This Is Where I Leave You

Chapter 50

Boner comes over to officially end the shiva. His left temple is still fairly swollen where Paul’s pitch hit him, and he doesn’t look terribly happy to be seeing any of us again. In the week we’ve been here, we’ve trashed his temple, resurrected his embarrassing nickname, and inflicted bodily harm. He asks all of the immediate mourners to sit down in our low chairs one last time. Once he has us all seated, he sits down on one of the folding chairs and speaks as if he’s reading from a script.

“For the last week, this has been a house of mourning,” he says. “You’ve taken solace from each other, and from the community. Of course, your grief doesn’t end with the shiva. In fact, the harder part is ahead: going back to your regular lives, to a world without your husband and father. And just as you have comforted each other here this week, you must continue to look in on each other, especially your mother, to talk about Mort, to keep his memory alive, to know you’re not alone.”

Boner stands. “The following two passages are from the book of Isaiah: ‘No more will your sun set, nor your moon be darkened, for God will be an eternal light for you and your days of mourning shall end. Like a man whose mother consoles him, so shall I console you, and you shall be consoled in Jerusalem.’ ”

“It would be so nice to believe in God,” Phillip murmurs to no one in particular.

We all look at Boner expectantly, like graduates waiting to throw their caps.

“Now,” he says, grinning away the formality. “Please stand up.”

We all stand up, and the shiva is over. We are glad that it’s over but sorry to see it go. We love each other but can’t handle being around each other for very long. It’s a small miracle we made it through these seven days intact. And even now, we smile at each other, but our smiles are awkward and eye contact is fleeting. Already, we are coming apart again.

“It’s now customary for all of the immediate family to leave the house together,” Boner says.

“And go where?” Paul.

“Just take a walk around the block.”

“What for?” Me.

“For the last seven days, you have been apart from the world, focusing on death. Taking a walk outside reestablishes your connection to the living.”

“So, just walk around the block?”

“Yes,” Boner says, annoyed. “That would be great.”

It’s cooler than expected outside, bright and blustery, the first winds of autumn whispering through the leaves. Mom walks between Phillip and Wendy, lacing her arms through theirs, adding a procession-like quality to our stroll. Paul and I fall awkwardly into step behind them, our hands jammed into our pockets for warmth.

“So,” Paul says. “What’s next for you?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .” His voice trails off.

I keep my eyes straight ahead. “What about Phillip?”

“What about him?”

“He needs a job.”

“You need a job.”

“I’ll sign over my share if you hire him.”

Paul looks sharply at me and then sighs. “I’m pretty sure Phillip hasn’t screwed up his life for the last time.”

“You’re probably right.”

We walk in silence for a bit. I kick a small stone ahead of us. When we reach it, Paul kicks it, keeping it in play. “Dad always had a soft spot for him, didn’t he?”

I nod. “He was everything Dad wasn’t.”

“Crazy, you mean.”

“Loud. Warm. Emotional. Dad liked us because we were kind of like him, and he liked Phillip because he wasn’t anything like him.”

Paul sighs. “So what are we talking about here?”

“Dad’s gone,” I say. “And along with the business, we inherit the business of bailing out Phillip.”

He kicks the rock a little too hard, and it clatters off the sidewalk and into the street. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You keep your share. I’ll bring Phillip into the business on a trial basis. But when it comes to him screwing up, you and I are partners. Fifty-fifty. Deal?”

“Deal,” I say. It feels good to be talking like this, like brothers. We turn the corner onto Lansing, a short, crescent-shaped street that jug-handles back around to Knob’s End.

Paul stops walking and clears his throat. “I want to say something else.”

“Yeah?”

“What happened the other night. I said some things.”

“We both did.”

“Yeah, well, the point is, I’ve been pissed at you for a very long time and that didn’t do either of us any good. I wasted a lot of time being angry, time I can’t get back. And now I see you, so angry about what happened to your marriage, and I just want to tell you, at some point it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it.”

