"In eighth grade?"
"And I saw a lot of your ball games. That one you lost in extra innings because of that bobble by the shortstop. That tournament."
"You were there?"
"And at graduation, too. I was watching from the edges of things—last row of the bleachers, back of the gym. Your mother saw me once, I think, but she didn't confront me. She just let me sit there." More secrets from Artie—but these seem humble and sweet.
"Well, I wanted you to be a part of my life," John said. "So we have that in common, too." It struck me as one of the most tender things I'd ever heard. I didn't know if it was true or not, but it sounded true.
That was all I needed to hear. I realized I hadn't quite trusted John to be gentle with Artie, but now I did. They'd had a relationship all these years even though John didn't know it. He seemed to understand that this meeting was monumental for Artie. Now I knew there was a lot at stake for John, too. Maybe he didn't quite believe his own mantra that there was nothing between him and Artie now. Maybe he'd told Artie the truth. In any case, I suddenly felt guilty. This was their relationship to invent. I slipped away, giving them their privacy.
*
One of the problems with eavesdropping is that you can't unhear what you've heard. So I find myself wanting to ask John questions about his childhood. I want to know if he was angry at Artie all those years. I want to know more about his mother and to talk to him about that edge in his voice. I want to know if something's changed now that he's heard Artie was there, skirting around the boundaries of his childhood. Has he been forced to reimagine everything? What does that feel like? I wonder, if I'd found out something like this about my own father, how would it change me now? I'm a little jealous of John, that he's gotten the chance to see his father differently. I'll never have that chance.
But we don't talk about any of these things while we're on what John calls "the Tour d'Artie." We take drives around Philly together. Now that Artie has told John some things about his childhood, John asks that we make certain stops. We've driven by Artie's childhood home, some of his schools, and one day we end up at the hotel where he worked as a bellhop. The hotel is still intact, surviving with some old-world charm, some gold plating, heavy ornate rotating doors, and an overdressed doorman on hand.
"It was a taste of the rich life," I tell John. "He worked this job so that he could be around the wealthy, get a feel for their lives. Well, more than that. He wanted to learn their gestures, their accents, the way they'd fold their tips and slip them into his hand. He was supposed to be saving his money for college, but he spent it on tennis lessons and golf. The rich sports."
"And it paid off," John says, his broad hand jiggling the gearshift.
"Yep," I say.
"This is where he met my mother, you know."
This is the first time John's ever revealed anything from his side. "No, I didn't know that."
"I thought you did."
"What was she like back then?" I ask.
"I don't know. Like she is now but younger, maybe a little less wily, but I doubt it. She was learning to fake things, too." John rattles the gearshift into neutral. "Did you like that about Artie?"
"What?" I ask.
"That he was rich." John looks at me directly. His eyebrows sometimes give the impression that he's wounded. They pinch up in the middle, slanting down sadly.
"No," I say. "In all honesty, I liked that he came from nothing. The money made things harder, in a way."
"In what way?" he asks.
I'm not sure. I haven't ever put words to it. I guess the money separated us. I didn't want him to think I was glomming on to it. I made plenty myself. So it became an area in which we went our own ways. It allowed Artie his freedom, too, and that turned out to be more than he could handle. If we'd had joint accounts, wouldn't I have noticed the expenditures on his sweethearts? Hotel rooms? Dinners at restaurants I'd never been to? But all this is sidestepping the issue. It's not getting at the heart of the matter. "I guess this is where he learned to fake being rich. He learned the art of faking." I can feel my eyes fill with tears. I look out the window. I want to tell John that this could be the origin of Artie's betrayal. If he hadn't learned to fake being rich, could he have faked our marriage so well, his vows?
"Oh," John says. And I can tell he's starting to catch on that there's a lot riding below the surface between Artie and me. "You know what we need?"
"What?" I ask, pressing the tears from my eyes.
