Craig Lancaster - Edward Adrift (39 page)

“I would have liked to have known that he was courting my mother,” I tell Dr. Bryan Thomsen. “But aside from that, no, I have no issues with him.”

“Is the issue with your mother?” he asks. “Did you ever talk to her about what we discussed?”

“No. I didn’t have a chance.”

“I want to make sure I have the sequence right,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says. “You went to her place to talk with her, this Jay Lamb was there, and so you didn’t want to talk about it in front of him, and then your mother and Jay spring the news on you that they’re a romantic item and they’ll be living in Texas full time? Is that how it went?”

“Yes.”

“May I tell you what I think?”

“Yes.”

“First, I think you continue to have a good reason to talk to your mother. She needs to know how her actions have affected you. If you’d felt comfortable enough to do so, this thing might not have gone as far as it has.”

“Why do you say that?”

Dr. Bryan Thomsen sits forward and looks me in the eye, which makes me uncomfortable.

“What was the word you used to describe how your mother had transgressed against you?”

“Sovereignty. She invaded my sovereignty by making me leave Colorado before I was ready to go.”

“She took a decision that should have been yours and made it hers,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says.

“That’s correct.”

“OK, good. Now, let me ask you something. If you’re angry at your mother for leaving Montana for good and becoming romantically involved with Jay Lamb, and you’re punishing her for that with your silence, what are you trying to do?”

Dr. Bryan Thomsen doesn’t have to try to draw a picture for me. I see it.

“I’ve been dumb,” I say.

“No, you’ve been emotional. You’ve been human. And so has your mother. Each of you thinks he or she knows what’s best for the other, and you’ve both been behaving badly in an effort to exert that control. If your mother wants to move to Texas with Jay Lamb, you have to let her do that. You can’t change her decision. You can only decide how you’re going to live with it. Do you think you can?”

“Yes. But I have to be honest. It bothers me to imagine her loving another man after my father. I don’t think that’s rational.”

“Emotions often aren’t,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says.

“It’s just that my mother told me she doesn’t miss my father, and that flummoxes me. I miss him all the time. In some ways, I miss him more now than I ever have.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it.”

This is one of those areas where Dr. Bryan Thomsen bothers me. I’ve been thinking about it for days, months, and years. I don’t know.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“It sounds to me like your mother has made her peace with him,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says. “Perhaps you should ask yourself if you have. You might better understand her point of view when you do. Failing that, maybe it’s time to ask her. You have a lot to talk about, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Merry Christmas, Edward.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2011

From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

Time I woke up today: 7:38 a.m. The 212th time this year I’ve awakened at this time. A sign of normalcy, I guess.

High temperature for Sunday, December 25, 2011, Day 359: 47. Four degrees lower than the high the day before, but still very warm for this time of year.

Low temperature for Sunday, December 25, 2011: 29. Six degrees warmer than the low from the day before.

Precipitation for Sunday, December 25, 2011: 0.00 inches

Precipitation for 2011: 19.49 inches

I have been thinking about what Dr. Bryan Thomsen said about my mother and her sovereignty, and I think it makes sense. I suppose that I will have to talk to her again sometime, and I do feel bad that Christmas has come and gone, but I’m just not ready. We have a lot of topics to cover, more than we’ve ever had before. When I am ready, I will talk to her.

This morning, I went to the garage and retrieved the boxes of old letters of complaint that I removed from the house on Wednesday, November 5, 2008. For three years, one month, and twenty-two days, I have resisted the urge to resume my daily
letters of complaint, and I’m pretty sure I can keep resisting. Of course, “pretty sure” is a far cry from a verified fact, but it’s all I have.

Before my father died, my daily, unsent letters of complaint were how I dealt with the uncertainty and frustration in my world. If someone was mean to me (often my father, but not always), or I grew irritated with a situation, I would write a letter of complaint and then file it away. Dr. Buckley had me do that. She said there was something therapeutic in writing the letter and letting my emotions out, but that I might get in trouble with people if I actually sent them. She is a very logical woman. For example, I can’t imagine that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would be happy if he received a letter from me calling him the biggest numbskull in the history of the NFL. I actually wrote six letters in which I called him that. That would hurt anybody’s feelings.

