Heft (35 page)

Hi, she said. She was holding something in her hands.

What is it, I asked her. She held it out to me. It was a letter from Arthur Opp, addressed to me.

This came today, she said. My mom just gave it to me.

I began to laugh.

What, said Lindsay. What’s funny.

I showed her what I was carrying. Then I put the latest letter from Arthur Opp on the top of the pile, and thought of taking it into another room to open it, but I did not want to be like my mother, so instead I tore open the envelope right there in front of Lindsay, but I didn’t take out the note inside it.

I was trying to breathe slowly. For inside I knew there would be some sort of answer.

What do you think, said Lindsay.

I don’t know, I said.

If you had to guess, said Lindsay.

But I didn’t want to guess anymore.

Together we read his letter. We read it seven times. He was not my father. I wasn’t crushed. I felt no badness or anger. I was not sure what I had wanted. He sounded like a teacher in his letter. I liked him. I tried to picture him and couldn’t, so I pictured someone backlit by the sun. He could be anyone. Anyone except my father, according to him. All of my life I thought this about my father: that he could be anyone I passed on the street. On the street I looked for my father in every man I saw. I looked for him in my sleep. Now I know there are two less people my father could be. Two less for me to wonder about. The rest of the world remains.

I feel like people are only really dead once you stop learning about them. This is why it is important to me to keep learning about my mother, and what she wanted, and what her life meant, what she meant by the life she led. Then she will be alive, somehow, and her wish for me will have come true. My vow is to learn more about her. To see her as she saw herself.

So I like that Arthur Opp knew my mother the way he did. That he had a connection to her, outside of me. I like that she had a secret. I like that she had some little thing to think about, someone separate from me and my life. I wonder if she was in love with him. I can see her being in love with him, from the letters of his that I have read. She always had heroes, from the time I was little: I was the main one, the great hero of her life, but there was Dr. Greene, and the rich people from Pells, and my coaches, and my teachers. She liked hearing about them from me. She would have loved the Harpers. She liked smart people. She wanted me to be smart.

I am not mad at her for lying. I think she did it so I would be sure to meet him. I can see her doing that. I can see her giving us to each other as a gift.

I haven’t heard a word from Gerard Kane. I didn’t think I would, but—there was a part of me. The little-kid part, the part that felt like I couldn’t possibly fail at the one thing I was ever good at. I guess I could keep trying. I still have the spring ahead of me. Maybe I’ll play better than I ever have, and maybe some other scout, some other recruiter, will notice me. Maybe. All of these are maybes. And then I think about the Marcus Hobarts of the world, the people who play like they are magic, the people who play like they were made for baseball and baseball was made for them. Sometimes I think that I am like this too, like I am part of this, but there are days, more and more, when I’m not sure. And I think you have to be sure. I think the Marcus Hobarts of the world are positive.

So I’ve been thinking about what Ms. Warren said, which I kind of can’t believe. It isn’t too late. It’s not like I don’t have college coaches still interested in me. I talked to Lindsay’s dad about it and he said, I think that’s a really good idea, Kel.

Of course he did.

But really I’m considering it. Now that my mother’s gone—I guess I can do whatever I want. This is a thought that makes me feel happy and sad all at once. It is what I spent two years wondering about: how I would ever leave her, how I could possibly hope to have a life outside of Yonkers or Pells. Now I can go to school wherever I want. Alaska, if I want to. California. Hawaii. Arizona. Anyplace in the wide world.

When she first died I thought to myself, I could have prevented it. And this was the most painful thing to think. She wasn’t hit by a train. It wasn’t a clean even death like that. I could have stopped her. I could have reasoned. At first when I thought of these things I would shut my brain off, just as I do before games. I would stop myself from thinking anything at all.

But today it seems possible—just possible—to think about her in all her states, drunk and sober, tidy or messy or anything. The times she was a good mother, because they existed, they did exist, and the times she was very bad.

This was what happened the first time I realized she was really in trouble. She hadn’t gone to work in two weeks but she hadn’t yet been fired. I was a sophomore. I was fifteen years old. I took the train home and then got on the bus and by that time it was already very late. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I don’t remember much from those days. Already I fed and clothed myself. I made money for myself any way I could. I stopped at the corner store at the gas station and said hi to Frank and bought myself a roast beef sandwich and bought my mother a turkey sandwich. I bought us both chips. I was happy about something that I don’t remember anymore. Basketball practice maybe. It was winter. It was cold out. I was thinking maybe I could sit down with her and reason with her about going back to work. Everyone’s been asking about you, I would say. Dr. Greene keeps asking when you’re coming back. This was not true, but it seemed to me then to be the surest way to lure her back to work.

But when I walked up to the house it was all dark inside. No lights were on. I put my key in the door and turned it and said, Mom? Mom?

I was a kid.

I tried to turn the lights on but no lights would come on and I realized that once again she probably hadn’t paid the electricity bill. Shortly after that I would start looking for it in the mail and paying it myself. But that day I fumbled for the flashlight on the wall and used it to find my way into the living room and she was sitting there crying. She was wearing her robe and looking out the window and she was sitting in a chair slumped forward.

