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

  I offer to get her some sheets, figuring I’ll put her in the bedroom where Joe Jones’s paintings are stashed, but when Ari says her room has a queen-size bed, Marissa decides she’ll bunk in with her. That way, they can talk some more. “Have a pajama party.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But don’t make any crank calls, you two. I’ll be up in a little while. Beach tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” they say in unison. Watching Marissa follow her sister up the stairs, I think about the difficult conversation I’m going to have to have with her about her mother: read her reactions, compare her version of the things that happened to Ariane’s. Try as best I can to assess the damage our homelife left our kids with.

  I’ve left my laptop on, and before I go up, I decide to check my e-mail. There’s one from my cousin Ellen. It’s got two attachments. She says the first picture she scanned is one of my grandfather taken shortly after he arrived in California. There’s a date on the back: July 1, 1897. The second photo was taken in the forties at an Oh family reunion, she says—something her older sister Doris had. Doris thinks my father is the boy in the striped polo shirt kneeling in the front row.

  I click on the first attachment. Study the formal black-and-white portrait of Grandpa Oh when he was a young man barely out of his teens if that—a “coolie” laborer at a fishing cannery, according to Ellen, who would eventually travel across the country and become a successful restaurateur. His posture is erect, his expression sober. Am I reading into it, or is that fear I see in those almond eyes? Well, why wouldn’t he be afraid? He’s left everything he’s ever known to start over half a world away.

  I hesitate before opening the second attachment. I’ve never seen any pictures of my father, and I’m not sure I’m ready to see one now. But taking a deep breath, I aim the mouse and click. This photo is in color, slightly out of focus. I find Francis Oh among his twenty or so relatives—a skinny, unsmiling boy of about twelve or thirteen. He’s looking directly into the camera. Directly at me. But his face betrays no expression; he’s as unknowable as ever. And so the gush of emotion I expected would overtake me doesn’t happen. I stare at him, this cipher of a father, and feel nothing. . . .

  I locate Grandpa Oh in the picture, too, standing behind and a little to the right of his son. White shirt, wide red tie, pleated pants held up with suspenders—a younger version of the man I saw five or six times when I was a college student in my late teens. Is the petite woman with the 1940s hairstyle standing next to him his wife, my father’s mother? My Chinese grandmother is as much of a cipher as her son. I don’t even know her first name. Grandpa Oh was a widower by the time I met him, that day when my mother exacted from him his promise to contribute to my college fund. When, during another of my visits to his restaurant, he hesitated but then wrote down my father’s work address: Francis Oh, c/o Oh and Yang Accountants, 502 Stewart Street, Dayton, Ohio. I held onto that address for another seven or eight years before I mustered up the courage to write to him. Ask if I could meet him. I close my eyes and see the envelope that came back to me unopened, the word deceased scrawled over my own handwriting. A second rejection, this time due to death. . . . The palm trees in the yard behind the group suggest that my father and grandfather, for the sake of family connection, must have returned to California for this reunion. Among the gathering of adults and children, there are no half-breeds like me. No husbands or wives of different nationalities. Everyone is unmistakably, uniformly Chinese. Well, my Italian grandparents had been the same. Hung out with family members and other Siciliani for the most part. I can’t recall that they had any non-Italian friends. . . .

  I close down my computer, lock the doors, turn off the lights. I’m halfway up the stairs when I remember that phone call I got before when Ari and I were out on the deck. Well, whoever it is can wait, I tell myself. But a few more stairs later, I change my mind and head back down.

  “Hi, Dad, it’s me.” I see him in the kitchen, shielding his face as she comes toward him with that mallet. “I changed my mind about going to the wedding. Got someone to take my weekend shift and . . . Casey’s not coming. Just me. I get into Bradley at about two tomorrow. Rented a car so I can drive up there and hang out with you guys for a few days. Ari says the twerp’s going up, too, I guess. You’re in Truro, right? Call me back and give me the address, will you? I have my GPS. . . . Well, okay. See you soon.”

