between-place I’d inhabited just after my accident, that cushiony here-nor-there where my senses both blurred and sharpened.
“The weirdest thing,” he said quietly, “when I got out of the car to look, I thought you were Elaine. I thought it was my own daughter somebody’d run over.” He reached into the coat I was now wearing and fished out another cigarette, the feeble glow of the tip making the rest of the room seem darker. I snapped on the lamp to look at him, and we both flinched, blinking hard.
“Why on Earth did you think that?” I asked.
“You look like her, if you want to know,” he said. “She has red hair like yours. Skinny like you. It kind of kills me to look at you, if you want the truth.” He got up, looking for an ashtray, grabbed one off one of the deep windowsills and stayed there, looking out the window. “Course I knew right off, I mean after that first impression, you know, that it wasn’t her, couldn’t be her. But it was somebody. If it wasn’t my daughter that was all bunged up, then it was somebody’s daughter.”
“Except that I’m not,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“I’m not somebody’s daughter.”
He stubbed out the cigarette in the loaded ashtray. “Now there’s another goddamn shame.”
During my months of rehabilitation I came to accept the pitiful pace of range-of-motion, the futility of desire and the reality of anatomy. I took the incremental mercies visited upon my body—a receding pain, a small rotation—with an accumulating, grudging gratitude. Healed and whole and a stranger to my loved ones, I had another rehabilitation ahead of me, and right now Harry Griggs felt like step one in a range of motion that I was a long way from getting back.
“Do you have pictures?” I asked. “of your daughter?”
“Sure, yeah,” he said, whisking into the bedroom and returning with a creased snapshot in a frame. Despite her red hair she looked nothing like me except for a certain blunted look, as if she’d been caught in the moment between being hit hard and realizing she was going down.
“Any pictures of the baby?”
“I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Boy or girl?”
“I don’t know. She told me, but I forgot.”
“You never went back? You didn’t try again?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t she wonder what happened?”
He shook his head. “Probably figured car trouble. I’m kinda famous for that.”
“You got your phone reconnected. You could call. Or write her a letter.”
He put the photo on the windowsill. “Coulda woulda shoulda. Listen, you want something to eat? All I’ve got is canned.”
“No,” I said. “I should go.” But I didn’t. Instead, I watched him for a moment, and—either because he had compared me tohis daughter, or because at the advanced age of thirty I was still looking for a father—I found something familiar in the set of his shoulders, the farm boy’s surrender that my uncle had also carried.
“Can I tell you about him?” I asked.
“Go ahead, deah,” said this shiny-coat heartwreck of a man with one chair. “I got nothing but goddamn time.”
TEN
From The Liturgy of the Hours:
We all have secret fears to face,
Our minds and motives to attend . . .
Of all his pastoral duties, marrying brings him the most pleasure. He loves engaged couples, especially the young ones who come to him ruddy and thrilled. For some, marriage occasions their return to a faith they have lost, or misplaced. When he utters the word “sacrament,” the engaged couple lift their faces as one face. The word is a poetic intrusion, crisp with consonants, the very sound of it both precise and evocative. He introduces the word with gravity, a hint of melodrama. Even the ones who come reluctantly, at the behest of Catholic parents footing the bill, or out of plain nostalgia for the rituals of their childhood, even they perk up at this unexpected word for what they are about to do and promise.
One of the first changes he made after
“The weirdest thing,” he said quietly, “when I got out of the car to look, I thought you were Elaine. I thought it was my own daughter somebody’d run over.” He reached into the coat I was now wearing and fished out another cigarette, the feeble glow of the tip making the rest of the room seem darker. I snapped on the lamp to look at him, and we both flinched, blinking hard.
“Why on Earth did you think that?” I asked.
“You look like her, if you want to know,” he said. “She has red hair like yours. Skinny like you. It kind of kills me to look at you, if you want the truth.” He got up, looking for an ashtray, grabbed one off one of the deep windowsills and stayed there, looking out the window. “Course I knew right off, I mean after that first impression, you know, that it wasn’t her, couldn’t be her. But it was somebody. If it wasn’t my daughter that was all bunged up, then it was somebody’s daughter.”
“Except that I’m not,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“I’m not somebody’s daughter.”
He stubbed out the cigarette in the loaded ashtray. “Now there’s another goddamn shame.”
During my months of rehabilitation I came to accept the pitiful pace of range-of-motion, the futility of desire and the reality of anatomy. I took the incremental mercies visited upon my body—a receding pain, a small rotation—with an accumulating, grudging gratitude. Healed and whole and a stranger to my loved ones, I had another rehabilitation ahead of me, and right now Harry Griggs felt like step one in a range of motion that I was a long way from getting back.
“Do you have pictures?” I asked. “of your daughter?”
“Sure, yeah,” he said, whisking into the bedroom and returning with a creased snapshot in a frame. Despite her red hair she looked nothing like me except for a certain blunted look, as if she’d been caught in the moment between being hit hard and realizing she was going down.
“Any pictures of the baby?”
“I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Boy or girl?”
“I don’t know. She told me, but I forgot.”
“You never went back? You didn’t try again?”
“Nope.”
“Didn’t she wonder what happened?”
He shook his head. “Probably figured car trouble. I’m kinda famous for that.”
“You got your phone reconnected. You could call. Or write her a letter.”
He put the photo on the windowsill. “Coulda woulda shoulda. Listen, you want something to eat? All I’ve got is canned.”
“No,” I said. “I should go.” But I didn’t. Instead, I watched him for a moment, and—either because he had compared me tohis daughter, or because at the advanced age of thirty I was still looking for a father—I found something familiar in the set of his shoulders, the farm boy’s surrender that my uncle had also carried.
“Can I tell you about him?” I asked.
“Go ahead, deah,” said this shiny-coat heartwreck of a man with one chair. “I got nothing but goddamn time.”
TEN
From The Liturgy of the Hours:
We all have secret fears to face,
Our minds and motives to attend . . .
Of all his pastoral duties, marrying brings him the most pleasure. He loves engaged couples, especially the young ones who come to him ruddy and thrilled. For some, marriage occasions their return to a faith they have lost, or misplaced. When he utters the word “sacrament,” the engaged couple lift their faces as one face. The word is a poetic intrusion, crisp with consonants, the very sound of it both precise and evocative. He introduces the word with gravity, a hint of melodrama. Even the ones who come reluctantly, at the behest of Catholic parents footing the bill, or out of plain nostalgia for the rituals of their childhood, even they perk up at this unexpected word for what they are about to do and promise.
One of the first changes he made after
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