He knew only what I knew of my father: that his name was James O’Brien.
“There’s a lot of James O’Briens out there,” Beau told me. “I narrowed them down by age and location, but no one I contacted had fathered a little girl in Arkansas in 1942.
“It got pretty frustrating, and I sort of dropped the whole search when Shelby and I were living in Europe.” (That’s your big-shot grandson, the art historian, working in places like Stockholm and Milan!)
Anyway, when they came back to the States last year he decided to pick up the search, but again he had no luck in finding the James O’Brien. Then a week or so ago he was browsing one of those Internet sites (you wouldn’t believe the world we live in today, Mama) where adopted children are looking for their birth families or vice versa, and he comes across a message: Looking for Faith, older daughter of my father, James “Jimmy” O’Brien; not married to mother at time of birth (1942) but mother’s name was Priscilla (?) Reynolds. Any information, please contact Vivien Pearson.
Beau couldn’t believe it and e-mailed (don’t ask me to explain it, Mama) the woman right away and asked if it was a possibility that the mother of the woman she was looking for was named Primrose and not Priscilla. She answered him right back and said, “My father only gave me this information on his deathbed and I could barely hear him so yes, it’s possible the name was Primrose. Anyway, I have a letter for her.”
It came today, Mama, and I’ve read it at least fifty times. It’s from my father—in his very own handwriting!—and this is what it says:
Dear Faith,
The only excuse for doing what I did to you and your mama was that I was seventeen years old when you were born and couldn’t handle being a daddy. I ran out on your two-week birthday—I don’t know, everyone seemed to be hollering at each other that day: me, your mama, her mama. Even you were hollering, lying in that little drawer, smelling of wet diapers . . . it was just way too much for me. In my whole life, I’ve never been more ashamed of anything than running out on you. (Your mama I’m not so ashamed of running out on, ha-ha. Whew! She was a pistol!)
I was lost and aimless for the next couple months. I worked on an oil rig, in a meatpacking plant, and in the stockroom of a store that sold Confederate souvenirs. (Flags, Jefferson Davis hats, copies of deeds to slaves, and the like—you wouldn’t believe the market for crap like that.) Then Uncle Sam caught up to me and I was shipped overseas—even fought in the Battle of Anzio, but I don’t really want to get into that. Suffice it to say I’m glad I have two daughters who won’t have to know what war is like.
When I got back to the States, I followed a buddy of mine to Tampa, Florida, which seemed just as good a place as any to settle down. I met the girl who became my wife—Phyllis was her name, and she had a little dance school called On Your Toes. She was a real good teacher—even taught me how to dance, and we spent many happy weekend nights at nightclubs doing the waltz, the rhumba, the tango—you name it, we danced it.
I went to school on the GI bill, but I didn’t last a year. I guess I’d seen too much to sit at a desk all day. Phyllis asked me what I had wanted to be when I was a little boy, and I said I’d always thought being a fireman would be a good job. She said, “Well, Jimmy, what’s holding you back?” Nothing was, and I retired two years ago after thirty-eight years of firefighting.
The reason I’m writing this letter is I’ve got emphysema so bad, I figure I’m just a couple good coughs away from meeting my Maker. I’m hooked up to oxygen and everything, so I’m at the phase where I want to settle my scores, you know?
I know it’s hard to believe, Faith, but you’ve been in my thoughts during all the important times of my life. Not in the big, light-up-the-sky way Phyllis and Vivien have; more like a little candle.
I never told anyone about you, Faith, and in one way I feel real bad and cowardly, but when you don’t tell your wife a big secret right off the bat, you know there’ll be hell to pay when you do tell her. So you avoid the hell altogether.
I will tell you this, Faith: just as Vivien’s face was always in my mind whenever I knew there were children in a burning house that had to get out, yours was too. Your little tiny baby face. My little candle.
So I’m writing this to tell you a little bit about me. Sorry that I didn’t dare do it until I’m ready to leave this world.
