by Pete Nelson
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Doesn’t it dishonor God not to use the tools he’s given us? I just mean being open to our own hearts and trusting them. Good idea, don’t you think?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Like in the old Westerns where the cowboy gets shot full of arrows and passes out and his horse finds the way home. Give the heart its head.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Mine would probably walk off a cliff in the dark.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: You needn’t agree so quickly. Have you ever loved a woman other than your wife?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: Here’s another one — who do you think knows more about love, a person who’s had a series of complex and involved relationships with a number of different people, or someone who’s had a single long-term, deep, satisfying relationship with only one person?
PaulGus: I can’t answer that either. I used to think I knew all the answers. Then I thought I knew maybe a few of the answers. Now I’m not even sure I understand the questions. Nobody knows anything.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Did you love your parents?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Just fishing — do you love your son Paul?
HarrGus: NO
It was as if he could hear his father’s voice, even though the word no had been nothing more than a series of pixels arranged on a screen.
He turned off the computer and went to sit on the porch swing. He heard a peeping sound. A bird of some sort had built a nest in the broken downspout beneath the eave. He listened to the rain, the traffic, the night, then went back to the computer and got online again, happy to find that Tamsen was available for instant messaging.
TamsenP: you’re up late.
PaulGus: Working. So are you.
TamsenP: working. is it raining there?
PaulGus: Yup. It was pretty loud thunder a while ago. Stella freaked out a little bit.
TamsenP: it poured here. how’s your book coming along?
PaulGus: Researching. I have a book right here that says there’s a little microscopic animal called a water bear that can survive for 85 years without water in temperatures ranging from 100 degrees below zero to 200 degrees above. They can even live in the vacuum of outer space, bombarded by cosmic radiation.
TamsenP: why do they call it a water bear if they live without water?
PaulGus: Because they can completely dehydrate themselves and come back to life years later when it rains, I guess. Like sea monkeys.
TamsenP: sorry not to be more responsive. i’m not in the best mood. they laid off 500 people today. i tried to phone you.
PaulGus: I’m so sorry. You weren’t laid off, were you?
TamsenP: not me, but i think it’s a sign of things to come. we’ve been blowing through untold millions of v.c. dollars and now they’re trying to sell the whole thing to jeff bezos.
PaulGus: Who?
TamsenP: amazon.com. buy stock in it if you have any excess funds. it’s going to be huge.
PaulGus: I always thought that had something to do with lesbians. Amazons, etc.
TamsenP: it has nothing to do with lesbians.
PaulGus: Are you going to have to start looking for work?
TamsenP: can you keep a secret? i don’t have to start looking. i got a call from the competition, hoping to lure me away. bottlerocket.com
PaulGus: What do they do?
TamsenP: they don’t do anything either, but they don’t do a whole lot more things than we don’t do. it’s just really hard. people picked up and moved their families to be here.
PaulGus: I’m really sorry for you. And for your friends.
TamsenP: how are you?
PaulGus: Had kind of a hard night myself.
TamsenP: what happened?
PaulGus: My father told me he doesn’t love me. Other than that, everything’s peachy.
TamsenP: what do you mean? i don’t understand.
He copied and pasted the entire conversation to Tamsen, who said she needed time to read it. He read about water bears. Positing an omniscient and benevolent demiurge ruling over a meaningful universe, why give the most dramatic survival mechanisms to so low an organism? Wasn’t it supposed to be man whom God favored above all others? Why make man the weakest, the most vulnerable? Water bears could survive at one hundred degrees below zero for nearly a century. Paul wanted to crawl off and die at a single word.
TamsenP: interesting.
PaulGus: It felt like it was going pretty good. We were talking about love.
TamsenP: you’re sure he wasn’t goofing with you?
PaulGus: Not his style of humor.
TamsenP: you know you’re a fine person, don’t you? you don’t have to hear it from him to know that. you’re lovable. lots of people love you. just because your father can’t deal with emotions is no reason to get down on yourself. you’re totally cool.
PaulGus: In theory.
TamsenP: paulie, paulie, paulie — this has to be a misunderstanding. it’s not his fault. he had a stroke. you can’t take anything he has to say … i was going to say seriously, but maybe i mean literally. you need to take it with a thousand grains of salt. and put all this stuff out of your mind and wait for the day when he’s more rational. he’s not himself.
PaulGus: He’s not irrational. There’s nothing wrong with his mind, other than that he can’t get it to tell his body what to do anymore. He’s the same guy.
TamsenP: you don’t know that. people who’ve had strokes might have all kinds of issues. he can’t talk. he can’t ask clarifying questions. he can’t tell you what he’s thinking. he can only click yes or no. if he could talk, i’m sure he’d explain what he meant.
