In a folder marked "Phan-1993" was a copy of every lab report, every T cell count, every pill swallowed, with no editorializing other than the occasional "Color is bad today," or "No sleep-night sweats." Behind it, a considerably thinner folder that just said "Parsifal," in which he had tried to keep a similar record for himself and then quickly given up. He should have told her he wanted to keep track, or she should have known.
There were some letters in a box in the closet. There were letters she had written to him when she was much younger. She knew what they said and didn't open them. He had saved some birthday cards she had given him, a postcard she had sent from Carmel, though she couldn't remember going to Carmel by herself. There were some letters from Phan. Sabine sat on the floor and held them in her lap. The envelopes had been opened carefully, so as not to rip the paper. She slipped her fingers inside one and took the letter out. Most Beloved, it began, and for some reason this was the thing that started Sabine crying, so that she folded it up right away and put it back. There were a few letters from other men that she didn't bother with, and then, at the very back, a postcard from Nebraska addressed to Guy Fetters / NBRF / Lowell, Nebraska.
Dear Guy,
Just to say you have a beautiful baby sister waiting for you at home, very healthy, as am I. Kitty says come home soon.
Sent with Love from your Mother.
Sabine turned the card over and over again. The picture on the other side was of a grassy field with some snow-tipped mountains in the background that said "Beautiful Wyoming." This made it all true, truer than anything Roger could have told her. All she could read of the postmark was "MAR 1966," which meant that this new sister, who must be Albertine, was fifteen years younger than her brother. What was Parsifal doing away from home in February? And what was NBRF? Sabine flipped through the box again. One lousy postcard from an entire life? This was all that was sent? Sabine wanted to know where the pictures were, report cards, wedding announcements and obituaries clipped from the paper. Where, exactly, was the proof?
Those were long and quiet days for Sabine, every one sunnier and more relentlessly beautiful than the last. A week passed and then another one started right behind it. In the backyard, limes and avocados fell to the ground, rolled under the low palms and rotted. Hot pink azalea blossoms clotted the pool skimmer. She went back to work on the strip mall in her studio. She made shrubbery for hours at a time while Rabbit slept on her feet. When it was finished she went back and covered the bushes in bright red inedible berries. The work was good because she knew what to do, how to mix the glue into a thin wash, how to cut the steel. She studied the floor plans. She made a rare interior, a boardroom for an office building with deep blue chairs that swiveled beneath her fingertip, a cherrywood conference table whose tiny planks she sanded and stained. She did not decide what to do about the rug stores, although they told her there needed to be a buying trip. She did not look over the papers that Roger sent, and she did not call the Fetters of Alliance, Nebraska, to ask them what the hell had gone on during childhood. What stopped her was her mother's voice in Canter's saying that, clearly, Parsifal had not wanted her to know. If she had found a way to respect his wishes at nineteen, surely she could do it at forty-one; but she kept the postcard on her desk, the words face-out.
Parsifal did not believe in magic. Everything was a trick and some tricks were better than others. He was openly hostile to any magician who claimed to have powers above and beyond good acting and good carpentry. He couldn't even speak of Uri Geller's spoons. But Sabine was a little more sentimental. She knew that there was no such thing as a true Indian rope trick, but she thought that maybe death was not always so final, that sometimes it was possible for someone to come back.
"Dead is dead," Parsifal had told her. "Period."
She said she believed in telepathy, in a few rare cases. She believed that she had it with Parsifal.
"No such animal," he said.
But then how did she always know what he needed? How did she always know it would be him when she picked up the phone? How was it she so often knew what card was on the top of the deck when he held it out to her?
So on the ninth day alone in the house, when the phone rang in the middle of the afternoon Sabine was so sure it was Parsifal that she tripped over the rabbit while lunging for the phone. On the second ring she remembered he was dead. On the third ring she knew it was his mother. On the fifth ring she got up off the floor and answered the phone.
"Mrs. Fetters?" the voice asked, not stating a name, but requesting one.
"No," Sabine said, as confused as the voice.
"I'm calling for Mrs. Guy Fetters. Mrs.-The lawyer said there was another name."
"You're Mrs. Fetters," Sabine said.
"Yes," the voice said, friendly, Midwestern, relieved. "Yes, that's right. Is it-Mrs. Parsifal? That's the name I have here. He was Parsifal the Magician."
"I'm Mrs. Parsifal," Sabine said, and it was true, she had taken his name when they married. She had answered to that name to the doctors, to the coroner, to the undertaker. She said it with authority now.
"Oh, well, I'm glad I got you. I'm glad." But then she was quiet. Sabine knew she should assume some responsibility for the conversation, but she had absolutely no idea what to say. "This is very awkward for me," Mrs. Fetters said finally. "Guy was my son. I guess you know that. I want to tell you how sorry I am about his dying. I mean, sorry for you and me both. There's nothing in the world that compares to losing a child."
Sabine wondered if she meant losing him now or all those years before.
"Do you have children, Mrs. Fetters?"
"Mrs. Parsifal," Sabine said. "No, I don't."
"Parsifal," she repeated. "That'll take some getting used to. You get used to thinking of your children by one name. You don't expect that to change. 'Course, I shouldn't say that. It changes for your daughters. How long ago did he change his name?"
"Twenty-five years ago," Sabine said, realizing that she was not entirely sure.
"Fetters is not such a pretty name. I can say that, I've lived with it long enough."
Sabine would admit to curiosity, but she wasn't comfortable making idle conversation with a mother who could manage no better than one three-line postcard to her son over the course of a lifetime. She felt the weight of all of Parsifal's loss and loneliness married to her own. "Mrs. Fetters," said Sabine, "you've received the information from the lawyer. I'm assuming that's why you're calling me."
"Yes," she said.
"Then tell me how I can help you."
"Well," she said. Sabine thought she heard a catch in the voice. "Let's see. I'm sure you don't think so much of me, Mrs. Parsifal."
"I don't know you," Sabine said. She pulled the sleeping rabbit off his pillow and into her lap. He was as warm as a toaster.
"Then I guess that's what I'm calling about. I hadn't seen my son in a long time, and I missed him every day, and now I know that I didn't do anything about it so I'm going to be missing him, well, from now on. My daughter Bertie and I were talking and we decided to come to Los Angeles and look around, see what his life was like, see where he lived, at least. Kitty can't come, she can't leave her family. Kitty, she's my oldest girl. We weren't asked to Guy's funeral. I'd like to at least see where he's buried."