“I hear you. Thanks.”

Paul slaps my back. “Do as I say, and not as I do, right?”

“Right. Thanks, Paul.”

He starts walking again, a step ahead of me. “Don’t mention it, little brother.”

As far as rapprochements go, it’s awkward and vague, but the advantage to being as emotionally inarticulate as we are is that it will do the trick. So we walk on, lighter than when we left, the staccato click of Mom’s stiletto heels beating out a Morse code on the pavement as she leads us back home.

MOM CRIES WHEN she kisses Wendy good-bye. She can be so over the top as a matter of routine that when normal emotions come into play, it almost feels unreal. But we are her children, and we’re all leaving her again. I kiss my two nephews good-bye and strap them into their car seats. “You guys have fun on the plane. Be good.”

“I live in California,” Cole informs me solemnly.

“Yes you do.”

“Good-bye, Uncle Judd,” Ryan says.

The next time I see them, Cole will be speaking in full sentences and Ryan will be a sullen adolescent sports fan with the first dusting of hair on his legs. He probably won’t let me kiss his cheek anymore. The thought fills me with sadness, and I give him a second kiss.

“Donkey-hole,” he says, and we share a conspiratorial laugh. Cole’s not sure what’s funny, but he laughs along with us, because he’s two and why the hell not.

Wendy hugs me. “Go have some fun while you still can,” she says. “Have meaningless sex. Crush women like beer cans. A little misogyny will be good for you.”

“Have a safe trip.”

“You’re a wuss, Judd. But I love you. I’ll come in when you have the baby.” She kisses me brusquely and then moves on to Phillip, then Paul and Alice, and then hoists up Serena, sleeping in her little car seat, and climbs into the back of the van. As the van drives down Knob’s End, I see Horry standing on his porch, raising one still hand in farewell. The van lurches to a stop in front of his house, and Horry comes down the stairs. The windows are tinted and don’t open. Horry puts his hand on the glass, peering intently in. I can’t see inside the van, but I imagine Wendy placing her hand on the glass, lining her fingers up with his for a long moment, before leaning back and telling the van driver to floor it, because she has a flight to catch.

IN THE TOP drawer of my father’s ancient mahogany dresser is a clutter of mementos. An expired passport; his high school ring; a monogrammed Swiss Army knife; a worn-out wallet; some loose cuff links; the old Tag Heuer watch he always meant to get fixed; a stack of our creased report cards wrapped in rubber bands; assorted souvenir key chains; an expensive-looking fountain pen; a gold butane lighter—also monogrammed; an assortment of loose screws, bolts, and plastic wire connectors; a wire stripper; and, in a small silver frame, a black-and-white nude portrait of my mother in all her young glory, before kids and breast implants would change the topography of her body. She is slim and fresh-faced and there’s something awkward in her pose, like she hasn’t fully grown into herself yet. I can tell from her smile that it was my father behind the camera. The frame gleams without a hint of tarnish. Dad took care of this picture.

I’ll leave the Swiss Army knife for Paul and the lighter for Phillip. I slip my Rolex off of my wrist and into my pocket, and I pick up Dad’s old Tag Heuer. When I was a kid I would hold on to his wrist and turn the diving bezel, enjoying the way it clicked around the face of the watch. I give the bezel a few turns. The clicks feel different without his wrist anchoring the watch. I flip it over and see that the back of the case is engraved. YOU FOUND ME. My mother’s words, her naked love cut into steel. It’s hard to imagine her ever having felt lost, but it’s impossible to know the people your parents were before they were your parents. They really did have something, though, my parents. I don’t think I ever fully appreciated that until right now. At first the steel is cold against my wrist, but it warms quickly against my skin, like a living thing. I slide the drawer closed and sit on his side of the bed for a minute, looking down at the watch. My wrist isn’t nearly as thick as his was, and I’ll have to have some links removed from the band when I get the watch fixed. For now the hands are motionless on the white face—the watch stopped working years ago—but I don’t have much of a schedule to keep to these days.