"A cheesesteak distraction. An ancient invention, the cheesesteak holds great powers. Incas used it as a form of anesthesia for laboring women. Buddha used it as a focus for meditation. It's what Egyptians ate while designing the pyramids. What do you think?"
"Two blocks up on the left. A great place. They let you order extra grease."
"So it's a holy place," he says, putting the car in drive.
"A shrine, really, to grease."
"Complete with a patron saint of extra grease?"
"Of course," I say, noticing that when he says something funny, he jiggles one of his knees like a restless schoolboy.
"Saint Al?" he says.
"Did you go to Catholic school or something?"
"It was a great place to meet Catholic girls."
For a quick moment, while he turns the wheel, handover- hand, I imagine what it would be like to have been one of those Catholic girls—real or not. I imagine what it would be like to kiss him in a cramped backseat or in the blustery wind of a high school football game. I wonder what he was like back then. Was he too tall, too skinny, all arms and legs? Did he have perfect hair? Wear a jean jacket? I know this is wrong. I shouldn't let myself think this way. What kind of person would think this way about her husband's estranged son? What would Freud say?
John pulls up in front of the sub shop. "The holy land," he says. "Do we have to go to confession first?"
And what would I confess? I don't want to dwell on it. "Let's skip confession, assume guilt, say our three Hail Marys later," I say.
Chapter Twenty-two
Should We Feel Oh-So-Sorry for the Generation of Confused Men?
I spend part of each afternoon with Elspa. We've been trying to create a plan to get Rose back. I've come to think of Elspa as articulate, full of wise perceptions that catch me off guard. But when it comes to her parents, she shuts down. She hems and haws. She's vague. She talks in clichés about tough love.
She sits on the bed in the guest room, fiddling with the zipper on her sweatshirt or the spiral of her notebook, and I pace, asking questions as gently as I can, but get nowhere.
I know that her parents live in Baltimore. She describes them in harsh terms—her mother was "gruff and distant," her father was "mostly just not around." She's also given me abbreviated descriptions of crack houses and her drug connections. She's written a lot in her journal, but she doesn't want me to read it. "I'm a terrible writer. It's all so clumsy. I'd be embarrassed." But she also refuses to paraphrase it.
The afternoon that ends up being our last spent with me as social worker/therapist goes like this.
"You told me before that you never signed anything. What's the custody arrangement?"
"It's all informal. There weren't ever any lawyers. Lawyers would only make my parents uncomfortable."
"That's good," I tell her. "No lawyers—that's a good thing." And then I pause. "But it would also help if I knew them a little better before we ask for your daughter back."
She nods, but says nothing.
"Don't you have any specific memories? Any at all? What's wrong with you?" I snap. I've been so full of memories these days in my role as tour guide that I just can't imagine how she can't find one—just one—to offer me. Until now I've always thought I was pretty good at drawing things out of people, but Elspa refuses to be drawn out.
She's silent as she stares out the window for a minute, maybe two, and when she turns back to me, she's crying. And I know that she has memories, of course. She's c
hoking on them, drowning in them. I sit down next to her.
"Let's just go," I tell her. "You can call them and tell them you want to come for a visit. Maybe the ride down will make you able to help me help you. We'll do one of those road trip things. Can you call them up?"
She nods.
"And we'll just have to do our best," I say.
She nods.
"Okay then," I say. "We have a plan. It's not much of a plan, but it exists." I stand up and cross the room. My hand is on the knob when she stops me.
"Wait," she says.
"What is it?"
"Is it okay if we do this soon? I mean, sooner rather than later. I can't hold off. It's too much. What if it doesn't work? I have to know . . ."
"Okay," I say. "Okay. Call your folks. See when we can come."
She sighs, wipes her eyes with her forefingers and her nose with the back of her hand. "I will. I think I'm ready." She looks at me. "I'm ready."