PaulGus: There’s nothing ambiguous about being asked, “Do you love your son Paul?” I don’t see how he could misconstrue that.
TamsenP: he’s not himself. just forget about it. he played baseball with you and threw footballs and put you through college. you had a few disagreements, big deal. par for the course. you really think he could say he didn’t love you?
PaulGus: You’re absolutely right.
TamsenP: it must have hurt a great deal to read that.
PaulGus: I used to think that if my dad went golfing, for instance, and they needed somebody to make a foursome, and there was a guy, just like me, hanging around the putting green, some liberal-humanist, agnostic, pro-abortion, anti-death penalty Democrat who likes to go out to bars and listen to music and drink beer — if my dad met a guy just like me, he wouldn’t like him. He’d say to himself, “This person is not my cup of tea.”
TamsenP: you’re wrong. they love you. they know you. they’ve seen you grow up. they changed your diapers. they looked at your poop. let it be. they know the real you, and they accept that, and they love that. go easy on yourself.
PaulGus: I’ll try.
TamsenP: i have another conference in worcester in two days. maybe i’ll drive to northampton when i’m done. would that be all right?
PaulGus: That would be good.
TamsenP: i’ll call you when i know more. can you hang in there?
18
Hanging In There
When Tamsen arrived, two days later, Paul told her about a terrible dream he’d had, one not particularly difficult to interpret. He’d been with his parents at the Mall of America. They’d become separated and couldn’t find one another, which filled him with anxiety, even though he was a full-grown adult and not a child. Eventually he found his mother, who informed him, “Your father isn’t with us anymore. His heart is stuck.”
“Can you get your father online?” Tamsen asked.
She’d arrived just before six. Paul was cooking her a relatively fancy dinner by his standards, veal scaloppine in a mustard cream sauce with wild mushroom risotto, matched with a spectacular Chianti, or so the wine salesman at the liquor store had claimed. He wanted to do something special for Tamsen, to pay her back for all the things she�
�d done for him. She said her cooking instructor would have been pleased. Stella was under the kitchen table on scrap patrol.
“Probably,” Paul answered her. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere. Why?”
“Your dream made me think of something.”
Paul called his mother and got her to turn the computer on and set it up for his father to use. When they were ready, Paul asked Tamsen what she wanted him to say.
“I usually start by asking him how he’s feeling,” Paul said.
“Do that, then,” she said.
PaulGus: How are you feeling today? Better?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: We’ll just take it easy today, then. Okay?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: It’s a beautiful day here today. Is it a beautiful day there?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: Well, we’re very much enjoying the sunny weather. Have you watched any golf on television lately?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: I think this kid Tiger Woods is amazing. Don’t you?
HarrGus: YES
“This isn’t exactly going anywhere,” Paul told Tamsen.
“Tell him you think Tiger Woods’s father must be very proud of him,” Tamsen suggested.
“Why don’t you type?” Paul said, rising from the chair and offering her the keyboard. “He won’t know the difference.”
“Paul, please,” she said.
“If you have something in mind, just go for it,” Paul said, gesturing toward the open chair. “I give you permission. It’s better than you telling me what to type. If it takes too long, he loses focus.”
Tamsen took a seat at the keyboard.
PaulGus: his father must be very proud of him.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: last time i asked you if you loved your son paul. do you remember that?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: are you proud of your son paul?
HarrGus: NO
“Gee,” Paul said, “this is making me feel much better.”
“Just wait a minute,” she told him.
“What does this have to do with my dream?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It just made me think that maybe you got it backward.”
“How did I get it backward?”
“You didn’t lose him,” she said. “He lost you. He’s the one who had the stroke.”
PaulGus: do you love your son paul?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: let me ask you this, then. do you have a son named paul?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: if you did have a son named paul, you would love him, wouldn’t you?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: but as far as you know, you don’t have a son named paul?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: i’m a little confused as to why you say that. are you still feeling confused about some things?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: do you know what day it is? or what year it is?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: do you know the names of all the people who come see you?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: sometimes you forget?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: do you have a son named carl?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: and a daughter named elizabeth?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: and you know that because they come to visit you and tell you who they are?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: but nobody named paul comes to visit you?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: does the name paul gustavson ring a bell for you?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: is that person related to you?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: is that person your father?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: and do you understand that this is paul you’re talking to over the computer?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: so is it your understanding that you’re talking to your father? that all these times, you’ve been talking to your father?
HarrGus: YES
“Now this is getting interesting,” Paul said.