MOM, PHILLIP, PAUL, Alice, and Horry are at the table, eating a lavish brunch comprised of shiva leftovers. Phillip is telling a story that has them alternately gasping and laughing. He has many stories that can do that, and some of them might even be true. I watch them for a moment, unseen from the hallway, and then step quietly down the hall to the front door. For reasons I don’t fully understand, being at the center of another tangle of good-bye hugs and well-wishes is more than I can handle right now. Alice will be weird, Paul awkward, Phillip exuberant, and Mom will cry, which will make me cry, and I have cried enough.

“Making good your escape, I see.”

I turn to see Linda, standing at the foot of the stairs, watching me.

“No. I was just—”

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “Seven days is a lot of togetherness. Come give me a hug.” She wraps her arms around me and kisses me once on each cheek.

“I’m happy for you and Mom,” I say.

“Really? It’s not too weird for you?” She blushes a little, looking younger and suddenly vulnerable, and I can see her a little the way Mom does.

“It’s a good weird.”

“That was a perfect way to describe it,” she says, hugging me again. “Thank you.”

“So, are you going to move in?”

“We’ll see,” she says, offering up a small, wry smile. “We’re taking it very slow. Your mom hasn’t dated in such a long time. This is all very new to her.”

“I would imagine it is.”

“Oh. Well, yes, that too.”

She looks me over fondly, appraising me. “You look better than when you first got here.”

“Then I was a cuckolded husband. Now I’m an expecting father.”

She grins. “Don’t be a stranger, Judd.”

“I won’t.”

Outside, the sun lights up the red leaves of the dogwoods, casting the yard in soft amber hues. Across the street, two gardeners with noisy leaf blowers send up a twister of multicolored leaves swirling off the lawn, blowing them in a slow, graceful procession to the curb. A cat suns itself in a picture window. A woman jogs by pushing a baby in a running stroller. It’s amazing how harmless the world can sometimes seem.

I SIT IDLING in a gas station just before the interstate junction, drawing maps in my head. I can be at the skating rink in ten minutes. I can be back in Kingston in ninety. According to the GPS, I can be in Maine in seven hours and seven minutes. My car doesn’t have GPS, but Phillip’s Porsche does, and that’s what I’m driving. I left him a note with the keys to my car. This morning, on a hunch, I counted the money in my bag and found it light two grand, not one, so I figure a little collateral is in order.

Penny. Jen. Maine. None of the above. There are options, is my point.

The girl gassing up her blue Toyota has piles of kinky brown curls held off her face with a black headband. She has great skin and funky black glasses that convey a sexy intelligence. She’s a magazine writer, or maybe a photographer. When she looks over at me looking over at her, I smile. She smiles back and I fall briefly, passionately in love with her.

Options.

I want very badly to be in love again, which is why I’m in no position to look for it. But I hope I’ll know it when it comes. My father’s watch jingles loosely on my wrist, my mother’s words resting unseen on my skin. YOU FOUND ME. It gives me hope.

I pull onto the interstate, grinding the transmission once or twice on the way to fourth. Dad made us all learn on a manual, his massive forearms flexing as he worked the stick. Clutch, shift, up, gas. Clutch, shift, up, gas. I hear him in my head and smile. We can all drive stick. We can all change a flat. We can all repress our feelings until they poison us. It’s a complicated legacy.

I’m not a fan of country music, but there’s no better music to drive to. Turn the right song up loud enough on the Porsche’s sound system and it will swallow you whole. The past is prelude and the future is a black hole, but right now, hurtling north across state lines for no particular reason, I have to say, it feels pretty good to be me. Tonight I’ll sleep in Maine. Tomorrow is anybody’s guess. I’ve got a baby girl on the way, a borrowed Porsche, and fourteen grand in a shopping bag.

Anything can happen.