What’s the matter, I asked her, already very weary.

She shook her head and would not answer.

I got you a turkey sandwich, I said, and took it out of the plastic bag and put it in its white butcher paper on her lap. Set it down there without knowing what else to do.

She didn’t touch it.

Eat it, I said. You should eat that.

Then I had an idea, and I went into the kitchen and found a couple of birthday candles and some matches, and stuck them into a potted plant and lit them up. Then I put the potted plant on the hearth and I said, Look, Ma. A fire in the fireplace. Remember? A fire in the fireplace.

•

Come with me, I say to Lindsay. Please. I can’t go by myself.

But you should, says Lindsay.

But I can’t, I say.

Arg
, says Lindsay, and her face puzzles up in exasperation. He’ll be like, who’s this girl?

—Then I’ll say Hi, Mr. Opp. This is my girlfriend, Lindsay Harper.

She rolls her eyes at this but she also almost smiles.

You really want me to? she asks me.

He said I could bring whoever I wanted, I tell her. And I want you to.

Because I’m out of gas, I say, and she thwacks me hard in the back.

I’m nervous, says Lindsay.

I’m nervous too, I say.

She puts on a dress to go to Arthur Opp’s house. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her wear one. To school she wears jeans or her sports uniforms. She looks like a woman. I tell her so and she acts insulted.

In a good way, a really good way, I tell her.

Ready? she asks me, and I say yes, because I am.

• • •

Y
olanda arrived this morning & has been helping me all day.
Her parents are coming tonight from Queens.

“Oh my God,” she keeps saying. She whispers it under her breath. She is nervous for me to meet them. I imagine them as male and female versions of Yolanda. Thirty years older. I imagine them in hooded sweatshirts. I imagine them nervous, like she is.

We went for our walk after she got here & we saw the Dales & their sons. “See you tonight,” said Henry Dale, & I nodded rather smartly & casually, & then marveled over how natural it felt—the Dales are coming over for dinner.

Then we came back and made lasagna, a recipe that Marty taught me that I’m now passing on to Yolanda. Once it was in the oven Yolanda and I both cleaned the house, & she gave me orders like “Go get a cloth from under your sink. Dust that shelf. Throw out those containers. Jesus.”

I think things look very nice now, especially since Yolanda ordered flowers from the Internet, & they came this morning. Lilies & roses & mums. She was the one who answered the door & she pretended like they were for her, saying to the deliveryman, “O this is so sweet! O I can’t believe it!”

After she shut the door she went into the kitchen & put them all in a vase & then put the vase in the middle of the dining room table. “See? Look how nice,” she said.

In a fit of sentimentality & self-pity, I asked her today if she would let me meet the baby after it was born and she asked if I was firing her. I took this as a very good sign. I told her that I liked the name Anna for a girl. I don’t think she does but she was polite about it anyway.

Then she went upstairs to her old room to lie down for a bit before the guests arrive. Including Kel Keller, who called me three days ago to tell me he would come. Hearing him speak to me was miraculous. He was tentative & shy. He was quieter than I’d imagined. He did not sound like his picture. I told him how sorry I was & he said thank you. We talked briefly about his mother & he revealed the nature of her last few years & of her death, which I had suspected, but it was very sad to hear it confirmed. He asked me only one question and I was able to answer it in a way that seemed to please him. When we hung up I went to take his picture off my shelf—I feared that he would think it strange for me to have—but then I changed my mind. Charlene sent it for a reason.

I have had several bouts of nervousness thinking about his first sight of me. I wish I could be obscured by something when he first sees me, hiding behind a plant or a sofa. I wish I could be shadowed by something larger than I am. But I can’t be, so instead I will throw open both doors as wide as I can, and I will stand there in full sight of him, and I will welcome him into my home.

For an hour, while Yolanda was napping, I sat in my chair, looking around this room, pondering the life of Charlene Keller since I had last seen her, & how it could have been different—how my life too could have been different. Both of us stuck in our homes, curled into ourselves in loneliness. Both of us alone. It could have been different, I thought. Quite different. I did not linger there.

•

Instead I walked to my front door & opened it. I peered out into the world. The street was quiet & nothing moved. I opened the glass outer door & walked out onto the stoop. A car rolled by, looking for parking, & for a moment I grew nervous & excited but it was not the boy. I stood very still then & put my arms about myself.

O what will happen now, I asked. But I was alone, and I found I could not answer.

HEFT

Liz Moore

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Why do you think Arthur has isolated himself? What kind of connection does he want, and does he find it?

2. Is it possible for the characters of
Heft
to free themselves from the behaviors, the characteristics, and even the physical objects (a house, for instance) they inherit from their parents?

3. Several of the main characters in
Heft
are outsiders. How does one’s inability to “belong” shape his or her character in the long term? Did the novel reinforce boundaries between different groups? Who appear to be the outsiders in the book?

4. From Charlene to Yolanda to Marty to his neighbor’s wife, Suzanne, Arthur seems more comfortable in the company of women. Why do you think that is? What do you make of these platonic relationships?