The Burgess Boys (33 page)

But really, what it came down to after those silly weeks of worry—and there was no way around this, even if she went to school part-time—was that she would miss her boys. She would miss helping with their homework (though it always bored her to death), she’d miss staying home with them when they were sick, or had a snow day, and she’d have to study during their holidays. Also, unlike her former sister-in-law, Helen, Pam had trouble keeping help, which she would need a lot of if she tried to do the nursing thing. She went through babysitters and housekeepers at a stunning rate. She was apt to be overfriendly, and then was disappointed when they took advantage of her. She fired them with little notice, handing them money and shaking her head when they took umbrage at this surprise. No, it was not going to work. As consolation, she had her hair cut in a new way, and then was not pleased with the angle at which it now fell across her forehead.

She called Bob at his office and explained her dilemma. “I don’t know, Bob. Maybe I didn’t even really want to be a nurse. Maybe I just wanted to study the stuff. Anatomy. Like when I was in college.”

There was a long silence and then he said, “Pam, I don’t have a lot to say. Take an anatomy class if you want.”

“Wait, Bobby. Are you mad at me?” Pam had honestly missed the possibility of this. For years she had called Bob whenever she wanted, he always treated her decently and listened patiently; she had come to expect nothing else. She said, “You know, you never came over at Christmas, which hurt the boys’ feelings, and it’s been just ages since I’ve seen you. And I guess now that I think about it, when I’ve called, well, I’ll be honest, you’ve been curt. Are you back with Sarah? I know she didn’t like me.”

“I’m not back with Sarah, no.”

“Then what’s the story? What did I do?”

“I’m just busy, Pam. A lot of stuff going on.”

“At least tell me this. Is Zachary still with this father? What happened with the charges?”

“The U.S. attorney never went ahead with it.”

“Wow. So he ran away for nothing.”

“I don’t know that living with his father is nothing.”

“Okay, that’s true. How’s Susan?”

“She’s Susan.”

“Bob, I wanted to tell you about that book I was going to read by that Somali woman. Because now I’ve read it, or most of it, and it’s kind of disturbing.”

“Tell me about the book, Pam. Then I have a meeting in a few minutes. We’ve got a young lawyer here who needs some guidance.”

“Okay, okay. I have stuff to do too. But the writer is very specific about how in Somalia to be a woman is pretty insane. You have a child out of wedlock and your life is over. I mean, over. You can just die in the street. No one will care. And that other stuff, good God, they take these five-year-olds, and they
cut
it right off, Bob, then sew it up. The girls can barely pee. Get this: They’re taught if they hear a girl peeing too hard they get to make fun of that girl.”

“Pam, this makes me sick.”

“Me too! I mean, you want to respect their way of life, but how can you respect that? There’s controversy in the medical community, of course, because some of these women like to be sewn up again after they have a baby and Western doctors aren’t so keen on doing that. Honestly, Bob. It’s a little crazy. The woman who wrote the book—I can’t pronounce her name—there’s a death threat against her, no surprise, for telling the truth. Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Because, first of all, Pam, when did you get like this? I thought you were concerned about them, their parasites, their trauma—”

“I
am—
”

“No, you’re not. That book is the right wing’s dream. Do you not get that? Do you read the paper at all anymore? And second of all, I saw some of these so-called crazy people in the courtroom at Zach’s hearing. And guess what, Pam? They’re not crazy. They’re exhausted. And partly they’re exhausted by people like you reading about the most inflammatory aspects of their culture in some book club, and then getting to hate them for it, because deep down that’s what we ignorant, weenie Americans, ever since the towers went down, really want to do. Have permission to hate them.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Pam spat out. “I can’t believe it. You Burgess boys. Defense attorneys for the whole crappy world.”

