Everybody's Son

by Thrity Umrigar

  It was private, this obsession with Thoreau, so private that he had never shared it with Carine or anyone other than his dad. So why should he mind if she didn’t realize that he had given her a gift, his very soul, when he’d invited her along? Why should he mind her chatter, on the way back to Cambridge, about how Thoreau had influenced Gandhi in India and King right here at home—inane facts that every schoolboy knew, but ones that she was reading from some pamphlet that she’d picked up in downtown Concord?

  They had eaten hamburgers in the car on the way home but decided to get a cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts after returning to Cambridge. He placed her cup of latte before her, and she took a few sips before saying, “This was a wonderful day. Thank you.”

  Her words moved him, precisely because they were unexpected. In that moment he felt closer to her than he had in several months. He looked at her with the gratitude that the giver feels when his gift has been appreciated. “Really? You had a good time?”

  She looked puzzled. “Of course. It just feels so good to get out of town once in a while. I’m so sick of being in Cambridge all the time.” She smiled. “And it was wonderful spending time with you.”

  He smiled back, but his heart sank. This is what the day had been to her—an excursion. They could’ve gone to the Boston Aquarium, for all the difference it made. To her, the trip had been a picnic, not a pilgrimage.

  He had felt many emotions around Carine—anger, frustration, ecstasy, contentment—but he’d never been lonely before. He felt lonely now because he’d offered her the truest, purest part of himself, and she had not known it.

  He was arguing with himself about the unfairness of his thinking when she said, “Guess how much time Thoreau spent in prison for his civil disobedience?”

  He shrugged irritably. “I don’t know. A couple of weeks?”

  She looked at him, a glint in her eyes. “A night. A single night.”

  “Okay.”

  “Guess how much time King spent in prison for his civil disobedience.”

  Too late, he saw the trap. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “I don’t know. And I don’t really care.”

  “Eight days in Birmingham jail, alone. And many, many more times before and after.”

  “So what’s your point, Carine?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing. Just that he’s part of a trend, right? In a country where one third of black men are serving time, why would King have been different?”

  “I thought we were talking about Thoreau.”

  She rested her arms on the table and leaned in. “Thoreau’s theory, baby. Martin is practice.”

  “I see.” And he did, saw it clearly, saw before him endless years of argument and miscommunication. He felt a sudden sense of liberation, as if the last thread binding her to him had snapped.

  “That’s all you got to say? ‘I see’?”

  He drained the last of his coffee and pulled himself up to his full height. “Yes,” he said. “That’s all.” He faked a yawn. “You ready to go? I have a long day tomorrow.”

  Neither of them said much as he walked her home to her apartment. Anton felt enveloped in a cold white silence. But inside that silence, impenetrable by Carine’s voice or the sound of car horns or the desultory laughter of passersby, his thoughts were as sharp and lethal as ice. He glanced down at her as they walked and, for the first time, didn’t find her beautiful. The beauty that had dazzled and blinded him fell away, as if he had drunk a potion in a fairy tale, and he found himself walking beside an ordinary black girl, one who hid her insecurities behind a facade of bravado and radicalism. Her radicalism is phony, he thought, because it keeps her from seeing the world, blinds her to its mysteries and charms. Even her intellectualism is suspect because it’s not open-minded and skeptical and probing but, rather, circular, chasing its own tail. To chastise Thoreau for having spent only a single night in jail was to miss the forest for the trees.

  “You coming in?” she asked when they reached the front door.

  He hesitated. Would it be easier to say what he had to say in her living room? But then he felt her gaze on him and saw the uncertainty in her eyes and he knew that Carine suspected something. Brad’s words came back to him, except now they didn’t sound like something inside a Chinese fortune cookie. Now they sounded like the wisdom of the ages. When it’s time, you’ll know.

  “Carine,” he said, and the word must’ve carried more than he realized—a sweet regret, an embarrassed gentleness—because already her eyes were filling up with tears and she was beginning to turn away. Still, he forced himself to go on. “I’m sorry. This isn’t working for me.”

  “I know.” She brushed away her tears with such force that he wanted to take her hand in his to make her stop.

  The wind swiveled the dead leaves at their feet, and he shivered a bit against the chill of the night, against the deadly cold entering his body. It would be hard to give up this impetuous, lost, blundering girl with her loud mouth and her lofty opinions and her bruised heart. At that moment, he loved her more than he ever had.

  But then he thought back to Walden Pond and the solitude that he’d felt the first time he’d been there on his own. When it’s time, you’ll know. He knew. Now was the time, two months before graduation, now, before they made decisions driven by sentimentality or inertia that would tie their futures together, now, before they wasted the next decade of their lives trying to mix oil with water.

  Carine looked up at him and he closed his eyes, bracing himself for a verbal assault of recriminations and insults. So he was startled to feel her fingers brushing his right cheek. “Bye, Anton,” he heard her murmur. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  He kept his eyes closed. The world looked safer that way, in the dark. When he finally opened them, the front door had shut and she was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Anton returned home the day after graduation, away from the possibility of running into Carine or any of her friends. He knew he would be back in the fall to attend Harvard Law School, but she would be gone by then, back to Georgia, and he wouldn’t have to tense each time he entered the Coop or the Harvard Book Store or any of their other haunts.

