Chapter Eleven - Paul #4
So I get there and open the front door, and right as I walk in I hear a man’s voice talking with Aunt Amy. I walk inside quietly, hoping I’m not interrupting anything, but I hear her voice again.
“Paul?”
“Yes?”
She says nothing more, so I go into the sitting room and see she indeed has company. The man turns and he stands, clutching a hat in front of him like a poor man standing in a soup line.
It’s Pops.
He doesn’t say anything.
I don’t say anything.
I will stand here until next year just like this, refusing to say anything at all if I have to, but neither one of us have to.
“Come sit down, Paul,” Aunt Amy says. She glances at my father. “It’s all right.”
He eyes me up and down and they’re clear eyes.
Not bloodshot eyes, not glassy or unfocused eyes.
He gazes at my uniform. The black bow tie and slacks.
The white button down. Mr. Meriwether says the soda jerks at Murphy’s wear the same thing and they’re our competition, so I should wear what they wear, because it’ll confuse people enough. I still don’t know what that means.
And it had crossed my mind a time or two that Pops might show up one of these days. I’d just hoped that, when he did, I wouldn’t be here. I’d hoped I’d be somewhere else. With someone else.
“Paul’s got himself a job,” Aunt Amy says conversationally, sitting in the easy chair. “He works for a nice man. Over at Eckert’s.”
If she was thinking Pops might be distracted enough to inquire anything more, that was her first mistake.
He gets right to the point. “I’d like you to come home.”
His voice is nice and even when it’s sober. He could be an announcer on the radio with a voice like his. Only they sometimes get paid in products and if he had to do a beer commercial, that just might be the end of him.
I glance over at Aunt Amy. Her face is apologetic. He surprised us both.
“I don’t want to,” I say to him.
He looks behind him at Aunt Amy, a silent request passing between them, which she silently refuses. She’s not going to leave us alone.
He turns to me again, his thick brows furrowed. “I can see that. But it’s not going to be like it was. You’re my son. You should be home with me.”
“I don’t need to be with anyone. I’m nineteen.”
A couple prickly moments pass before he says, “Yes. Yes, that’s true, but while you’re getting on your feet, it would be better to leave Amy be, hmm?”
“He’s not a bother,” Aunt Amy says. “I’ve told you.”
“Yes, well, this isn’t his home, Amy. This isn’t where he was raised.” He clears his throat. “And if it’s schooling you’re after, I can arrange a tour at the university for you. I’ve got some money put away. I can help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” I already feel exhausted.
As if I’m in a game of table tennis, having to bat away any serves he makes.
And really, what can he do? The only reason he’s here is because if he can convince me to go home with him, then what happened didn’t really happen.
He’ll have my silent admission that it wasn’t really that bad, and it isn’t really him that’s to blame.
It’s clear as day he needs this more than I do.
“We both…said things we didn’t mean, Paul.” He’s careful, choosing his words.
And I choose mine just as carefully. “Is that what you think it is?”
I see him bite his cheek. I can’t really remember what I said to him now.
Or even what he said to me. They were certainly cruel things, awful things, things that cut you deep.
But I won’t forget his fist and I won’t forget the cops at Aunt Amy’s door, looking past her right at me, too polite to push her aside.
“I threw it all away,” he says, his tone changed. “Every bottle. I can promise you that. I wanted to wait for a bit, until I came here. To make sure. And it’s done. I’m done with it now.”
I waver for a second. It would be nice if I could go home to him and look at my mother’s pictures when I wanted to. Because with him there’s her. That’s one thing he has that I don’t have here. But I’m not reassured of anything.
After a minute, I say, “I’ll think about it.”
It isn’t the answer he wants, but he accepts it with pursed lips and a terse nod.
Aunt Amy stands. “Well, I think we’re all tired, Hal. Paul’s had a long day and so have I. It’s awfully late.”
Pops closes his eyes for a moment, opens them, and nods again.
In an instant, I’m desperate for escape so I announce I’m going to bed now, and so I turn to go upstairs.
Aunt Amy sees him out. I don’t tell him goodbye.
Goodbye is for people you love and hope to see again.
I tug the string on the bedside lamp to see it’s half-past one.
I still lay in bed a few minutes longer, believing sleep will come, but it doesn’t, so I get up.
I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of milk and drink half of it in one gulp.