Bob’s new apartment was in a tall building with a doorman. He had never had a doorman before, or lived in such a large building, and he saw immediately it had been the right thing to do. The elevators were filled with children and strollers and dogs and old people, and men in suits, and women with briefcases, their hair damp in the mornings. It was like moving to a new city. He lived on the eighteenth floor, across the hall from an old couple, Rhoda and Murray, who welcomed him in with a drink the first week he was there. “We’ve got the best floor,” said Murray, who wore thick glasses and used a cane, which he waved about their living room. “I sleep till noon but Rhoda’s up every morning at six, grinding that coffee to wake the dead. You have children? You divorced? So what, Rhoda’s been divorced, I nabbed her thirty years ago, everyone’s divorced now.”

“Forget it,” Rhoda said, about not having kids. She filled his wineglass (the first wine he’d had in weeks). “My kids are a pain in the butt. I love them, they drive me nuts. All I have are these cashews, who knows how old.”

“Sit down, Rhoda. He can eat the cashews and be grateful.” Murray had settled into a large chair, his cane placed carefully on the floor beside him. He lifted his own wineglass in Bob’s direction.

Rhoda collapsed into the sofa. “Have you met the couple down at the end? One of the little boys has that, what’s it called, come on,” snapping her fingers, “well, whatever affects the growth of his spine. The mother’s a saint, has a wonderful husband. Burgess? Are you related to Jim Burgess?
Really?
Oh, what a trial that was! Guilty, that son of a bitch, but what a trial, we loved watching that trial.”

Back in his apartment, he called Jim.

“I know you moved,” Jim said.

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew. I walked by your place and there were curtains in the window, it actually looked habitable, so I knew you’d taken off. I got an investigator in our office to find out where you’d gone. And how come you still have an unlisted number? Every time you called our landline and it came up PRIVATE we knew it was you. What’s that about?”

It was about not being a Burgess. Back in the Wally Packer days, Pam had said she was sick of getting calls asking if they were related to Jim Burgess. “It’s the way I want it,” Bob said now.

“You’ve hurt Helen’s feelings. You never call. And you moved without a word. You’ll have to tell her you were a mess about some woman, that’s what I told her.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

Silence. Then: “What truth? I don’t know the
truth
of why you moved, slob-dog.”

“Because you upset me, Jim. Jesus. Did you tell her about that?”

“Not yet.” Jim sighed through the phone. “Christ. Listen, have you spoken with Susan recently? She sounds very lonely.”

“Of course she’s lonely. I’m going to invite her down here.”

“You are? Susan’s never been to New York in her whole life. Well, look, have fun with that. We’re going to Arizona to see Larry.”

“Then I’ll wait until you get back.” Bob hung up. The idea that his brother had tracked him down—so momentarily and achingly sweet in its surprise—had been taken away by Jim’s tone. Bob sat on his couch and gazed out the window at the view of the river, and he could see small sailboats moving now, a larger boat behind them. He had no memory of life without Jim being the brightness of its center.

4

Mrs. Drinkwater lingered by the door of Susan’s bedroom, where Susan stood with her hands on her hips. “Come in,” Susan said. “I can’t seem to think.”

Mrs. Drinkwater sat down on Susan’s bed. “In the past, I believe they wore a lot of black in New York. I don’t know if that’s still true.”

“Black?”

“Used to. It’s a hundred years since I worked at Peck’s, but sometimes a woman came in wanting a black dress, and naturally I supposed it was for a funeral and I’d try and be tactful, but it would turn out she was going to New York. That happened a few times.”

Susan picked up an unframed photo that was lying flat on her bedside table. “He’s gained weight,” she said, handing it to the old lady, “in just two months,” and Mrs. Drinkwater said, “My word.”

It took her a moment to realize it was Zachary. He was standing at a kitchen counter, almost smiling at the camera. His hair was longer and fell across his forehead. “He looks—” Mrs. Drinkwater stopped herself.

“Normal?” Susan asked. She sat down on the other side of the bed, took the photo back and gazed at it. “That’s what I thought when I looked at it. I thought, Holy moley, my son looks normal.” She added, “It came in today’s mail.”

“He looks awful good,” Mrs. Drinkwater admitted. “Is he happy, then?”

