with guests for years. Social responsibility, as Joseph called it.

She dipped out three spoons of sugar and stirred in silence until I couldn’t bear another second of it.

“Mom,” I said. “Please.”

She took a deep breath and then began wiping her eyes again. Funny thing is, I never saw a tear break loose. Like the rest of her life, she seemed to keep them just on the edge of control.

“Okay,” she said. “You know how I’ve been having a lot of lower respiratory . . . difficulties? I thought it was chronic bronchitis.”

Oh dear God,
I thought,
she’s dying
.
I tried to remember if I’d known she was having respiratory issues, but nothing came to mind. Maybe she wasn’t as good a communicator as she’d made herself out to be in her own head, or maybe I didn’t listen. She went on quite a bit on the phone, and it was easy to tune her out.

“Yes,” I said, so she’d go on.

“Well . . . ,” she said, and seemed to stall again.

“This is killing me, Mom.”

“Not such good news about that. It’s cancer, and if you say one word about the fact that I started smoking again when Joseph came home . . .”

“Lung cancer?”

“Yes.”

“Well. You stopped again, though, right? So you did your best with it, I guess. When did you stop?”

A long silence during which she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I could hear Maya saying “Ge-mah, Ge-mah” from her playpen, but I didn’t know if she’d been saying it all along.

Janet never answered.

“Okay, it was more recent, then,” I said.

Still no words, still no eye contact.

“You had to’ve quit when the doctor said you had lung cancer,” I said.

“There’s very little point now, Ruthie.”

“That’s bullcrap!” I said, half rising to my feet.

“The baby!” she hissed. “Little pitchers have big ears.”

“That was the tame version! You’re just making excuses, Mom. Cancer treatment’s a whole new ball game these days. There’s a lot they can do for you, but you have to stop smoking.”

She picked up her spoon again and stirred in utter silence, and looked only where she was stirring, and a bad sense of knowing began to creep over me.

“Unless it’s already so far progressed that they’re not even recommending treatment,” I said, and watched her for a response.

No response.

“How bad are they saying it is, Mom?”

No answer at first, just a few tears that slipped past the guards at the gate and ran down her cheeks.

“Did they give you a prognosis, as far as . . . you know . . . time?”

She nodded, but it was a weak little thing, barely noticeable. Then I decided I was pushing her too hard, maybe making things extra-difficult for her with my impatience to know.

I picked up my cup of tea and sat back and sipped, and watched Maya watch us in openmouthed silence, which was unlike her. I thought of Janet saying, “They understand so much, even when they don’t know the words.” I figured she would tell me in time. I also figured it wasn’t absolutely necessary that she say it out loud in words. Like Maya, I could understand a lot without them.

I drank half my tea in silence.

Then she said, “Six months, maybe.”

I said, “Oh.” And had no idea what should follow. I wanted to be upbeat, so I added, “What about if you beat the odds and do much better than the doctors expected?”

“That more or less
is
if I beat the odds and do much better than the doctors expect. It’s very fast growing, and it’s metastasized.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mom.”

“Well, there isn’t much you
can
say,” she said. “I just figured this would be the last Thanksgiving for us to all be together. And that was sad, so I figured we should get started early and make the best of it. Besides, I didn’t want to be alone after hearing that.”

“No, of course not. You did the right thing. When did you find this out?”

“Just this morning.”

“Jeez. Well. Let me go ahead and call Aubrey.”

“You don’t tell him something like this over the phone!” she shouted, and then the volume of her own voice made her cough.

“I wasn’t going to. I was just going to see if he can get off work and get here early.”

“He has a job again? Then why am I still sending him checks? That’ll drive him crazy, though, Ruth. He’ll be just like you were. He’ll say, ‘Now that I know there’s something to know I have to know it right now!’”

“Good,” I said. “All the better to get his butt out here.”

I was on my feet and halfway to the phone when she stopped me.

“Wait,” she said. “Before you call him, there’s something more.”

My heart and stomach fell at exactly the same time. I walked back to the couch and sat—or maybe “collapsed” would be a better word.

“Okay,” I said. “What?”

“I don’t want you to tell Aubrey this. If you do, he won’t come. But I want Joseph here, too.”

“You want Joseph
and
Aubrey.”

“Yes.”

“At the same table.”

“Yes. And it’s a final wish and I expect him to abide by it.”

“I’m not sure you’re going to get what you’re expecting, Mom. I think when Aubrey finds out, he’ll get back on his motorcycle and ride away.”

“If he does . . . ,” she began, anger rising in her voice. But she never finished the sentence.

“If he does, then what?” I asked as gently as possible. “I mean, how do you stop him from kicking that bike into gear and roaring away?”

Much to my shock, she began to weep openly. Maya bounced up and down in her playpen and fussed, sensing problems. I jumped up and fetched a box of tissues from the nearest bathroom and brought them to Janet.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling about ten out of the box. “I can’t believe what I was about to say. I was going to say if he does, I’ll put him out of my life, and he’ll be no part of this family. And then it hit me that I haven’t even cleaned up the devastation from the last time I did that. It’s just that final resort you go to, thinking they wouldn’t dare call you on it, you know what I mean? But it hasn’t worked out so well in the past. Oh, Ruthie. Work this out for me. Please?”

I pulled in a huge amount of air and tried to sigh it out silently.

But no pressure,
I thought.
Just a dying family member with a dying wish that’s probably impossible, but it’s my job to make it come true. No worries. Happy holidays to all.

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

Janet went down for a nap, Maya resolutely refused, and I made a series of phone calls with her on my hip.

I called Joseph first. He picked up right away, but he was clearly out in the middle of nowhere, and we could barely hear each other. But after a minute or two of sentences with every third or fourth word cut out by bad reception, I heard him say he would get to a landline and call me back.