green lawn beneath old trees, that I don’t want the job.
Instead I excuse myself and go inside and after a perfunctory use of the facilities I linger, drifting from room to room, watching the afternoon light playing on the smooth worn banister, on the creamy heavy paint on door frames, on the antique rugs thin at the edges. But then I hear the voice of the hostess and another woman as they enter the kitchen. If I could stand here long enough, maybe a layer of the mystery on the surfaces of these lives would be peeled away, but if they find me I certainly won’t be able to say that, and so I slip out through a French door to the side yard.
As I walk back around I hear cheering, and when I round the corner to the wide circle of chairs in the green grass I see Nicky, in the middle of the circle—walking. They’re his first steps. He’s stiff kneed, a miniature lumbering giant. His face is full of surprise and he stops, swaying, and laughs. Laughs! And everyone around him laughs too. And he looks all around him and takes in all the adoration, swallows it whole, as is his due.
And then sees me. And makes a beeline for me. His face is clean with joy and I crouch down and he lurches into me, his fat hands splayed on my knees with unthinking ownership. Everyone else loves him but he’s chosen me, and I feel myself giving in, as helpless as the rest.
THE DECLINE WAS GRADUAL. Nicky was at least three before I noticed how I’d quit relying on Hugh—that he was often literally unavailable, in his study with the door closed. Sometimes he even slept there. He was such a gentle drunk, never ugly or belligerent; he would just gradually disappear, over the course of an evening, the smile on his face delicate as paper, and half an hour, an hour after he slid away you’d finally notice he was gone.
But it turned out he was still paying a little bit of attention, and there was still something he wanted to do for me.
He asked me to meet him at his town club for lunch, which I’d never done before. It was hushed and male and famous for, of all things, hot buttered homemade saltines, which were absurdly good. The waiter knew him and seemed uncommonly fond of him. “We haven’t seen you for a while, Mr. Hugh,” he said. He brought Hugh a double old-fashioned without asking. Every black person there called him Mr. Hugh. The white men at the front desk called him Mr. Satterthwaite.
As Hugh gestured with his glass, he explained that the men in his family had always gone to Harvard, “and I want to do that for you, Charlie.” I didn’t ask how. The Satterthwaites were humble, affable, down-to-earth, but things often got done with undue ease, bypassing the usual channels; it was a different time. Calls could be placed. Cousins turned up in useful positions. Someone had been someone else’s best man and I remember your sister so fondly, and don’t say another word.
I wasn’t principled enough to resist his offer, but, more important, I couldn’t resist Hugh. As we spoke and I tried not to eat all the saltines, and the waiter quietly brought him fresh drinks, I realized inmy dumb seventeen-year-old way that he was following a script in his head with immense, heartbreaking care. Old courtesy, old order.
“Maybe you should slow down?” I said, when the fourth drink was set in front of him. With just the two of us, and the clairvoyant waiter, I couldn’t help counting as the glasses appeared and disappeared.
He smiled sadly, as though I had just stumbled on a great, inevitable, adult truth that he had wanted to keep from me for as long as possible. Before him his water glass brimmed full, untouched. He didn’t seem any more or less inebriated than usual. “Son,” he said (he’d asked long before if he could call me that, and of course I’d said yes), “don’t worry about me. Fruitless endeavor. You worry about yourself, now. Eat up. Have another cracker.” He handed me the linen-lined silver tray. “There’s a couple
Instead I excuse myself and go inside and after a perfunctory use of the facilities I linger, drifting from room to room, watching the afternoon light playing on the smooth worn banister, on the creamy heavy paint on door frames, on the antique rugs thin at the edges. But then I hear the voice of the hostess and another woman as they enter the kitchen. If I could stand here long enough, maybe a layer of the mystery on the surfaces of these lives would be peeled away, but if they find me I certainly won’t be able to say that, and so I slip out through a French door to the side yard.
As I walk back around I hear cheering, and when I round the corner to the wide circle of chairs in the green grass I see Nicky, in the middle of the circle—walking. They’re his first steps. He’s stiff kneed, a miniature lumbering giant. His face is full of surprise and he stops, swaying, and laughs. Laughs! And everyone around him laughs too. And he looks all around him and takes in all the adoration, swallows it whole, as is his due.
And then sees me. And makes a beeline for me. His face is clean with joy and I crouch down and he lurches into me, his fat hands splayed on my knees with unthinking ownership. Everyone else loves him but he’s chosen me, and I feel myself giving in, as helpless as the rest.
THE DECLINE WAS GRADUAL. Nicky was at least three before I noticed how I’d quit relying on Hugh—that he was often literally unavailable, in his study with the door closed. Sometimes he even slept there. He was such a gentle drunk, never ugly or belligerent; he would just gradually disappear, over the course of an evening, the smile on his face delicate as paper, and half an hour, an hour after he slid away you’d finally notice he was gone.
But it turned out he was still paying a little bit of attention, and there was still something he wanted to do for me.
He asked me to meet him at his town club for lunch, which I’d never done before. It was hushed and male and famous for, of all things, hot buttered homemade saltines, which were absurdly good. The waiter knew him and seemed uncommonly fond of him. “We haven’t seen you for a while, Mr. Hugh,” he said. He brought Hugh a double old-fashioned without asking. Every black person there called him Mr. Hugh. The white men at the front desk called him Mr. Satterthwaite.
As Hugh gestured with his glass, he explained that the men in his family had always gone to Harvard, “and I want to do that for you, Charlie.” I didn’t ask how. The Satterthwaites were humble, affable, down-to-earth, but things often got done with undue ease, bypassing the usual channels; it was a different time. Calls could be placed. Cousins turned up in useful positions. Someone had been someone else’s best man and I remember your sister so fondly, and don’t say another word.
I wasn’t principled enough to resist his offer, but, more important, I couldn’t resist Hugh. As we spoke and I tried not to eat all the saltines, and the waiter quietly brought him fresh drinks, I realized inmy dumb seventeen-year-old way that he was following a script in his head with immense, heartbreaking care. Old courtesy, old order.
“Maybe you should slow down?” I said, when the fourth drink was set in front of him. With just the two of us, and the clairvoyant waiter, I couldn’t help counting as the glasses appeared and disappeared.
He smiled sadly, as though I had just stumbled on a great, inevitable, adult truth that he had wanted to keep from me for as long as possible. Before him his water glass brimmed full, untouched. He didn’t seem any more or less inebriated than usual. “Son,” he said (he’d asked long before if he could call me that, and of course I’d said yes), “don’t worry about me. Fruitless endeavor. You worry about yourself, now. Eat up. Have another cracker.” He handed me the linen-lined silver tray. “There’s a couple
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