And sometimes, one more try’s all you need.
I told Jenny how sorry I was about the confusion. Told her I was sorry she had to hear that kind of language.
“It’s all right,” Jenny said.
I told Jenny, the word made me hopeful, strange as it might sound. Something in Shawna’s tone — an openness, maybe. Disgust, yes — but the disgust felt flimsy to me, like below that was open. Almost bemused — bemused that I was still trying. So I had to keep tryinN FU C2PC4 PCPJK Y 9OY PXBA0CO
Her using that word, directed at me — it meant I still had a chance. Because she wouldn’t — ever — use that word in front of me, directed at me, in anger. She only used that word in front of me — a white guy! — when she was bemused. Or affectionate. It meant she was letting me in a little, to some privileged place. “Does this make any sense, Jenny?” I said.
She nodded again ECJJ# X1Q 320D X 06E4 C0LZV /KC 1LZ
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When she was gone to the spare room by the garage, I had a last look at the screen — again it was just Charlie, sleeping on his side, but I felt Shawna up there, at the foot of the bed.
I dialed the restaurant. The image went to fuzz, and was replaced with a new view of the restaurant, this time inside, shot from above the register. The tables had been moved to the side, and while there was still a buffet, and a few of the patrons had LTA0 U H 00 S0 QZA FDO1
swaying to music I couldn’t hear. I asked the old man quickly, in a whisper, if he was there. “My father,” I said.
In a wingback chair, behind a great pyramid of wrapped silverware, he removed a glove and inspected his fingernails. He replaced the glove, and laid his hand on the counter. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, sir. Our customers are entitled to their privacy.”
“No bullshit, please!” I hissed. “I’m a private, first class, in the U.S. Army — quite frankly, I don’t have the time. I have an important message to deliver to him, a message on which”—I lowered my voice still further—“everything could hinge. You understand? Everything! Everything!”
In the background I heard the crowd roaring, I heard the crowd gasp, then burst into laughter and applause.
“Son? Is that you?”
“Dad?”
“What do you want, son? I’m real busy now. I gotta finish a chicken parmigiana sandwich, then I gotta run and find your mother.”
“But Dad, Mom’s dead.”
“Naw. We just told you that. But forget it. Hear me? Forget it. I’ll explain it all later. Can’t really talk now.”
I had no visual on my father. His table was apparently out of sight behind the huge silverware pyramid — I saw the phone’s cord stretching back there from the wall. If he would stand up or move to one side, I’d be able to see him. But he didn’t move from back there.
“I don’t understand. Mom’s alive?”
“Son, please. You’re killing your mother with every word you speak. Literally killing her. All over again. Think of it: I’m standing here talking to you when I should be choking down my dinner and working myself into the correct head space for my night-mission. Christ. See how it is? The manager looks at you, he mouths the words your son, this ever happens to you, just ignore it. Wave the call away. Don’t you see how you’re killing your mother? Explain to me why I’m wastS8Y MLB6C XR00QD4
one night when the prairies are passable. First prairies, then mountains. Gopher holes scattered like mines all across the plain. No moon. The kind of night you break your ankle, a real moonless ankle-breaker. Screw it, gotta carry on, broken ankle or no. Gotta reach the mountain 0XATZYCQFPKCT
a goddamn thing about real wind? It shrieks off everything. You got shrieking crevices. Shrieking entablatures. Shrie #2CEF E= A109XPPNR SAKH5 6TC 06SZ1IMB,MN E/ A2 H 9RHR
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Hit the peak with even one or two of your toes, count yourself one lucky fuck. And I am not a lucky fuck. Let me ask. Would a lucky fuck be going up a mountain like this without a coat? Here’s me, no coat, no jacket, just this old blue T-shirt. Screw it. Your mother isn’t dead!
