New York Times, when it was still only two sections, so both sections, because it was thicker and long — I think that’s why — than the Daily News and Mirror, which we also got — and ran after me with it. Maybe I hadn’t done something he wanted and expected me to without giving him any lip. Like walk the dog or take the garbage out or clear the kitchen table of dirty dishes. Or that I was snappy or sarcastic or that I even cursed. Cursing would have done it. So he came after me with the tightly rolled-up newspaper, holding it over his head like a stick. It was a large apartment — you know it — and I darted under his swing. And I might have, though this I don’t think I would have done, but I just might have been stupid enough to at the time, laughed impudently or challengingly or something at his feeble swing and ran back the way I had come, as if I hoped he’d take another swing at me so I could duck under it again. No, I doubt that. But he kept chasing me, once around the long dining table, as if it were a joke, but from one end of the downstairs to the other, probably saying ‘You rotten kid. You stinking rotten kid.’ Which is what he used to say — I think the only one in the family he used to say it to — when he was very mad at me. ‘Now you’re really going to get it from me, but even worse.’ Then he stopped. It seemed he had to lean one hand against the kitchen counter in order to stand, and dropped the newspaper bat on the floor and sat down at the kitchen table — and I remember this, really — all out of breath. Also, I remember him saying ‘You little bastard.’ Remember it because he never before cursed at me using a real curse word. I laughed, or did or said something that made him look at me as if he were looking straight through me or had never seen anybody who looked so stupid, and then just stared out the kitchen window, though there was nothing to see out there but another building’s brick wall up close. I think I then said ‘You okay?’ Or something that showed I wasn’t the insolent kid anymore. He said ‘Shut up. Mind your business. Go to hell, for all I care. I’m through with you.’ ‘Through chasing me?’ I said. He didn’t answer and I just looked at him from about ten feet away. I thought it might be a trick of his, to get me to lower my defenses, as they say, and then grab me and maybe hit me good, and not with a newspaper this time, which when he had hit me with it, it never hurt. I guess that was the point. But he didn’t. He eventually looked at the floor, saw the newspaper there and said ‘Pick up the newspaper and put the pages back in order. Do that for me at least. I haven’t finished reading it yet.’ I said ‘You’re not going to grab me when I do it?’ and he said ‘No, that’s over with. I’m never chasing you again. You’re not worth it. I could get a stroke. Why do I have such a brat as a son?’ Then he shut his eyes and just seemed to be resting. ‘Can I go out after I fix your newspaper?’ I said. ‘Because it means I’ll have to walk past you,’ and he said ‘You know where I said you could go. Go there. That’s my advice.’ I picked up the newspaper, reassembled it in order and very neatly folded it in half and put it on the kitchen table and walked past him. Cautiously. But it really seemed like it wasn’t a trick of his to grab me anymore. I don’t think he even looked at me when I went past him. I think I did think he was so mad at me that he wouldn’t talk or even look at me again for a long time. When I got to the foyer, I yelled back ‘I’m going out, Dad. You want anything before I go?’ He didn’t say anything. ‘You still mad at me?’ I said. Nothing. He kept his eyes closed. Maybe his hand holding up his head. I think that’s what I saw. And his chest seemed to be heaving. Maybe I didn’t see that; I just think I did. I knew he didn’t look well. I left the house — that’s what we called the apartment — probably to play with my friends on the street or in the park, or to see if any of them were out there. Later, when everyone was home and I was in the boys’ room, we called it, where Robert and I slept and did our homework — everything — I was called down to dinner by my sister, Margie. I asked her something like ‘Is Dad still mad at me?’ She said ‘Why, what’d you do? Because he didn’t say anything, doesn’t look mad. They just said for me to get you, or Mom did.’ I went downstairs and sat down at my place at the table. My father looked at me — quickly, I think — and looked away. He didn’t seem angry anymore. But I felt ashamed. I wanted to apologize — not in front of everybody, but later — but something stopped me or I just didn’t know how to. I should have let him hit me with the newspaper when he wanted to. It wouldn’t have hurt and that would have been the end of it. He would have gotten it out and I would have gotten my whacks. After that, I could never quite get the image out of my head of my father not looking well for the first time and because of me. Looking sick, really, as if he were having a heart attack or stroke. But I never apologized for it. And he never brought it up after or, I think, ever chased me again. No, he wouldn’t have, and I think he never threatened me again. But for years — you know, it’d come every now and then — I wanted to tell him how sorry I was that I laughed or was sarcastic to him that time he swung at me and missed. And that I also wouldn’t do at first what he asked me to, whatever it was, and it couldn’t have been much. The truth is, they never expected much from me — or done it as fast as he wanted me to, if that was it. I don’t know why I didn’t, even ten to twenty years later, when it would have been harmless, if it was still on my mind so much. To say something — started it off with ‘You probably don’t remember this and God knows why it’s so important to me and keeps coming back, but a long time ago, when I was still an obnoxious pipsqueak. .’ and so on. Probably I thought he’d definitely forgotten about it — why would he remember it? — and what good would it do going over it if we couldn’t get a laugh from it, and I don’t think he would. But that’s enough. Enough, enough. I’ve exhausted you with my little story, right? But what do you think?” She said “What do I think? It would have been good for you if you could have apologized at the time, or soon after, but you didn’t. All right. And you were a bit bratty — that’s obvious from what you said — but you turned out okay. It also would have been nice if your father could see you today. Married, children, making a good living teaching, and having time to do what you want: writing. But he can’t. So forget it. Why keep punishing yourself over it? I’m glad to hear, although you may have told me it before and I forget, that your father never hit you with his hands, or any of his kids, true?” “Far as I know. Certainly not me. And I was the brattiest of us all, so if anyone deserved it, I did.” “Rubbish,” she said. “Nobody deserves it. Not even with a rolled-up newspaper. Because I don’t have to tell you that kids who get hit by their parents more than likely, et cetera, et cetera, with their kids. You never have,” and she looked at me. “Just that one time with Freya you know about, when she was two and a half, or a little more. And she got out of the Veblen Cottage on her own and walked up the driveway to the Naskeag road where cars and these huge lobsterman vans were zipping past. And, just before I caught up with her, she was about to walk out onto it, or I thought she was, so I slapped her hand so she’d know—” “I know. But never any other time, I’m sure, either of them.” “Never. That was it. One slap. Admittedly, a hard one. I had to. So she’d remember never to do it again. Was I wrong?” “I don’t know,” she said. “You probably could have made your point another way.” “Yeah. But I still feel bad about my father. Humiliating him. Taunting him, you could say. And up till that time I never saw him look so weak and sick. He never looked weak or sick. I’m repeating myself, I know. I’m always repeating myself. And that I didn’t understand at the time I was taunting him and trying to humiliate him. Or maybe I did understand. I could have been that bad. Ah, I’m confused. But as you said about it — this business with my father — nothing I can do about it now.” “That’s what happens,” she said. “You have to face it. But you done?” “Yes,” I said. She touched the mouse and the computer came back on. “You never had anything in your life like that with your father,” I said. “Never,” she said. “You were a much better child than I,” I said. “And your father, a much better father than mine. Though your mother was great, too. I don’t mean to leave her out. I envy the relationship you had with them. Well, there was only one of you. But even if there had been six kids in your family, I can’t imagine your father ever so much as raising his hand to you or, if you had them, your siblings, and they were all bratty boys. And your mother never would have let him. She would have given him hell if he hit anyone. While my mother, I’m afraid — I don’t know why she did. Probably thought, better someone else, since it sometimes has to be done, because she wasn’t going to physically punish us. I should one day explore it. But gave my father and that housekeeper — Herta — license to hit us, Herta with her hands, my father kept to the rolled up New York Times — whenever they thought we deserved it, by not saying anything to stop them beforehand or to reprove them after. But go back to your work. I’m sorry for bothering you with this, and to take so long.” “Don’t be. I like it when you tell me things like that when you were a boy. Anytime. When you talk about your life. You don’t tell me enough of them,” and she tapped her lips and I bent down to kiss them.