The Nine Lessons (14 page)

“I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of skipping ahead a few years in the sequence. The batch of cards you’re getting today picks up where our life became a little more—” He paused briefly in search of the right word. “Interesting.”

CHAPTER 15

Golf is not, and never has been, a fair game.

—Jack Nicklaus

D
ecember 20, 1977
—Is a four-year-old too young to begin learning to play golf? I have been informally acclimating Augusta to the sport with plastic toy clubs since he was one. He loves swinging them around and hitting things with them, especially the cat, but I’m thinking it’s about time to start formally teaching him how to play the game with real clubs. Jessalynn has warned me that she doesn’t want him to feel too much pressure to become good at it, and she’s probably right—she tends to be much wiser when it comes to the rearing of our son than I am. But she doesn’t know that I’ve already got a set of Junior clubs in the trunk of my car to give to him on his birthday tomorrow… I should probably warn her and the cat before he unwraps them!

December 25, 1977—There has never been a Christmas I have not enjoyed… until this one. Right now it is very late at night. Augusta is asleep in the chair to my right and Jessalynn is in her hospital bed to my left. This is the first break I’ve had to write about the disastrous events of the past five days. Hopefully writing it down will help me to wrap my head around it all.

Augusta’s birthday was when it all began. I stayed home from work so I could celebrate with him and Jess. He is getting old enough now that birthdays really matter to him, so I wanted to make this day something special to remember. Now that it’s over, I hope he is able to forget all about it.

We spent all day together just focusing on Augusta, doing whatever it was that he wanted to do. First we took him out to lunch at the restaurant of his choosing—he chose McDonald’s. Then we went sledding on a big hill near the base of Mount Mansfield, after which we went home and made a family of snowmen in our front yard. Once we were done with that we drove over to the lake and spent a couple of hours huddling inside an ice-fishing hut. We didn’t catch anything, but the hot chocolate and muffins were delicious. Sounds like a wonderful day, right?

Wrong.

In the evening his Grandma and Grandpa Call came over for dinner and the official “party.” After dinner we let Augusta open his presents. His grandparents gave him a fifty-dollar savings bond. I don’t think the poor boy knew quite how to react—we coaxed him into a polite “thank you.” My mum also sent over a package from London, England. It was a hand-knit Christmas pullover. Again, not a “jump-up-and-down-this-is-just-what-I-wanted” sort of reaction, but unlike the piece of paper from the Calls that he can’t spend for another fourteen years, at least he knew what to do with the red-and-white knitting. He tried it on for fit, and then yanked it off as fast as he could, complaining that it itched. Jessalynn gave him a toy veterinary set—it came with a stethoscope, a thermometer, and a plush stuffed dog with a bandage around its head. It was a cute gift, but I’m sure he’ll stop playing with it once he gets a knack for his new golf clubs, which he opened last of all. His eyes lit up when he pulled off the wrapping. He absolutely loved them. He said he wants to grow up and play golf just like me someday… that was the highlight of the evening. It went downhill very fast after that.

Jessalynn had made a beautiful birthday cake for Augusta. It was covered with green sprinkles and looked very much like a miniature golf green. She also bought what her father calls “stinker candles”—the sort that you can’t blow out. I was running the video camera while we sang happy birthday, and then Augusta began blowing. He was so proud that he blew out all four candles, but then, one by one, they started popping back to life. He looked so confused. We all started laughing, and he began blowing again as hard as he could. Again he blew them out and again they started flickering back to life. He grabbed his mum by the arm and told her to help him blow. Jessalynn blew them out once by herself and everyone laughed when the flames popped up again. But the heavy blowing caused Jessalynn to start coughing. It took a glass of water to get the cough under control, and then she went back to help Augusta with the still-burning candles. She took a big breath, but instead of blowing she began coughing again. This time it could not be controlled. On her first cough blood came flying from her mouth all over the cake. Some of it splattered on Augusta’s face—he looked terror stricken. Each new cough brought more blood.

We rushed Jessalynn to the emergency room, and we’ve been camped out at the hospital almost nonstop ever since. She has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It is not clear how or why she developed this awful disease, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with Oswald Call’s cigar habit—Jess says her father smoked like a factory when she was younger.