  She had sent him a long email the week before graduation, telling him her future plans—she was going to take some time off and then go to grad school in international relations somewhere in the South—and asking him to stay in touch. She had included the phone number to her parents’ home, something she’d never shared with him. She also wrote that her parents were going to be in town for graduation, and would he like to have breakfast with them? He found this curious and then, upon reflection, mildly offensive, since she’d made no previous attempt to invite him to meet them. But the part of the email that made him guffaw was the postscript. It read: “Please say hi to your folks from me. I really enjoyed my time with them.”

  Was it really possible that two people could see the world in such different ways? Were they all like those blind men, each one describing a different part of the elephant? He traced the disintegration of their relationship to that disastrous Thanksgiving weekend at the Cape. Was it possible that Carine really had seen it differently? Dimly, he recalled something she’d said about how political debates and arguments had been part of her family life. At that time, he had heard the statement as a challenge and a taunt. But what if she hadn’t meant it that way at all? What if Carine, the daughter of an African father, saw debate as a way of claiming her Americanism?

  Dammit. This was precisely the reason he had broken it off, this twisted logic, this maddening way she had of messing with his head. He had not imagined her rudeness that day, nor his parents’ relief when he’d told them last week that he and Carine were no longer an item. His mom, who seldom had an ill word to say about anyone, had gone so far as to say, “Well, there was just a degree of hostility there that was . . . unnecessary.”

  He spent half a day composing a response to her email in his head. And then it
came to him. The whole beauty of being broken up with someone was that you didn’t have to reply.

  Still, it wasn’t until he was on the plane at Logan airport with his parents the day after graduation that he relaxed. He would never see Carine again. And instead of nicking him like a blunt razor, the thought soothed him.

  He looked out the plane window. Boston looked blue and sunny and distant, sort of like the future that awaited him. Law school would be a challenge, but he was up for it. His parents had been ecstatic when he’d gotten in, David more so, because his son would be following in his footsteps yet again. And like David decades earlier, Anton had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College.

  Anton reclined in his plane seat and yawned. He had no plans for the summer except hanging out with Brad and their friends, going fishing, swimming in the lake, and playing soccer. At some point he would run up to the Cape for a few days to visit alone with Pappy. Or Pappy might come down to see them—Uncle Connor was apparently engineering a political event with three generations of Colemans in attendance.

  “Happy to be going home?” Delores asked from across the aisle.

  Anton beamed. “More than I can say.”

  BOOK THREE

  November 2012

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Anton Coleman stood before the microphone, blinded by the flash of the cameras. A trickle of sweat ran down his face. It was hot under the klieg lights. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his parents standing in the wings, the wattage of David’s smile even brighter than the stage lights. He tried to think, but it was impossible, his thoughts scrambled by the raucous crowd chanting his last name over and over again. Anton smiled his toothy grin, and their cheers grew even louder. He ran his fingers through his hair in a nervous gesture and flashed an imploring look at Uncle Connor, who was standing at the bottom of the stage, part of the cheering crowd. For the next thirty seconds, the sound of their celebration mixed with the sound of the floor monitors pleading for quiet.

  “Thank you,” Anton said. “Thank you. Thanks. Please.” He made a gesture with his hand, at once placating and commanding, asking them to take their seats. “Wow,” he said as the crowd fell silent. “What a night. Friends, we have made history tonight.” And with that, they were back on their feet, stomping, cheering, hooting in the Hilton ballroom.

  Anton turned slightly to his right, to where his father was standing just out of the line of vision. David was pumping both fists in the air, looking happier than he had on any previous election night that Anton could remember. Anton laughed spontaneously, different from the slightly strained smiles and grins with which he had greeted his supporters as he’d strode through the room a few minutes earlier. It had been David’s idea that Anton personally thank and greet all the campaign workers from the floor before making his acceptance speech, and although Anton had agreed at once, these interactions never came easily to him. Unlike his father, who had grown to genuinely love the glad-handing with voters, Anton was a wonk, focused on what he wanted to accomplish once he got into the attorney general’s office. The election was simply the means to an end. Throughout the campaign, Anton had been acutely aware of a slightly ironic internal critic who mocked him as he tried to play the role of politician. He had, after all, grown up in the age of Barack Obama’s cool and Jon Stewart’s puncturing wit, and the internal critic seemed to be lodged permanently in his body.

  What he had no doubt about, however, was his vow to clean up the AG’s office.

  He pulled his carefully prepared speech out of his pocket and cleared his throat. He had practiced the victory speech enough times to have it memorized. He would begin by thanking his parents and repeating that their state had made history tonight by electing the first father-son team as governor and attorney general. Then he’d get into the laundry list of challenges that lay ahead of them.

