Douglas Kennedy: The Pursuit of Happiness

Charlie approached me. He looked down at the photograph I was holding.

'Do you want to bring this back with you?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'I've got a copy at home', he said. 'It's my favorite photo of Dad'.

'I think I'll take it then. I don't have too many pictures of him'.

We stood there for a moment, wondering what to say next. Charlie chewed nervously on his lower lip.

'You feeling better?' I asked.

'Fine, yeah', he said, averting his eyes as usual. 'You bearing up?'

'Me? Sure', I said, trying to sound unfazed by having just buried our mom.

'Your son's a great-looking kid. Was that your ex?'

'Yeah - that's the charmer. You've never met him before?'

Charlie shook his head.

'Oh yes, I forgot - you missed my wedding. And Matt was out of town during your last trip here. Nineteen ninety-four, wasn't it?'

Charlie ignored that question, and instead posed another:

'He's still something in television news, isn't he?'

'He's now something very big. Like his new wife'.

'Yeah, Mom did tell me about the divorce'.

'Really?' I said, sounding surprised. 'When did she tell you? During your annual phone call in nineteen ninety-five?'

'We spoke a little more than that'.

'Sorry, you're right. You also called her every Christmas. So, it was during one of your bi-annual phone calls that you discovered Matt had left me'.

'I was really sad to hear about that'.

'Hey, it's ancient history now. I'm over it'.

Another awkward silence.

'The place doesn't look very different', he said, glancing around the apartment.

'Mom was never going to make it into the pages of House and Garden', I said. 'Mind you, even if she'd wanted to do up the apartment - which she didn't - money was always rather tight. Thank God the place was rent-stabilized - otherwise she wouldn't have been able to stay on'.

'What's it now a month?'

'Eighteen hundred - which isn't bad for the neighborhood. But it was always a scramble for her to meet'.

'Didn't she inherit anything from Uncle Ray?'

Ray was Mom's well-heeled brother - a big-deal Boston-based lawyer who maintained a starchy distance from his sister. From what I could gather, Mom was never particularly close to him when they were growing up - and they grew even further apart after Ray and his wife, Edith, voiced their disapproval of the Brooklyn Mick she had married. But Ray did live according to the WASP code of Doing the Proper Thing. So after my dad's premature death, he came to the financial aid of his sister by offering to pay for the education of her two children. The fact that Ray and Edith had no kids of their own (and that Mom was Ray's only sibling) probably made it easier for them to foot this hefty bill over the years - even though, when we were younger, it was pretty clear to Charlie and me that our uncle didn't really want anything to do with us. We never saw him. Mom never saw him. We each received a twenty-dollar savings bond from him every Christmas. When Charlie was at Boston College, Ray never once invited him over to his Beacon Hill townhouse. I also got the cold shoulder while I was at Smith and dropping into Boston once a month. Mom explained his aloofness away by telling us, 'Families can be odd'. Still, fair credit to the guy: thanks to him, Charlie and I were able to attend private schools and private colleges. But as soon as I graduated from Smith in '76, Mom saw no more money from her brother - and she was always short of cash for the rest of her life. When Ray died in '98, I expected Mom to come into a little money (especially as Edith had pre-deceased her husband by three years). But she received nothing from his estate.

'You mean, Mom never told you that Ray left her zilch?' I asked.

'All she said was that he had died'.

'That was during your nineteen ninety-eight phone call, right?'

Charlie stared down at his shoes. 'Yes - that's right', he said quietly. 'But I didn't know she'd been cut out of his will like that'.

'Yeah - Ray left everything to the nurse who'd been looking after him ever since Edith went to that big Episcopalian church in the sky. Poor old Mom - she always got shortchanged on everything'.

'How did she manage to pay the bills?'

'She had a small pension from the school. There was social security... and that was it. I offered to help her out, but, of course, she refused me. Even though I could have afforded it'.

'You still with the same ad agency?'

'I'm afraid so'.

'But you're some senior executive now, aren't you?'

'A senior copywriter, that's all'.

'Sounds pretty okay to me'.

'The money's not bad. But there's a saying in my business: a happy copywriter is an oxymoron. Still, it passes the time and pays the bills. I just wish Mom had let me pay some of her bills. But she was adamant she wanted nothing from me. The way I figure it, she was either running an illegal canasta game, or she had a lucrative Girl Scout Cookie racket going on the side'.

'You planning to close up this place now?' Charlie asked.

'I'm certainly not going to maintain it as a museum'.

I looked at him squarely. 'You know you're out of the will'.

'I'm, uh, not surprised'.

'Not that there's much in her estate. Just before she went, she told me there was a bit of life insurance and some stock. Maybe fifty grand tops. Too bad you didn't make contact with her six months ago. Believe me, she didn't want to cut you out - and she kept hoping against hope that you'd make that one call. After they told her the cancer was terminal, she wrote you, didn't she?'

'She never mentioned in the letter that she was dying', he said.

'Oh, that would have changed things, would it?'

Another of his evasive over-my-shoulder glances. My voice remained level.

'You didn't answer her letter, and you didn't answer the messages I left for you when she was in her final days. Which, I have to say, was strategically dumb. Because had you shown your face in New York, you would now be splitting that fifty grand with me'.

'I would never have accepted my share...'

'Yeah, right. Princess would have insisted...'

'Don't call Holly that'.

'Why the hell not? She's the Lady Macbeth in this story'.

'Kate, I'm really trying to...'

'Do what? "Heal wounds"? Achieve "closure"?'

'Look, my argument was never with you'.

'I'm touched. Too bad Mom's not here to see this. She always had these far-fetched romantic notions about everyone making up, and maybe seeing her West Coast grandkids again'.

'I meant to call...'

'Meant isn't good enough. Meant means shit'.

My voice had jumped a decibel or two. I was suddenly aware that the living room had emptied. So too was Charlie, as he whispered, 'Please, Kate... I don't want to go back to the coast with such bad...'

'Charlie, what the hell did you expect today? Instant reconciliation? Field of Dreams? You reap what you sow, pal'.

I felt a steadying hand on my arm. Aunt Meg.

'Great sermon, Kate', she said. 'And I'm sure Charlie now completely understands your point of view'.

I took a deep steadying breath. And said, 'Yeah, I guess he does'.

'Charlie', Meg said, 'why don't you go find yourself something alcoholic in the kitchen'.

Charlie did as commanded. The squabbling children had been separated.

'You okay now?' Meg asked.

'No', I said. 'I am definitely not okay'.

She motioned me towards the sofa. Sitting down next to me, her voice became conspiratorially quiet:

'Back off the guy', she said. 'I had a little talk with him in the kitchen. It seems he's been juggling some very major problems'.

'What kind of problems?'

'He was downsized four months ago. Fitzgibbon was taken over by some Dutch multinational, and they immediately canned half their Californian sales force'.