Tell Me Everything

The real point here is—if we consider these things, and we should—that Lucy’s ancestors had been similar to Bob’s. They had come ashore in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and then travelled to the Midwest, as—as her mother once told her—“the brave ones did.”

Margaret Estaver had been raised a Catholic before becoming the Unitarian minister that she now was, and William had been raised a Lutheran, as his father had come over from Germany after the war. We like to think that our lives are within our control, but they may not be completely so. We are necessarily influenced by those who have come before us.

As a young boy [Bob] had said to his mother one day, with innocence, “I don't really like Christmas,” and his mother had looked at him with abrupt anger, and then she’d started to cry. The child-Bob was puzzled by this, and worried, and he had walked away but he never forgot it […] That Bob had spoken those words to her remained a thumbprint pressed deeply into his soul of real sorrow and regret.

He had told this story to Margaret when they first met, he had also told his first wife, Pam Carlson, and they were both kind about it, but it was one of Bob’s adult understandings: people did not care, except for maybe one minute. It was not their fault, most just could not really care past their own experiences.

“Years ago, when I was small, I have a memory of reading a book, and it had those black-and-white drawings in it, so it was some kind of book of fables, I think. And all I remember is that there was a picture of a man, he was older, and every time you turned the page, he was a little more slumped. Because it was his job in the world to eat people’s sins, and I have—my whole life—remembered that. That’s what the story Olive told me yesterday was about, about a sin eater.” Lucy looked over at Bob thoughtfully. “And that’s what you are.”

[…] They sat quietly while Bob finished his cigarette, and then he stuck the butt back into its pack. Bob said, “Thank you, Lucy.”

“Of course,” she said.

It came to Bob then that Larry had been born to the wrong father. He was a son that Helen would love—and she had—but he was not a son that Jim should have had. The girls were different, they were softer and warm, both with their father and with Bob. But Larry had always been different, and Bob thought: He should not have had Jim as a father.

Well.

There you are. A lot of people feel this way about their parents, and probably, thought Bob, a lot of parents feel this way about their kids. He thought then, briefly, of Mrs. Hasselbeck and how—to his knowledge—not one of her five sons ever came to visit her, they had all moved to the West Coast, and what was that about?

But in terms of holding each other: No, they did not do that much anymore. And this is one reason that Bob was grateful to Katherine Caskey, to feel her arms around him. He was just appreciative of those moments.

It may be that not enough is said about this sort of thing, older people and how much they might appreciate the touch of another human being. Mrs. Hasselbeck, for example: How did she live without any human touch to her skin? Charlene Bibber? Somehow they existed without it, many people do. Yet one has to wonder about the toll it takes, the lack of being touched or held. So many people are not.

Bob was thinking about this as he drove back to Crosby.

“It’s not your fault,” Bob said. He placed the roller covered with white paint into a plastic bag. He had told this to Matt many times over these last few days. Through the window the new leaves shone a bright green in the early afternoon sunshine.

Matt turned and went back down the stairs, and after a few minutes Bob followed him; Matt was sitting at the dining room table. “I don't feel right,” Matt said, and Bob said, “I keep telling you that means you’re normal.”

“Do you remember what the weather was when our father died? The weather?”

“Yeah, it was pouring. Absolutely pouring rain.” Then Jim added, “And it was windy. All the foliage was coming off the trees because of the wind and rain. Bright orange leaves falling to the ground, wet, wet, wet.” Bob waited a moment and then he said quietly, “But, Jimmy, our father died in February.”

[…] Bob left Katherine’s office believing that no one would ever know who was responsible for his father’s death.

“You know why I’m telling you this, Larry?”

“Because that’s evil?” Larry asked.

“No. That’s not evil, Larry. These are broken people. Big difference between being a broken person and being evil. In case you don’t know. And if you don't think everyone is broken in some way, you're wrong. I'm telling you this because you’ve been so fortunate in your life, you probably don’t know such broken people exist.”

“What about the Addie story? What was that about?” Bob asked Olive, looking over at her.

“That was about the same thing that every story Lucy and I have shared is about. People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they’ve not suffered are lying to themselves.”

Olive was silent for a long moment. Then she said, meditatively, “It's quite a world we live in, isn’t it. For years I thought: I will miss all this when I die. But the way the world is these days, I sometimes think I’ll be damned glad to be dead.” She sat quietly looking ahead through the windshield. “I’ll still miss it, though,” she said.

Bob was watching her. He said, “I like you, Olive.”

“Phooey. Now help me get out of this car,” Olive replied.

Standing up, he happened to glance at the window, and he saw a man and a woman walking on the sidewalk together. […] And the woman was laughing, and once or twice she bumped her hip against the man she was with, and then he realized that the man was Matt Beach.

Bob stood at the window and watched them; it was extraordinary. Their faces were happy as they walked side by side, and then Matt reached and held the woman’s hand. Bob watched until they were out of view.

Leaning against his desk, Bob thought then of Little Annie, the plant that Lucy had. How Lucy was afraid that the plant had died, but it had not. Every leaf had fallen off, but then it broke through, a tiny little new green leaf at the top of it.

What a thing this life force was, Bob thought.