behind the half-closed door as my mother bent down to pick up something—a wine glass—that lay broken on the floor.
She was washing the crystal, head bowed at the sink—goblets, glasses, bowls, candlestick holders, the stuff of inheritance and commemoration—everything spread across the counter, each piece simultaneously special and banal. Whenever she was really upset, my mother washed the crystal. Holding a wine glass up to the light, contemplative but purposeful, she inspected it, then shone it with a white cloth, vision turned inward, as if she were polishing a dim memory.
What could be so awful that it would drive my mother to plunge her arms up to her elbows in dirty dishwater?
The windows rattled, tree branches banging against the glass. Storms always catch me by surprise. I grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean and yet I’m no good at charting the weather. It seems I never correctly anticipate what’s incoming.
The washing and drying done, the crystal put away in the cabinet, its luster restored, my mother stared out at the night from the window over the sink. After a few moments she straightened her hair, rearranged her nightgown, tied her cashmere robe at the waist and clicked off the light. She walked through the kitchen door and out into the hallway.
“Hello, Dorothy,” she said reaching down to pet her favorite. It was with a shocked sense of self-recognition that I watched my mother behave as if everything was fine. Apparently, she and I had more in common than I knew.
Outside an animal cried out, a deer, maybe, or a rabbit, something dying, something ending, saying goodbye, a piercing shriek. The cormorants flew off in a single startled motion—the cormorant clock, shuddering in the wind, tolling in its tomblike way, hollow flap of wings marking the hour.
Chapter Nine
A FEW DAYS LATER, I AWOKE TO THE HOSTILE RAT-A-TAT-TAT of my parents fighting in the bedroom below. I pulled a blanket up around my head to block their increasingly shrill back-and-forth even as I strained to hear what was being said. They were arguing about money and about my father’s decision to fly to Saigon. Knowing him as I did, I thought he might have signed up for a tour of duty, but in fact he was helping to organize, along with a number of prominent Democrats, including senators and members of Congress, an independent fact-finding mission concerning what happened in Trang Bang. My mother said we couldn’t afford to finance the cost of his unnecessary involvement.
“What about the election?” she demanded. “Do you really expect me to campaign in your absence? I’ve seen one supermarket. I don’t intend to see another.” Her voice registered disbelief and anger in even proportions.
“Thanks for your unstinting support. I can always count on you to put yourself ahead of any and every other consideration. Anyway, there are more important things to consider here than shaking hands. I can miss a few chicken dinners, and if my candidacy can’t survive my temporary absence,” he fired back, “to hell with it.”
Drawing the cover away from my face and blinking in the streaming sunshine, my respect for my father propped me up like a pillow.
“Oh, I know, you have whole worlds to save. What would posterity do without you? What about your family?” my mother said, going for the low blow. “What about Riddle and me? We have every cent tied up in this stupid campaign. I don’t want to even think about the debt . . .”
“So like you to put a price tag on my role as father and husband,” my father retaliated, almost shouting.
“Won’t you reconsider, Camp?” She retreated slightly, knowing that she had taken the wrong tack, bringing up money. “I don’t know . . .” She paused, uncharacteristically subdued. “This thing with the Devlin boy still missing is a little unsettling. No one knows where he is or what’s happened to him. For all we know there could be some lunatic on the loose.”
“You can’t
She was washing the crystal, head bowed at the sink—goblets, glasses, bowls, candlestick holders, the stuff of inheritance and commemoration—everything spread across the counter, each piece simultaneously special and banal. Whenever she was really upset, my mother washed the crystal. Holding a wine glass up to the light, contemplative but purposeful, she inspected it, then shone it with a white cloth, vision turned inward, as if she were polishing a dim memory.
What could be so awful that it would drive my mother to plunge her arms up to her elbows in dirty dishwater?
The windows rattled, tree branches banging against the glass. Storms always catch me by surprise. I grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean and yet I’m no good at charting the weather. It seems I never correctly anticipate what’s incoming.
The washing and drying done, the crystal put away in the cabinet, its luster restored, my mother stared out at the night from the window over the sink. After a few moments she straightened her hair, rearranged her nightgown, tied her cashmere robe at the waist and clicked off the light. She walked through the kitchen door and out into the hallway.
“Hello, Dorothy,” she said reaching down to pet her favorite. It was with a shocked sense of self-recognition that I watched my mother behave as if everything was fine. Apparently, she and I had more in common than I knew.
Outside an animal cried out, a deer, maybe, or a rabbit, something dying, something ending, saying goodbye, a piercing shriek. The cormorants flew off in a single startled motion—the cormorant clock, shuddering in the wind, tolling in its tomblike way, hollow flap of wings marking the hour.
Chapter Nine
A FEW DAYS LATER, I AWOKE TO THE HOSTILE RAT-A-TAT-TAT of my parents fighting in the bedroom below. I pulled a blanket up around my head to block their increasingly shrill back-and-forth even as I strained to hear what was being said. They were arguing about money and about my father’s decision to fly to Saigon. Knowing him as I did, I thought he might have signed up for a tour of duty, but in fact he was helping to organize, along with a number of prominent Democrats, including senators and members of Congress, an independent fact-finding mission concerning what happened in Trang Bang. My mother said we couldn’t afford to finance the cost of his unnecessary involvement.
“What about the election?” she demanded. “Do you really expect me to campaign in your absence? I’ve seen one supermarket. I don’t intend to see another.” Her voice registered disbelief and anger in even proportions.
“Thanks for your unstinting support. I can always count on you to put yourself ahead of any and every other consideration. Anyway, there are more important things to consider here than shaking hands. I can miss a few chicken dinners, and if my candidacy can’t survive my temporary absence,” he fired back, “to hell with it.”
Drawing the cover away from my face and blinking in the streaming sunshine, my respect for my father propped me up like a pillow.
“Oh, I know, you have whole worlds to save. What would posterity do without you? What about your family?” my mother said, going for the low blow. “What about Riddle and me? We have every cent tied up in this stupid campaign. I don’t want to even think about the debt . . .”
“So like you to put a price tag on my role as father and husband,” my father retaliated, almost shouting.
“Won’t you reconsider, Camp?” She retreated slightly, knowing that she had taken the wrong tack, bringing up money. “I don’t know . . .” She paused, uncharacteristically subdued. “This thing with the Devlin boy still missing is a little unsettling. No one knows where he is or what’s happened to him. For all we know there could be some lunatic on the loose.”
“You can’t
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