When I walk out of the room, I head to the dim kitchen. I don't turn on a light. Am I ready? I ask myself. Am I ready for any of this? I feel like I'm in over my head. I need something sweet and comforting. I open the fridge and stare inside. Am I going to help Elspa get her daughter back? Who is Elspa? Have I been taking my husband's son on a tour of his father's life because I want him to know the man before he dies? Or am I doing it for myself now? Wasn't I just fantasizing about him in a jean jacket at a high school football game?
The fridge offers only a few light yogurts. They won't do the trick. I open the freezer and pull out the heavy artillery— triple-chocolate Häagen-Dazs. I put two pints down on the counter.
I turn around and there's my mother, sitting in the almost-dark, a bowl of ice cream in front of her.
"You, too?" she asks. Her makeup has sagged a bit and makes her look older than she is.
"Yep. Nothing's easy right now."
"It's like that sometimes," she says, delicately eating her ice cream. She has always been a dainty eater, never overloading a spoon, always pursing her lips. "Life comes at you in waves. How's Elspa?"
"She's ready. I think," I tell her vaguely. I start spooning up the ice cream—a few scoops of each. "Did you teach me this?"
"I taught you everything."
"Some things I chose not to learn, though."
"Really? You think?"
"I don't think. I know," I tell her.
"We're not so different."
I sit down across from her and sigh. "Let's not have this discussion."
"Well," she says. "There is one marked difference."
"What's that?"
"You're more generous than I am."
"I don't think so. I mean, you would have forgiven Artie already. That's a form of generosity, one I can't quite muster."
"Yes, but here's the secret. I would have forgiven Artie because it's easier."
"Easier? You're crazy."
"Easier in the long run," she says. "A kind of giving in to it all. Also, I have a huge advantage over you. I was born in my era where we expected men to be weak, to cheat. We expected that we would have to forgive them for this. We're lucky that way."
"That doesn't seem very lucky."
"You women today," my mother says. "You have high expectations. You want a partner—an equal. My generation, well, we knew that men could never be our equals. In the ways it matters most, we're stronger. Go to any nursing home. Who's there? Women. Almost always women. Why?"
"Well, war, for one."
"War, okay, I'll give you war. But, frankly, it's women because women know how to survive. It's what we do. We have more inner strength, and all those years that men thought they were superior, it wasn't true. It was something we allowed them to believe, because they're weak. And then women's lib came along—and don't get me wrong, I love women's lib—but they messed up the whole charade."
"It was a bad charade," I tell her.
"It had its bad sides, I know. And, Artie, well, he's the generation between us. That confused generation of men for whom nothing they'd learned in their childhood applied anymore. They suddenly had to acquire skills they'd never practiced. Listening. Intuition. Tenderness. Patience with shopping, an interest in home decor. Sad to see them caught in the crosshairs, isn't it?"
"I don't feel sorry for them."
"What I'm saying is simple. We didn't expect much of men, so it was easier when they failed us. And it was easier to forgive them."
"But they don't really deserve to be forgiven. Not always. Not my father."
"Your father," she says, raising her spoon in the air as if poised to make a crucial point. "He was who he was. Who couldn't forgive him for that?"
"I haven't," I tell her. "I still blame him for leaving us."
She pauses then. She leans toward me. "Make sure," she says, "make very sure that you're blaming the right man for the right crime."
"What does that mean?"
"You know what it means."
"No, I don't."
"Guilt is nontransferable. You can't make one man pay for the accumulated crimes of another," she says, scraping her bowl to get the swirls of triple-chocolate. "I hear they do that in China, but this is America."
"In China?"
"Yes, China." She picks up her bowl, walks to the sink. "In China, a son inherits his father's crimes. It's true! And it's another reason why I like being an American. Everyone gets a fair shake," she says, rinsing her bowl. "You should take some lessons from my generation. And try not to confuse fathers and sons." She stops in the doorway. "I'm heading home for the night." She claps her hands and from one of the corners of the room, Bogie comes skidding toward her. Lifting him up, she points to the light switch. "You want this on?"
