It was from my aunt. One thing about her that you should know—her handwriting is perfect. It looks like the work of a Victorian handwriting machine. She writes on paper without lines and all the words are perfectly laid down, everything symmetrical. I think it has to do with her posture.
Anyway—this is what she said:
LETTER
Lucia, dear girl,
It is of course your decision and I will respect whatever it is that you choose to do. However, you should know that opportunities do not come so easily as the years pass, and that therefore, when one is young, it can be a savvy choice to obtain what you may as freely as you may. If these people will house you and give you a place to grow—you do not even need to learn what they want you to learn. You can continue your own education in the midst of these circumstances, which, you must admit, appear quite lovely. It is also true that you might find people there to talk to. It is always a pleasure to have people to talk to, people of real worth. We have always had each other, but I am sure that you will soon be alone—and then what?
However any of this might be, I want you to know that I am quite overcome with pride—not that you have managed to be admitted to this school, but that you have not failed to be the person I have always hoped you would be. It is a sad thing for me that I imagine I will not live to see you become utterly her—become her whom you will be inalienably. That person, I feel, will be someone to behold.
Goodbye for now,
Your strongest supporter always, Lucy
LETTER
Well, I cried for a while, I don’t mind saying. I folded the letter up and stuck it in my pocket. The one from Hausmann I put in my bag. I stood up and looked around the room and it was as if I had never seen it before. My eyes moved over the various objects and I truly felt at that moment as if I had never seen any of them, as if I was for a moment, entirely new. I wondered what I would do.
That’s when I noticed it. On the back wall—something was missing. My aunt basically owned nothing, you know that already. But, she did have an old wedding dress and an old suit and the old wedding dress and the old suit, they hung together on the back wall of the house—like a costume exhibit. Next to the old wedding dress and next to the old suit there was a framed picture. In the picture, there were two people. One of them was a man. He was wearing the suit, but in the picture it was not an old suit. The other was a woman, a pretty young woman, and in the picture she was wearing the wedding dress. That woman was my aunt.
The picture was gone; the dress was gone; the suit was gone. There wasn’t even any reason for someone to take that stuff—some useless old clothes. It had to have been just some creepy whim.
But, I was pretty sure I knew who had done it.
Next thing I knew, I was on the front steps. I banged on the glass. Nothing. I banged on the glass. Nothing.
The landlord came to the door. Maybe I mentioned him to you before. 1. He hates me. 2. He hates me.
He opened it, looked down at me. I could tell he knew I knew.
What do you want?
There was just enough room, so I brushed past him into the house.
I know what you did.
He yelled at me to stop, but I ran into the next room, I guess it was the kitchen. There, on the counter, I saw it in a big pile—right there on the counter he’d stuck the dress and the suit and the framed photo.
Asshole!
I grabbed the stuff from the counter and turned around. He stood there, blocking my way.
He said something about my aunt owing him money.
I said the clothes weren’t worth anything anyway. He’d better let me go.
He threatened to call the police.
So I put down the stuff. I could see that he thought he’d won. His expression changed, and became if anything, even uglier. The wreck that age had made of his face, which is usually something I like to see—I admire it—in this case made him look like a vile clown. His mouth was practically spitting at me in his supposed victory:
Now get out of here, he said.
I went to go by him and he grabbed my shoulder. I tried to get him off, but he pulled me along and tossed me out the door.
I ran back to the garage and just sat there sobbing like a weak little wretch. For some reason it was too much for me. Someone like my aunt, she venerates this stupid clothing that she wore a million years ago, just because her life is a train wreck and for her sometimes thinking back on one of the few good things, her ultimately fruitless wedding, could make her feel good—and what happens? When she’s dead, even this dumb little display of her ordinariness—even that doesn’t get respected. It gets taken by the landlord who likes collecting quaint worthless shit. I wonder how long he had his eye on it.
I felt right then that I needed to get as far away as possible from this, from the beginnings of my life. If I could get some distance away, I was sure I could make something clean and cold and clear. Someplace else, not here, I could be the inheritor of my aunt’s, my father’s ideas.
Two minutes later, I heard the sirens.
A minute after that, the noise came: people in the garden.
Someone was saying something, maybe the landlord’s nephew.
Another voice said, we’ll take care of it. Just hang back.
Then another voice: hang back.
There was a knock at the door. I went over and opened it. There must have been ten people out there.
Turns out the old man was claiming I shoved him and threatened his safety inside his own house. I don’t remember it that way, but I guess it could have happened.
LANA
Next thing you know, I was sitting with Lana in her car outside the police station. My duffel bag was in the back with what I guess was everything I own. I was filling Lana in on what happened:
What happened was this:
The old man claimed I was trespassing. I thought he meant trespassing in his house when I went to get the wedding dress. Not so. He meant trespassing by being on the property. Turns out he had already filed a complaint against my aunt and me, just in case, for squatting in his garage. They pulled that out and it looked pretty bad. So, presto—that was that. The police officer told me the old man would drop the charges if I’d stay away. I said I would and that was that. When I started to talk about the wedding dress, which I did, I mean, I really started giving a shitty little speech, everyone shut up for a second in that part of the precinct, and that’s when I realized that I sounded totally fucking crazy. A wedding dress from 1940? Who cares? So, I stopped talking and walked out and no one stopped me. I guess I had already been processed.
Ten minutes later, Lana picked me up. I told her my side of the story and we drove away. She was madder than I was. In general I think sadness kind of takes the strength away from anger, or maybe they just waver back and forth. I don’t know. All I know is most of the time I am one or the other—that is, angry or sad. We get offered so few real victories. It’s a question I can’t even really answer: what is the victory I want?