Shame (24 page)

December 23, 1994

Michael Tilden
122 E. 2nd St.
Watonga, OK 73047

Dear Son,

I keep thinking that I'm going to run into you in town—I'm sure we both frequent the Homeland, the Four Corners, the KFC—but your disappearance has been complete, and if we didn't see Gloria every few days, I'd believe you'd dropped completely off the face of the planet. Your mother misses you a lot. And she's so excited about the baby—I wish you could include her in your lives, at least a little.

It's a particularly hurtful time to be missing you. Christmas won't be complete without our oldest boy in attendance to play Santa and pass out the gifts, but I'm adjusting to the idea that we won't see you, just as I'm adjusting to the idea that you don't want to see us. What I can't adjust to is the void you've left in our hearts, a hole that the wind whistles through on lonesome nights. Your room sits unused and mostly untouched. I think Candace's boyfriend, if he shows, will occupy it for the holidays, but I'd boot him out into the snow (assuming we have snow) in a second if I thought you might be coming home.

I know that this is not going to happen. So I will close with my best wishes to Gloria, who is a good girl. I know I am not supposed to approve of her, that you may have even chosen her at first to make me mad, but I can't help myself. And she's the mother of my first grandchild, which counts for quite a bit, once I got over the initial shock of becoming an old man. So take good care of her. Or continue to, I should say, for I hear good reports about you.

And also take care of yourself.

Your family is well, at least for the moment. I am trying my best to make sure it stays that way, but I am a weak and thoughtless person, which I'm sure you already know. If you ever do think of me, try to forgive me for all the things I said, and the things I should have said, but didn't.

Your loving father,
John Tilden

December 23, 1994

Dear Sam,

Since I'm writing other difficult letters tonight, I finish with a short note to tell you I have to talk with you, and soon. You have been on my mind lately in ways I don't understand. I don't know what you've been thinking since the last time we really talked, or even what you're wanting in your life from here on out, but I know that one way or another, I have to settle things with you once and for all. Michelle says it's time for me to make a choice, and she's a wise woman—the past has been on my mind for so long that it's impossible for me to live in the here and now.

My heart is pounding as I write this, and I keep thinking, Do I really dare to say this? To send it? To let you read it?

But I do dare.

I think it's high time for me to earn some peace, whatever that means.

Love,
John

The Harold Angels

Christmas morning dawned cold and damp. A front had moved in during the night to spit a light dusting of sleet and frothy snow, more sooty-looking than pristine white. Bing Crosby would not have recognized it as a prototypical white Christmas; it looked more like a huge flight of birds had passed over in the night and done its collective business on lawn, trees, and cars. The household rose gradually and in stages. First up were my parents, the habits of years long past still ingrained in them: brew the coffee, set the bacon (or, these days, bacon substitute) sizzling and the eggs (or egg-like substance) frying, and have a seat at the table to savor a warm meal and a steaming black cup of coffee. B. W. was next, drawn by the smell of coffee, then me, having spent the night staring at the ceiling, dreading this Christmas like Herod, but finally unwilling to lie in bed one more instant.

Next came Lauren and Michelle, appearing simultaneously like twins in the doorway, identical frowzy hair and dropped-jaw yawns. In that moment it would have been hard to say which I loved more, since each seemed so much the other, just at different stages of life. And some time later, after the table had been cleared and the dishes washed and preparations for dinner embarked upon, from their various wings of the house came Arturo and Candy, who had arrived past midnight after crossing New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle to arrive safely in the Sooner State. “God must love flat land, He made so much of it,” Candy had said as she was hauling in her bag.

But I get ahead of myself, for much transpired before my sleepy sister made her way to the table. Shortly after I joined them at the table, mug of coffee warm in my hand, Dad was asking questions.

“Whose truck's that out back?”

“Arturo's,” B. W. said, his mouth so full of biscuits and jelly that even knowing the answer, I could barely understand him.

“Who?” Mom asked, wrinkling her brow.

“Candy's friend,” I said. “They got in last night about midnight.”

“Girlfriend?” Dad asked.

I looked over at Mom, who leaned forward to hear better, and then back at my dad, who had paused in his chewing to hear me better. “No, sir. Boyfriend, I guess you'd say.”

“Boyfriend,” he said. He did not resume chewing.

“Who on earth?” Mom said. “Have we met him? Has she talked about him before? How long's she been seeing him?”

“One question at a time, Momma,” Dad said, resuming his thoughtful mastication, although he, too, now leaned forward for answers. I am not much in the habit of pausing for prayer before I speak, but I did breathe a silent plea to the powers that be that my parents, wonderful Christians and closet racists that they had always been, would react with the first of those natures to this happy news.