I'm stuck on the phrase "try not to confuse fathers and sons." Is she trying to tell me something? That's another thing about her generation of women—they say things without saying them. They speak inside their words. There's a language hidden in their language. Does she wonder what my afternoons with John Bessom are like? Is she suspicious? My mother has always been suspicious of men and women being alone together. Maybe this, too, is generational. "No," I tell her. "Leave the light off. I don't mind being in the dark a little."
"See, neither do I. We are so much alike!"
Chapter Twenty-three
If There Is a Generation of Confused Men, Is There a Generation of Confused Women? Are You Part of It?
A few days later, I take John to the spot where Artie proposed on the Schuylkill River. It's the natural progression of the Tour d'Artie, but I feel a little uneasy. I'm still haunted by my mother's comment, "try not to confuse fathers and sons," but even more so by the comment that crimes are nontransferable. What did she mean by that one? I could ask her, of course, but I'm not up for another one of her conversations, and I'm not convinced that she would work as her own translator.
John and I watch the crew shells pacing back and forth, the rhythmic dip and sway of their oars. It's windy and warm. There's a swift breeze off the water.
I'm supposed to be relating the story of the proposal. I seem somewhat stuck, though, and I'm afraid my silence is becoming too dramatic. "I'm not sure where to start," I confess.
"What time of year was it?" he asks.
"Winter," I tell him. "The edges of the river were crusted with ice."
He can tell this is coming out a little strained. He says, "We don't have to do this right now, you know."
"Who do you think is the stronger sex—emotionally— men or women?"
"Women," he says without hesitation.
"Are you just saying that because you know you should?"
"No," he says, looking at me squarely in the eye.
I'm thinking how easy it was for my mother's generation to claim that men were stronger than women. "Are you being condescending?"
"Are these trick questions?" he asks narrowing his eyes. "How am I supposed to answer?"
"Are you part of the Generation of Confused Men?" I ask with a nervous flut
tery gesture of my hands.
"Isn't every generation of men confused? Isn't that our trademark?" he says, cocking his head to one side. He's winning this argument by seemingly disarming it.
"You're just doing that thing again," I tell him.
"What thing?" he asks.
"Where you're telling me what you think I want to hear or, worse, what you think I need to hear."
He pauses as if searching his motives. "I really didn't know that there was such a thing as the Generation of Confused Men. Was it written up in The New York Times Magazine or something?"
"My mother made it up."
"Oh, right. Okay then." He clears his throat. "I may be part of the Generation of Confused Men," he says sincerely. "I am confused, most of the time, and I find that women don't help clarify things. Is that a straight enough answer?"
I nod. "It wasn't a fair question."
"But, hey, look, your mother should write up an article for The New York Times Magazine. She's got a catchphrase.
That's all you need these days."
"I'll let her know." I turn away from the river and look at John. "We're here. This is a spot on the Tour d'Artie. Ask me another question."
"Not about who's stronger, men or women? Not a Battle of the Sexes stumper?"
"No, not one of those."
"Okay," he says. He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks down at his feet, then back at me. "Was Artie's proposal rehearsed or spontaneous?"
I know this should all be very emotional for me in terms of Artie and our past. And it is, but not in the way I expected. Somehow telling John all about Artie is a relief, something I've come to rely on. On the one hand, it seems important to John. He takes everything in. He listens to all the details of his father's life. He stares at me with rapt attention, and I feel like he is getting to know his father, that some of what I say is burrowing into his heart and taking root. And, on the other hand, I feel like I'm handing it over to someone—not like handing over a burden of memory, though after each visit I feel lighter. It's more like having someone to share this with.
"He seemed spontaneous, but Artie rehearsed important things. He climbed up from his bleak childhood by acquiring a certain smoothness. Sometimes I could see through the veneer. Sometimes I couldn't."
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