  When I go upstairs, I can hear my girls yakking away down the hall. I brush and floss my teeth, stare at myself in the medicine cabinet mirror: the guy who tried all day long to help the kids who came into his office, and then went home and ignored the signs that his own kids needed help. That their mother flew into those violent rages. Attacked her own son. Our son. . . . Well, okay, maybe I was asleep at the wheel. But at least I hadn’t cut and run like my father had. I raised them, read to them and bathed them, helped guide them into adulthood. And they turned out okay, didn’t they? They’re solid, self-supporting adults. . . . Except, in that voice mail he left, Andrew sounded troubled. Nervous. When he gets here, I’m going to have to have a sit-down with him. With the three of them. Talk to them about their mother, whether they want to go there or not. Find out what kind of baggage they’re still hauling around because of their two highly imperfect parents. Well, hey. Whose parents are perfect? Who’s not carrying around baggage from childhood? Who among us is immune from family pain?

  I close my bedroom door, turn off the light. Undress in the dark and crawl under the sheet. Lying there, I close my eyes and see my grandfather—both the old man I knew and the solemn-looking immigrant boy in the picture. He must have had to carry his burdens, too. Poverty, hunger. Why else would he have left what was familiar and launched himself into the unknown? . . .

  “Grandpa Oh.” I say it out loud in the dark. Say it again. “Grandpa Oh.” In another seven months or so, that’s who I’ll be, too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Andrew Oh

  At the Sturbridge tolls, I take a ticket. Take the ramp onto the Mass. Pike. “Proceed on Interstate-Ninety East for fifty-six miles to Interstate-Four Ninety-Five South, Exit Eleven-A,” the GPS voice says. It’s just me, her, and this Egg McMuffin I’ve been chewing and swallowing without really tasting it. Now that I’ve gotten something in my stomach, I don’t want any more. I fist the rest of it inside the paper and toss it onto the passenger’s seat floor. When I catch myself worrying about how Casey’s doing, I stop myself. Turn on the radio. Metallica at 6:00 A.M.? Uh-uh. . . . Kanye? Nope. . . . What I could use right about now is some New Testament wisdom, but I doubt there’s any Christian stations up here in politically correct Massachusetts. Hey, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Texas anymore.

  I kill the radio. Put on my signal and shoot past the red Nissan and the two sixteen-wheelers in front of it. One’s a Sam Adams truck, the other’s a Dunkin’ Donuts. None of the bars in Waco have Sam on tap, and the closest Dunkin’ Donuts is eighty miles away in Round Rock. Kinda nice, actually—being back here. Driving a V6 again. In all the drama and heartbreak of the past few days, I forgot to make a reservation at the car rental place and had to choose between what they had left: a Jetta or this big-ass Chrysler SUV. I’m just lucky I was able to exchange that ticket she sent for a red-eye. Gives me a little more time up there with Dad before we have to head down to the wedding. The traffic’s light at this time of the morning and I gun it. Hit eighty and set the cruise control. I’m anxious to get there and see the three of them, even pain-in-the-ass Marissa. Not that I’m looking forward to telling them what’s happened. . . .

  “In two tenths of a mile, turn right,” the GPS lady says. “Turn right.”

  I do what it says. Take the Pamet Road exit, then follow the next two or three commands. Travel a mile or so up the country road it’s put me on. “In one tenths miles, turn right. . . . Turn right.” I drive onto a dirt road. Pass two or three houses nestled in the trees. Unpainted shingles, white trim: typical Cape Cod. “Arriving at destination. On right.” But w
hich one is it? The bungalow with the weather-beaten shakes or the big white house up there on that bluff? I don’t see Dad’s car at either one. Then I remember that he bought a new car last year—a Prius. And there’s a black Prius, parked at the big house. I turn the wheel and head up the driveway, my tires crunching broken clamshells bleached white by the sun. The front door bangs open, and there they are, rushing toward me. Marissa first, then Ariane, and then my dad. I take a deep breath and get out of the car. Here goes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Orion Oh

  Because sharks are more intelligent than seals,” Tracy tells them. The five of us are out on the back deck at Adrian’s, having breakfast before the kids head back home for the wedding. We’ve arrived at the restaurant in three different cars: mine, Tracy’s, and that big SUV Andrew rented. It’s packed up with their stuff. The twins and their sister are taking off from here: rehearsal dinner tonight, the ceremony tomorrow. But for another hour or so, I’ve still got them here with me. And Tracy’s shark stories have got them, too. The three of them are wide-eyed, fully attentive, like when I’d read them bedtime stories and ham it up, take on the voice of Long John Silver or whoever. “I’ve seen them breach right out of the water and come down hard,” Tracy says. “Slam the seal to stun it and then go in for the kill.”