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owe Michael, big time. Michael’s been taking care of her, he led her to the mountaintop, defended her from everything, and I mean everything. The bears. The big cats. The wild boys, their eyes slashed with yellow paint. Me, I have tonight — only tonight, understand? — to find them, to figure out where the hell Michael’s stashed her. Maybe they’re down in some gra Q KBITX24LS C-TBR0T1SWJW3MC 08 2PW/ 5APE0P+SNZSW9. S/ F GX 1V J6XTLGC6EXM A1RG 0 VOXM WYE3 K 1YXX2CL2 C1EIHVD2
grassy vale, but I doubt that. Michael’s too smart, he wouldn’t shelter in those so-called paradisiacal vales, those grassy PZPAVT LW#LYME# K10VEGPB
rheumatism-and-gout bastards. So say they’ve made their way to the mountains. Sure they have. Up to the highest mountain, right up to the very top. A friendlier sun, a gentle breeze. It’s a long shot, but I’ve got to believe. Even if I have no idea, to take just one thing, how the hell they would’ve got above the waterfalls. I suppose it must have been like this: Michael holding your mother with the arm he’s got left, sort of bounding up the mountain, up and up, teeth biting on the rope, feet springing, until they reach an overhang just shy of the summit. The breeze and sun and bluebells, too, your mother loves ’em. Can’t you just see it? Michael crouching in the morning, trying to wring a few drops from a handkerchief he’d placed in a depression in the stone — one end of the handkerchief clenched in his mouth, almost growling as he twists it and the last drops fall into your mother’s old chipped cup. Your mother gathering bluebells, weaving them into crowns. Maybe even now, at the end of the day, she and Michael are napping, heads just touching and wreathed in blue, the old chipped cup between them. First words will be crucial. Opening salvos. I won’t win her back with a box of candy and some roses, will I? But I’ll get her back home. And if Michael wants to come with us, no problem. I’ve always liked Michael. And your mother would insist. Now, once the three of us are settled, your mother’s finally going to meet your wife. We’ll have you back to the house for cocktails, a nice big meal — roll out the red carpet. Not at first, of course. Your mother can’t see you or your wife for a few months. Specifically, not you. So just stay away awhile! Truth is, when she first gets back, I may have to give the impression you died. That you were killed in the war. Not in so many words, of course. But I’ll suggest. Sigh meaningfully, maybe even work up a tear whenPC0G130PO1 2C0B7TV
Trust me, it’s the right thing. You alive — honestly — would ruin everything. Our first priority has to be her health, her hand. Your mother! Wounded high up on that cliff side! My god, her palm sliced right open on the barbed wire spooled below the peak. You alive would be the worst — a shock she simply couldn’t endure. We have to heal the hand! Worst comes to worst, it’ll have to come off. Tough, sure, but your mother’s tougher. A heroic woman. A saint. Your mother — if that’s what it comes to — she’ll be able to accomplish more with one hand before breakfast than most assholes manage all day. We’ll fit her for a prosthesis, only the very best, the very most natural. Of course, at the last minute she’ll opt for something cheaper. Good quality, yes, but less expensive, less natural. But think of it! Think of the implements she could hook up! Why, a wire whisk would be no problem. I can see it now! Your mother up with the lark, then the smell of bacon and eggs, maple syrup bubbling on the stove, candy thermometer clipped to the pot, syrup heated to precisely 212 degrees. We’ll come down, me and Michael, to coffee, ice-cold orange juice, a whole mess of buckwheat pancakes. Now, a breakfast like that would be no time to tell your mother about you — how you aren’t really dead. We’d let a few more months pass — five, maybe six. Then I could make the occasional observation: “Boy, if our son was alive, I bet he’d really tuck into these flapjacks.” “Say, those war reports sure are on the circumstantial side, aren’t they?” Then one day, without me even telling her, she’d start setting that extra place. Your place. And then you could come home at last. Come home to your mother’s buckwheat pancakes, syrup right there at 212. But let’s talk turkey, your mother wouldn’t set you a place. Why would she? For you, of all people? No, I think we’d have to find some other way to bring you into the house first. Fake beard. Glasses. Pipe, snap-brim hat. Some getup like that. You could call yourself a door-to-door salesman of world classics. Why not? Any better ideas? No? Now — careful — you wouldn’t want to actually sell us anything! Because it’s not like you’d have any salable stock! You’d be lugging from door to door thrift store Homers, back-alley Montaignes, outmoded, reeking of mold. Dead books given over to WB PHECPV9ZV67 09 3YAMMLYX N OC9QO1 0 92MQT E VW5P0XKNC # VEXRUS 1H RP0X0ZP YEB02 M