The old man sipped the whiskey and looked off. “Well, we do seek comfort.”
Faulk sipped the last of the whiskey in his own glass and poured a little more. He could feel it now, on top of the beer he’d had earlier.
“I guess I just didn’t like it when you started sounding like her,” his father said.
“Did you hector her this way?”
“Hell, after a while it wasn’t worth talking about.”
“I heard plenty of the talk, Dad. From my earliest memory.”
“Really. It was all that bad, was it?”
“Let’s drop it,” Faulk said. “It was what it was. Sometimes it was fine.”
“Sometimes.”
He took another swallow.
“Well. I don’t think she believed in a merciful God. Her God was more of a — a celestial cop, I’d say. When he wasn’t an invisible concierge.”
“Well, I believe in a God of mercy.”
“No wrath of God, then?”
“I said. Mercy. You know the story. Christ comes and dies. You remember.”
“That’s one story.”
“Well. The point is that an average life used to be somewhere around thirty-five years. It was full of misery, and someone discovered a sense in all that of one loving God.”
“And you think that’s some kind of proof.”
They said nothing for a disagreeable few moments. The old man drank his whiskey in a gulp and then added still more. “I’ve always been a bourbon man.”
The whiskey was Glenlivet, single-malt scotch.
He tipped the shot glass a little and looked into it. “Don’t know why you like this stuff.”
“I don’t know why I like it, either.”
“She didn’t even know who she was, did she — at the end. She was already almost there, almost to nothing — to the blank again.”
“It was a coma.”
“Yeah, but I mean the dementia.”
Faulk kept silent.
“Wonder what the hell it’s all for.”
“I’m going,” Faulk said, controlling his voice. “Lot of getting ready still to do.”
“You got any experience talking to people suffering from depression?”
“I’m trained to do some psychological work, if that’s what you mean.”
“Let’s say that’s what I mean.”
“Okay,” said Faulk. “And?”
His father took a small sip this time, as if testing the flavor on his tongue. Then he swallowed and frowned. “What about despair?”
“I said I’m trained to do some psychological work.”
“You got medicines?”
“I’m not a doctor, no. But I can send you to one.”
“Oh, this isn’t for me.” With the hand that held the shot glass, Leander indicated Trixie.
Faulk knew without having to think about it that this was not the truth. Trixie, lying on her side, sleeping peacefully, with her placid mouth half open, was not the type. “Does she want to talk to somebody?”
“Probably not. Probably couldn’t get her to.”
“Well, I can suggest a doctor, if you’d like.” Faulk wanted to press him a little. “Shouldn’t we ask her if she’d like to speak to somebody?”
“Nah.” The old man drank.
“I’ll talk to her about it.”
“Let’s leave it.”
After a pause, Leander tilted his head slightly, staring at him. “It doesn’t bother you that I cheated on your mother?”
“I said it’s none of my business. Not that it doesn’t bother me.”
“You don’t show it.”
“Are you trying to rile me?” Faulk asked him. “Because it’s working.”
“Nah, hell.”
They were quiet for a long time, then, drinking. They had drunk more than half the bottle.
“Just trying to have a real father-and-son talk,” Leander said.
“It’s a little late for that, wouldn’t you say?”
“Never too late, I believe, is what you hear.”
“Well, we can talk about anything you want except my mother and my religion. How’s that?”
“You drunk?”
“Getting there.”
“Yeah, well, I’m already there. Thought I’d tell you a few things, Son.” The voice trailed off, almost as if he had run out of breath. “Get to know you a little better.”
They endured another long silence.
“Well,” Leander said at last. “I’m glad I came.” He tried to rise and then sat back down quickly. “Damn.”
His son stood and took him by the arm and helped him stand. They looked down at Trixie where she slept.
“I don’t want to wake her,” he said.
“She’ll be sore,” Faulk told him. “That couch is new but it’s hard.”
The old man leaned down and shook her shoulder. “Trix.”
She lay over on her back and then hurried to her feet. “I’m sorry.”
“What’re you sorry for?”
She looked from one to the other of them. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Come on, girl.”
She moved to help her husband toward the bedroom.
Faulk let himself out, got in the car, and drove the short block and a half to Iris’s house, windows open, breathing the odor of the crepe myrtle that lined the street. It was a clear cool windless night, and he heard the traffic far off. He saw the glow in the sky from over there. Night in the world. He felt what he’d had to drink. The lights were on at Iris’s, and he got out and made his slow way up to the door and entered.
The women had left the living room lamps on and also the ceiling light in the kitchen. He went in there and looked for something else to drink. Why not? There was white wine in the refrigerator and a can of beer. In the cabinet above the stove he found a tall bottle of vermouth. He put ice in a glass and poured himself a little of the vermouth, then sat at the kitchen table and drank it, looking through the newspaper that had been set there unopened earlier in the day. He caught himself drifting far away from what was on the page, to Natasha in Jamaica. He had what was now the familiar and unwanted image of her walking the beach with the one who had taken the picture of her in Chicago. He shook his head, as if to come fully awake. He returned to the paper. One article was about a man in Florida who had contracted inhalation anthrax, and the secretary of health and human services claiming that the disease does occur in nature and that there was no reason to connect this case to the terrorist attacks. Inhalation anthrax. And they felt it necessary to announce that it was not terror. There was an article citing comments from scientists about efforts to produce the germ in laboratories for use as a weapon, how the Russians and the Americans had worked on it. The article went on to say that according to scientists, two hundred pounds of the germ sprayed over Washington could kill three million people. Bioterror.
The world was changing terribly.
Suddenly Natasha was at the door in her white nightgown. “It’s late,” she murmured. “I thought I heard you come in at least three times.”
“The old man wanted to talk.”
She crossed to the sink and poured herself a glass of water.
“I have a headache,” he said. “Do you know where she keeps the aspirin?”
She opened a cabinet above the stove, took a bottle of Aleve out, and held it toward him. “There’s prescription strength in here, too, for her knee, if you want it.”
“This’ll do. Can I have some of that water?”
She refilled the glass and gave it to him. “What did he want to talk about?”
“Cheating on my mother.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah.” He took three of the pills, swallowed them with the water, and then handed her the glass. “I think I’m a little drunk. Good thing I didn’t get pulled over.”
She put the glass and the bottle of Aleve back.