The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  “Indecision was Hamlet’s fatal flaw, Dominick,” Doc Patel said one afternoon.

  “Oh, man,” I groaned. “Don’t tell me you have a Ph.D. in Shakespeare, too?”

  Since our last appointment, she’d put a new toy on the table: a thick green liquid encased in a rectangle of glass. I reached over and picked it up, made it make waves. “To paint or not to paint,” I mumbled. “That is the question.” But when I looked up, the good doctor was shaking her head.

  “To be or not to be,” she said. “To get on with your life or create your own version of your brother’s imprisonment. To drown or not to drown.”

  She was hitting below the belt, I thought. Ten minutes earlier, I’d described for her the latest exchange dream I’d had. In this one, Dominick had died and I, Thomas, was at the wheel of the hearse, driving his body around in search of some elusive cemetery.

  “Have you called the State Board of Education yet?”

  I jockeyed that wave-making toy of hers back and forth, back and forth. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. In the session before, she had informed me that my shrugging in response to difficult questions was a hostile, not a helpful, response—a passive-aggressive habit I should work on. Officially, Dr. Patel was neutral on the subject of what I should do with the rest of my life, but you could tell she was rooting for my return to teaching. You could read it between the lines. It had been my idea, initially; I’d mentioned it as a possibility two or three appointments back. But since then, I’d begun to actually notice high school kids again. At the mall, at fast-food places. They’d gotten coarser, more desperate or something. All that gang stuff kids were into now, all that bad language. The week before I’d stood in line at Subway behind two girls in Raiders jackets. “That fuckin’ bitch gets in my face about him, I’ll bust her fuckin’ nose,” one of them told the other. “Who the fuck she think she is?” She was beautiful, this kid. Hispanic. These delicate, china doll features. . . . I pictured myself standing in a classroom in front of her and her friend—trying to teach those two about the relevance of history.

  “Dominick?”

  “What?”

  “Why haven’t you called?”

  I started to shrug but stopped myself. “I don’t know. I been busy.”

  “Yes? Doing what?”

  Watching CNN, C–SPAN. Watching baseball history in the making. The week before, I’d seen Rickey Henderson steal his 939th base and Nolan Ryan pitch his seventh career no-hitter on the same frickin’ day. Not that I dared mention baseball to Doc Patel. “Those books you’ve been having me read?” I said. “About the grieving process? Couple of them said that it’s natural to lose focus for a while. Feel a little spaced out or whatever. That it’s to be expected.” She nodded, said nothing. “What? Why are you smiling?”

  “Am I smiling?” she asked.

  I clunked her stupid wave-maker back onto the table. “I meant to call. I keep . . . I keep thinking about it after it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “After hours, I mean. It’ll dawn on me that I forgot and I’ll look up at the clock and it’ll be like fifteen minutes after they close.” She gave me one of those who’s-zooming-who looks and waited. “I guess I should write myself a note. That’s what I’ll do: write a note and leave it by the phone. . . . Maybe if they closed their offices at five instead of four-thirty, like the rest of the free world.” Lose the snotty tone, Birdsey, I advised myself. She’ll dismantle you for it. There’s precedent.

  Flipping through her notes, Dr. Patel reminded me that, two sessions ago, I had dictated a list of goals for myself. “Do you remember, Dominick? You told me that it would make you feel better to act on several things instead of continuing to vacillate. You felt that your indecision was depressing you. . . . Ah, yes, here it is. Shall we review your list?”

  As if I had a choice.

  “Number one,” she said. “Call the State Board of Education to inquire about my teaching license. Number two, make a final decision about my business. Number three, acknowledge sympathy cards and gifts. Number four, clear the air with Ray.” She asked me if I’d called back the “gentleman” who was interested in buying my equipment.

  “How can I call him back when I haven’t decided?” I said.

  “To let him know that you are still mulling over his inquiry.”

  I told her Jankowski was interested in my power washer, not my mulling patterns. “Anyways, he’s probably gone elsewhere by now.” I shifted in my chair. What was I supposed to do? Rush into a decision about my frickin’ livelihood just to please her?