Susan put the photo back on her bed stand. “Seems to be. His father’s girlfriend lives with them. She’s a nurse, and maybe a good cook, I don’t know. But Zach likes her. She’s got kids of her own about his age, I guess they live nearby. They all do things together.” Susan looked up at the ceiling. “It’s good.” She pinched her nose and blinked. Then she looked around the room, her hands in her lap. Finally she said, “I didn’t know you worked at Peck’s.”

“For twenty years. I loved it.”

“I’d better go feed the dog.” But Susan stayed sitting on the bed.

Mrs. Drinkwater stood. “I’ll do it. And I’ll scramble a few eggs for supper, how about that?”

“You’re very good to me.” Susan raised her shoulders and sighed.

“That’s all right, dear. Find a black turtleneck and a pair of black slacks and you’ll be all set.”

Susan looked at the photo again. The kitchen Zach was standing in looked to her more like an operating room, clean-angled with lots of stainless steel. Her son (her son!) looked at the camera, looked at her, with a combination of openness and something that was not shyness but perhaps more an apology. His face, which had been so angular and awkward, was a handsome face now with the extra weight, his eyes large and dark, his jawbone strong, defined. Almost, and it was so bizarre that she had to keep looking and looking, but almost, he resembled a young Jim. The flush of pleasure this had first produced had given way now to a sense of something unbearable—loss, and a glimpse of her past behavior as a mother and wife.

Memory. Open-palmed it passed before her scenes, and then would close, taking away the beginning, the end, the framework these scenes existed within. But in glimpses of herself—shouting at Steve, at Zach—she recognized her own mother, and Susan’s face burned with shame. She had never seen what she saw now: that her mother’s fits of fury had made fury acceptable, that how Susan had been spoken to became the way she spoke to others. Her mother had never said, Susan, I’m sorry, I should not have spoken to you that way. And so years later, speaking that way herself, Susan had never apologized either.

And it was too late. No one wants to believe something is too late, but it is always becoming too late, and then it is.

5

In Arizona, Helen and Jim stayed at a resort in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Their room looked over a huge saguaro cactus that had one thick green arm turned up and another aimed down; there was also a view of the swimming pool. “Well,” Helen said, the second morning they were there, “I know you were disappointed with Larry going to school out here, but it’s a beautiful place for us to visit.”

“You were disappointed, not me.” Jim was reading something on his phone.

“Because it’s so far away.”

“And because it wasn’t Amherst or Yale.” Jim was typing on his phone now, his thumbs flying.

“You were the one disappointed about that.”

“I wasn’t, though.” Jim looked up. “I went to a state school, Helen. I don’t have a problem with a state school.”

“You went to Harvard. The only thing I’m disappointed about is that Larry’s not hiking with us today.”

“He’s working on his paper, like he said. We’ll see him again tonight.” Jim clicked his phone shut, then opened it immediately, glanced at it again.

“Jimmy, whatever you’re doing, can’t that wait?”

“One second. It’s this work thing, hold on.”

“But the sun’s getting higher every minute. And I didn’t sleep well, I told you.”

“Helen. Please.”

“The hike takes four hours, Jimmy. Why don’t we find a shorter one?”

“I know the hike is four hours. And it’s beautiful and I like it. And you liked it last time. If you’d just give me a second here, we’ll go enjoy it again.”

By the time they left the hotel it was eleven o’clock and 87 degrees. They parked near the visitor center, then walked up a tarred road for a long time before the trail turned off and led into a dusty path between cactus and mesquite trees, and then they came to the river, which they crossed, stepping on broad, smooth stones. Helen had woken at four in the morning and not returned to sleep. Somehow, at dinner, while Larry’s girlfriend, Ariel, went on and
on
about her awful stepfather, Helen must have continued to fill her wineglass with deep red wine, as Ariel tugged on her long hair, talking quickly, all the while Larry looking at her with a childlike reverence. They were sleeping together, or he would not look at her that way; Helen understood this. Why would he choose an idiot to be with? It broke her heart a little.