did have on you, is hardly significant now. It’s not as though some other woman had turned out to be your mother.”
“That, I’m relieved to say, would have been impossible. After all, my brothers would have noticed if there had been a substitution.”
“Anyway, of what importance were mothers in our day? If it comes to that, what is there to be said about the relationship between mothers and daughters at any time—speaking honestly, of course.”
“I didn’t have much of a relationship with my mother,” Kate said. “But I did come to realize some years ago that she had permitted me, without hysterical confrontations or without confessing it, to live the life I wanted, or to prepare for the life I wanted. She died before she had to witness the results of her tolerance. And it was a tolerance cleverly camouflaged by her insistence on conventionality. Now that I know she had a lover, she returns to me in a new light, or at least from a new perspective. Perhaps that’s the most important result of Jay’s materializing at this late date.”
“Your mother’s dead; you can afford to be sentimental and ooze gratitude,” Leslie said, pouring more tea. “Dead mothers are one thing. Living mothers—and remember, I’m one, as well as a daughter and an observant woman—are at best necessary supplements to life whom we tolerate, if we are kind, with courtesy and generosity. Remember, that’s at best. More often than not there’s a residue of resentment on both sides, and civility is barely maintained.”
“Leslie, motherhood has never been your long suit in the game of life,” Kate said, relishing the idiom or cliché, though she hadn’t a clue what card game was providing the metaphor. “Anyway, I’ve acquired a father, not a mother.”
“I will say for you, Kate, that you’ve never gone on about the emptiness in your life because you don’t have children. I try to convince childless women of the advantages of their condition, but they just say since I have children I haven’t a right to speak on the subject. That seems to me an idiotic objection there’s no way out of. The truth is, Kate, you get more pleasure from your present and past graduate students, to say nothing of your niece and nephew, than most people, myself included, get from their children.”
“I get pleasure only from some graduate students, and only from two of my many nieces and nephews,” Kate said defensively. “And don’t forget Benedict’s defense: ‘The world must be peopled.’ ”
“Not these days. With all this genetic work curing and preventing diseases, everyone will live forever, and we had better find a way not to people the world, and soon.”
“Genes, again. You see, they do keep turning up. Now could we get back to my father?”
“Right,” Leslie said. “Why not just enjoy it. Let all the ramifications of your genetic heritage whirl about in your brain, follow each supposition to its illogical but fascinating conclusion, and then just look on him as a new friend. That’s my advice. You did come for my advice, didn’t you.”
“I came for the tea. Reed is suspicious of Jay. Not of his motives in turning up, but of his past, which Reed seems to suspect of being murky.”
“Well, there’s murky and murky. Promise not to spare me a single detail.”
“What I can’t decide,” Kate said, “and I know I keep returning to this, is what difference it makes who was one’s father. I mean, half a century later, what can Jay’s appearance possibly mean?”
“Now that’s an easy one. It obviously provides a simple, irrefutable explanation of why you aren’t a standard Fansler. No one else in the family turned out even remotely interesting; I bet they all voted for George W. Bush in 2000.”
“No doubt. But am I really ready to believe—which I never had to do before—that it is only spermatozoa that made me what I am today.”
“Probably. And yesterday, and all the days before that. Is the
“That, I’m relieved to say, would have been impossible. After all, my brothers would have noticed if there had been a substitution.”
“Anyway, of what importance were mothers in our day? If it comes to that, what is there to be said about the relationship between mothers and daughters at any time—speaking honestly, of course.”
“I didn’t have much of a relationship with my mother,” Kate said. “But I did come to realize some years ago that she had permitted me, without hysterical confrontations or without confessing it, to live the life I wanted, or to prepare for the life I wanted. She died before she had to witness the results of her tolerance. And it was a tolerance cleverly camouflaged by her insistence on conventionality. Now that I know she had a lover, she returns to me in a new light, or at least from a new perspective. Perhaps that’s the most important result of Jay’s materializing at this late date.”
“Your mother’s dead; you can afford to be sentimental and ooze gratitude,” Leslie said, pouring more tea. “Dead mothers are one thing. Living mothers—and remember, I’m one, as well as a daughter and an observant woman—are at best necessary supplements to life whom we tolerate, if we are kind, with courtesy and generosity. Remember, that’s at best. More often than not there’s a residue of resentment on both sides, and civility is barely maintained.”
“Leslie, motherhood has never been your long suit in the game of life,” Kate said, relishing the idiom or cliché, though she hadn’t a clue what card game was providing the metaphor. “Anyway, I’ve acquired a father, not a mother.”
“I will say for you, Kate, that you’ve never gone on about the emptiness in your life because you don’t have children. I try to convince childless women of the advantages of their condition, but they just say since I have children I haven’t a right to speak on the subject. That seems to me an idiotic objection there’s no way out of. The truth is, Kate, you get more pleasure from your present and past graduate students, to say nothing of your niece and nephew, than most people, myself included, get from their children.”
“I get pleasure only from some graduate students, and only from two of my many nieces and nephews,” Kate said defensively. “And don’t forget Benedict’s defense: ‘The world must be peopled.’ ”
“Not these days. With all this genetic work curing and preventing diseases, everyone will live forever, and we had better find a way not to people the world, and soon.”
“Genes, again. You see, they do keep turning up. Now could we get back to my father?”
“Right,” Leslie said. “Why not just enjoy it. Let all the ramifications of your genetic heritage whirl about in your brain, follow each supposition to its illogical but fascinating conclusion, and then just look on him as a new friend. That’s my advice. You did come for my advice, didn’t you.”
“I came for the tea. Reed is suspicious of Jay. Not of his motives in turning up, but of his past, which Reed seems to suspect of being murky.”
“Well, there’s murky and murky. Promise not to spare me a single detail.”
“What I can’t decide,” Kate said, “and I know I keep returning to this, is what difference it makes who was one’s father. I mean, half a century later, what can Jay’s appearance possibly mean?”
“Now that’s an easy one. It obviously provides a simple, irrefutable explanation of why you aren’t a standard Fansler. No one else in the family turned out even remotely interesting; I bet they all voted for George W. Bush in 2000.”
“No doubt. But am I really ready to believe—which I never had to do before—that it is only spermatozoa that made me what I am today.”
“Probably. And yesterday, and all the days before that. Is the
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