  “Bullies!” Marissa says, touching her face. I hadn’t even noticed that bruise she’s got until Andrew said something to her yesterday, but it’s more evident out here in the morning sun.

  Andrew tells Tracy he saw an attack like that on TV—something called Shark Week. “But it would be the shit to see it in person.” Tracy says it’s too bad he can’t stick around longer. She’d take him out on the boat with her.

  Marissa sulks, gulps her Bloody Mary. When Andrew kidded her about that bruise yesterday—Was it really a cabinet door or did somebody pop you one?—she’d told him to go fuck himself, then had gone into the kitchen and fixed herself another drink. Something’s up with her: the way she’s been knocking them down, even this morning. Two Bloody Marys to everyone else’s one. But she’s not volunteering anything. Not to me, anyway. Maybe to her sister. They were out on Viveca’s deck yesterday, deep in some private conversation that stopped abruptly when I stepped out there. “Hi, Daddy!” Ariane had said, replacing the worried frown on her face with a counterfeit smile. Had someone hit Marissa? Why else would she have gotten so testy when her brother said that? Maybe I can take Ari aside for a minute before they leave and ask her if she knows anything—if that’s what they were talking about out there. But no, it probably did happen the way she said. I’m probably just being hyperalert because I’d missed the signs that their mother had hurt their brother. . . .

  Except what about that bar where she works? Her apartment’s only a couple of blocks away, she says—a five-minute walk home after her shift. Still, things can happen even in that short a distance, especially late at night. Someone could know her patterns, be waiting in some alley. Jump out and surprise her like those sharks surprise the seals.

  Someone must have just said something funny, because they’re all laughing. I join in, unaware. “Right, Daddy?” Ariane says.

  “Oh yes, that’s right.”

  The kids look relaxed and healthy; all three of them got some sun at the beach yesterday. It’s been a good visit, overall. Just a few rough spots: when he needled her about that bruise, and when she teased him about being a Bible thumper. And when I sat them down and tried to get them to talk about their mother’s assaults on Andrew. I blew it when I used that word: assault. They clammed right up, the three of them. . . . But yeah, overall, it’s been good. Too short, though. When we were getting ready to come here and I told them I didn’t want them to leave, Ariane suggested I come down with them. “You can stay at the house while we’re at the wedding. Mama and Viveca are going back to New York after the reception. Getting ready for their trip to Greece. We could hang out together on Sunday until Andrew and I have to leave for the airport.” I was tempted. Considered it. But no, it’s better to leave things the way they are.

  They like Tracy. She had already won over Ari with that stuff she bought her. It really has seemed to quell her nausea. But when she came over for dinner last night, Andrew and Marissa were reserved with her. Before she got there, those two were up to their old tricks: him chasing after her with one of the live lobsters we’d picked up at the wharf, her fending him off with couch pillows. But when Tracy arrived, they’d put the brakes on that behavior. Turned back into cautious adults. This morning’s different, though. Everyone’s at ease. They can’t resist her shark stories.

  Ari asks why the great whites are so interested in hunting seals when they could eat whatever’s swimming around under the sea.

  “It’s the layer of blubber they’re after,” Tracy tells them. “It’s rich with nutrients. We suspect that’s why they’ve been sticking around so late in the season. Consuming what they can so that they can convert it into energy for their long migration down to warmer waters. They ought to be heading out pretty soon now. It’s going to be fascinating to track them en route with those devices we’ve tagged them with. Hopefully, they’ll stay embedded for the duration. I’m excited about it.”

  Marissa says if she was on that observation boat and saw one of them attacking some poor seal, she’d take out her gun. Her gun? She’s got a gun?

  “Better the seals than us,” her brother says.

  “Well, actually, sharks aren’t really cruising around looking for humans to devour,” Tracy says. “I think we can blame Steven Spielberg for that misconception. He and whoever wrote that book the movie was based on.”