His grasp of family history wasn’t as complete as it could have been. He remembered his grandfather and namesake as a quiet, stern, undemonstrative man, an architect who designed railroad stations and yard depots for the Northern Pacific Railway. He gave everybody five dollars for their birthdays, always a crisp, unwrinkled, unfolded bill, tucked into special cards with a window cut in the front to frame Abraham Lincoln’s face. He’d seen four of his boys leave to fight in World War II and welcomed three home, having lost Inger, his second oldest, in the invasion of Normandy. Harrold had served in the Pacific. Neither Paul’s father nor his uncles ever spoke of what happened during the war. Paul’s grandfather died when Paul was nineteen.
“So Harrold has thought all this time that he was talking to his father,” Paul said.
“Apparently,” Tamsen said.
“I’m going to have to go back and reread our previous conversations,” Paul said. “Switch seats with me.”
Paul typed.
PaulGus: I guess there’s been some confusion then. You think I’m your father?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: I apologize, Harrold. And I wanted to tell you how sorry I am that you’ve had a stroke. There must be all kinds of things that you wish you could say to me. Things you never got a chance to say when I was alive.
HarrGus: YES
“What are you doing?” Tamsen asked.
“Pretending to be my grandfather,” Paul said. “If that’s who he thinks this is.”
“That’s lying,” Tamsen said.
“I know,” Paul said, “but when is he going to get another chance to talk to his father?”
PaulGus: I’m very proud of you for the way you’re handling this. I’m proud of you for the way you’ve lived your life. You’re a good man and a good father. I imagine there were times when you felt like I could have been a better father.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: I never said this often enough, but I want you to know I always loved you, even though I couldn’t always express it.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: We both loved you, your mother and I. And we were always proud of you, even when I might have been harsh or stern with you when I was trying to teach you things or correct you when you made mistakes. We were always very proud of you. Did you know that?
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: Well, we were. We love you. I love you.
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: I have to go now.
HarrGus: NO
PaulGus: I have to go. I can’t stay. But Harrold, the next time someone talks to you on the computer, it won’t be me — it will be your youngest son, Paul. You have three children, Carl, Elizabeth, and Paul. Paul will be the person contacting you next. Do you understand?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Do you remember your youngest son, Paul, now?
HarrGus: YES
PaulGus: Do you love your youngest son, Paul?
HarrGus: YES YES YES YES YES
PaulGus: Okay. I gotta go.
19
Casablanca
They talked about it at dinner. It was still a bit overwhelming. Paul worried that he might have said something wrong in his previous e-mails, but Tamsen told him not to second-guess himself. It broke his heart to think of how confused and lost his father must be feeling. He couldn’t think of a way to rectify the situation, other than to let time blur the outlines and smear the images. He thanked Tamsen for figuring it out on his behalf. She deflected his gratitude, adopting an aw-shucks-it-was-nothing, anybody-would-have-done-the-same-thing pose. Yet, though Paul felt closer to her, he sensed that she wasn’t reciprocating. She seemed, he thought, odd, somehow, or distant, as if now that she’d helped him straighten things out with his dad, she had something else on her mind.
Stella thou
ght the veal tasted like chicken. Tamsen appreciated the fancy dinner but ate quickly, rather than savor it. When she told him, sipping her after-dinner coffee, that she really had to be getting back, Paul begged her to stay, explaining that he’d rented a movie and hoped she’d watch it on the couch with him and spend the night. She told him she hadn’t brought a change of clothes, which made no sense, because she had a drawerful of clothes she’d left behind during her previous visits.
“What movie did you rent?” she said at last.
“Casablanca,” he said. “You said you always wanted to see it.” That had to have scored him significant points in the thoughtful/considerate boyfriend department.
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
He poured each of them another glass of wine, grabbed a quilt from the bed, and moved next to her on the couch. She lifted Stella up to join them, the dog’s head resting in Tamsen’s lap.
It wasn’t until the movie was nearly over and the Nazis were racing to the airport that Paul realized what he’d done. What was he thinking, showing her history’s most tragic love-triangle movie? What an idiot he was! It was like a scene out of a Woody Allen movie. Come to think of it, it was a Woody Allen movie. He could see the film affecting her. He considered pausing the movie and suggesting they go to bed without finishing it, but it was too late to stop it now. What a moron! If art was supposed to hold a mirror to the soul, he’d just presented her with a floor-length 103 magnifying reflector. By the end of the movie, tears were flowing down her cheeks. Afterward, she had her head buried in his chest, sobbing, and he knew why before she spoke. He held her and stroked her hair.
“Is that a great movie or what?” he said at last, trying to give her an out by pretending she was just sad because Bogie and In-grid Bergman weren’t going to be together. She sat up and looked at him, trying to smile.
“Jesus, I can’t keep doing this,” she said, sniffing. “I can’t keep having my feelings pulled in so many directions. It’s tearing me apart. Believe me, it’s totally my own fault and I have no right to complain to anyone. I take full responsibility. I’m not going to say, ‘You do the thinking for both of us.’ This is all on me.”