Is this any comfort to you at all? More than anything, I hope so, Faith. I know I was worse than a terrible father to you; I was no father at all. Some might say I’ve been a good man, and God knows I tried to be, but I also know that a deserter is the worst coward there is, and that’s what I am. It’s my dream that life’s been good to you.
Love,
Your dad, Jim
Mama,
Isn’t that something? A letter from my dad. Saying I was his little candle! But this joy—oh, my gosh, this bliss—is tempered by the fact that his other daughter, my sister, doesn’t want to see me. She attached a note to the letter saying as much, but I’m not about to let the only blood relative I have reject me, so I called information in Tampa and got her number.
I got an answering machine and launched into my self-promotion sales drive, and when I got a call the next day I thought, Yippee, it worked! but it wasn’t Vivien, it was her daughter Lauren, my niece.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but my mother asked me to deliver a message to you, and the message is that she doesn’t want to hear from you again.”
“What?” I said, her words taking my breath away worse than a kick to the stomach.
The young woman sighed. “I know that’s a pretty harsh thing to hear. I’m sorry Mom’s being so rigid—I personally would love to meet you—but right now she feels it’s her job to support my grandma, who wants nothing to do with you or the thought that Grandpa had a relationship with somebody else. Grandma’s a wonderful person, but she does have this jealous nature, and my mom’s inherited it too. See, for so long she was her father’s one and only precious daughter, and I don’t think she’s ready to be knocked from that position, you know? I mean, it’s all come as quite a shock to both of them.” She took a deep breath. “Whew. Have I made any sense at all?”
I finally managed to push some words past my kicked-in stomach.
“But we’re sisters! She’d like me! I’m a fun person, and as far as our dad goes, she had him her whole life!” I heard the tears in my voice. “I only had him for the first two weeks of mine!”
“I know,” said Lauren, “and I sympathize with you totally. I mean, if I couldn’t see my dad—he and my mom got divorced when I was fourteen, but we’re real close—why, I’d just be so depressed!”
She stopped talking for a moment.
“Uh, Faith, are you crying? Listen, I’ll work on her. All this is just so new for her; it’s going to take time, okay? It’ll really be okay . . . Aunt Faith.”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice strangulated in my throat. “Thank you for calling me that.”
“You’re welcome, and like I said, I’ll work on her. But if I were you, I wouldn’t try to contact her—any reconciliation is gonna have to come from her.” There was a slight pause. “She’s awfully stubborn, but I’m sure everything will work out.”
“I hope so,” I said, and boy, Mama, if that isn’t an understatement. Can you imagine what that would be like—to have a sister I could go visit and talk to on the phone and buy Christmas presents for? A sister who could tell me all about that seventeen-year-old who was my dad and grew into hers? Oh, Mama, the fact that she’s in this world makes my heart so full, and the fact that she doesn’t care that I’m in this world too makes it empty right out. What if she never wants to see me?
I know what your uncensored advice would be, Mama: well, then, fuck her.
Oh, boy, as much as I don’t want to, I think I’m going to have to start crying again. How can a person feel so excited/happy/surprised/delighted/awed/sad/ miserable/hurt/rejected all at the same time? The thing I’m gonna hold on to, though, is this:
I was my daddy’s little candle.
Faith
January 1998
HOST: GRANT
BOOK: Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy
REASON CHOSEN: “I loved The Moviegoer, plus the title spoke to me.”
One night last fall, thinking about Stuart and whether or not I was ever going to find someone I might love as much as I had loved him, I called Audrey over to keep me company.
“I was just going to call you,” she said. “I was sitting here feeling so sad about Paul.”
I hurried over, bringing a pineapple upside-down cake (from The Joy of Cooking—it’s the best ever) I’d made earlier that evening. After taking one bite, Audrey put her fork down and said, “Grant, why don’t you move in here with me?”
“Cake’s that good, huh?”
