Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'It seemed such a perfect recompense that a son should have been born to me who so suffered his own father, who was still wrestling him, the way Jacob in that wonderful passage in the Scripture wrestled the Angel of Death all night. I thought -' He gropes, staring to the distance and the past. 'It seemed very important,' Eddgar says.

'It was,' says Seth.

'Yes, it was. It was, of course it was. I mean merely that the path seemed clear. The way seemed certain – everything I should do and shouldn't do. And of course, it wasn't. I was terribly afraid of him, terribly scared of him, almost at once. Terrified. Of this little tiny child. Of course, I couldn't say to myself that it was fear I felt. I just seemed frozen up somehow. I seemed commanded by some kind of learned response, instead of my own inmost impulses. Oh God.' And there is another of those improbable moments Seth first witnessed in the courtroom. Loyell Eddgar is crying. He is probably entitled to comfort, Seth realizes. As a father, Seth has comfort to give. But not to this man. He sits on the other side of the table, in silence, as Eddgar sobs for a second, then recovers.

'And I would watch him with you and Michael. You recall how he was with Michael, Seth? I would just watch the two of them, out there in that tree, pounding, sawing, laughing at one another – I'd feel terrible. Just terrible. Because I still loved him so. So much. I was brimming with feeling. Looking back, I think I felt more honest emotion toward Nile than any other person in my life.

'And I would worry and worry and worry about one thing, one question all the time. It sounds like madness now, but I was haunted by this question, maddened by it, absolutely obsessed. If I had to give him up, I kept thinking, if I had to give him up, could I?'

'Give him up?' asks Seth.

'Yes. To the revolution. If the day came. If I had to let him fight. Do things that would endanger him. It never seemed – you can take this as you like, I'm sure you're doubtful, question motives, I'd do the same probably – but it never seemed awful to be placing ourselves in danger. June. Me. I could imagine – I had imagined that. You know all the prison literature that's been created by captured leaders. I'd read that. Torture. Isolation. I'd imagined that.'

And gloried probably in the prospect, Seth thinks. Eddgar's greyish hair has fallen forward, over his brow, as he looks down to his folded hands.

'But I was riven,' he says, 'agonized, by the total quandary of being a parent. How could I show Nile everything I treasured and believed, which I seemed impelled to do, how could I do that and then confront the moment decades on when that led to his sacrifice? Would I be able to pay that price, I kept asking, would I be able let him go, my son, my love, my life, my future? I avoided thinking about it for months, and then the question would strike me, more powerfully than any fear I've ever felt for myself, and I found no comfort really, but was led back again and again, by some distraught impulse, to the words of the Scripture, that God's greatest love was shown by this, that He gave us the life of His only son. As if that thought could really be any help, as if it could do anything but deepen the mystery.'

He stands, draining the last from his cup. He claps his shirt pockets and, not finding what he's seeking, removes his glasses and wipes his eyes on his sleeve. On the worn heels of his loafers, he crosses into the brilliant path of light that emerges from the window, an elongated parallelogram divided by the shadowed mullions, and nods from the doorway, older and littler than he was in Seth's memory. With one hand, he attempts some heartless gesture, a farewell and a direction to Seth to show himself out.

He goes. It will take pure luck now to make his plane to Seattle. Traveling far too fast, he dodges traffic on 843 in the morning rush. So are you done now? he finally asks himself. In part, he still valiantly resists everything pulling on him in the wake of this visit. It wasn't genuine, Seth keeps thinking. The tears. The torment. Like all great actors, Eddgar will always become exactly who his audience wishes him to be. But there is no turning away from his vulnerability to Eddgar. That was fixed long ago, in the stars, in the genes, in nature. So what's the point? Seth asks himself. Everybody has his story? His grief? He knew that. Already. He knew it. Maybe it's what he said to Hobie last night. About love and justice. Maybe there is no difference. In the ideal, at least. Maybe love and justice are one.

He drives on.

Are you done now?

Seth

Who writes letters anymore? This is probably an act of craziness. But Dubinsky dropped off the copies of the eulogies the Trib people had printed. (Beautiful, aren't they? This was a touching gesture, Seth.) I'm a little too hard-headed to hold on to them on the assumption you're coming back. And I can't simply slide them into this envelope without a word of my own. It's 9:30 now. Hot Time, as you say. The hour we have spent together most nights. I miss you. The laughter, the connection. I have nasty thoughts. The body yearns.

Which means what? I've been running all the what-ifs in my mind, watching each clip to see the different endings to our movie. Nothing is exactly right. But I thought I' d take you at your word and speak my mind, at least the part I know. We're both relatively honest. I regard that as one of our pluses.

When I left Charlie, at the age of forty-four, I had to recognize that I'm one of those people who may never come to rest, never find the opening in the world where I am going to squarely fit. My life, in its current shape, will tumble on for a while, and then I'11 feel the way I always do, that it's not quite right, that maybe there's something better, or not quite as bad, over the next hill and I'll be gone in that direction. There are times I think almost abstractly about my lifetime of shifting obsessions and feel washed away by a pounding wave of shame. Four different graduate programs. All my jobs. And men. And a thousand pastimes undertaken with unflagging ardor, each intended to save my spirit at night while my body slaved in obeisance to the future during the day. The relics are in that horrible Fibber's closet of a basement where I won't let you roam: an enormous loom; plastic jugs and curing vats (I was going to culture my own wine); bridles, bits, and saddle from the period I decided to retake my squandered childhood by riding. Not to mention the boxes of Y-Me literature and the books on various dietary obsessions. Each of these phases passed away, lifted like fog, traceless, if you do not count the accessories that mildew in the cellar or a single blanket I wove which Nikki still clutches for comfort when she sleeps. At my worst moments, I suspect I bore Nikki simply to have an anchor.

And even having done that, I'm never right, never fully at ease. I know there's a chance I' ll be here by myself at the end, on the other side of something I'm still longing to get over. There's a lot of pain in that. Not just the recognition, but the fact. Yet there are moments, like now, when I'm more or less at peace and willing to say, Maybe that's me. If this thing – us – if it doesn't work out, I'm going to be okay. I know that. It's one of the best lessons I learned from Zora: I know how to wrap my arms around myself. And I don't mean that as a sop. It may even be a warning.

Which is not to deny I'm angry. I am. I'm aggravated that you' re gone and that you let it come to this, with two women reaching after you. I ask myself questions I heard in my head all the time with Charlie: Why does it seem to be women who have to stand up for everything of real value in the world? For children, first of all; for nurturance. For homes. And, yes, even love. I know that's not entirely fair. I sometimes watch you with Nikki in mild amazement – unloading her backpack, making snacks. I leave you a lot more room to be that person than Lucy ever did. But it's your confidence and contentment that are striking, the way you see a household. Not a war zone. Not a field of mutual striving. Not some prolonged adolescence inwhich the partners travel, each for themselves. But a family. You can show me how to do that, as Charlie, of course, never did. And even so, that's hard for me, because it leaves me wrestling with the hardest question of all, whether it's me you need or Nikki. In the end, we both have to deal with the fact that it's loss that brings you to me.