Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift (38 page)

“But Jay L. Lamb just told me ‘if it’s all right with you.’ Does that mean I have veto power over this?”

My mother squeezes Jay L. Lamb’s hand tightly.

“Not exactly veto power. What Jay wants is your blessing. It’s important to him, and to me, too. I think he’s showing a lot of respect for you by asking.”

I am dimensions beyond flummoxed.

“You told me you didn’t want a smelly old man living with you!”

Jay L. Lamb coughs some of his drink back into his glass, and then he looks at my mother incredulously.

“That’s what I thought when I said it. And by the way, Jay, you’re not smelly at all. Things change, Son.”

“How long have things been changing?”

I sound shrill and angry, and I realize that I
am
shrill and angry and that, furthermore, Dr. Bryan Thomsen’s best advice is not going to help me now.

“It’s been gradual,” Jay L. Lamb says. “Imperceptible. We’ve spent time together these past couple of years, gone to a lot of the same functions, shared our hearts. It just happened.”

“You should be happy,” my mother says. “For me, you should be happy.”

I stand up again and return to the window.

“I’m not happy, Mother. Not just about this, but about a lot of things.”

“Let’s talk about it,” she says.

“No.”

“I should go,” Jay L. Lamb says. “You two should talk first.”

“No,” my mother says.

“Yes,” I say.

Jay L. Lamb looks like a trapped animal. I take bitter pleasure in this.

“Jay, please sit down,” my mother says, and he does.

I turn around and face them.

“I’m leaving. I’m going home. I can’t believe you are just going to leave here. And with Jay L. Lamb! What would Father think? No wonder you said you don’t miss him.”

My mother’s face has lost color.

“I think he would be happy for me, unlike you. But it doesn’t matter. He’s gone, and I’m here. I found someone I want to be with. You’re selfish to be against that.”

“It’s selfish of you!”

I leave the condo, and once I’m in the hallway, I run for the elevator. My ribs scream out their objection to this, and I don’t care.

On the street, I find my new Cadillac DTS. The one Jay L. Lamb bought for me. The one my mother drove to take me away from Cheyenne Wells. The one parked next to Jay L. Lamb’s Volvo.

I go around to the driver’s side door of the Volvo, rear back my right foot, and kick hard against the door, leaving a size-fourteen impression.

I return to my car, open the driver’s side door, and climb in. I’m tired. I’m hurt. I’m flummoxed. I wonder how many shitburgers I can be expected to eat.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2011

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today: What difference does it make?

High temperature for Thursday, December 22, 2011, Day 356: Who cares?

Low temperature for Thursday, December 22, 2011: What does it matter?

Precipitation for Thursday, December 22, 2011: It doesn’t matter.

Precipitation for 2011: This doesn’t matter, either.

New entries:

Fuck new entries.

My mother’s Keurig arrived today, brought to my door by the UPS delivery man.

I walked it through the house, out the back door, across the yard, into the alley, and tossed it into the garbage bin.

Merry Christmas, Mother.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today:

High temperature for Friday, December 23, 2011, Day 357:

Low temperature for Friday, December 23, 2011:

Precipitation for Friday, December 23, 2011:

Precipitation for 2011:

New entries:

Fuck new entries. (This still stands.)

The phone starts ringing at 7:38 a.m. today. By 8:56, I’ve had fourteen calls. I remove the line from the back of the phone.

At 9:04, my bitchin’ iPhone rings. Kyle has changed my ringtone to “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” and even in my sour mood, I have to concede that’s funny. The phone call is from my mother. I turn the ringtone to silent. She calls thirty-six more times by 2:00 p.m. Every time the bitchin’ iPhone lights up, I hear “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” playing in my head. It’s not funny anymore. I shut the phone completely off.

Now I’m watching the Dallas Cowboys play against the Philadelphia Eagles. The New York Giants have already beaten the New
York Jets, so no matter what happens in this game, the whole season comes down to January first, in New York against the Giants.

It’s weird to be sitting in my living room in Billings, Montana, and watching a game that I was supposed to attend in person. It makes me think about how little things can change big things. If Kyle hadn’t stowed away in my car when I left Boise, I probably would have gone to Cheyenne Wells, spent a couple of days, driven home, and been aboard my scheduled flight to Texas. If I take Kyle out of the equation, I eliminate that awful moment when I found out what had happened to him, the frantic drive through the darkness to get him back with his family, the impact when I drove into the snowplow. If I take those things away, I take away Sheila Renfro finding my pills and my phone and chasing me down the highway. I take away her staying with me in the hospital and then bringing me back to Cheyenne Wells. I take away kissing on the couch, and holding her sleeping body in my arms after the drug raid at her motel. I take away my mother showing up the next day and bringing me back here. OK, that one I would like to take away, but I can’t without affecting everything else.

