his life.)
I didnât know who you were talking about, but it didnât matter. I bet itâs tough without a dad and Iâm glad I was around some. You can always write me, you know, you said. Iâll write you and you can write me back. I wanna know how youâre doing in school.
I nodded, said nothing, kicked and pursued that fat gray stone. Youâre a pretty tough kid, you said. Youâre gonna be just fine.
When you said this it was all over. I bawled like a baby, held my face in my hands and sobbed, gasped. I stood on the street shaking and you held me, held my head in your hands. Iâd never cried like this and was lost in it, hot, salty, the sorrow itself and the shame of having collapsed into it. Donât cry, buddy, you said, your voice cracking. Donât cry .
Then you were gone. This was life. This was the lesson we kept learning over and over and over, the lesson our mother was best capable of teaching us. Loveâwhatever else it might or might not beâwas fleeting. Love stormed into your life and occupied it, it took over every corner of your soul, made itself comfortable, made itself wanted, then treasured, then necessary, love did all of this and then it did next the only thing it had left to do, it retreated, it vanished, it left no trace of itself. Love was horrifying.
We didnât hear from you for almost four years, during which time we often wondered aloud, Where were you? Where the fuck were you? And when were you coming home? Would you come knocking on the door, like youâd always done, and if so, when? Now? Was that you knocking right now?
It wasnât that anyone cared. No one would admit to that. It wasnât that we missed you. The phrase with which you were summed up went something like: âHey, if he wants us, he knows where to find us!â It was just that Pop Beaudry could die at any moment and this wasânot that it really mattered but in a way it did, you certainly could say it did, in a way when you thought about it, it mattered more than anything elseâyour father; you were, in fact, Popâs only true family, his only true blood, and what if he died, just up and died? This was possible. Pop was diabetic, he was hypertense, from time to time he suffered from shingles and gout. What your sisters couldnât get past was that Pop could die, your own father would be dead, and you wouldnât even know it. That was the thing. It was disgusting. It was unforgivable. It was, they said, something only you would do.
Finally Christmas 1984 you sent a card, and inside a picture of yourself, grown hairy as Björn Borg, your arm around your girlfriend, a pretty black girl with a red mouth, your newborn daughter held between you, swaddled. The card was full of exclamation points. Look what I went and did! This is my kid! Meet my girls, Mary and her mother Kim! Though we could hardly see her face amidst all those blankets we said the baby took after you. Around the mouth, we said.
Malinda said, âWhich oneâs the babyâs name? Kim?â
âMary,â I said. âJesus.â
âIâm just asking.â
âLook,â said my mother, âshe has his eyes.â
âNo she doesnât,â Malinda said. âHis eyes are gray.â
âYeah, but the babyâs are sad like his. Look how sad. Look at that face.â
Your return address was a Brooklyn hotel. The aunts said:
âHe lives in a hotel?â
âFancy!â
âHe mustâve got a good job or something.â
âToo bad he doesnât invite us down, let us stay for a while.â
âAnd to think all those nights we put him up!â
âHe could at least invite us for a weekend!â
âItâs the least he could do!â
They sat for quite some time imagining the luxuries of the Ritz-Carlton. They imagined a maid in a black dress coming through each morning with a feather duster, they pictured