After my father died, I began to question the value of my letters. I wanted to see how things went if I just tried to deal with my frustrations as they emerged. And I have to say, I’ve been pretty good at it. What I want to do now is reread all of these old complaints and remember the incidents that set me off and see if there is a pattern to them. If there’s a pattern, perhaps I can learn from it. If there’s no pattern, at least I can reminisce (I love the word “reminisce”).

At 12:16 p.m., the doorbell rings. I put down a letter of complaint dated April 3, 2001, in which I scold my father for making my mother cry during dinner. I’m retroactively annoyed with myself for writing a letter I never sent. I should have just told my father
right there, over dinner, that he was being mean. He needed to hear it.

I go to the door and lean into it.

“Who’s there?” I shout.

“Dr. Asskicker and his band of merry men.”

That can be only one person. I open the door, and sure enough, Scott Shamwell is standing on my front porch wearing a T-shirt that says “You’re Welcome to Join Me at My Intervention.”

“Ed!” he says. “What the hell is up, dude?”

“Scott Shamwell, what are you doing here?”

“I told you, man. I said after Christmas we’d get together and do some radical shit. Well, it’s after Christmas, hoss.”

“But you told me to call you,” I say.

“Come on, man. I knew you wouldn’t. Now check this out.”

Scott Shamwell stands aside and sweeps his arm toward the street, like one of the pretty women on
The Price Is Right
showing off a prize. Parked in front of my house is a black motorcycle with a sidecar.

“Come on, dude,” Scott Shamwell says. “You can be my sidekick. Let’s go get stupid.”

Getting stupid is not what I do.

Scott Shamwell stretches his arms out as he holds the steering wheel of my Cadillac DTS, locking his elbows.

“A frickin’ Cadillac,” he says. “God, I hope none of my friends see me in this thing.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I broke my ribs. I can’t sit in a sidecar. Plus, motorcycles are dangerous.”

“I know, but—”

“At least I’m letting you drive,” I say. “I’ll still be your sidekick. That sounds like fun.”

“I know, man, but a Cadillac! It’s so square.”

“My father always said it’s the greatest negotiating tool ever.”

“I don’t want to negotiate, dude. I want to get beer and girls.”

We find a place in Stillwater County, on an outcropping that overlooks the Yellowstone River, and we eat chicken wings and drink root beer on the hood of my Cadillac DTS.

“So the guy just hauled off and punched you for nothin’?” Scott Shamwell asks.

“Yes. You can still see a little bit of the bruise under my eye.”

Scott Shamwell peers in and crinkles his nose.

“I think it’s gone.”

I walk around to the side-view mirror and take a look. Scott Shamwell just didn’t look closely enough. The bruise is still there. I guess it helps to know where it was in the first place.

“I wish I’d have been there,” he says. “I would have stomped a mud hole in that dude’s ass.”

He flexes his freckly arms and gives each bicep a kiss. He’s pretty funny sometimes.

When I tell Scott Shamwell about Sheila Renfro, he becomes excitable. He says, “Oh, yeah, Big Ed,” and then he gallops around the car twice, pretending that he’s slapping a horse on the hindquarters.

Finally, he stops and says, “Did you screw her, dude?”

He moves his hips forward and backward.

“Did you get it on?”

“No.”

I say this abruptly. I’m annoyed with Scott Shamwell.

“Dude,” he says, and he slaps me on the shoulder. “You got to bone it like you own it.”

I’m more than annoyed. I’m angry.

“You shut up,” I say. “She’s my friend. You don’t say mean things about her.”

Scott Shamwell looks shocked. Then Scott Shamwell looks ashamed. More than that, he looks hurt.

“She’s important to you,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Well, Ed, that’s—I’m sorry. Really. I’m sorry.”

He gathers up our trash and bags it up.

“Do you want to go home?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “Let’s get stupid.”