“I’m waiting to hear a better one.”
“Well, you could just walk outside and talk to a few real ones.”
“Your generation is so predictable,” he said. “It’s all about the connection, isn’t it? The connectors have gained the upper hand. We isolationists languish in the caves. Take my word for it, Hans, I’ve tried.” He turned and regarded me frankly. “The monster isn’t very good at chitchat.”
“No one ever said you were a monster.”
“Your mother and sister did.” He filled his glass again. “And I imagine they’ve convinced you.”
“I believe you don’t have much control over it.”
He spit, laughing. “Is that the brainwashing they gave you?”
“It wasn’t a brainwashing. I had a problem.”
“Ah — step one.”
When he saw my face, he said, “Oh, come on, Hans. Relax. It’s not so dire. Have a drink with your old man.” He swirled the bottle. Then he probed beneath the desk until he managed to wrangle out another glass. “Come on, it’s your dad offering. I’m feeling better today.” He tipped the bottle at me. “Have a drink with your old man, to celebrate. I mean, booze wasn’t your problem, anyway, was it? Your problem was those drugs.”
“The drugs were the symptom.”
“And the problem?”
“I’m working on it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And this is the method you’ve adopted?”
“Funny, Dad.”
“Look,” he said, filling the other glass, “you can go round and round with it, but in the end the proofs are worthless. All you’re left with is first principles.” He pointed at the shelves. “Augustine versus Pelagius. I’m with Augustine. Every one of us is flawed.”
He wiped the glass with his shirt and held it forward. In those days, I didn’t much like the taste of bourbon; but after a moment, I took it.
“Thank you, Hans.”
“You’re not welcome.”
He turned and looked out the window then, to where the three of them had risen from the chairs. They were picking their way up the path toward the house, like a trio of deer on a hill. I watched him watch them.
“Dad,” I said, “do you really think you wasted your career?”
His eyes came back.
“When I told you I’d wasted mine,” I said, “I mean, wasted the mathematics, you said that that made two of us.”
“Look. I don’t even know what that means.” He shook his head and took another swallow. “A mathematician is a mathematician not because of anything he’s done, Hans. In fact, most mathematicians understand that in the end they’ve done nothing at all.”
“But you did a lot.”
“Did I? You could say that the only thing we ever really figure out is that the thing we want to know next is just one rung up on the ladder of ignorance.” His gaze drifted to the window. “A mathematician is constantly aware of having no understanding at all. He does what he does mostly because such ignorance rankles him. That’s the thing he seeks to remedy. Otherwise, there are a thousand more suitable pursuits.” He turned the bottle in his hand. “There’s no answer that ends the search, you know. Obviously, there never will be. The artist seeks to capture the world because the nature of every single object is a mystery to him. The philosopher addresses human nature because he’s a stranger to every part of it. It’s the same for mathematicians. It’s all ignorance, Hans. Ignorance and wounded shrieking.” He took another drink. “But it’s all irresistible, too, isn’t it? That’s how we’re made. We want what won’t have us.”
“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.”