Тэд Уильямс - The War of the Flowers

…

There was another page just as inconsequential, and it was signed, not "Love," not "Passionately yours," but "Sincerely."

Had they slept together yet ? Theo wondered. A stolen night or two at a motel, or in a school friend's room before he shipped out? It was frighteningly close to what he'd believed of his father at the worst moments — that he really was the kind of man who would send a letter signed, "Sincerely, Cpl. Peter Vilmos" to someone he'd seen naked.

His mother had kept a few other letters from his father, and some anniversary and birthday cards, but the old man hadn't gotten any more Casanova-ish as the years went by, although he did at least abandon "Sincerely" as the years went on, and even signed some of the later ones "Love, Pete."

Other than that, there was very little to show for a lifetime. More birthday cards from Theo, but notably absent once he had turned twelve or so, some letters from relatives and, to his surprise, more than a few clippings from local papers about his own youthful career. Here was one from the Peninsula Times-Tribune about his high-school production of Guys and Dolls , one paragraph marked with a highlighting pen:

"If some of the other leads were a little shaky in both vocal range and Runyonesque accents, the same cannot be said of Theodore Vilmos, who brought verve and energy and an astonishing strength of voice to the role of Sky Masterson, the big-time gambler with the heart of gold. Young Vilmos commanded the stage, and this reviewer would not be surprised some years up the road to hear that he is playing this role and others on Broadway…"

She had saved other things, too, more local write-ups about other plays and choral concerts where he had soloed, and even a review of a performance by his first band from Shredder , a semi-punky Eighties fanzine. He had wondered once or twice where that review had got to, and here it was.

"The lead singer is fucking hot, man, and I don't usually say that about boys, if you know what I mean. I haven't heard anyone sing like that since Bono and U2 broke, pretty angry and angry-pretty. I mean, if Eaten Young hang onto their singer, these guys are seriously commercial. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's the truth…"

The fact that his mother had carefully censored the f-word with a black felt-tip, the fact that she would even have a magazine called Shredder hidden away in her drawer just because it mentioned his singing, almost made him start crying all over again. Who knew?

But the story's clear, isn't it? Johnny, Cat, even these reviews — I didn't take it where I should have. When did it all go sideways?

He was depressed now in a way he hadn't expected to be, not just about his mother's insignificant life, but his own. He put the reviews aside and riffled through the rest of the papers. His mother had saved a few random recipes, a couple of notes from Grandma Dowd — no letters, but then she had lived with Mom and Dad the last fifteen years of her life, so why would she send her daughter letters? The notes from his grandmother were so uninteresting on the surface — one seemed to be a request for Anna to pick up a prescription, the other a page torn off an insurance company letterhead notepad that said only, " Im sorry I forgot. Please remind me to look for it tomorrow. Mama ." — that for a little while Theo wondered if they might, given some momentarily absent context, actually be important, might be revealed as clues to some larger family story. It was only as he leafed through the rest of the unedifying pile of paid bills and statements that he realized the reason Anna Dowd Vilmos had hung onto those meaningless notes was because she had nothing else of her own mother's to keep.

Goodnight Nobody.

For a moment the chill seemed about to return, but it was only a shiver of despair at the thought of two people, both dead now — three people, counting his father with his quonset-hut news bulletins — who had left so little behind to mark their existence, who had disappeared into death like stones thrown into a river, the ripples gone within moments.

Everybody starts out as somebody. Then it slips away.

He wanted another beer, now. He really wanted another beer.

As he piled the papers back into the box, something he had missed the first time tumbled out of the large brown envelope of holiday recipies into which it had fallen. It was another small greeting-card envelope, but strangely heavy. His mother's name and address were written on it in old-fashioned, somewhat cramped handwriting.

What slid out of the envelope was not a card but a folded letter. The surprising weight came from a bankbook and a small key taped to the bottom of the last page of the letter with yellowed cellophane tape. Theo's eye flicked to the ornate signature, which took him a moment to puzzle out.

Your obedient servant,

Eamonn Dowd

He was pretty certain that Eamonn Dowd was one of Grandma Dowd's brothers, although he couldn't remember much of what she'd said about any of them, since she'd left them all behind when she'd moved out to California.

It was a longish letter, at least by comparison to the others his mother had saved. The postmark gave its date as January of 1971, only a couple of years after Theo's own birth. He considered another beer, then changed his mind and made himself a cup of instant coffee as he worked his way through the somewhat spiky handwriting.

My dear niece ,

You will doubtless have trouble remembering me, since we have not met since you were a very young girl, but now that your mother is gone you are the only family that I have left — the only true family, that is. Your mother, my sister Margaret, was the only one of that quarrelsome, blighted brood into which I was born for whom I felt fondness. If I saw little of her over the years, and even less of you, it is because my travels did not permit it, rather than any lack of good feeling .

Having known so little of me, you will doubtless find it strange when I say I owe you and the rest of your family a debt of shame that cannot be reduced or put right. I will not explain it — I could not do so in a letter, in any case — but I will say that it weighs heavily on me now, when I am about to set out on a journey from which there will be no returning. As a small gesture of good will and regret at having been such a poor uncle, I give to you and your husband and infant son what little I have left in the way of worldly property .

Sadly, there is no family manor or chest of jeweled heirlooms. There is instead a small bank account and a few personal papers and other odds and ends. The money is yours — it is not much, but it will perhaps one day help pay for an education for your son, or tide you over some of the lean times through which most lives pass .

Again, I am sorry, even though it means nothing to you now, and most likely never will. Among my effects you will find a book. Should you be so surfeited with leisure time that you decide to read it, please do not take it as the ravings of a disordered mind. It was an attempt at fiction of sorts, although not a successful one, I fear — a type of modern fairy tale that I hoped might find some small readership. But I could think of no effective ending. Now all endings seem one to me .

I wish you and your young family healthy and happy lives.

Theo narrowed his eyes, shook his head, then read the letter again. It did not seem to fit into the rest of his mother's keepsakes any better than it had the first time. In the midst of stultifying normality, it made an odd little space for itself — like something out of an O. Henry story.

The small key had to be for a safe-deposit box: that much seemed clear. The bankbook, its ruled lines full of careful little handwritten notations, was from something called Traveler's Bank, with an address on Duende Street here in San Francisco. He'd never heard of the street, but the smudgy, carbon-paper directions to the place suggested it must be somewhere in the area of Russian Hill. The account had totaled something near five thousand dollars — not a small amount thirty years ago, but not quite the life-changing bequest from a rich uncle that people dreamed about. It had all been withdrawn a week or so after the date on the letter, and the emptied account seemed not to have been touched since. It was funny that his mother had never mentioned it, but not really out of character.