“Chapter One. Family History.”
“Sandi.”
Somebody’s on the other side of the screen door, which to my knowledge has never boasted a lock. A man. Earl, carrying something. “Jesus, Earl, you scared the shit out of me. What’s wrong?”
“You better take her.”
He isn’t coming in, so I push down the stiff footrest and struggle out of the recliner, putting the lid back on the manuscript box before I lay it on the floor as if he might snoop. When I open the door, Earl hands Bella to me. She’s warm and breathing, but quite still. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid of what Emily might do.”
“Oh, God, what—”
“Just take her, okay, Sandi? Please, can you take her? Here. Here’s her stuff.” He sets a flowered diaper bag—pitiably small to be containing all her stuff—on the porch just outside the door. Tall and thin and always craggy, he looks now like Ichabod Crane at his most desperate. He reaches out one long thin arm, covers the whole side of his daughter’s face with a huge hand, nods to me, and goes away.
Stunned, I just stand there until Bella coughs, a delicate and terrifying little noise. “Oh, sweetie, are you cold?” We retreat into the house and I make a nest for her on the living room floor with blankets from my father’s bed. While I’m getting her settled she opens her eyes, but she’s not looking at me, probably not looking at anything. Kneeling, I stroke with a fingertip her tiny curled fist. It doesn’t respond by opening to hold on. I kiss her cheek. Her glistening eyes are the colour of violets.
When we were together, Eva Marie habitually asked too little of me. Now she asks far too much.
I believe she is asleep. Her laboured breathing, not in the least smoothed by unconsciousness, makes a harsh music, which Vaughn has been trying to replicate or mock or appropriate for his own creative inspiration, experimenting with breathy and rattling instruments evidently of his own invention. This is most distracting.
The name Alexandra occurs and recurs to me, my daughter’s name, but she is far away and out of my reach. The conviction has lodged in my mind that she is the one to do what Eva Marie wants. Doubtless this is unreasonable and presumptuous of me. I have no right; having gone so far when she was growing up that she had to escape, I am going even further now. But there is no choice. There is no one else to do what Eva Marie wants, and of course it must be done.
Eva Marie wants me to help her accept her own mortality. I cannot possibly do that. I know perfectly well how it ought to be done; I understand what is required, the contours of it, the texture and mechanics. The value of such an attitude, to the individual and to humanity, is inarguable and inestimable. But it is beyond me.
I know this about myself; I have always known it. My physical strength, emotional strength, strength of purpose, strength of character are and always have been woefully limited. In important matters I can see, with clarity and passion, what needs to be done, the right thing, the necessary thing, but I am almost never able to do it. At best, I can cause it to be done.
I know, for example, how to work for social justice, and I know what social justice is. I am utterly incapable of—repulsed by, terrified by—grass roots organizing or political activism, anything more overt than the very occasional letter to the editor, closely reasoned and likely to be ignored. My contribution to social justice has been to inculcate my son Galen with not only heightened sensitivity to the issues but also the ability and compulsion to act upon it. It is no small contribution.
From the standpoints of ecology, nutrition, and aesthetics, I prize the art and science of horticulture. Personally, however, I have neither the patience nor the aptitude to practise it. My thumbs are decidedly not green. My contribution to my family’s health and the ozone layer has been to instil in my son Will an obsession for gardening. He struggles; he dislikes the activity and is, in fact, not nearly as expert as I had hoped, a constant source of disappointment to us both. His harvest is small, some years downright meagre. But because of his efforts—and by extension, because of mine—there is always a garden in our part of the yellow wood, and that gives me some satisfaction.
For the good of the individual psyche and the good of humanity as a whole, music must be loved. I cannot say I love music, but I appreciate it, appreciate that it must be loved. Music must continually be created in this world. I understand how to compose and to play music, but have not an iota of talent for or interest in doing so. I have given it to my son Vaughn. Through his eccentric, unfocused, but considerable talent, I make an ongoing contribution to the reservoir of music available to us all. It would be better if I were to do it myself. This is the best I can do.
Human ontogeny and phylogeny being what they are, human young being so needy and vulnerable for such a long time, parents are required to dedicate themselves to their children. They must love unconditionally and be perpetually available. They must nurture and discipline, protect and stimulate, hold close and let go. They must make countless minute-by-minute decisions and plans for the distant future. Being a parent is more than should be asked of any human being, and the least that must be asked, must be required. In theory, I know all this to be absolutely true, and I have no difficulty understanding its intricacies. But personally I have never experienced it, either as a child or as a parent. Desperately as I wanted to be that sort of father, I was not. I passed it on to my daughter Emily. She excels at it. Until now, she has been the consummate mother. Especially with this last child, it is more than should ever be asked of her, and yet it is vital for her children, for her, for our family, for the human race.
Of Alexandra, for her first eighteen years, I expected a great deal, and I had every right and reason to do so. To her I gave everything I had not specifically assigned to the others, for her nature was simultaneously the most receptive and the most individuated, so that she could take what I gave to her and make it her own, imbue it with her own energy, release it into the world through her own sensibilities as well as mine. Her potential power was enormous.
