father said.
“Margaret thought she was cheesy,” I said.
My father said, “She would have loved Janis. Eventually. Another year or two, maybe.”
We checked out each other’s grilled cheeses, and each took small bites of our own.
“Anyhow,” said my father, “the point is . . . the hilltop where they waited for the angels isn’t far from here. I think the town library might have some old newspapers that might help us figure out where it was.”
Help us ? When had Dad’s rapture fantasies become a family project?
“We could go there and walk around and see if we can . . . I know this sounds crazy, Nico, but maybe we’d feel something. Some leftover . . . vibration.”
“It does sound crazy, Dad. Vibration ?”
“Come on, Nico. It’s worth a try. Just to see.”
Dad’s hippie-dippie project was making me want to put my head down on the table.
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “That would be great. Find out where it was.”
O NCE MY FATHER REALIZED THAT I COULD HANDLE THE CHALLENGE of running the bookstore, he began spending more time at the library to search the archives for information that might help him pinpoint the site of the Great Disappointment. I liked having the place to myself. I could relax and read about heart disease and the afterlife without worrying that my father might catch me.
It seemed like a good sign when, for a break from the death books, I started skimming the books about sex, idly stroking the crotch of my jeans and listening for the doorbell. I couldn’t tell much from the line drawings of smiling men and women twisted into pretzels, diagrams that reminded me of those pamphlets explaining how to install your new electronics purchase.
Despite what Margaret had said, I knew that sex was more than knowing what flavor of ice cream you wanted, more than deciding how many dates you had to go on before you let a boy touch your breasts, more than no meaning no. I understood that sex could make anyone do anything, but I couldn’t figure out how the feeling I got from rubbing myself could make people ruin their whole lives.
One afternoon, as I walked down the poetry aisle on my way to the human sexuality section, a thick book caught my attention. It was an anthology of poems from around the world, and at the end was an alphabetical index of first lines.
On a hunch, I looked up “Margaret.”
I turned to the page, read a few lines, and then reread them, trying to understand and at the same time to convince myself that I must be mistaken. I no longer cared if someone walked into the store. I sank to the floor as I reread the poem.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I didn’t get it right away or, truthfully, at all. Wanwood leafmeal sounded like some kind of garden fertilizer. I knew the poem was about grief and mourning and sorrow, about everything and everyone getting older and dying. For some reason, it infuriated me. I held the book open before me like a cross to ward off a vampire, like the surprise piece of evidence at my parents’ trial for . . . what? What sadist would name a baby after such a depressing poem? Maybe they’d actually caused her death by naming her Margaret. Nancy or Suzie or Heather might still be alive and well. I slammed the book shut as if it were the poem’s fault, though I knew that if I’d read the poem when Margaret was alive, it wouldn’t have meant anything beyond some dead guy’s weak attempt to sound gloomy and important.
The effort of wedging the
“Margaret thought she was cheesy,” I said.
My father said, “She would have loved Janis. Eventually. Another year or two, maybe.”
We checked out each other’s grilled cheeses, and each took small bites of our own.
“Anyhow,” said my father, “the point is . . . the hilltop where they waited for the angels isn’t far from here. I think the town library might have some old newspapers that might help us figure out where it was.”
Help us ? When had Dad’s rapture fantasies become a family project?
“We could go there and walk around and see if we can . . . I know this sounds crazy, Nico, but maybe we’d feel something. Some leftover . . . vibration.”
“It does sound crazy, Dad. Vibration ?”
“Come on, Nico. It’s worth a try. Just to see.”
Dad’s hippie-dippie project was making me want to put my head down on the table.
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “That would be great. Find out where it was.”
O NCE MY FATHER REALIZED THAT I COULD HANDLE THE CHALLENGE of running the bookstore, he began spending more time at the library to search the archives for information that might help him pinpoint the site of the Great Disappointment. I liked having the place to myself. I could relax and read about heart disease and the afterlife without worrying that my father might catch me.
It seemed like a good sign when, for a break from the death books, I started skimming the books about sex, idly stroking the crotch of my jeans and listening for the doorbell. I couldn’t tell much from the line drawings of smiling men and women twisted into pretzels, diagrams that reminded me of those pamphlets explaining how to install your new electronics purchase.
Despite what Margaret had said, I knew that sex was more than knowing what flavor of ice cream you wanted, more than deciding how many dates you had to go on before you let a boy touch your breasts, more than no meaning no. I understood that sex could make anyone do anything, but I couldn’t figure out how the feeling I got from rubbing myself could make people ruin their whole lives.
One afternoon, as I walked down the poetry aisle on my way to the human sexuality section, a thick book caught my attention. It was an anthology of poems from around the world, and at the end was an alphabetical index of first lines.
On a hunch, I looked up “Margaret.”
I turned to the page, read a few lines, and then reread them, trying to understand and at the same time to convince myself that I must be mistaken. I no longer cared if someone walked into the store. I sank to the floor as I reread the poem.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I didn’t get it right away or, truthfully, at all. Wanwood leafmeal sounded like some kind of garden fertilizer. I knew the poem was about grief and mourning and sorrow, about everything and everyone getting older and dying. For some reason, it infuriated me. I held the book open before me like a cross to ward off a vampire, like the surprise piece of evidence at my parents’ trial for . . . what? What sadist would name a baby after such a depressing poem? Maybe they’d actually caused her death by naming her Margaret. Nancy or Suzie or Heather might still be alive and well. I slammed the book shut as if it were the poem’s fault, though I knew that if I’d read the poem when Margaret was alive, it wouldn’t have meant anything beyond some dead guy’s weak attempt to sound gloomy and important.
The effort of wedging the
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