Lying in bed in his underwear, Morris holds the bundled letters and photos of his mother to his bare chest. He’s going to Greece. He reserved a ticket, seven hundred dollars, round-trip. Open ended. He’s leaving, has no plan on when he’ll come back.
“How do I know I’m doing the right thing?” he asked Seymour after he’d bought the ticket.
“You don’t,” Seymour said.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Do like the rest of us,” Seymour said, turning from his son. “Blunder through as best as you can.”
Morris thinks of Andrea. Already, she seems like a distant weekend at the beach, fun but long past. Stefani remains in his mind, but she, too, is fading, like the bruise on his eye.
How can something once so important end up not being important? There are seven defining moments in a person’s life, N.J. had once told him. We’re born with them, like a tongue and toes. But how do you differentiate between what is defining and what isn’t? How do you know when it is real?
Chapter 49
The Trouble with Bliss Page 53