  They were finally quiet, waiting for him. He opened his mouth to speak and found that he couldn’t. All at once, the momentousness of the occasion hit him—he had graduated from law school just a few years ago, had worked briefly as a trial lawyer and then served as a federal prosecutor. And now here he was, the youngest ever AG in the state. His eyes filled with tears and he chewed on his lower lip, trying to regain his composure. He looked around the crowded room, his eyes searching for the one person he knew wouldn’t be there—Pappy. What a triumph this night would’ve been for him. But Pappy had died nine months ago, felled by a massive stroke.

  Anton looked into the crowd and started again. “There is one person absent tonight who should’ve been here,” he said. “And that’s my granddad, Senator Harold Coleman.” He glanced up at the ceiling, as if expecting to find the old man there, and pumped his fist in the air. “Pappy, this night is for you.”

  The crowd roared. Connor gave him an approving thumbs-up, as if this had been part of the prepared remarks. Anton looked away, a trifle annoyed. That was the thing with politicians and their handlers—everything was fair game, everything was fodder, and nothing was left to chance or spontaneity. But then he remembered how he had been lagging in the polls just before Pappy passed away. Their own polling had shown that voters thought he was too young and inexperienced, that they suspected him of riding into office on his father’s coattails. The day after Pappy’s funeral, Connor had released to the press a picture of Anton by his grandfather’s gravesite. His face was grief-stricken, pensive, and the way the afternoon sun hit his hair from behind gave him an ethereal look. His girlfriend Jenny’s gloved hand lay lightly on his shoulder as she consoled him. It was a private, intensely intimate moment, and somehow, the fact that the picture was all over the Internet didn’t lessen the intimacy. Anton had been furious at Connor for releasing it, David had been philosophical, and Connor himself had remained silent in the face of Anton’s protestations. But a poll released the following week showed Anton in the lead for the first time, a lead that he never lost. Connor had taught him the oldest axiom in politics—you take your weakest card and play it. Not only had Connor played on the public’s misgivings about political dynasties, he had doubled down on it. He had not tried to hide Anton’s family background—rather, he had flaunted it, reminded everyone of the senator’s long years of service to the state. And then he had asked that they give an opportunity to his grandson—Connor had long since banned the word “adopted” from descriptions of Anton’s family relationships—to continue that tradition of service.

  So it was understandable that Uncle Connor thought the reference to Pappy was canned. So be it. Anton glanced at his notes and said, “We all know why you’re really here. The governor will address you in just a few moments.” He waited for the applause to subside and then turned toward Delores and David, waiting in the wings. “Mom and Dad, I love you.” His words echoed through the cavernous room. He paused for a second and then pulled out the crowd-pleasing line of the night: “And Jenny, thank you for putting up with me this past year, as I’ve traveled from one end of this mighty state to the other. I couldn’t have done it without you.” As he expected, the crowd of campaign workers went wild. Chants of “We want Jenny, we want Jenny” rang out, and from her perch in the first row, Jenny leaped to her feet, turned around, and waved to the crowd. She blew Anton a little kiss and he grinned.

  By the time he was winding down his victory speech, his shirt was soaked with sweat, but he didn’t mind, swept up in the enthusiasm of the crowd cheering at every wonky proposal as if he had scored a touchdown. The usual kernel of loneliness lodged deep within whenever he was in a crowd had not surfaced tonight and he was grateful, wanting to enjoy the moment. “So let’s give it up for the governor of our great state, David H. Coleman,” he yelled, and the din in the room grew to an ear-splitting level.

  David strode onto the stage, grinning from ear to ear, enveloping Anton in a bear hug that almost knocked the younger man off his feet. “Whoa, Dad,” Anton whispered, but the microphone picked it up and the crowd loved it. After a long moment of simply gaz
ing at his son with pride—a moment when Anton had goose bumps all over his body—David finally took the microphone. “Friends,” he boomed, flinging his arms wide open, “thank you for being here to celebrate the happiest and proudest day of my life.”

  Anton looked over to see Delores wiping the tears from her eyes. She caught him looking at her and winked. He smiled, looked away, and out of the blue, as happened every time he accomplished something—when he’d been named captain of the school lacrosse team, when he’d walked down the stage clutching his high school diploma, after he had finished law school—he thought of her. Where was she now? If she still lived in the state, she would’ve heard of him winning tonight, right? Right? Even if she lived on the streets, in the gutters, surely she would hear about her son, the fourth most powerful man in the state. But who was he kidding? She was most likely dead, or so out of her mind, or had so many other kids, that she probably had forgotten she ever had a son named Anton.

  Some of the disgust and loathing he felt must’ve shown on his face, because David threw him a quizzical look. Anton recovered immediately, patted his father’s back, and then went over to sit on a stool that someone had thoughtfully placed on the side of the stage while David gave a variation on his stump speech, which Anton knew so well that he sometimes would recite it to himself as a way of lulling himself to sleep after a long day on the campaign trail. So he struck his listening pose—thumb pushing up his lower lip a bit, slight frown on his face, head nodding in agreement every few seconds—and let his mind wander. Did she read the newspaper? Watch TV? Was she so far gone that she might not connect the dots to realize Attorney General Anton Coleman was the son she had discarded? If she was alive and well enough to know what she had thrown away, he wished her a lifetime of regret.