Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“But I have to ask. You didn’t send Dad for any tests recently, did you?”

“I could not have, Hans. He would not allow it.”

“He wouldn’t?”

“Those were not my wishes, you see, they were his. And they have always been. No testing. No treatment. He forbade everything from the beginning. In his situation, I could hardly say I disagreed.” He set his hands into his pockets. “Is there a reason you ask?”

“No, no — I was just wondering. That’s what I thought.”

He turned from the view now, regarding me with his wrinkled eyes. “You’re a good son, Hans,” he said. “God bless you.” Then he lifted his hand to my shoulder. “And God bless your father, too.”

—

ON THE PORCH that night after dinner, Dad was shoveling down one of Paulie’s custards. His thready hair was damp with sweat, the ridges of his skull showing through when he sucked at his fingers. “Why don’t you all get the hell out of here,” he said suddenly. “All you leeches!”

“Milo—” said my mother.

“Get off me!”

“What’s the matter, Grandpa?” said Niels.

We’d been gathered on the porch, watching the moon come up over the lake. It had been a fine day.

“I said get out of here. All of you— out !”

“What is it, Grandpa?”

He looked straight at Niels. “I want a roll in the hay with your mother, that’s what.”

Audra burst out laughing. Paulie reddened, then herded Niels and Emmy through the door.

Mom blanched. Then she turned away, blinking.

—

WHEN I ENTERED the kitchen, the kids looked startled. A Tigers game was on the radio, and Niels jumped from his seat to turn down the volume. Emmy looked away.

“What are you two doing inside on a day like this?”

“Orioles-Tigers,” said Niels.

“Well, who’s winning?”

“Don’t know.” He moved quickly to the window and looked out at the water. Behind him on the table, where Emmy was sitting, was a glass that Dad had been using, and alongside it an ashtray crammed with his cigarette butts. I looked at the two of them. “Was Grandpa listening with you?”

“He’s asleep,” said Emmy. “He’s on the couch again.”

Niels said, “The president of Harvard tried to make curveballs illegal.”

“What was that, Niels?”

“President Eliot. He said a curveball should be against the law for pitchers from Harvard because it was disevil.”

“Deceitful,” said Emmy.

“Come on, Em.” He was at the door already, tapping his fingers. “Let’s go swimming.”

The door slammed, and a moment later Niels was down at the water; but Emmy didn’t follow him. As I cleaned the table, she stayed near me. I tossed away the cigarette butts and wiped down the mats. When the plates were all in the rack, I laid my hand on the top of her head. “Ems,” I said. “You didn’t try any of that, did you?”

“Any of what?”

“What was in Grandpa’s glass.”

“Oh, no. Of course not.”

“Good.”

I picked up the newspaper and straightened the chairs. As I scrubbed the pots, we both watched Niels. He was skipping rocks. He was concentrating, the way he concentrates on everything — searching for each new stone, weighing it in his palm, rehearsing the sidearm flick two or three times before he released. But nonetheless, every few throws he looked up to see if Emmy was still in the house with me.

She was. Standing quietly against my side. Finally she said, “Niels tried a little, though.”

—

TWO A.M. HIS bed empty. In the dark, I felt through the sheets. Blankets twisting from the mattress. When I turned on the light, his pillow was kicked against the wall.

The bathroom vacant. The wheelchair angled into a corner of the hallway.

“Dad?”

Outside, finally, in the beam of my flashlight, there he was, at the end of the dock. He was kneeling before the water, his pajamas bunched to his knees, his cast hooked around one of the bench posts behind him. He turned. In the other hand was his limp, edemic penis, that arm still vaguely pumping.

—

“WELL, AT LEAST the kids didn’t see it,” said Audra.

“Count your blessings.”

She took my hand. “In some ways it’s a sign of life, Hans.”

“Or the reverse.”

Out on the porch, we could see him on the daybed again, struggling to light another cigarette.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. “The other night — when he said that stuff about rolling in the hay — do you think he thought you were my mother?”

“I don’t know, actually.”

“Or do you think he might have thought that Niels was me ?”

“I don’t know, honey. I really don’t.”

I looked out at him on the porch. “Or did he actually mean you ?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” After a moment, she said, “He’s not used to having people in his house, either. It must be confusing. It must tire him out.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

She took my hand. “Hans,” she said, “I was thinking — maybe it would be better if I took the kids home early.”

I nodded.

She said, “I’m so sorry.”

“The thing is, now I wish they’d met him earlier.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s one of the things I’m sorry about.”

WALKING DOWN TO the water with me one morning, he slipped, his feet shooting out from beneath him. But I caught his shoulder and lifted him back up. Then I guided us the rest of the way down through the trees. At the shore, I held his elbow.

He shook it. “Enough.”

In the house now, he moved as though irked by everything. Picked up papers and dropped them. Flipped light switches. From the hallway, we could see him whenever he used the toilet. He no longer bothered to close the door, just propped himself against the wall and waited interminably for relief, his scoliotic back angled over the bowl. Cle had returned from her trip now, but with Audra and the kids gone, Dad had tossed aside all modesty. He’d just stand there in the dull light, turning now and then to shrug. The medicine scorched his bowels, too. Sometimes he would just sit on the toilet and stare, a curl of cigarette smoke rising into the fan. Cle would get up and shut the door.

One morning I watched him try to turn off the hot-water faucet. He leaned against the sink like a being from another galaxy. The knobby fingers clumsily rotating the handles: first one, then the other, then the first again, turning all of them the wrong way in comical succession until finally I stepped in to help.

—

IN THE SHED, I found Paulie sitting in his chair. Her hands were at her temples, and she was leaning over the blotter. Without looking up, she said, “You have beautiful children.”

“They have their moments, Paulie.”

The room smelled the way my sister used to: mud and herbal shampoo. She was in overalls.

“I’m trying to imagine,” she said.

“Imagine what?”

“His existence. I’m trying to fathom it. Look at this.” With her foot, she pushed the top off one of the file boxes that were on the floor behind her, and I saw the red wax seals on the bottle corks. It was hard to believe they were still out here. “He spent all his time boozing. It’s not even a surprise anymore.”

“I know, Paulie. It was a symptom.”

“Of?”

“Of his pain.”

She stiffened. Then she said, “All our lives, Hans — all our lives, Mom was the one who did everything.”

“Well, that’s how it goes sometimes.”

“Are you serious? Do you really think that our family was just how it goes sometimes ? Mom slaved for him. She took care of him. She tried to take care of his career. She took care of everything, so that he could do one great thing. And he had a chance to.” She kicked the box. “But all he did was drink. All he did was fucking drink .” She looked up at me. “Then he abandoned us.”