  “What about the sympathy cards?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Have you written back to the people who—”

  “Yeah, I did that.” Which was a lie. Every time I sat at my kitchen table, I’d just stare at that stack of sympathy and it would short-circuit whatever promises I’d made. I hadn’t even opened most of those cards yet. “I started, anyway. I’m about halfway done.”

  Doc Patel nodded in misplaced approval. It would energize me, she said, to begin to cross things off my list. Depression was, in some ways, a crisis of energy. I had heard her say that before; we were in reruns.

  “I’ll have them finished next time I come in,” I said. “Definitely. Not a problem.” I would, too; I’d keep the TV off and start them that night.

  Doc Patel closed her pad. “What about your grandfather’s history, Dominick?”

  “What about it?” I couldn’t remember having put Domenico’s life story on my list.

  “Well, we haven’t chatted about that for a while. The last time we discussed it, you were telling me how painful it was to read it. Do you remember? We discussed whether it was better for you to finish the history or just stop.”

  She waited. I couldn’t speak.

  “Do you remember what your decision was?”

  I nodded. “I said I wanted to finish it. Get it over with. Get it behind me. . . . I don’t remember putting it on my list though.”

  “You didn’t. But I thought that as long as we were on the subject of procrastination and its connection to this depression you’re feeling, it might be—”

  “I’m almost finished with it.”

  “That was what you told me the last time—that you had about fifteen pages left.”

  “Look,” I said. “The reason I’m depressed is because my brother died. Not because of some stupid things on a list. . . . We were twins, okay? It hurts.”

  She nodded. “Understandable. But right now we’re talking about—”

  “Why’d you even give me those books to read—all those photocopied articles about how bereavement’s a process, about the special needs of a grieving twin if . . . if you expect me to just be over it in fifteen minutes?”

  “I don’t expect you to be over it in fifteen minutes.”

  “I mean, he’s locked up in psycho-prison for seven months. Then he gets out and drowns—kills himself, most likely—and I’m supposed to just go, ‘Oh well, that’s over with. Onward and upward. Time to make some major career change.’”

  Dr. Patel said she most certainly understood that bereavement was a complicated process—that its movement was both forward and backward, a series of small steps over time, and not always manageable or predictable. She granted me, as well, that the circumstances surrounding Thomas’s death and the fact that we were identical twins and had had a complicated relationship further entangled matters. She acknowledged my pain, she said; she neither slighted nor underestimated it. An important part of her job was to listen to my testament about Thomas’s death and to explore with me my complex responses to it. But as my advocate for a mentally healthy life as a surviving twin—and, she said, she wished to emphasize that fact: that she was my advocate, not my adversary—she could not in good conscience take money for our therapy sessions and then allow me to immobilize myself under the guise of grief. Yes, grieving was a painful process. Yes, one negotiated on
e’s losses through a series of steps. But one lived in the meantime. One accommodated the reality of death while living life. Dreams or no dreams, I was not Thomas, she said. I was Dominick. My heart beat; I drew breath. I needed to face not only my brother’s death but my own life as well.

  She consulted her list again. My list. “Have you called Ray yet?”

  Bingo. The $64,000 question. All the rest had just been warmups.

  In my first appointment after Thomas’s funeral, I’d told her about my public tirade against my stepfather—how, after she and Sheffer had left the house on Hollyhock Avenue that day, I’d fired on Ray. Had taken him down in front of witnesses. That session had been a marathon; she’d canceled her last appointment and we’d gone on for an hour and a half longer than my scheduled time. By the end of that particular fun fest, most of the remaining Birdsey family secrets had fallen like dominoes: Thomas and my mother “playing nice” upstairs; my giving them up to Ray that afternoon when he’d come home unexpectedly. Before that session was over, I’d screamed and sobbed and chanted exactly the way my brother had chanted that night. Let . . . me . . . out . . . of . . . here! PLEASE . . . let . . . me . . . out! When we were done, Doc Patel had walked me down the stairs and out to my car, praising me for my big breakthrough—for having lifted the burden of all those secrets and begun, in earnest, my healing process.

