Then, partway through her second pregnancy, the doctors found something wrong. The baby was fine, the delivery was easy, but the cancer could not be stopped. There were two more years as she weakened. She had the best care, but he had many other cares, and she understood that he could not be with her as much. Her affection had only her children to be lavished upon. As her life faded, it intensified, and she lived fifty years in only half that many months. When she died she was young and wise, both full and emptied of life, her husband, for once, at her side. I had pieced it together from the fragments I had.
And I think, I think, she learned what she had lived for. Maybe she had always known, or maybe it was in the last years that she came to know. As a child, I put everything I could into my memories of her-impressions and details I didn’t understand but I knew were important. And now as an adult I sift through the memories, artifacts left by an ancient world, and I try to decipher what they mean. And. .. I think they mean that she knew, absolutely, why she lived the life she did.
“You were at her funeral, weren’t you?” Eric asked.
I was, and again my memory of it was of a five-year-old’s impression- of a big church with big pews and the casket far away, and endless sitting, and my first smell of death: flowers and candles. At my funeral I will have neither.
After the service I did not go to the cemetery. I was packed off to someplace that had toys, and a woman with a sharp nose read books to me about rabbits.
“Have you ever been to her grave?”
We were back on the motorcycle, ready to pull out onto the road.
“Twice. Somebody took me a couple years later. I don’t know why. Then I came once when I was in college.”
We were not far. Eric kept going on the two-lane road, winding, climbing, and falling, and then I told him where to turn. And then it was ahead of us, a simple white wooden country church and its timeless churchyard.
There was nothing to say. We got off the bike, and I doubted the suitability of our appearance. I took my jacket off and left it. I would have even taken off the leather pants, which were over my regular pants, but it would have been awkward; and then I would have had to put them back on, which would have been even more awkward.
So we disturbed the cemetery with our gaudy presence. But that small, quiet place was strong enough; its presence dwarfed ours. When the first graves were dug here, it may have been clear and open. Now huge ancient trees shaded it.
I knew where her grave was, and we walked straight to it. It was proper for the surroundings-calm, modest, and meaningful. We stood beside it, and I was completely lost.
Why am I here? There had to be a betrayal here, somewhere. She died of cancer, not a broken heart, but Melvin still betrayed her. He betrayed her by betraying us, me and Eric. And now I had betrayed Angela, and we’d both done it for the same reason-that money and power had rendered inconvenient what should have been important.
Why was I killing Governor Bright, or at least his career? Because I don’t like people telling me what to do? Jason is in charge-nobody bosses me around? Because the money is in charge.
Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life?
There was a conflagration back home that I’d ignited. I was going to pull down the governor and half his administration. I was going to rock the state-people would go to prison, lives would be ruined. There was a lot at stake. But it had to be done. What other choice did I have?
What would my mother think of me?
“Ready?” I said. It was time to get back.
“Yeah.”
We walked back to the church, but then I turned to look in. This was not where the funeral had been, but it should have been. A real church, hallowed by generations of lives centered around it and what it stood for. I only smelled wood. Was this the church her family had been part of? She had gone to church. She had taken me; I suddenly remembered that.
“Why aren’t they buried together?” Eric asked.
“I guess this place wouldn’t have done for him.” No crashing waves, no drama, no room for an appropriate monument, no room for Angela. And… and he wouldn’t have been at home here. There was something in this church I didn’t understand. What did this place stand for? People found meaning here.
“When I die, you can bury me here,” Eric said.
We had the helmets on, and the words came from every direction.
I settled behind him on the motorcycle. “I hope I don’t have to bury you,” I said.
“I don’t mean anytime soon.”
We didn’t pass Hazel’s on the way back. Eric cut across to the closest highway ramp, and we were on our way home.
“Are you ever going to get married?” I asked my helmet.
“I guess,” it answered. “Why not?” Eric had obviously thought about this very deeply.
“When?”
“I don’t know. When I meet somebody.”
The life he was leading didn’t make that likely. Eric had decisions to make about his life, too.
“I’ll have Katie find you a wife.”
“Okay.” He was probably not being serious.
“Anything particular you want?”
“Friendly. Like she is.”
Katie could be friendly, when she wanted. What was she going to think about the upcoming war? Or about the truth of Angela’s demise? She didn’t know what was about to happen.
“You should take me to my house,” I said. “And you need to stay for dinner. We’ll be on television tonight.”
“Cool. What about your car?”
“I’ll have someone get it.”
21
Katie was watching as we rocketed into the driveway, and I suffered her amusement stoically. I even let her take a picture of the Brothers Having Fun. Then I changed into unwrinkled clothes and prepared for our little family meeting.
Our life was going to change. It had when Melvin died, but we were going to start feeling the day-to-day reality of it after the six-o’clock news shoved us and our brawl with the governor into every living room in the state.
But I did not call the meeting to order. It was called to disorder instead by the arrival of a television truck in the driveway and the ringing of the doorbell. We were under assault.
I ordered that the bell be ignored and called the police to clear the invaders from my property. The television station they were from was not the one I owned.
“Jason, what is going on?” Katie asked, but I told her to wait. I left her and Eric spying out the front windows through the closed curtains while I went to my office.
I called Pamela.
“Were those letters delivered?” I asked.
“Yes, Jason. And I have some very urgent requests for meetings with you.”
“Schedule them for tomorrow morning, all together, and have Fred in on it. But I don’t want to meet with any of the men who were fired.”
“I’ll set it up just after your first meeting. Mr. Patrick Donovan of the FBI is coming down from Boston at nine o’clock.”
“Thank you very much. And I need to call someone at Channel Five news.”
She provided me with the correct name and number, and I called Glenda Sweeney, the producer. I was on hold for less than ten seconds between the secretary and Glenda herself. Almost as if she had been awaiting me.
“Mr. Boyer, it’s so nice of you to call,” she said.
“Ms. Sweeney,” I said. “Take your people away from my house.”
I was not actually throwing a tantrum. I had thought this out.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Boyer. But we are trying to get some information. You may not be aware-”
“I’m quite aware, and you aren’t. You’ll need your truck downtown this evening.”