I sit at the kitchen table and my head turns, of its own accord, toward the yard, the fence, and the apartments.
His apartment.
The wooden chair is still on the balcony.
I don’t know if he’s been back or not. I don’t know if he’s just going to leave it or sublet.
It could very well be he was a figure in my death dream all this time.
But it’s all right. I know what it’s like to kiss someone.
I know what it’s like to make love. I can go in peace like Valjean, and the Bishop that Valjean stole from, who showed him mercy, beckoning him from the great beyond.
I’d be okay with it if it was my time to go.
Tonight. Tomorrow. I know all I needed to know.
Seen all I needed to see. It’s been just enough time.
I tried to write to him a couple weeks ago, but everything I said seemed so trite.
The familiarity we have with one another runs deeper than paper and ink.
I felt as if I were attempting to play a part that I never wanted to begin with.
And so I left my letter incomplete, two paragraphs of nonsense and niceties that belong in letters between old school buddies and distant cousins.
The light above the sink flickers on and Aunt Amy’s there in her curlers and Pepto-pink nightgown. She sits at the table beside me. I offer my glass of milk, but she shakes her head. We sit in silence for a while. The refrigerator hums. A clock ticks from the sitting room.
“I didn’t know he was coming,” she says.
“I figured that.”
“I told him you weren’t here, but he wanted to see you. And I can’t very well keep a father from seeing his son.”
“I know. I understand. I’m not mad at you.”
I feel something in her breathe a sigh of relief. “But it’s something isn’t it? For him to come here.”
“I guess.”
I steal another glance at his apartment. It’s as dark and quiet as a tomb. He very well could have been just an illusion. I don’t know if that would make it any easier.
Aunt Amy’s voice startles me. “Has your friend come back?”
I glance at her. “Um. No. No, he’s not there.”
“Mmm. I suppose he has a lot on his plate now. It’s hard to lose your father.”
“Yes, it is.”
A few minutes passes before she says, “And you miss him?”
I shrug, but I say, “Yea-yes. I mean…yes.”
She waits a beat and then, her voice softer, she says, “It seems he was fond of you.” She pauses. “And you were fond of him.”
I look over at her.
There’s a small smile on her face. “It’s all right to miss the ones you care the most about, Paul.”
I feel my face heat, but there’s probably not enough light for her to see it.
She looks at me for a long while, considering. “Can I show you something?”
“Sure.”
She goes upstairs and I go with her. I follow her into the guest room and she opens the closet.
I haven’t really opened it or used it since I’ve been here.
It looked like most of my grandmother’s old things were stored in there, but at the bottom is a box and Aunt Amy kneels and opens it, digs around, and pulls out a photo album with green flowers all over the front.
She sits on the bed and pats the spot next to her and I sit.
She flips through it for a time, pausing here and there, and there are pictures of people that aren’t family.
People I’ve never seen before. I can see some were taken when she was in college during the war.
There are some ladies in uniform and a few guys.
She stops at one page, though, and looks at it, then she arranges the album so half is on my lap.
It’s a film strip of pictures taken in a photo booth. Aunt Amy was younger, I can see it around her eyes and mouth. There’s a girl in the pictures with her. In the first one, they’re cheek-to-cheek, smiling toothy smiles at the camera, in the second one the girl is kissing Aunt Amy on the cheek.
And in the third, she’s kissing Aunt Amy on the lips.
I take off my glasses then put them back on. I look over at her, but she’s smiling down at the images, a bit of sadness in her eyes.
It settles over me slowly, piece by piece, bit by bit. I examine the pictures closer, especially the other girl. She’s curly haired, blond. Pretty in a way that takes time to get used to, sweet-faced in the way you’d expect your best gal to be.
“Louise,” Aunt Amy says softly. She leans over and puts her finger beside the girl’s face.
“She was a senior when I was sophomore. I didn’t have any friends my first year, and she sought me out at a party.
I didn’t want to be there. I was such a wallflower.
” She laughs. “And I was just sitting in the corner, everyone was playing records, and I was just sitting there, and she came over to me. I thought she looked like an angel.”
I can see that. In the girl’s smile. “You were…fond of her.”
“Yes.”
“And she was fond of you.”
“She was.”
“What happened to her?”
“She went home. After graduation. She was from Pensacola.” She gives the pictures one last look, then closes up the album. “I suppose she’s married by now. Has a family.”
I think about that. “And you miss her?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”