  And I’d felt unburdened, too. I’d driven away from her office feeling battle-weary but free. But it had turned out to be a pretty quick buzz; it had lasted only about as long as the ride home. Granted, I’d taken the scenic route—had driven past the old homestead on Hollyhock Avenue, out past Dessa’s. But by the time I pulled up to my cookie-cutter condo that night—my sorry-ass home sweet home—the despair had already set in. Most of the anger was gone, granted, but hopelessness had seeped into the spaces. Hopelessness, exhaustion. I’d felt tired ever since. . . .

  Because what good’s confession without penance—right, Father Guglielmo? Right, Father LaVie? Getting your head shrunk could only take you so far, and then it came time to drop to your knees and humble yourself. Ask forgiveness of God the Father. Or, in my case, God the Stepfather. And, goddamnit, my knees just didn’t seem to bend that way.

  So I’d been avoiding Ray. Not answering the messages he kept leaving on my machine. Not going over there. I couldn’t “clear the air” with him, whether or not I had put it on my list of goals. Whether or not he’d gone out there that morning of the funeral and planted those tulips for my mother, my brother . . . and my baby daughter. He’d been decorating Angela’s grave all along, I’d found out. Almost eight years. But I still couldn’t forgive him. Couldn’t let bygones be bygones, surrender to the statute of limitations. And anyway, how could I let Ray be my old man when I was still waiting for the real thing? Still waiting for my real old man to show up and save the day?

  “Dominick?”

  “What?”

  “My goodness, you’re distracted today. I asked you if you had called your stepfather yet.”

  I answered her by not answering.

  “When do you think you’ll be ready to take that step?” she said. “What is your deadline, please?”

  I shrugged.

  At the doorway to her outer office, I thanked her, told her I’d see her on Friday—our standard adios. But the good doctor threw me a curveball. She was canceling our Friday appointment, she said. I should call her once I had accomplished the things on my list. She would look forward to speaking with me at that point.

  I stood there, smiling, as embarrassed as I was pissed. “What is this? ‘Tough love’ or something?”

  She said she supposed it was. Wished me good luck and closed the door.

  Answering the sympathy cards wasn’t that bad, once I started. Not opening them had been worse. I’d gotten a card from the crew down at Sherwin-Williams, a couple of notes from teachers at the school where I had taught. Ruth Rood sent her condolences. She was retiring at the end of the semester, she said. Putting her house on the market. She and her sister were planning to do some traveling. I had never even acknowledged her husband’s bullet to the brain. Her sympathy card made no mention of him, either.

  I wrote all the insides first. Depersonalized it as much as possible. Turned it into an assembly line. Thank you for your kindness at this difficult time. Much appreciated. . . . Thank you for your kindness at this difficult time. Much appreciated. . . . My ex-in-laws had sent this oversized gold foil job, Mass cards from the Greek church inside. I’d have to remember to tell Ray at some point: Thomas had gotten his church service after all. Services. Six Greek Masses. The Constantines had sent flowers to the funeral home, too—an arrangement twice the size of Ray’s and mine. Big Gene’s signature was on the sympathy card, not just Thula’s. I wondered how Thula was doing since her tumble off the stool that day. I’d have to ask Leo. Dizziness could mean a lot of things. . . . It was funny, really. Whenever I saw Big Gene down at the dealership, he could barely acknowledge my existence. Then my brother dies, and he’s the king of condolences. . . . That big flower arrangement had probably been turned into a tax write-off. The Mass cards, too, for all I knew. Thank you for your kindness at this difficult time. Much appreciated.

  Mrs. Fenneck sent me a card—the librarian who’d called 911 that day and then shown up at the condo. Asking for forgiveness or dispensation or whatever the hell it was she’d wanted me to dispense that day. “My husband passed away a month ago,” she wrote now. “I pray for your loss and ask you to pray for mine. I’m glad your brother has finally found peace.” Well, peace be with you, too, Mrs. Fenneck. Peace on earth, good will toward widows and librarians. Thank you for your kindness at this difficult time. Much appreciated.