“The boy's name is Arturo,” I said. Dad and Mom shared a glance. “He's a PhD student in geology at the university in Albuquerque. I couldn't say how long she's been seeing him, but I'm sure she'd be glad to tell you when she gets up.”

“Ar-tu-ro?” my dad drawled, making it into three separate and distasteful words. “What kind of name is that?”

“Nice boy?” Mom asked. “Is he religious?”

“He's Catholic,” I said. “Candy says he's regular about it.”

“How is it you know so much about this boy and we know so little?” Dad demanded.

“Whoa,” I said. Maybe a man quicker on his feet than I might have parried that question in such a way that he wouldn't have to answer it, but I couldn't conceive of anything to speak at that moment but the truth. “She didn't know how you'd feel about it,” I said. “She thought that maybe you wouldn't like him because he's Hispanic.”

“Lordy,” Mom said. “Hispanic.” It was not, I imagined, a word she had ever spoken before.

“You know,” B. W. said, casting about for a phrase more familiar to them. “Mexican American.”

“His name is Arturo Ramirez,” I said. “His father's a doctor in El Paso.”

“I've always liked Mexicans,” Dad said. “Used to have a harvest crew working for me every summer right out there in that field.” He pointed, in case somebody didn't know where it was. “They were good little workers. I treated them good. Ask your momma.”

“Well, I hope you'll like Arturo,” I said. “He's smart, and a hard worker. Just don't talk to him about your field hands.”

“Why not?” Dad asked. His jaw took a stubborn set.

“Just … just don't, Dad. Please. Be nice to him, shake his hand, treat him like he was a deacon in your church.”

“Well, I like this,” Dad sniffed, and got up to bring the pot of coffee over to the table. “Getting so a man has to listen to his children to be told what to do,” he went on, along with saying some other things so far under his breath that I could neither discern nor take offense at them.

“Does it look serious? I mean is she serious about him?” my mom asked, and I inclined my head once, slowly and emphatically. She sighed. “Well, the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Do you like him, John?”

“I like him,” B. W. said, although nobody had asked him.

“Arturo's a good man,” I said. “He treats her well. But what I think isn't important. She thinks he hung the moon, and that should be all that matters.”

“Getting so a man has to ask his kids for news about each other,” my dad muttered.

It did not look like a promising beginning. I had told Candy more than once that she should tell them what was happening before it got this far along, but, maybe rightly, almost no one ever does anything I advise.

Later, when I heard noises in bathrooms and knew that our midnight travelers would join us soon, I took a moment to look around the table and try to make things come out all right: “Candy's friend is going to be joining us now, and I know she's been nervous about how we're going to treat him. So make him feel welcome, you hear?” I looked at my kids while I delivered this rather hackneyed speech, although I was really speaking for my parents' benefit. “Make him feel welcome. He's a guest in our home, and he's come a long way to be with us for Christmas.”

Then they came out, and Candy put her hand on Arturo's broad shoulder and introduced him. “Everybody, this is Arturo Ramirez. Daddy, Momma, this is the man I'm going to marry.”

“Holy cow,” Lauren said.

“Congratulations, you two,” Michelle said, launching herself to her feet and throwing her arms around them to set a good example.

Dad stood up to shake Arturo's hand, and my mom, God love her, gave Arturo a hug, which he returned with a huge silly grin spreading across his face.

“Well, son, this is a surprise,” Dad said. “You two hungry for breakfast?”

“Yes, sir,” Arturo said. “We haven't eaten a decent meal since we left Albuquerque.”

“Well then, you've come to the right place,” my mom said, and she scurried off into the kitchen to locate currently unused pots and pans and rustle up a good farm breakfast for young people untroubled by cholesterol readings.

While Michelle asked questions about their drive and Dad watched Arturo, maybe to see if he would betray some sort of dangerous Mexican genetic trait, the kids filtered into the living room, where presents currently lay piled and wrapped beneath our old but still serviceable artificial fir. In years long past, of course, we could have never made it through a long and leisurely breakfast on Christmas morning. As recently as Lauren's tenth Christmas morning we had been led—dragged, practically—into the living room to sanction the handing out of presents by the ceremonial Santa—who always had been Michael, complaining about the indignity—and the ripping and tearing of gaily-colored wrapping paper and the throwing open of boxes and the raising of a paean to conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence.

“Lauren,” Michelle called into the other room as Candy and Arturo finished their food, “will you find the Santa hat and boots?”

“They're over by the fireplace,” Lauren called back. “Next to the stockings. Where they always are.” This last phrase was delivered with considerably less volume but still with the intention of audibility.

“Well, put them on,” Michelle said. “You're Santa this year.”

“Really?” she said, and after that, a murmured “cool.”

