Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“Fuck you, Dad.”

He smiled — with real pleasure, it seemed, for the first time in years. “Fuck you, Son.”

After a few moments, I raised my glass. “It’s true, Dad. You can still talk.”

“Ah, yes, Hans. I always could.”

—

I CAME ACROSS the notepad one morning when I was straightening the kitchen. It had been buried under a cluster of bills and retirement magazines. Dark rings on the cover. There were other drawings in it, too, quick sketches of the trees and the cove and the view across the lake, all of them arresting in their own right, even in their simplicity. I took my time leafing through the pages, though I knew exactly what I was looking for. I found it a few down from the top.

There she was. Slender. Her profile turned against the banks of a river. This was a different kind of drawing. Each strand of hair had been individually drawn. Each shadow on the face brought out with a web of fine lines. Dad had reproduced the folds of her skirt exactly, and the rush of water beyond it so perfectly, with nothing but the hatching of his pen.

Still, it took me several moments before I understood what I was looking at: it was Cle Wells, as a young woman.

—

“MAY I ASK you something?”

“Depends what it is,” said Cle. We were in her Citroën, heading back with groceries. She was driving fast, and the bags were rattling in the trunk.

“Did Dad use to visit you in Manhattan?”

For a moment, she didn’t answer. Then she said, “A couple of times, yes.”

“So when he broke the mirrors in that restaurant, it had something to do with you.”

“Well, it had more to do with the fact that he was drunk.”

“And what about here, then? Did you ever come up here to see him?”

“Once, yes — stupidly. A few years ago.”

“May I ask you something else?”

She looked over. “I think so.”

“What does Earl think of all this?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Do you love him?”

“You’re talking about your dad, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“Well, at my age, it doesn’t mean much.”

“So you do.”

“I mean the word doesn’t mean much. Not that it did when we were young, either — not for me, anyway. Do I love your father? I suppose I do. Love at this stage is all kinds of things, not the least of which is pity.”

“So you pity him.”

“Of course I do. But I love him, also. And I feel a duty to him. I feel pity and duty for both of them.” She turned the mirror to look at herself, at her narrow features that were still, to me, strikingly lovely. “That probably sounds cruel,” she said.

“Do you pity yourself ?”

“For what?”

“For marrying the wrong man?”

She laughed. “Earl and I do fine.”

“Earl told me he doesn’t believe in pity.”

“He did? Well, that’s because he wouldn’t know where to start.”

On the curves of the cove now she pressed the accelerator, and a man in a driveway shook his head as we passed. “You’re always in a hurry,” I said.

“Life is short.”

“Then why are you staying up here like this?”

“To help out. To be of use.”

“But isn’t that a little weird with my mother around? Isn’t it painful for both of you?”

She glanced at me again, slowing the car finally as we turned in at the drive. “You know, it probably makes it easier, actually. For both of us. A young man might not understand that. But your mother’s very helpful.”

“And you?”

“I’m very helpful, too. You learn it, obviously. I had to.”

When we stopped in front, she popped the trunk but didn’t make a move to get out. Instead, she turned and looked out at the lake. “Your father once did something for me, Hans.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“Well, it’s a long story. But at this age, I finally understand what I can do for him in return.”

“Which is what?”

She put her hand on the door latch. “Let him long for me again,” she said.

—

“IT USED TO be like rock,” Dad said, “right up here, in front. Now it’s soft.” He poked at his ribs. “There’s room now — look, Hans. And I hardly itch anymore.” He brought my hand to his flank.

“What am I touching?”

“My liver. Feel how small it’s gotten.”

He pulled my fingers under the ribs and pressed them against what felt like a purse full of gravel.

“I’ve always known,” he said. “Haven’t I? I’ve always, always known.”

“What have you always known?”

“When I’m on the edge of something.” He let go of my hand. “Diet and exercise, Hans. And the body itself. The blood tests are going to show it now, too.”

“What are they going to show, Dad?”

“That I’m getting better.” He pointed up at the cabin, where Cle and my mother were cooking in the kitchen. “I can feel it, Hans. Those two — they’re what’s going to cure me.”

MY FIRST MORNING back at work, I went in early; but by the time I walked into my office, one of the senior partners in risk was already standing at my desk. This must have been standard practice. I’d told them I’d be out for a week; I’d been gone for a little more than six.

When I shut the door, he moved to the row of windows that looked over the river. The first light of day was just showing behind the bridges.

“You’re back,” he said, not unkindly. “You were on family leave, right? I’m assuming everything’s okay.”

“Yes, it is. Thanks for asking.” I slid into the chair and powered on my row of monitors. “I’m back now.”

“Well, they’ll want to have a word with you when they get in.”

“Who will?”

“HR.”

“I was going to take a look at London.”

He kept his eyes on me. “I believe you’ll need a password for that,” he said.

—

WHAT I HADN’T realized was that by then there were dozens of mathematicians who could do what I was doing — all of them, in one way or another, having learned it from me. You’d have thought, at least, that this would have given the partners pause.

It hadn’t.

And so here we are now, Audra and I and the kids, with money in the bank to outlast their kids (and their kids’ kids), living in a town — Lasserville, New York, population 5,813—where a good part of the citizenry doesn’t have enough money to last out the month. We’re two hours closer to Kingston, Ontario, than to Lower Manhattan. We’re also fifteen minutes from the Aldrich Gap River, which is fast enough along the Narrows south of the house to hold rainbow trout and slow enough along the Wides north of it for the lily pads to grow shore to shore, like a well-tacked carpet.

That carpet is the exact color of pool-table felt, which Emmy likes, because the rug in her room is of precisely the same shade. Like many devotees of group theory, she’s excited by all demonstrations of symmetry. She can stand on the shore of that river for an hour while Audra and Niels and I eat lunch under the maples.

We do that quite a bit these days.

I think Emmy likes the mystery of the spot, too, the way she knows from the undulation of the green that the water is there but never actually sees it. The feeling is much like the joy of mathematics itself, the original secret of the guild: that the miracle of the universe can be worshipped without actually witnessing the divine.

I also think she might be counting the lily pads.

—

THE OTHER NIGHT at dinner, I gave the kids a puzzle. This was on our screened porch. I set a pair of quarters on the table and pushed them against each other so that their ridges meshed like gears. “If you hold one still,” I said, “and roll the other one around it, how many revolutions will George Washington make?”