“I’m serious,” said Audrey, and I could tell by her voice that yes, she was. “Come on, think about it. Why should two good friends who happen to be single live in two big houses?”
“Because we are good friends. And we want to stay that way. We’d probably drive each other nuts living in the same house.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Think of it—you’d get the benefit of my company, not to mention my wise pastorly counsel, and I—” She speared another forkful of cake. “I’d get the benefit of your baking and your excellent housekeeping.”
“Why don’t you just get a maid?”
“You know I’m teasing,” said Audrey. “I’d get the benefit of having one of my best friends share a house with me.”
“Well,” I asked, coughing away the lump that sprouted in my throat, “what about my cat?”
“Lillian?” said Audrey, as if she hadn’t thought of her. “Well, we could always put her to sleep.” Seeing my face, she added, “Grant, I’m kidding.”
“What if I meet someone? What if you meet someone?”
“Grant, look around this house. It was big enough to raise three boys in. It’s big enough to hold three adults if one of us should get so lucky—four if we’re both so fortunate.” With the side of her fork, she cut another piece of cake. “The house is getting too big for me alone. I’ve honestly been thinking of moving to a condominium, but I can’t bear the idea of leaving Freesia Court. So really, if you’d move in, you’d be doing me a big favor.”
“You’d want me to sell my house?”
Audrey shrugged. “Mine is all paid off. If you lived here, you’d live mortgage-free.”
“Well, let me think about it,” I said in a voice that sounded as if I wasn’t sure I’d think about it at all.
I did, though. And the more I thought, the more sense it made to me.
“But Audrey,” I said in one of the dozen or more conversations we had about the topic, “what if we found we didn’t get along as roommates? What if we couldn’t stand one another?”
Audrey laughed. “Then I suppose you’d move out—or I’d move out. Whatever comes up, Grant, I have faith that we’d figure things out.”
I sold my house in November to the Wahlbergs, a young couple with a baby, and I moved in in December. I happened to be Audrey’s Secret Santa that year and gave her an atomizer of perfume. Over the logo, I pasted a piece of paper with these words on it:
roommate ridder
Whenever you’re troubled by pesky
roommates, one shot of the Roommate Ridder
will send the pesky roommate out of the house
until he’s cordially invited back.
Audrey hefted the bottle in her hand as if she were trying to determine its weight.
“Gee, I wonder if my Secret Santa could get this for me in a ten-gallon size?”
It’s only been three weeks, but so far we’re a great match. In fact, as soon as Kari came over for book club and smelled what I had in the oven (a toffee bar pie), she asked if we wanted a third roommate.
“Or at least let me come over on the nights Grant cooks.”
“Kari,” said Audrey, “Grant cooks every night.”
Kari shook her head. “Some people have all the luck.”
“Yeah, and I’m just grateful mine seems to be good right now,” I said, “Bad luck’s a pain in the ass.”
“Amen,” said the youth minister.
The others arrived and agreed that the pie smelled so good that we should forgo tradition and eat before the discussion.
“How about we make our thirtieth-anniversary plans?” said Audrey, taking the first piece of pie that was cut. “We said we were going to do that at the last meeting.”
“I can imagine you thirty years ago,” I said. “I bet you all reeked of hairspray and Charlie cologne.”
“More like cigarettes and liquor,” said Kari. “Uffda, the air used to be blue with smoke.”
“Thirty years,” said Merit, shaking her head.
“Is it going to be a year-round celebration?” I asked, directing the question at Slip, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet. “Or are we just going to have some sort of blowout party?”
Slip shrugged.
“A blowout party sounds good,” said Audrey. “Food, liquor, and a recounting of some of the stories we told the night we discussed Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex.”
Kari licked her fork (my toffee bar pie tended to make the best manners fly the coop). “You know, I like that recounting idea. Not necessarily those stories we told that night—”
“Hey,” said Audrey, “you never did tell us what you think about blow jobs.”
