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Authors: Wally Lamb
Tags: Fiction
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Nedra Frank’s little cubicle. Finished or not, I wanted my grandfather’s story back.
Nedra’s office buddy told me she’d withdrawn from the degree program. “Personal reasons,” he said, rolling his eyes. Her desk was a clean slate, the bulletin board behind her stripped to bare cork.
“But she’s got something of mine,” I protested. “Something important. How can I get ahold of her?”
He shrugged.
The head of the department shrugged, too.
The head of humanities told me she would attempt to locate Ms. Frank and share my concerns, but that she couldn’t promise I’d be contacted. The agreement we had made was between the two of us, she reminded me; it had nothing whatsoever to do with the I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 43
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university. Under no circumstances could she release Nedra Frank’s forwarding address.
My mother slipped out of consciousness on May 1, 1987. Ray and I kept a vigil through the night, watching her labored, ragged breathing and thwarting, until the very end, her continual attempts to pull the oxygen mask from her mouth. “There’s a strong possibility that someone in a coma can hear and understand,” the hospice worker had told us the evening before. “If it feels right to you, you might want to give her permission to go.” It hadn’t felt right to Ray; he’d balked at such an idea. But ten minutes before she expired, while Ray was down the hall in the men’s room, I leaned close to my mother’s ear and whispered, “I love you, Ma. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him. You can go now.”
Her death was different from the melodramatic versions I’d imagined during those final months. She never got to read her father’s history. She never sat up in her deathbed and revealed the name of the man with whom she’d conceived my brother and me.
From early childhood, I had formed theories about who our “real”
father was: Buffalo Bob; Vic Morrow from Combat; my seventh-grade shop teacher, Mr. Nettleson; Mr. Anthony from across the street. By the time of Ma’s death, my suspicions had fallen on Angelo Nardi, the dashing, displaced courtroom stenographer who had been hired to transcribe my grandfather’s life story. But that, too, was just a theory. I told myself it didn’t really matter.
After the hospital paperwork had been gotten through, Ray and I drove to the funeral parlor to make final arrangements, then drove back to Hollyhock Avenue and drank Ray’s good Scotch. The old photo album was out, sitting there on the dining room table. I couldn’t open it up—couldn’t look inside the thing—but on impulse, I took it with me when we went down to the hospital to tell my brother the news.
Tears welled up in Thomas’s eyes when he heard, but there was no scene—no difficult overreaction, as I’d imagined. Dreaded.
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 44
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WALLY LAMB
When Ray asked Thomas if he had any questions, he had two. Had she suffered at the end? Could Thomas have his GOD = LOVE! collage back now?
Ray left after half an hour or so, but I stayed behind. If Thomas was going to have a delayed bad reaction, I told myself, then I wanted to be there to help him through it. But that wasn’t entirely true. I stayed there because I needed to—needed on the morning of our mother’s death to be with my twin, my other half, no matter who he had become, no matter where my life—our lives—were careening.
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You didn’t give her the cancer. God gave it to her.” With grim relief, I noted that he was no longer blaming the Kellogg’s Cereal Company.
“I mean, I’m sorry for blowing up at you. That time we visited her? In the car on the way home? I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that. I should have been more patient.”
He shrugged, bit at a fingernail. “That’s okay. You didn’t mean it.”
“Yeah, I did. I meant it at the time.
Nedra’s office buddy told me she’d withdrawn from the degree program. “Personal reasons,” he said, rolling his eyes. Her desk was a clean slate, the bulletin board behind her stripped to bare cork.
“But she’s got something of mine,” I protested. “Something important. How can I get ahold of her?”
He shrugged.
The head of the department shrugged, too.
The head of humanities told me she would attempt to locate Ms. Frank and share my concerns, but that she couldn’t promise I’d be contacted. The agreement we had made was between the two of us, she reminded me; it had nothing whatsoever to do with the I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 43
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE
43
university. Under no circumstances could she release Nedra Frank’s forwarding address.
My mother slipped out of consciousness on May 1, 1987. Ray and I kept a vigil through the night, watching her labored, ragged breathing and thwarting, until the very end, her continual attempts to pull the oxygen mask from her mouth. “There’s a strong possibility that someone in a coma can hear and understand,” the hospice worker had told us the evening before. “If it feels right to you, you might want to give her permission to go.” It hadn’t felt right to Ray; he’d balked at such an idea. But ten minutes before she expired, while Ray was down the hall in the men’s room, I leaned close to my mother’s ear and whispered, “I love you, Ma. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him. You can go now.”
Her death was different from the melodramatic versions I’d imagined during those final months. She never got to read her father’s history. She never sat up in her deathbed and revealed the name of the man with whom she’d conceived my brother and me.
From early childhood, I had formed theories about who our “real”
father was: Buffalo Bob; Vic Morrow from Combat; my seventh-grade shop teacher, Mr. Nettleson; Mr. Anthony from across the street. By the time of Ma’s death, my suspicions had fallen on Angelo Nardi, the dashing, displaced courtroom stenographer who had been hired to transcribe my grandfather’s life story. But that, too, was just a theory. I told myself it didn’t really matter.
After the hospital paperwork had been gotten through, Ray and I drove to the funeral parlor to make final arrangements, then drove back to Hollyhock Avenue and drank Ray’s good Scotch. The old photo album was out, sitting there on the dining room table. I couldn’t open it up—couldn’t look inside the thing—but on impulse, I took it with me when we went down to the hospital to tell my brother the news.
Tears welled up in Thomas’s eyes when he heard, but there was no scene—no difficult overreaction, as I’d imagined. Dreaded.
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 44
44
WALLY LAMB
When Ray asked Thomas if he had any questions, he had two. Had she suffered at the end? Could Thomas have his GOD = LOVE! collage back now?
Ray left after half an hour or so, but I stayed behind. If Thomas was going to have a delayed bad reaction, I told myself, then I wanted to be there to help him through it. But that wasn’t entirely true. I stayed there because I needed to—needed on the morning of our mother’s death to be with my twin, my other half, no matter who he had become, no matter where my life—our lives—were careening.
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You didn’t give her the cancer. God gave it to her.” With grim relief, I noted that he was no longer blaming the Kellogg’s Cereal Company.
“I mean, I’m sorry for blowing up at you. That time we visited her? In the car on the way home? I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that. I should have been more patient.”
He shrugged, bit at a fingernail. “That’s okay. You didn’t mean it.”
“Yeah, I did. I meant it at the time.
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