Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“She still calls it that. To this day.”

“—because what else can you say? Well, everyone was stunned, to put it mildly. No one even knew about it for the longest time. They all thought it was a long honeymoon! Louis hardly told us , the news was very late in coming. We were certain — Harry and I — that someone had hurt our boy. How else to explain? Because if he’d had second thoughts—”

“—which was not the case—”

“—but if he had , Marcus was certainly not the type to run away! That wasn’t his style. He had troubles in his life, but was so very happy —with Katrina. And in his work. In his life .”

Tull cleared his throat. “My mother said something happened to him in England. When he was in college.”

Edward and Lucy glowered at their cousin sideways; he’d been holding out on them.

“He was studying so hard,” said Ruth. “So brilliant! History and literature.”

“He liked to walk. A very powerful man. Powerful legs. Always liked to walk. Cleared his head.”

“He didn’t like to walk that much.”

“Yes he did. Yes he did, Ruth, don’t deny it. He went for a walk to Avebury.”

“Harry, please— ”

“Do you know Avebury?” he asked of the children.

“The monoliths,” came the veiled voice from the La-Z-Boy.

“That’s right. He walked there and all around. That’s where the druids were — don’t know how he got his fascination. Walked and walked, said it was because he couldn’t sleep.”

“It was because he couldn’t sleep!” said Ruth defensively. “He was worn-out , that’s all, from the studying. He was a scholar!”

“They put him in the hospital. Didn’t tell us about it, not for a long time.”

“It wasn’t such a big thing, you always make it into a big thing! Lots of students study too hard and—”

“It was something, Ruth. It was more than ‘worn-out.’ There were other things, when he was younger.” She winced, knowing he couldn’t be stopped. “He put aluminum foil in the windows to prevent voices from coming in. That’s what he said—‘voices’ were coming in. Sometimes they were friendly, sometimes not so friendly. Foil, all around the bedroom.” He scratched his nose with trembling deliberation. “He was a brilliant boy. Always did wonderfully in school.”

“He had an imagination , Harry, that’s all. Why do you make such a thing?” She turned to Edward. “ You’re a brilliant boy,” she implored. “You know how hard that can be …”

“Yes,” said the cousin, at a loss.

“We adopted him,” said Harry. “But I’m sure you already know that. And I got damn mad — later on. Because that first time he went a little ‘off’ I made some … inquiries. Because he’d struck his mother, and that was not like him.”

“Harry! He did not strike me—”

“Whatever he did left a bruise, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. So I talked to the adoption people, and well, you know, they sang a different song. Because it’s a business, and I understand that. I’m a businessman. But these are people’s lives, and it isn’t right.”

“They told us his mother was a student,” said Ruth, resigned. “A high-strung woman having problems during the time of her college examinations. Just like our Marcus! They said they didn’t know who the father was; they never do. Anyway, that’s what we were told.”

“Well, that was a lie,” said her husband. “Because by the time I asked, see, the law had changed. They had to tell me things, they were legally bound . Had to turn over files. And the files told a different story. Said that his mother was a ‘working girl’—”

“Harry, we don’t know that’s true!”

“No, but that is what is suspected, Ruth! Now, these children came a long way to hear our story and they might as well get it!” He scratched his nose and proceeded. “There’s all kinds of lawsuits against that place now; Ruth and I didn’t want to join the bandwagon. That’s not for us. But it’s a tragedy what happened in this country. Not that any of it would have made a damn difference to Ruth and me. Because we believe you do things out of love —you take a babe into your life not as an investment but because you have love in your heart. And you nurture that child and hope your love will carry you through. Carry the day. That is all you can hope for, any way you slice it. Now, what they said — what this gentleman finally told us — was that Marcus’s mother was a ‘working girl’ with many troubles. Tried to do herself in a number of times. Gave birth to Marcus in a public toilet. Oh yes — had a few screws loose, this woman. Left him there in the trash, but the police caught up with her.” Ruth began to weep, and Lucy went to her side. “Well, that’s the story. Draw your own conclusions. But we loved the boy — and we’d have him again. Not sure we’d do much different, but we’d have him again. A wonderful boy … and we miss him. We’ve missed him so—”

It was Harry’s turn to shed a tear. His sleepy side had awakened under the onslaught, and he dabbed it with a wad of Kleenex pulled from a lacquered box they’d bought in Jerusalem.

“What happened then?” asked Tull. “After he … disappeared? After the wedding?”

“Oh, they hired a man to find him,” said Ruth. “But they never had any luck. I think that he — your grandfather — somehow blamed us . And it only got worse … because,” she said with delicacy, “your mother had such misfortune. But we felt awful enough already! The embarrassment and the pain! And not knowing what happened to our boy, if he was alive or dead! Your grandfather didn’t seem to take that into consideration.”

“Oh I think he did, Ruth,” said Harry charitably. “I think he did. It was hard for everyone.”

“Well, I never heard it from him. Never heard it from Berenice . They didn’t even tell us Katrina was pregnant!”

“That, I agree, was not handled well.”

“It was kept from us. After six months it became clear that Louis wanted all ties— anything connected to the past — to that wedding and the heartache it brought your mother — severed. Cut right off, the way you’d cut an arm. What could we do? Such powerful people. We did our best to put the past behind us. The only time we heard about your grandfather — or your uncle Dodd — was when Harry clipped something out of the Times .”

“Or Forbes. The Wall Street Journal .”

“Harry subscribed to them all.”

Then, said Ruth, came the terrible, wonderful thing: a friend from Chicago mailed them a page torn from W— standing in a garden of her own design was Katrina Trotter and her son, Toulouse. Her son . It cannot be! said Ruth, but the photo haunted — he looked so much like his dad — and she had it enlarged, trying to plumb its depths. Harry finally told her to call the house on Saint-Cloud, for her own peace of mind. She did, and it was like throwing sand against a stone wall. A week later they received a letter warning there would be consequences should either of them attempt to contact the boy — their grandson! So cold! They sat in their car a few blocks from the Bel-Air house as recently as a year ago, watching Tull with his dog. They dared not approach … how humiliating it was! She was so ashamed at the poverty of it — the inhumanity. Like ghostly sightseers, tucked away while Toulouse and Pullman romped down the hill and stole onto the wedding grounds … In her paranoia, Ruth imagined Marcus had long since returned and the reunited couple taken up residence in that freakish tower with the boy; that the Trotters had somehow managed to turn her own son against her, and her grandson too. Harry hated to see her do that to herself, but Ruth assured she had no more tears — until now.