“I know,” said Merit, sitting forward. “How about if we each choose our favorite book to reread and discuss?”
“I like that idea,” said Faith. “Kind of a greatest-hits thing.”
“Well, I for one, ladies, have the memory of a sieve,” said Audrey. “How am I supposed to remember all the books we’ve read, let alone choose my favorite?”
“I’ve kept a list,” said Merit, raising her hand like a kid in school.
“You’ve kept a list?” asked Audrey.
Merit nodded. “Every night after book club, I’d go home and write about the meeting. I’d do it in the bathroom, where Eric wouldn’t see me—you remember how weird he was about me being in book club.”
“I can’t believe you were married to that pyschopath,” said Faith.
“I kept track of who hosted the night, why they chose the book, what food was served—stuff like that.”
“You didn’t!” said Kari, delight in her voice.
“I did.”
“That’s a historical document you’ve got on your hands, sister,” said Audrey, taking her second piece of pie. “You’ve got to type it all up for the rest of us.”
“Maybe Mr. Paradise and I are already planning something,” said Merit, her voice teasing.
“Well,” said Slip softly, “I don’t know about this greatest-hits idea. What if I want to celebrate our anniversary by reading a new book?”
“We read new books all the time,” said Faith impatiently. “I just thought it might be fun to take a look back.”
“It also might be fun to take a look forward,” said Slip, reaching for the big leather bag that slouched next to her chair. She set the bag on her lap and sat regarding us for a moment, her tiny little teeth bared in the shit-eatingest grin I’d ever seen in my life.
“For example,” she said, reaching into the bag, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think this book would make for a great discussion.”
She held the book out to us, her hands cupping the lower part, her chin resting on the top.
“Winter Gardens,” said Faith. “I never heard of it.”
Slip’s grin, which couldn’t get any bigger, somehow did as she opened her hands, uncovering the author’s name at the bottom of the book.
“Flannery McMahon!” said Faith.
“Flannery McMahon!” echoed Merit.
“Oh, my God,” said Audrey, “it’s Flan’s book!”
“Flan’s book!” said Kari, and I reiterated, “Flan’s boo
k!”
“That’s my daughter,” said Slip, and I thought then that if every single kid could hear their mother speak of them with such love and reverence, the world would change in an instant.
We inspected the book like monkeys checking for fleas, commenting on the typeface and the cover art.
“This is just a bound galley,” Slip explained. “The real book won’t be out for a couple months.”
“Is this the cover they’re going to use, though?” said Merit. “It’s like a picture of a dream.”
“Flan doesn’t like it,” said Slip. “She thinks it looks like a young-adult title.”
“She looks so sophisticated,” said Audrey, seeing Flan’s stamp-sized picture on the back. “What did I always tell her? ‘Flan, you’ve got to wear a little more makeup.’ ”
It was only when Faith opened it to the dedication page that we shut up.
“ ‘To my dad,’ ” she read, “ ‘who taught me about weather, and my mom who taught me about books. I’ll never run out of things to talk about.’ ”
IN MY INNOCENCE, I thought the night was ending when Audrey and I got everyone their coats. Standing in the foyer, watching them dig their gloves out of their pockets and prop their hats on their heads, I stifled the full, happy yawn of a host who knows what a good time everyone had at his house (and it did feel like my house), and who also knows how good it’s going to feel to crawl into bed. So when Slip said something, I hardly paid any attention, thinking it was the same let’s-bolster-one-another chatter everyone makes before they go out into a cold winter night.
But I saw Kari’s head jerk in a funny way, like a dog hearing a far-off whistle, and Faith’s hands seemed to be stuck to the scarf around her neck.
“What did you say?” I asked, even though I knew immediately I did not want to hear her answer.
“The cancer came back,” said Slip, and even though her voice was just above a whisper, it roared in my head.
“Where?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to say anything earlier,” said Slip, buttoning her top coat button. “I wanted Flan’s book—the good news—to get all the attention.”
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