But it was never realized. She wasted it. My greatest legacy was wilfully aborted. This child with the ability to take what I had to give and create of it a great gift to the world, this child who could have been the Kove family scion and standard-bearer—who alone could have justified not only her life but mine—said no. And left me.
Now once again she is here. I believe she is here. I cannot be sure of something I have longed for and forcibly put out of my consciousness for so long, but I believe she is here.
Eva Marie stirs. I move closer to her on the bed then lie down with her. I have lain with no one, certainly not with her, for a very long time. Her proximity awes and appals me.
I am awed and appalled by how utterly unreachable she is.
Alexandra. Alexandra, you and I both know what must be done here, and that you must do it for us all.
Bella is still nested on the floor, vocalizing only the occasional squeak and snuffle. I vowed to finish the first chapter of my father’s Handbook in one sitting, a real stretch even though it’s not very long. The instant I’ve read the last word of the last sentence, I scramble out of the chair, released, unsteady on my feet and desperate to move, to clear my mind or at least to think about something other than what I’ve just read. I pick up Bella. She starts, weakly flails. I hold her to me and begin to walk, crooning, as if she’s the one I’m trying to calm.
Chapter 1 was less a bona fide history than a family tree. Relying more on lists of dates than on narrative, it related in broad, simplistic strokes the oft-told, skeletal tales—sketches, really; synopses—of our Slovak ancestors, my grandfather’s birth and emigration, his marriage to my grandmother, the births of their three children of whom my father, Alexander—the grandfather of this infant in my arms—was the youngest, their deaths when he was seven years old.
There was one terse new anecdote. Because I’ve never heard it before, it quivers with signif
icance, probably more than it really has. Out of the hall closet I grab one of Daddy’s jackets. The sleeves are too short for me, and the shoulders tight. It carries an odour distinctly his; I’ve never before thought of him as having an odour, given how fastidious he’s always been. Able to partially wrap Bella in it, I step out into the yellow night.
Against my will, I’m still mulling over the bit of narrative. I keep having the feeling I’m onto something, but I have no idea what.
Daddy’s grandmother, Bella’s great-great grandmother and my great-grandmother whom I never knew and therefore have no name for other than the given name Anna, which I cannot help pronouncing with an American accent, gave my grandfather a gift to take with him into the New World. Packaged and discrete as an heirloom, consciously given and received, the gift was the courage to break her heart by leaving the big sheltering stone house when they both knew he would never come back. She held him by the shoulders to bestow her blessing on him: “Go, son. I would go with you if I could. God help me, I would go instead of you. But I’m too afraid.” She shook him. She kissed him. “Go. Be brave for us both.”
“I’m not brave,” he told her. “I’m afraid.”
“It isn’t bravery if you’re not afraid.” Like his mother’s name, this adage must have sounded quite different in the language of my grandfather’s youth, which he made a point not to pass down.
That’s it. That’s the whole story. What am I to make of that? It’s in a book called Handbook, dedicated to me; obviously I’m supposed to make something of it. Something about gifts and curses, no doubt. Something about being sent off with the flag of the family waving in my hand. Something about carrying on my father’s legacy—about being my father’s legacy.
I’m repulsed by this whole thing. I’m repulsed by how profoundly it all attracts me. Shaky, light-headed, a little nauseated, I need desperately to talk to Martin and can’t bring myself to call him.
Fuck it. I don’t choose to accept the mission. Forget it, Daddy. I quit. Again.
But I’m outside no more than a matter of minutes; my foray into the dark yellow wood is no more than fifteen steps out and back. Then I’m striding into the house, tearing off my father’s jacket, rushing to settle myself into his chair again and arrange the manuscript box on my lap. This time I keep Bella close to me, her head tucked under my chin and her feet pillowed in my abdomen, where I can feel her heartbeat without thinking about it.
Perhaps my mind has been elsewhere. Perhaps I have dozed off. I am now aware of a tremulous caress along my cheek and neck, stroking, an intensely familiar touch I have not felt for many years. I draw back and murmur, “Herpie, stop it.” But it is Eva Marie’s hand, her thickened and stiffened fingers with the lovely mother-of-pearl nails grazing my skin in circles, loops, patters like rain, tiny tugs and taps. “Eva Marie, stop it.”
She stops at once, and at once I wish she had not. “I’m sorry. You used to like it when I did that.”
“I have never liked that,” I lie to her. “You are obviously thinking of another man.” She stiffens and pulls away, which I suspect was my goal. She is a dying woman, but she is also the woman who left me, left our children, and each overlays the other.
CHAPTER 2: HISTORY OF THE
ALEXANDER KOVE FAMILY.
That’s all it takes to seriously piss me off. Self-aggrandizing as a politician naming buildings after himself, my father claims—in writing, no less, obviously intended for posterity—way more credit than he has coming. What about “the Eva Marie Kove Family”? And I have spent what feels like a lifetime developing ways of defining myself other than as a member of any version of the Kove family. The temptation is strong to stop reading now, to blockade all points of entry against this skewed information and however it’s intended to mess with my mind.
