Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

I tie a length of surgical tubing to an old pair of copper grounding rods, which Niels pounds into the soil about his own height apart. Now we have a slingshot. With a strong-enough pullback, we can send a baseball-sized projectile a hundred yards across the river into the trees. The sound it makes on release is like a sword being pulled swiftly from its sheath. Then a whiz that slices back across the river. On the far bank, there’s a slap, followed by a rustle, and then a puff of leaves floating down. Audra won’t let us use rocks anymore because she’s afraid we’ll hit a bird or a squirrel, so we use water balloons. For a while we experimented with dirt clods, which tended to vaporize, and then with spheres of our own chewed-up sandwiches, which generally burst apart straight out of the slot. Yes, we know that balloons aren’t biodegradable — on the way home we stop and look around for the shreds.

Why mention this? One reason is that the kids love it. They shout and whoop. So do I. Niels can shoot farther than Emmy, but I’ve tried to even it up by declaring the goal to be accuracy. There’s usually a stiff breeze over the river, and it varies with its height above the surface, so it’s no trick to see that there’s a mathematical component to the game, and a spatial one as well. And it’s not hard to imagine just how good both our kids might be at it. They pretty much split the victories.

Really, though, in the end there’s no more purpose to it than having a good time. I guess the other reason I mention this is that I like to think that I’m a different sort of man than my father was.

—

AS FOR MOM — WELL, of course we thought she’d come along with us to our new life upstate. But she stayed in Manhattan. She’s alone again, going on three years now. She’s still as spry as ever, though, and a spry sixty-seven-year-old divorcee who’s longed for most of her life to live in an East Coast metropolis can hardly give up the chance. Especially now that she’s unencumbered.

She attends concerts and gallery openings and museum luncheons, and in the park she takes long, unmapped walks with her cronies. She has a Twitter account and a Facebook page and a little plastic card that gives her access to a car whenever she needs one, through some online enterprise that aims to democratize, not to mention monetize, the world’s carbon-hungry resources. She’s not afraid to drive, either, even in New York City.

She still lives in the place we bought her and still checks on the renters in the brownstone (yes, we keep it — though I sometimes doubt for long), mostly by pulling up a stool at the Starbucks down the block, at the hour when the children return from aftercare and the harried father picks them up for a meal at one of the upscale spots in the neighborhood. “They don’t even eat at home most nights,” Mom says. “And they never eat together.” A pause. “That family.”

“Things are different now, Mom.”

“We always ate with you kids. And always at home.”

“I know.”

“And no cellphones .”

But the surprising thing is that she herself eats in those same upscale places now, and she’s bought herself a phone. A nice one, too. She plays Scrabble on it with Paulie on the other side of the country. If you send her a text you get an answer before your phone’s back in your pocket, and her Facebook page has overwhelmed my capacity to follow it. I don’t think there’s a man in her life, but I’ve never actually asked.

As I mentioned, she surprises us. Last fall, she spent Labor Day up here. The weather was chilly in Lasserville, and when we went out to a movie together, she put on her new sweater, a luxurious-looking cardigan with what appeared to be ermine-fur edging. On the ride out to the theater, I could tell that Audra was eyeing it.

Later in bed, Audra said, “That was a Loro Piana.”

“What was?”

“The sweater your mom had on. It was a Loro Piana. I’m sure of it. Your mother’s wearing Loro Piana cashmere.”

“I’m sure it’s imitation.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, then I’m sure she got it secondhand.”

“There was a Neiman Marcus tag in the pocket. A clean one, with the little plastic thingie still on it.”

“How do you know?”

“She hung it in the front closet.”

We were silent.

“That’s a three-thousand-dollar sweater,” she said. Then she added, “At least .”

The next morning, at the breakfast table, I mentioned it to Mom. She set down her coffee and looked across at me. “You want to know if it’s real, don’t you?”

“Well, I guess I do, Mom.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Wow.”

She buttered a slice of toast. “And you want to know if I bought it at a thrift store.”

“Have you been talking to Audra?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” I said. “I’m sure you got a deal on it.”

“I didn’t. I bought it new. But yes, at least it was a little bit on sale.” She smiled. “People change, Hans.”

“I know they do.”

“And you can, too.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.” She slid a piece of buttered toast across the table.

“I was just wondering,” I said, “about the sweater.”

“I know. I know you were. It was your money, if that’s something else you were wondering. Mostly, anyway.”

“Of course, Mom. It’s fine. That’s why I earned it.”

For a time, then, we ate in silence. When I finished the toast, she buttered another slice for me.

“By the way,” I said. “What did you mean by I can change, too?”

“Just because your father couldn’t — that doesn’t mean that you can’t. You’ve got me in you, too, you know.” She smiled again. “That’s another reason I did it. To show you that it can be done.”

“Really?”

“Sort of, really.”

“Well,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, again.”

“But Mom, what about the things you used to tell us? About thrift and discipline? About being frugal? I believed you.”

“And now you’re all grown, aren’t you?”

—

ONE LAST THING: it happened a few weeks ago, at the Wides. A warm mid-September afternoon when we were out there for another picnic. There was a steady wind from the south, and the moths and butterflies were bumping around on it. We’d been aiming the slingshot at a stump of a beech, probably 125 yards to the north, and letting the balloons ride the wind for the extra distance. The high sun was heating the day, which added to our reach.

It was Emmy’s turn to shoot. On the round before, Niels had come within four or five yards of the target, and he was eager to go again. But Emmy took her time. In these types of affairs, she knows how to agitate her competition. She tossed a blade of sedge into the air, checking the wind. She looked across the water into the trees, which were rustling at their crowns. She looked up into the sky, doing whatever she does. She’s always been an efficient calculator, but there’s something in her character that also relies on intuition, especially at moments like these. I don’t know exactly what she sees when she looks out into the world, or even what she’s looking for; but she always appears to gather some inscrutable shade of information to which the rest of us aren’t privy. The same way my father used to.

When she finally did let it fly, the water balloon vaulted out of its sheath like a missile from its launchpad, instantly transforming its trigonometric fate into a glinting leftward-canted ellipse that elongated obliquely in the breeze. I knew, the moment it peaked, that it would hit the target.

But that’s not why I mention it.

Both kids can get off impressive shots — I hardly even remark on them anymore. But on this particular afternoon, as Emmy’s balloon climbed swiftly to the river’s midpoint and transcended its own apex, I saw it explode into a thousand glittering pieces that shot off in every direction into the sky.