If I take away all those things, I’m in Texas. I’m at my mother’s house in North Richland Hills, which would have been decked out for Christmas, the way her houses always are. I would be sipping eggnog with my mother and Aunt Corinne and meeting all the Texas ladies she always talks about.

We would ride in her car to Cowboys Stadium, just the two of us, for this game. Maybe my mother would introduce me to Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, because she knows him. I would have to restrain myself from telling him what I really think about his stewardship (I love the word “stewardship”) of the team.

Now, I’m thinking maybe it’s just as well that I didn’t end up at Cowboys Stadium. The Philadelphia Eagles just drove
quarterback Tony Romo into the ground, and he has hurt his hand. The TV announcers are saying that they don’t expect to see him return, since the Cowboys have nothing to gain.

On the other hand (not Tony Romo’s other hand; that’s a joke, because I’m pretty funny), maybe I would like to change everything. I can’t, of course. I’m speaking only hypothetically. I’m thinking now of the butterfly effect, which holds that one small change in a nonlinear system can cause massive changes in later situations. In other words, even if I could change something in my past—and, to be clear, I cannot—that single alteration would change many other things, perhaps in ways I didn’t like.

I have to wonder what the difference would be. It seems to me that everything changes anyway and that God or the universe or whoever’s in charge doesn’t give a damn what I think about it.

My mother knocks on my door at 6:11 p.m. I know it’s her because she says so.

“Edward, I know you’re in there. Let me come in so we can talk.”

I walk to the door and put my cheek against it.

“Please leave me alone, Mother.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Let’s talk about this.”

“Your present is in the alley in the garbage bin. You can go get it if you want. Other than that, I don’t want to talk to you, Mother.”

“Edward!”

“Please go away.”

“Will you ever talk to me again?”

“When I’m ready. It’s my sovereign right to choose when that is.”

“I love you, Edward.”

My mother is crying. I can hear it.

“I know you do. I love you, too. Please go away.”

I hear her climbing down the steps of my porch. I go to the window and open the curtain just enough to see into the yard. My mother crosses the street and climbs into Jay L. Lamb’s Volvo, which has the impression of my foot on the driver’s side door. He drives her away from me, just as he’ll soon do forever.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2011

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today: 7:38 a.m. The 211th time this year I’ve awakened at this time, if you count yesterday, when the phone started ringing.

High temperature for Saturday, December 24, 2011, Day 358: 51. Holy shit!

Low temperature for Saturday, December 24, 2011: 23. I have no idea what the highs and lows were for December 23rd. I threw that newspaper away without looking at it.

Precipitation for Saturday, December 24, 2011: 0.00 inches

Precipitation for 2011: 19.49 inches, which means we picked up a hundredth of an inch Friday.

Two days ago, I wrote in my logbook “Who cares?” about my regularly charted data. I care.

Merry Christmas.

At 9:03 a.m., someone knocks at my front door. I walk over and press my face against it.

“Mother?”

“Edward, it’s Bryan Thomsen. Can you let me in, please?”

Holy shit!

I open the door.

Dr. Bryan Thomsen sits on my small loveseat and clasps his hands on his lap.

“A lot of people are worried about you, Edward.”

“My mother.”

“Yes, your mother. Your friend Donna, who tried to call you last night after your mother called her. Your mother’s friend Jay—”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Look, Edward, I’m not here to take sides. I’m your counselor. People who care about you asked me to come make sure you’re all right, and because I care about you, too, I’m here and I’m making my wife and kids wait on Christmas morning. So how about we forget who’s an asshole and who isn’t and talk about things. OK?”

“Yes. OK.”

“Good. Now, do you want to tell me what happened?”

I tell him, starting with our talk just two days ago and how invigorated I was by it. I came home, and I made a commitment to living my life fully and responsibly.

“Then I went to my mother’s place and found out she’s in love with Jay L. Lamb, and everything crumbled.”

“Do you still have an issue with this man that leads you to believe he won’t be a good partner for your mother?”

I have to think about that one. There was a time in my life when Jay L. Lamb was the person I hated to hear from most, other than my father. But with my father, there was a history of love, which in a strange way made the anger between us
much more powerful and personal. I tell Dr. Bryan Thomsen this, and he nods as if he knows exactly what I’m talking about. But his question is if I have an issue with Jay L. Lamb today that I believe puts my mother in some sort of jeopardy for being involved with him.

I have to be honest; I do not. Jay L. Lamb has been dealing with me respectfully for more than three years. My mother clearly has fondness for him, although I cannot imagine why.