I don’t, of course. I sit right there with the baby against my chest and my feet up in my father’s recliner, in the conical yellow illumination his tall brass floor lamp sends over my right shoulder, and I know I’ll read this thing from beginning to end, every damn word.
A few pages longer than Chapter 1, Chapter 2 has a bit more narrative. But the bulk of it, too, is just lists of names and dates, with a few annotations.
It begins with a notation of my parents’ marriage. I’m shocked to realize I’ve never known the date, presumably because there were no wedding anniversaries to notice when I was growing up. Thinking of the sweet celebrations Martin and I have every year, I’m awash with homesickness, but it’s no match for my father’s Handbook and doesn’t last long.
Grimly I note that Eva Marie Shivrinsky is presented as coming out of nowhere, as if she had no ancestry, no family tree. Her first appearance in this chronicle is when, via holy matrimony, she became part of the Alexander Kove Family.
The progeny of this union are duly listed. There I am, fourth of the five. Each of Alexander and Eva Marie’s children is then allocated a separate page, on which are recorded marriage dates and the names and birth dates of their spouses and children. On my page, which I resent feeling compelled to look at, the date of my marriage to Martin is correct. Since none of my family was informed of the wedding, much less invited, this makes me uneasy. Ramon and Tara are listed, but with nasty little brackets around their names. How would Daddy have known their birth and adoption dates?
I check all my siblings’ pages and note that the statistics are up to date. Galen’s marriage to Vivian is there, and Bella’s birth has been duly noted on Emily’s page, which still has room for more. “There you are,” I murmur to the baby. “Right there, see?”
Each of us then has another page. Under our names, which serve as headings, are listed words or phrases. Each of my siblings has only one:
GALEN:
SOCIAL/POLITICAL ACTIVISM
WILL:
GARDENING
VAUGHN:
MUSIC (COMPOSING AND PLAYING)
EMILY:
CHILD-BEARING AND -RAISING
I have a whole shitload. Lucky me.
ALEXANDRA:
TOLERANCE, ACCEPTANCE OF OTHERS, EMOTIONAL RISK-TAKING, EXPANSIVE AND PASSIONATE LOVE, MAINTENANCE OF CONNECTIONS WITH OTHERS, BEARING WITNESS TO OTHERS’ PAIN, HELPING E.M. IN LAST PHASE OF LIFE
The last phrase has to have been added very recently, though it’s in the same script and the same ink as all the others.
He’s made a long, looping bracket in the right-hand margin, encompassing all these items, and written in block letters on a diagonal beside the bracket a heading, as if he didn’t know what to call this category of things until he’d listed them out. LOVE, it says.
Separate in its own category, outside the “love” bracket, is:
ALEXANDRA:
WRITING
“We had a good life together, didn’t we, Alex?”
How can she ask this question? For a moment, I am profoundly confused. Is this not the woman who left that life? Can it be that my memory is false, that this narrative, which has seemed so real and true, is instead fictional and of my own creation?
My first reaction was to sneer, “Evidently not,” and I do, but I add an attempt to verify what I thought I remembered: “You left our life together.”
“Yes,” she says, to my great relief and then cold fury. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good life.”
“It put the lie to it. And your return now has put the lie to everything else.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I failed you, Eva Marie.” An admission of guilt is not an apology, but it is the most I will do.
“It wasn’t you. It was me. I was weak. I felt like I was going to die or go crazy, hurt myself, hurt the kids. It was a terrible thing to do and I’ve never forgiven myself, but I still think it was the only thing I could do.”
“I could have stopped you.”
“No, Alex, you couldn’t have. You didn’t have that
much control. You had a lot, but not that much.”
“I could have made you happy. I simply was not sufficiently strong or patient or attentive.”
She turns to me. I hear her, see her, smell her, feel the movement and the change in body heat. She takes my old face in her old hands and kisses me, and the taste of her is entirely unexpected. “Make me happy now,” she whispers, and there is no doubt about what she means. I fear I will not be able to do it, but in this case there is, indisputably, no one to be my proxy. I lay my mouth against hers.
Bella stiffens and flings herself backward out of my lap, her body making muffled thuds against my knee, against the hard arm of the chair, onto the floor.
Chapter 13
She’s not hurt. I tell myself she’s not hurt, though I don’t know how I’d know. She doesn’t cry. There’s no blood. She doesn’t seem to have been at all affected by the fall. I have been, though; adrenaline makes my ears ring, my heart race, my hands tingle.
Rather than take that particular risk again, I make her comfortable on the floor—that is, I position her in a way that I would find comfortable, that most babies would find comfortable. Of course it’s impossible to guess whether she does or if comfort has any meaning to her at all.
The next section of the handbook consists of a chapter for each of us in the form of experimental design and lab notes. Daddy’s documentation appears meticulous, though admittedly I wouldn’t know if he’d falsified or left things out. As always, he creates reality. As always, whenever I’m in any sort of contact with him, his reality—whether I buy into it or not, whether I accept it without realizing what I’m doing or reject it out of hand or try to sort out which parts of his world view make sense and which are utter bullshit—informs my own reality.
The Yellow Wood Page 15