Evelyn carved the babka and set it on the table with a stack of small plates, while the men poured the morning’s leftover coffee — Roger insisted that Evelyn go to no trouble — and settled into opposite chairs. Benji, more curious than hungry, lingered in the doorway, picking lazily at a slab of sugar-tarred dough.
“You’re wondering why I called you here.”
Roger spread a napkin over his knee and smiled at the lack of grace he’d come to see as the larger part of Henry’s appeal. “Nary a hello,” he said, laughing. “Henry, my friend, nowadays doctors would place you on a spectrum of some sort. Is it a mild form of Asperger’s or a signature brand of cantankerousness that makes small talk so unthinkable?”
“Well, tell your doctors to get in line behind mine, who have plenty of diagnoses of their own.”
“Which you’re absolutely going to tell me all about,” Roger answered. “But first”—he turned an empty chair in Benji’s direction and motioned for Benji to sit—“I want to hear from this one.”
“Benji?” Henry balked. “Benji’s fine.” But Roger’s level stare proved too much for even Henry’s obdurate nature, and he waved his agent on like a man who’d ignored his sound warning and insisted on driving down a dead-end street.
They waded into the conversation slowly, between sips of coffee and observations about a Republican senator’s crush on Ayn Rand, but as soon as Leo asked the inevitable question—“What was going through your mind?”—Benji’s monologue started up. It now played like a song from a jukebox, easily, automatically, drop a quarter in the slot and out it came. In the constant retelling, he’d worked the blur of that strange August night into a finely focused tale of drunken desperation, the climax of which had been years in coming. He fashioned himself as more determined than mere accident allowed, showing them his damage but also something that he himself had lost sight of long ago: his depth. What else was he hiding if he could hide such despair? Each retelling of the story poured like molten steel into this new mold, into a new Benji, whose form was more impressive, whose qualities — the despondency that pulled him down, the strength of will that lifted him up — gave rise to a more monumental man.
Evelyn, still unable to contemplate the state of mind that led her son to attempt a suicidal leap, turned back to busy herself with the dishes while Henry sat quietly by. At the end of Benji’s monologue, Roger reached for his godson’s hand and squeezed.
“Life will always be disappointing,” he said with pressing emotion. “Even if everything looked exactly as you thought it would, even then, there would be disappointments. Deep, even ruinous disappointments. Compromises we think we can’t possibly live with. But we do. We do because we must. It’s the contract we sign for being here. We have to treat life like it’s precious. Even when we think it’s not. Especially then. Because then we see how easily it can be thrown away. Do you understand? We can’t have you doing anything like that ever again, Benji. Ever.” The few quiet tears that rolled down his face as he spoke surprised everyone, which was perhaps why he was in no hurry to wipe them away. They made a point that, in this family, whose silences and evasions Roger knew so well, needed making.
Benji felt a dull throb of remorse, but he’d padded himself well against the knowledge that his lie was often a source of great pain, and the shame at causing it failed to reach him where he lived. He sat like a statue, unmoving.
“We all have our to-be-or-not-to-be moment at one point or another,” Henry interrupted irascibly.
“Henry,” Roger warned.
“He’s here! Look, Leo, he’s sitting right here. With no complaints, except for me. Can we move on now?” Henry looked from his son to his wife to his oldest friend imploringly, as abashed as his character allowed him to be, which wasn’t very abashed at all. “Give me a break,” he said. “My watch is ticking twice as fast as everyone else’s; I don’t have the luxury of navel gazing.” But when no one answered, when no one so much as blinked, the sound of his fist coming down on the table rang out like cannon fire.
“It’s done!” he shouted. There was a salvaged air of lordliness in the pronouncement, the imperious brevity of it, the missing antecedent, the pause. “It’s done. It’s done, and I want you to read it.”
The stoical mask fell from Roger’s face first to reveal eyes ignited by the news, mouth agape. Neither he nor Evelyn nor Benji needed to be told what it was. It had lived among them, between them, sometimes on top of them, for the last eight years. “You said you’d given up on it.”
“And it was true. True enough: I never thought I’d finish. This last year, I’ve been lucky to get an hour a day when I feel sharp enough. When my mind feels like mine. One, maybe two hours a day. I couldn’t spend it listening to you claw at the door. I worked better when everyone thought I wasn’t working. No offense.”
Roger toasted Henry with his coffee mug.
“I had to finish. I couldn’t reconcile myself to the thought that you’d find three different drafts after I died and cobble them together with one of those awful forewords. The book he might have written, if only he had more time.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I would have haunted you if you did.”
“You finished the book, Henry. Christ!”
“Said the Jewish atheist.”
Roger clapped his hands together and bubbled over. “I’m thrilled. I couldn’t be happier. I’ll have it read by tomorrow. We’ll get Fanton on the phone. We’ll take care of the book. But, my God, man. I haven’t heard from you in months. I want to know how you are.”
“I just told you how I am.”
“You told me how the book is, Henry. You understand those are two different things? I’m asking about you.”
“Me.” Henry nodded gamely. “I’m in what they call ‘moderately severe cognitive decline.’ I love that ‘moderately severe.’ Like ‘passionately indifferent’ or ‘blithely miserable.’ My long, last march into the dark. What this means exactly varies with the hour. The other day the doctor asked me to count backward from twenty by twos. I looked at him like he wanted proof of Planck’s constant. I might lose track of the days of the week. Maybe I’ve forgotten my address. I can quote George Eliot but a minute later turn around and forget the word for ‘fork.’ Meaning ‘moderately severe.’ Meaning I’ve pissed myself, but I don’t need help wiping my ass. Yet. But that day’s coming. Is that what you had in mind?”
Roger’s eyes widened at the challenge as he sipped from his mug.
“And I never said anything about Bill Fanton. We’re not publishing it. Not while I’m here. Not now,” Henry continued. “I want you to read it. You, Leo. It goes no further than that.”
Roger leaned in with his left ear, as if he’d heard wrong. “You’ve lost me.”
“I need you to read it, to make it real. You. It goes no further than that.”
“Henry,” Roger began.
But Henry cut him off. “Publish it when I’m dead. Publish it as is when I’m dead. I can’t edit it. I don’t want to edit it. Or get drawn into which goddamn picture they pick for the cover. Or wake up even once in the night and wonder what the hell they’re saying about it.”
“You’ve never cared what critics have to say.”
“I’m not talking about critics.”
“Who then?”
Henry’s hand made a circle describing the room, the house, everything beyond. “How much time do I have, Leo? A few months? A year?”
“He still has his good days,” Evelyn interjected from the sink, where she scoured a skillet with renewed vigor.