A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“Fine, I want a beer,” he says.

“Fine, have a beer; you’re not driving, you put in a good day’s work, what do I care. Is there one you prefer?”

“A Guinness if they’ve got it …”

“Really?”

“It’s like a meal in a glass. I got used to it last summer, when I was at Oxford.”

I order one Guinness and a root beer, and when the beer comes I take a sip and then put it down in front of the kid. “Do you want a straw with that?”

He drinks, closes his eyes, happy. Clearly this is not a first.

“I saw you checking out the hostess,” he says when he comes up for air. “Maybe you should ask her out? You are single now, aren’t you?”

If only he knew what I really thought of the hostess. “I had no idea you were such an athlete,” I say, changing the subject. “No one in our family has ever been an athlete.”

“It doesn’t all come from your family. Mom’s grandmother was a great swimmer, she was the first woman to swim around the island of Manhattan.”

“Really?”

“Yep. And her husband, my great-grandfather, was a fire-eater — apparently he had enormous lung capacity.”

“I never knew.”

“You can’t assume everything is all about you,” Nate says.

“What can I bring you boys?” the waitress asks. I notice the Headmaster, still in his skirt, walking in, his pleats flouncing on his hairy, very white knees.

“How are the crab cakes?” Nate asks.

“Perfect,” the waitress says. “One hundred percent lump meat.”

“I’m not sure crab is in season,” I say.

“I get them every year,” Nate says. “I’ll start with the iceberg and blue cheese, and then have the crab cakes.”

Why am I picturing vomit everywhere? Beer, blue cheese, crab cakes?

“I’ll have the iceberg and blue cheese as well and the steak special,” I say.

“Baked or fried?” the waitress asks.

“Grilled,” I say.

“Your potato — baked or fried?”

“Baked, please.”

I sip the kid’s root beer. The Headmaster is coming in our direction. “What’s that you’re drinking, son?” he asks Nate.

“Just having a sip of my uncle’s beer — he thought it tasted funny. Does this taste bad to you?” He holds the beer glass up to the Headmaster.

“All beer tastes like piss water to me. I only drink bourbon, but not while I’m on duty.”

The man with the mustache hurries over. “Everything all right?”

“Bring this man a fresh beer, and the young fella looks like he could use a refill too — what was that son, a Coke?” the Headmaster bellows.

“Root beer, actually,” Nate says.

“I like your sporran,” I say, unable to help myself. “Is it sealskin?” And I’m wondering, where the hell did I pull the word “sporran” from?

“It is sealskin,” he says. “You’ve got a good eye. It was my grandfather’s,” he says, affecting a full Scottish accent.

“And so it was,” I say.

He nods. “Have a good dinner, and congratulations on your climb. I’m glad to finally see where Nathaniel’s prowess comes from.”

The Headmaster saunters off to another table.

“What were you talking about — spawning salmon?” Nate asks.

“Sporran. His purse. I complimented him on his purse. That’s what that chain-belted thingy is — no pockets with a kilt.”

Nate is, for a moment, impressed.

I pull out my packet of pills (and the page of directions) and line up the dinner series, before, during, and after.

“So what else about you, Nate, should I know?”

“I have a school in South Africa,” Nate says. “I’m pretty proud of that.”

“You mean you raised money to help build a school? — I think your mom mentioned something about that.”

“I built it,” he says, flatly.

“With your hands?”

“Yes, with my hands, and with the villagers who live there, and some wood and nails and sheets of metal — all the things you build a school with. And I set up a water-filtration system for the town. It’s named for me. It used to have another name, but everyone who lives there calls it Nateville.”

Is he telling the truth? “How were you able to do this all by yourself?”

“It’s not as hard as you think,” Nate says. “It’s kind of like a big Lego. I had these Sunset books of plans for small structures that I was going to use to build myself something in the backyard, and we used those for inspiration. The real question is, if a kid can do it, why can’t others? There’s no reason the world is in as bad shape as it is, except that people are so fucking passive and immobile and focused on what can’t happen instead of what can.”

Nate goes on. Everything he says is not only true, it is logical, well considered, articulate, persuasive. He’s explaining himself and the world around him, and all I can think is that it’s shocking that George didn’t kill him too.

I am falling in love with Nate; he’s the boy I wish I had been, the boy I wish I was even now. I’m in awe of him and terrified. He’s more capable than any of the rest of us and yet he’s still a kid.

“Does your dad know you can do all this?”

“I doubt it,” he says.

“Did you ever tell him?”

“I don’t know how to say this politely, but when Dad came up here, he was basically shaking a lot of hands and didn’t exactly notice anything. And I’d like to keep it that way. He never noticed me, thought I was some lump of a loser sucking up air and resources — that’s what he called it, resources.”

“He’s a pretty tough customer,” I say.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nate says.

“Not a problem,” I say. “What can we talk about?”

“Why didn’t you and Claire have kids?”

I take the beer from Nate and drink too much, too quickly; it tickles my nose and I choke, spitting Guinness across the table.

“Pretty,” Nate says as I wipe it up.

“We almost had a baby. Claire got pregnant once and something happened.”

“She lost the baby?” Nate presses for clarity.

I nod. That’s the polite version of it. The truth is, the baby was stillborn and got stuck and actually came apart as they were pulling it out. I saw the whole thing. I’d been on Claire’s side of the drape, and then, when they were pulling the baby out, the doctor made a painful sound, and so I stood up and looked over and saw pieces. It must have been dead for a while. Claire lifted her head. “Can I see the baby?” she asked. “No,” I said, too abruptly. And I never told her the rest.

“The baby has passed,” the doctor said, and I was never sure if he was trying to tell her that it was all out or that it was born dead.

“Claire was depressed for a long time. ‘It’s hard to say goodbye to someone you never met,’ she’d say. And I didn’t know what to say. We didn’t talk about trying again, it was too painful, too traumatic.”

“Did you like my mother?” Nate asks, pulling me back into the present.

The waitress puts my plate down in front of me; steam rises from the potato, and the meat, like smelling salts, revives me.

“Did you?” he asks again.

“Yes,” I say easily.

“Did you love her?”

“It’s all a bit complicated,” I say.

“Do you miss her?”

“Enormously,” I say.

“I like to think she died for a reason,” Nate says. “To die for love is a reason.”

“Has anyone asked if you want to see your dad?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “And no.” He pauses.

“How often do you talk to Ashley?”