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Authors: Holly Lecraw
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you missed there.” And then he said, “Charlie, I love your mother, and so I love you. Simple as that. You didn’t do a thing to deserve it, but that doesn’t negate it. It just is.”
So I got into Harvard, which I had assumed I wouldn’t, even with Hugh’s help. When it was too late, I was ambivalent. Suddenly I had grand ideas of independence. And of course I was also scared. I took Hugh at his word and worried about myself, decided I’d been well behaved for long enough, kicked and screamed a little, slammed a few doors, was briefly, theatrically moody—and have regretted it ever since. I never told him thank you. Then, several weeks before my high-school graduation, on a day he’d actually made it into his office, he got a stomachache so painful that he took himself to the emergency room, thinking he might have appendicitis. It turned out his organs were shutting down, one by one. He was gone in three days. I hadn’t known people really could literally drink themselves to death, but they can.
Near the end of our lunch that day, he’d said to me, “Charlie, you need to know something.” His face had suddenly sagged, as though he’d been holding his breath through the entire meal and was finally letting it go. “I have known exactly who I was, who I am, my entire life.” He waved vaguely around at the dining room, the black waiters in their white coats, the city outside that was his. The wave nearly threw him off balance. “And it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good.” His right hand made a fist, and then, driven more by gravity than passion,came down heavily, muffled on the thick tablecloth. His silverware rattled faintly. “Remember that, Charles Garrett. Son of no one. Count your blessings.”
I WENT TO HARVARD, on my dead stepfather’s recommendation, and on his dime. I could not have felt more like a fraud.
In his honor, I did as well as I could, which was not well enough, and drank very little.
And then, all of a sudden, graduation was approaching. And, surrounded as I was by seething ambition, I began looking for jobs, although I had no idea about that larger thing, a career. Nevertheless, I’d do it on my own. I didn’t involve my mother or, God forbid, the Satterthwaites, although once again what I said or didn’t say turned out not to matter.
IN EARLY MAY, that year that I was twenty-two and graduating from college and deciding where in the world to go, my mother, Anita, was at Hugh’s parents’ for Sunday dinner. After Hugh died, the family was more often there, on a Sunday, than at the club—even by then, when he’d been gone for four years.
In the town where my mother grew up, there had not been a single house like the Satterthwaites’, or like the one she now lived in. She’d been raised by her grandparents, who believed in hell; if they were still living, they surely believed she was going there. She didn’t know her father’s name. As it was every Sunday, at the Satterthwaites’, she believed her job was to not let on to these facts, and not to forget them herself.
She’d escaped to the empty formal living room. At times, she needed a moment. Everyone forgave her these moments. The Satterthwaites loved her, as they liked to love most people, but were a little intimidated. This was not, by the way, an uncommon reaction to my mother.
The living room had antique china in niches by the mantel, maps of Civil War–era Atlanta on the wall. In front of her, on the coffee table, magazines were carefully fanned, no doubt by Bobo’s maid,Willie Mae, who was Rosetta’s sister. My mother’s fingers twitched because she wanted a cigarette, but her smoking was the only thing the Satterthwaites frowned upon, and since she agreed with them, her hand didn’t go to her pocket, and she didn’t get up and go outside to some isolated grassy corner. Instead, she picked up the magazine at the top of the fan, which was an alumni magazine from a place called Abbott. Hugh hadn’t gone
So I got into Harvard, which I had assumed I wouldn’t, even with Hugh’s help. When it was too late, I was ambivalent. Suddenly I had grand ideas of independence. And of course I was also scared. I took Hugh at his word and worried about myself, decided I’d been well behaved for long enough, kicked and screamed a little, slammed a few doors, was briefly, theatrically moody—and have regretted it ever since. I never told him thank you. Then, several weeks before my high-school graduation, on a day he’d actually made it into his office, he got a stomachache so painful that he took himself to the emergency room, thinking he might have appendicitis. It turned out his organs were shutting down, one by one. He was gone in three days. I hadn’t known people really could literally drink themselves to death, but they can.
Near the end of our lunch that day, he’d said to me, “Charlie, you need to know something.” His face had suddenly sagged, as though he’d been holding his breath through the entire meal and was finally letting it go. “I have known exactly who I was, who I am, my entire life.” He waved vaguely around at the dining room, the black waiters in their white coats, the city outside that was his. The wave nearly threw him off balance. “And it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good.” His right hand made a fist, and then, driven more by gravity than passion,came down heavily, muffled on the thick tablecloth. His silverware rattled faintly. “Remember that, Charles Garrett. Son of no one. Count your blessings.”
I WENT TO HARVARD, on my dead stepfather’s recommendation, and on his dime. I could not have felt more like a fraud.
In his honor, I did as well as I could, which was not well enough, and drank very little.
And then, all of a sudden, graduation was approaching. And, surrounded as I was by seething ambition, I began looking for jobs, although I had no idea about that larger thing, a career. Nevertheless, I’d do it on my own. I didn’t involve my mother or, God forbid, the Satterthwaites, although once again what I said or didn’t say turned out not to matter.
IN EARLY MAY, that year that I was twenty-two and graduating from college and deciding where in the world to go, my mother, Anita, was at Hugh’s parents’ for Sunday dinner. After Hugh died, the family was more often there, on a Sunday, than at the club—even by then, when he’d been gone for four years.
In the town where my mother grew up, there had not been a single house like the Satterthwaites’, or like the one she now lived in. She’d been raised by her grandparents, who believed in hell; if they were still living, they surely believed she was going there. She didn’t know her father’s name. As it was every Sunday, at the Satterthwaites’, she believed her job was to not let on to these facts, and not to forget them herself.
She’d escaped to the empty formal living room. At times, she needed a moment. Everyone forgave her these moments. The Satterthwaites loved her, as they liked to love most people, but were a little intimidated. This was not, by the way, an uncommon reaction to my mother.
The living room had antique china in niches by the mantel, maps of Civil War–era Atlanta on the wall. In front of her, on the coffee table, magazines were carefully fanned, no doubt by Bobo’s maid,Willie Mae, who was Rosetta’s sister. My mother’s fingers twitched because she wanted a cigarette, but her smoking was the only thing the Satterthwaites frowned upon, and since she agreed with them, her hand didn’t go to her pocket, and she didn’t get up and go outside to some isolated grassy corner. Instead, she picked up the magazine at the top of the fan, which was an alumni magazine from a place called Abbott. Hugh hadn’t gone
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