Read Online All Stories Are Love Stories by Elizabeth Percer - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Percer
Ads: Link
in a final drunken frenzy that ended in his drowning in the pond behind their parentsâ home. Instead of enabling his family to bury the shame associated with Georg, along with the man himself, his death seemed only to seal off any chance he might have had to redeem himself. Very quickly, the familyâs sense of disgrace over his life became inescapable. As Geneâs father put it, âThere are certain acceptable ways to liveââmeaning, of course, that there were also certain unacceptable ways to liveââand a soul who does not adhere to them is damned forever.â His father was one of the only people Gene had ever met who truly believed that a person could will himself to lead another life, if he just tried hard enough.
So Hans fled his homeland and disconsolate parents forthe kind of dream of perfection one can only hatch from afar. He landed on American soil with a student visa to study engineering at Kansas State, and from that moment turned his back on anything and everyone who reminded him of the self-indulgent, irresponsible brother whose actions hung over Hans like a ghostly malediction. He met Geneâs mother, Anna Linder, while they were both still in school, and it wasnât long before he had a family to suit the life he created: a good wife and a smart son. There was no alcohol in their home, no hidden pornography. Every night for the seventeen years they lived together, Gene watched his father walk in from his job as a quality engineer at All American Autoparts by six oâclock every night, and, until she died of ovarian cancer when Gene was thirteen, give his wife a single, somber kiss on the cheek by way of greeting. Every meal was planned ahead of time and included a modest amount of meat, microwaved vegetables, and boiled potatoes or sliced bread. The soul-soaring joy of Geneâs favorite dessertâchocolate layer cake with fine crumb and inches of frostingâwas something he rarely got to enjoy. Geneâs mother usually served canned fruit or made fruit-sweetened apple pies, the bottom crusts drenched in their own unabsorbed juices. His father ate them methodically and cleared his plate, as he did with anything his wife served, and in his spare time he joined the Knights of Columbus and taught woodworking classes at the local hardware store. Until Gene hit puberty, the three of them lived like dolls in a house whose front wall had never been built, their perfect American family always readied for inspection. It seemed that his father had achieved theimpossible: left his worst secrets behind him on another continent, as if they were physical things that could not travel.
When his mother died, Gene watched, devastated and fascinated, as his father went back to work the Monday after her funeral. He held down the same job, returned home every night at the same time, and managed to keep the shell of his former life intact. On the night Gene left home for college, scheduled to be on a 9 p.m. flight to Northwestern University by way of Chicago, his father had still come in at six, hung up his coat, ate his dinner, and changed his shoes before driving his son to the airport. Four years later, when Gene related the news that he would be going to UC Berkeley for graduate school instead of returning home, Hans had simply asked if he needed any money. Gene hadnât. Heâd been on full scholarship since his freshman year, and his doctoral work would be subsidized. Hans had seemed relieved. Not because he didnât have any money to offer, but because his parental obligations seemed, finally, to be over.
That was what Gene knew of his father up until the last three months of his life, when a terminal diagnosis inspired Hans to make a series of bizarre phone calls to his son. They hadnât spoken in years, but the sound of his fatherâs voice on the phone struck Gene with a familiarity so acute he was immediately transported to a younger version of
So Hans fled his homeland and disconsolate parents forthe kind of dream of perfection one can only hatch from afar. He landed on American soil with a student visa to study engineering at Kansas State, and from that moment turned his back on anything and everyone who reminded him of the self-indulgent, irresponsible brother whose actions hung over Hans like a ghostly malediction. He met Geneâs mother, Anna Linder, while they were both still in school, and it wasnât long before he had a family to suit the life he created: a good wife and a smart son. There was no alcohol in their home, no hidden pornography. Every night for the seventeen years they lived together, Gene watched his father walk in from his job as a quality engineer at All American Autoparts by six oâclock every night, and, until she died of ovarian cancer when Gene was thirteen, give his wife a single, somber kiss on the cheek by way of greeting. Every meal was planned ahead of time and included a modest amount of meat, microwaved vegetables, and boiled potatoes or sliced bread. The soul-soaring joy of Geneâs favorite dessertâchocolate layer cake with fine crumb and inches of frostingâwas something he rarely got to enjoy. Geneâs mother usually served canned fruit or made fruit-sweetened apple pies, the bottom crusts drenched in their own unabsorbed juices. His father ate them methodically and cleared his plate, as he did with anything his wife served, and in his spare time he joined the Knights of Columbus and taught woodworking classes at the local hardware store. Until Gene hit puberty, the three of them lived like dolls in a house whose front wall had never been built, their perfect American family always readied for inspection. It seemed that his father had achieved theimpossible: left his worst secrets behind him on another continent, as if they were physical things that could not travel.
When his mother died, Gene watched, devastated and fascinated, as his father went back to work the Monday after her funeral. He held down the same job, returned home every night at the same time, and managed to keep the shell of his former life intact. On the night Gene left home for college, scheduled to be on a 9 p.m. flight to Northwestern University by way of Chicago, his father had still come in at six, hung up his coat, ate his dinner, and changed his shoes before driving his son to the airport. Four years later, when Gene related the news that he would be going to UC Berkeley for graduate school instead of returning home, Hans had simply asked if he needed any money. Gene hadnât. Heâd been on full scholarship since his freshman year, and his doctoral work would be subsidized. Hans had seemed relieved. Not because he didnât have any money to offer, but because his parental obligations seemed, finally, to be over.
That was what Gene knew of his father up until the last three months of his life, when a terminal diagnosis inspired Hans to make a series of bizarre phone calls to his son. They hadnât spoken in years, but the sound of his fatherâs voice on the phone struck Gene with a familiarity so acute he was immediately transported to a younger version of
Similar Books