  “Peter Benchley,” Andrew says. “Back in high school, I handed in that same book report for my summer reading assignment three years running. Didn’t get nailed until I got to Mrs. Jennings’s class.”

  “Mrs. Jennings hated my guts,” Marissa says. “Probably because I was related to you.” Andrew concurs, smiling proudly. But Ariane says she learned a lot from Mrs. J’s class. That she was an awesome teacher.

  “Have you figured out which one of us was always the teacher’s pet?” Andrew asks Tracy.

  She laughs. Says she has a pretty good idea. “I was no angel in grade school, either. I got kicked out of the Brownies for smoking a cigarette.”

  Marissa tells her about the time at Brownie camp when she got in trouble for singing that song “Bad to the Bone” the night of the talent show. “Too bad we weren’t in the same Brownie troop,” she tells Tracy. “If we’d have joined forces, we probably could have taken down the entire Girls Scouts of America organization.”

  Tracy calculates that she would have been in high school by the time Rissa was in Brownies. That she’s not sure she would have still been able to fit into her uniform. “Hey, who sang ‘Bad to the Bone’ anyway?” she asks. “George Thorogood?”

  “And the Destroyers,” Andrew says. “I had that CD until my bratty little sister scratched it to shit.” He starts singing. “Bad to the bone, I’m b-b-b-b-bad.” He points his thumb at Ariane. “Or in her case, I’m g-g-g-g-good.”

  “Hey!” Ariane protests. “I’m going to be an unwed mother. That’s pretty bad-ass, right?” Nervous smiles all around, Ari’s included.

  Unaware that he’s just broken off his engagement, Tracy asks Andrew how he likes Texas. “S’all right,” he says. “It’s got its good points.”

  “Like what?” Marissa quips. “Armadillos? Jesus jamborees?”

  His nostrils flare a little at the Jesus remark. She’s pushing it, and I’m relieved when he doesn’t take the bait. “Armadillos are cool,” he says. “Kinda slow and stupid, though. I’ve hit so many of them on the road that I’ve probably thinned out the population.”

  “Not on purpose?” Ariane asks. He says sure, that he’s an armadillo serial killer. Rolls his eyes.

  Tracy tells him she did some research in the Gulf of Mexico once. “Down around Padre Island. That’s one of the things I remember mos
t: the armadillo roadkill all around Corpus Christi.”

  “Is it armadillos or armadildos?” Marissa says. She looks expectantly from face to face, but nobody thinks it’s funny. She downs the rest of her Bloody Mary and starts swishing the ice around at the bottom of her glass. For the next few minutes, she sits there sulking.

  When our waiter comes by, he asks if he can get us anything else. Marissa opens her mouth to answer him, but before she can order another one, I cut her off. “Just the check, thanks.”

  Ariane glances at her watch and says they’d better get going.

  “And I’ve got to get over to the lab,” Tracy says. “But hey, this has been fun. Thanks, you guys, for letting me share your time with your dad.” The other two acknowledge her, but Marissa stands, teetering a little, and says she’s got to use the bathroom.

  “Yeah, I’d better go, too,” her sister says. “We pregnant ladies have to seize every opportunity we can to use the facility.” They head inside.

  “Pregnant ladies,” Andrew says when she’s out of earshot. He shakes his head. “I still don’t get it.” The best I can offer him is a shrug.

  When the check comes, I give it a quick scan and take out my wallet. Refuse Tracy’s offer to split the tab. “My treat. But thanks.” When the girls come back to the table, everyone stands.

  On the way out, I sidle up to Ariane and whisper. “She bought a gun?”

  “Not yet,” she whispers back. “She’s applied for a permit.”

  “What’s up with that?” I ask. Ariane’s about to say something, but she stops when Marissa, ahead of us, slows down and we catch up to her.

  Out in the parking lot, everyone hugs everyone else good-bye. Andrew’s embrace is the tightest and longest-lasting. What happened during our run yesterday was intense. “Hang in there, Dad,” he whispers. I nod. Give him a smile. The kids get in his car, Ariane up front with her brother, Marissa in the back. They wave. Tracy and I wave back. They pull out onto Route 6.