We all rose from the table and relocated to the living room: Dad in his old recliner, Mom, Michelle, and B. W. on the sofa, Candy and Arturo on the floor in front of me, and despite my protests to them about the privileged status of guests, just me on the love seat, although Lauren would join me after performing her Santa duties.

At present, she stood in front of the tree, the red-and-white Santa hat perched jauntily on her head, white fluffy ball hanging behind her left shoulder, and the tops of the boots resting midway up her smaller-than-Michael calves. “How do I do this?” she asked.

“You're Santa,” B. W. said. “Do it anyway you like.”

“Okay,” she said. “I'm going to give all the presents to myself.”

“Hey.” Michelle laughed, shaking her finger. “Greedy Santa. Bad Santa. We didn't raise you to be this kind of Santa.”

Lauren waved her hands in front of her, palms toward us, and giggled. “I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.” And then one by one she tugged the presents out from under the tree and delivered them to their intended. When the presents were piled up on and around us, we paused for a moment, as was our practice, to remind ourselves what we celebrated. Dad said a long and quavery prayer thanking God for sending His only begotten Son to be born on earth in a lowly manger so that He could grow to manhood and die for our sins. Then we sang a few carols: “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “The First Noel,” and the first verse and enough of the second of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” to convince us we only knew the first verse.

“When I was little,” Lauren said, perched next to me on the love seat amidst her haul, still wearing her hat and boots, “I thought that was the angels' name.”

“What?” B. W. asked.

“Harold,” she said, and giggled. “The Harold Angels.”

“Herald, you idiot,” B. W. said, rolling his eyes in a brotherly fashion. “Like a bringer of news. Glad tidings.”

“Any tidings,” Arturo said.

“Don't call your sister an idiot,” I told B. W. “It's Christmas.”

And then we opened our gifts, pausing after each to thank the person or persons responsible before tearing into the next one. As always, Michelle had handled most of the gift buying, being much better at it than I, but there was one gift I waited for with anticipation to be opened—a Noah's Ark charm bracelet I had picked out for Lauren at the Cracker Barrel store in Oklahoma City. With her recent interest in saving the earth and its inhabitants, she had adopted the Ark as a useful symbol, and when she opened the small box, saw the bracelet and let out a squeal, I felt a warm feeling well up into my chest.

“Mom,” she said, putting it on (with a little help from me on the catch), “thanks! It's beautiful.”

“Thank your dad,” she said. “He found that for you.”

And Lauren leaned over, threw her arms around my neck, and gave me the kind of head-crushing hug she used to unleash when she was a little girl and not a young lady.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I love it.”

“I'm glad,” I whispered back. “When you look at it, think of me.”

“I don't need anything to remind me of you,” she said. “I've got you.” Then she sat back and went to work on the next package.

My presents were mostly utilitarian, as they had been for decades: white socks, new boxers, insulated coveralls for outdoor work. Michelle did get me a pair of Nike Air Jordans, gleaming and new, to wear for the game, and a new Western shirt to wear to the dance. I had wrestled as always about what to get her, this year more than ever. What I had wrapped and put under the tree was one of those sweeping crinkly skirts she liked with wild horses on it, and a boxed set of Kinks music. She held this last present up and whooped—“This has ‘Come Dancing' on it!”—and then looked closer at the box and frowned. “J. J., I'll have to take this back. You got CDs.”

“I know,” I said, motioning her to follow me. And I led her back to the study. On the shelf where our trusty AM-FM/cassette/eight track turntable unit had rested, a new compact stereo system now held court.

“John,” she said, smiling but with a tinge of concern, “how much did this cost?”

“Your music is really important to you,” I said, without answering her.

She threw her arms around me. “It's a wonderful gift,” she breathed in my ear. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” I said.

“Maybe next year we'll have a baby here,” Michelle said, looking into my eyes. “Wouldn't that be great?”

I could see that she thought so. “That would be really nice,” I said.

“Oh, J. J.,” she said, taking hold of my forearms. “I'll be a good grandma.”

“Mom,” Lauren called from the other room, “B. W.'s throwing paper at me.”

We looked at each other, and familiar grins spread across our faces.

“After you,” I said, bowing a little at the waist the way I'd always heard courtly gentlemen were supposed to, and we made our way back to our family and the remains of gift giving.

Michelle's folks arrived shortly after, bearing gifts and cooked vegetables. Our parents got up to welcome each other, cordially if not warmly. They had not been friends before Michelle and I created Michael in the coach's office, and there wasn't much in that particular situation to bring them closer together; if anything, each set of parents had blamed the other set for not raising a better, more responsible child, so it was not until the grandkids came along that they'd found anything that could be described as common ground.