“Why?”
“They had their reasons-or thought they did. Their reasons didn’t matter. Your mother was an adult. Her parents treated her like a child. They wanted her to, um, end the pregnancy. That was not legal at the time.”
“They didn’t want me?”
“You weren’t you yet, Lu They weren’t thinking about the possibility of a person, with all your bright promise. All they could think about was your mother. Their daughter. And then when your mother was, well, gone, they said, ‘See, we told you this would happen.’ They said I had signed her death warrant. They said other things, rude and cruel things. I became very angry. I told them that they were to have nothing to do with us. I didn’t trust them to be… careful around you, to keep their feelings to themselves. AJ was almost nine at the time. He had lived with his grandparents most of his life. It was very hard on him, but he understood. The three of us had to stick together. Perhaps if they had apologized or acknowledged how hurtful and wrong their words were, things could have been different. I told AJ it was as if they had died, that we must live as if they had. I believed they would make you feel responsible for your mother’s death, which was not the case at all. I also feared that they would try to do to you, both of you, what they had done to your mother. I couldn’t have let that cycle repeat itself.”
“What did they do?”
He paused, leaned forward, palms pressed together as if praying, his chin on the thumbs, his nose on the index fingers. “They were too protective. They acted like the parents in Sleeping Beauty. Only it wasn’t spindles that needed to disappear-it was everything. They would have had her live forever in her childhood bedroom, venturing out only under the most controlled circumstances.”
“Why did they start calling after all this time?”
“I don’t know. But they won’t be calling again. I’m going to get an unlisted number and install a second phone line for just you and AJ to use, although it will be in his bedroom for now.”
I wanted to argue that this was unfair, that if the phone were in AJ’s room, then it was his phone. But then my father might ask how often my friends called and I would have to admit that no one called me, ever.
“What do you say we go out for pizza tonight? I was in such a rush to get home after I heard about the calls that I didn’t stop at Colombo’s on my way.”
There was no such thing as grandparents’ rights at this time. But I did not know until recently that my careful father, who was not inclined to leave things to chance, took out a restraining order against his in-laws. Today, I suppose, such a thing would become public. Did you hear? The state’s attorney has a restraining order against his in-laws. People had more secrets then. Or maybe they were just better about keeping them.
At any rate, the three of us, a team, united, made the short drive to Colombo’s, our favorite pizza place. To this day, I find all pizza inferior to the memory of what I ate on Friday nights from Colombo’s. As a treat, we ate at the restaurant instead of getting carryout. We even had a whole pitcher of root beer to share. I was beside myself with joy, but AJ’s mood seemed grim. I tried to understand. AJ knew our grandparents, had loved them and been loved by them. I wasn’t being asked to give anything up. But AJ was, for a second time. Now, I can see it. AJ had lost his grandparents as surely as he had lost his mother. I never had either.
Both the Closters would be dead soon. It turned out that our grandmother decided to contact us because her husband was dying of pancreatic cancer. He was gone by that summer, and she followed within a year. There was no inheritance, not for us. When I lived in Mount Washington during the first years of my marriage, I sometimes drove a few miles out of my way to go past the Closters’ house. It has been chopped up into apartments, and the upkeep is minimal. But the stained-glass windows and the turret are still there. I would have loved to know that house in its glory. And I think I would have liked to have known my grandparents, but if my father thought I needed to be kept away from them, he must have had good reasons.
In contrast to AJ’s dark mood at Colombo’s that night, our father was unusually ebullient. He spoke to strangers, laughed at their jokes no matter how lame, shook hands. I think he even bought pitchers of beer for some tables.
“That was fun,” I whispered to AJ in the cozy cover of the dark backseat. He usually fought to ride in the front, as he was about to get his learner’s permit and wanted to study our father’s driving. “I wish we did things like that more often.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Go out. Talk to other people, like it was a party.”
“Well, sure,” AJ said. “The election is only eighteen months away. It’s time for Andrew Jackson Brant to pretend he actually likes people.”
Our father stiffened in the front seat, and the back of his neck reddened. Disrespect was a serious offense in our household, perhaps the most serious offense. “Don’t sass me,” he would say, his Virginia accent suddenly pronounced. Teensy, too, was hell on talking back. But our father said nothing even when AJ added: “Yes, sirree, Andrew Jackson Brant can do a darn good job of pretending to like hoi polloi, the people in whose name he serves. Most people would say the hoi polloi, but Andrew Jackson Brant would be the first to tell them that they’re wrong, it doesn’t require an article. People wonder where I get my acting chops from? Well, look no further. Andrew Jackson Brant could have been the Richard Burton of his day. Although he wouldn’t have married Adele Closter twice, I suppose, the way Burton did with Elizabeth Taylor. Andrew Jackson Brant never makes the same mistake twice.”
“I would have married your mother over and over again,” our father said.
“Isn’t that the very definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome?”
Our father braked sharply, although the light was green. Braked sharply, then turned onto the narrow road that led to the tennis courts behind the Village Center. The lights were on and AJ’s face looked even whiter in their eerie glow. He was terrified. As was I. Neither of us had ever pushed our father this far.
But, after a minute of suspenseful silence, our father said, without turning around: “I have no regrets, AJ. I don’t expect you to understand that, but it’s true.”
The next week, we went back to our Friday ritual of having take-out pizza. AJ began taking his slices to his room, talking on the phone while he ate, inserting folded triangles of cheese pizza into his mouth as if he were a sword swallower. I expected our father to reprimand him, but he never did.
JANUARY 12
A knock. Oh, bless the Lord, Lu thought, someone has started knocking on my door. It’s her secretary, Della, but that’s a start.
“Fred Hollister wants to know if he can get on your schedule this afternoon,” Della says. She’s Lu’s age, yet looks years older. Plump, matronly. Did people used to age at more or less the same rate when Lu was a child? More and more, aging seems to be a choice. A choice dictated by genetics and disposable income, but still a choice. After all, anyone can dye her hair, pick out wardrobes that won’t age her. But Della seems comfortable with her gray hair and cushiony frame.
“To discuss what?”
“He wouldn’t tell me, but he says it’s important, something he doesn’t want you to hear from anyone else.”
Intriguing. Lu’s mind runs through the various possibilities. She assumes it’s some hangover from Fred’s tenure, a case that’s going to boomerang back on appeal because of shoddy work by this office or the police department. She had plans for this afternoon, but she accepts that this has to take precedence. If Fred thinks she wants to hear it from him first, then she definitely does.