  I didn’t recognize the address on the card at the bottom of the pile, but I sure as hell knew the handwriting. It turned out not to be a sympathy card; it was a birth announcement. Tyffanie Rose. Six pounds, seven ounces. Eighteen inches long.

  California hadn’t worked out for them, Joy wrote. They had moved back East again—to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Thad had once been stationed. He was working as a masseur at a “wellness” clinic now; she was waitressing at a Mexican restaurant. Things weren’t going that great between them. It was pretty complicated. She had some decisions to make. Tyffanie was an easy baby, though—six weeks old and already sleeping through the night. “I’ve screwed up almost everything in my whole life, Dominick,” Joy wrote. “Tyffanie’s the one thing I managed to do right.”

  She’d enclosed a picture—one of those shots they take in the hospital that prove once and for all that we’re related to the apes. Tyffanie Rose: dopey name, cutesy spelling. Typical. I studied the wrinkly little twerp, wished her good luck. She was going to need it with those two washouts for parents. . . . What were you supposed to do with pictures like that, anyway? Throw ’em out? Stuff ’em in a drawer someplace? Little Miss Monkey Face there had nothing at all to do with me, despite the fact that her mother had tried to trick me into thinking I was her father. Toss it, I told myself. I got up, got halfway over to the wastebasket, and then changed my mind. Shoved her into my shirt pocket because I couldn’t think what else to do. Sat back down to my assembly line.

  I stamped all the cards I’d written, put the stack over by the phone. “Call State Department of Education!” I scrawled on one of the extras. Put it on the top of the pile to remind myself.

  I went into the living room and flopped onto the couch. Reached for the remote. I’d mail the cards first thing in the morning. Emily Post and Dr. Patel would both be happier than pigs in shit. At least I’d accomplished that much—could cross one thing off my list.

  Seinfeld . . . The Simpsons . . . the Sox. Boston was playing New York that night. Clemens was on the mound. Butter-butt. Big overpaid baby. Baseball’s nothing but a three-hour waste of time. . . . Yeah, but the sympathy cards are done, I reminded myself; you’ve earned seven or eight innings’ worth of down time. . . .

  By the time I wok
e up, the late news was on: Rajiv Gandhi burning on a funeral pyre, Queen Elizabeth knighting Norman Schwarzkopf for having done such a bang-up job of killing Iraqis. And then, something closer to the bone: Duane Taylor being led down the courthouse steps.

  He’d been arraigned that morning on 115 counts, the reporter said. The charges ranged from the aggravated sexual assault of eleven mentally unstable patients to racketeering—the consistent, methodical, and ongoing use of a state facility in the conducting of criminal activities. From the look of things, Taylor had fully recovered from his garroting, but there was nothing left of that cocky attitude I’d seen down at Hatch: him out there in that recreation yard in his cowboy hat, the big man who held the cigarette lighter and the ring of keys. He could get life if convicted, the reporter said, but the case was tricky—reliant on unreliable witnesses. When Dr. Yup had examined my brother, she’d found inconclusive evidence. But I was goddamned if I was giving Taylor the benefit of the doubt. Burn in hell, I told that hollow-cheeked motherfucker as they led him, handcuffed, into the backseat of a cruiser. Die forever.

  I deadened the set, killed the lights in the kitchen. Went into my bedroom thinking I’d never get to sleep—not with a dozing session already under my belt and freakin’ Duane Taylor on my mind. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and flopped belly-down onto my bed. Lay there in the dark, thinking about those things still on my list: call Jankowski about the power washer, call the State Board of Ed.

  Doc Patel was right, I knew that: grief or no grief, I had to get on with it.

  Call Ray.

  Finish my grandfather’s book. . . .

  I reached under my bed and felt for it in the dark: Domenico’s manuscript. “The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings.” Once I finished that thing, I’d have a fuckin’ bonfire out in the backyard. Good riddance, you pompous motherfucker.