The doctors say it’s actually a good thing that she blew so hard on the candles, because without such a trigger we might not have caught it as soon as we did. As nice as that sounds, the prognosis is still not good. They have already started treating her, but they have warned us that there is a strong possibility they will not be able to thwart the spread of the cancerous cells. Her lead oncologist told me in private that it would be a stretch to hope that she will live to see Augusta’s fifth birthday.

Merry Christmas.

January 17, 1978—Jessalynn is home from the hospital. They gave her a few complimentary scarves to keep her bald head warm on the drive home. I’ve known this since I first met her, but watching her go through this ordeal reminds me anew that Jessalynn is an astounding woman. She refuses to feel sorry for herself, and has committed to making the most out of each new day, regardless of how many days that may be. There is not a single waking moment that she is not with Augusta—hugging him, playing with him, teaching him, loving him. Their favorite thing to do is “fix” that toy dog. Augusta told me when I came home from work today that the dog had cancer, but that he’s all better now. I asked him if he wanted to go with me in the garage and practice swinging his golf clubs on my grass mat, but he didn’t want to leave his mother alone. He stayed with her and used his veterinary toys to “make her better.” Let’s hope that the doctors have as much faith and diligence in making her well as my little boy does.

June 15, 1978—My wife’s beautiful hair is starting to grow again. To me she is a knockout with or without hair. I, on the other hand, have noticed that my own bloody hair is starting to gray on top—perhaps due to the stress of the past six months. Jessalynn seems to have regained a good measure of her strength to go along with new hair follicles, so she takes Augusta outside frequently to the park now that the weather has turned nice.

Augusta still hasn’t traded in his fluffy puppy for the golf clubs I got him. He drags that dirty mutt with him wherever he goes. He frequently takes its temperature to make sure it doesn’t have cancer. Jessalynn told me that today he stopped at the top of the slide to examine the dog’s throat. He felt all over as if he were checking for inflamed nodes, which is something he’s seen the doctors do a hundred times on his mum. When the little girl behind him told him to go down the slide so she could have her turn, he told her he wasn’t going anywhere until he was sure his dog wasn’t going to die.

July 31, 1978—This afternoon we finished buying school supplies for Augusta, so he’s ready to start kindergarten in a couple of weeks. I can’t believe my little boy is already beginning his formal education—it seems like just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital.

After getting Augusta all squared away for school I took Jessalynn in for a routine check-up with the oncologist. On the drive over she complained that her throat felt “itchy.” The doctor noticed some unusual swelling and admitted her to the hospital for further examinations and biopsies, just to be safe. She should be released tomorrow and we’ll likely have the results in a few days.

CHAPTER 16

In golf, you keep your head down and follow through. In the vice presidency, you keep your head up and follow through. It’s a big difference.

—Dan Quayle, vice president of the United States

E
rin threw the covers off
and sat straight up in bed. “Are you hot? I’m burning up!” She reached for the window behind her and slid the tall pane completely open. “It’s got to be a hundred degrees in here!” She let out a long, dramatic breath, and I could hear her fanning herself with a magazine from the nightstand. “Are you hot?” she asked again.

The fact that she was complaining about being overheated had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. Winter had arrived, and everyone in Vermont was struggling to cope with the cold except for my pregnant wife. A week before we were enjoying the splendor of an Indian summer, but warm days were now just a frozen memory. I wrapped the thick down comforter tighter around me as the draft from the window brought in a fresh round of chilled air. It was the middle of the night and I was only half awake, but I responded to her question out of fear that saying nothing might be interpreted as latent consent to freeze to death. “I turned the heater off three hours ago,” I said groggily. My teeth clattered together as I spoke. “Even with wool socks my feet are completely numb. It can’t be more than ten degrees outside, and probably about the same here in our ice-box. So what do you think?”

Erin was still fanning herself. “I think it’s hot,” she replied flatly.

I rolled over in bed so I could see her. Her hair was blowing in the cool breeze, but she was completely unfazed by the plummeting temperature. I placed my hand on her stomach where her bellybutton was poking out from beneath her pajama top. “Schatzi, you have a built-in oven, and I don’t. If you’re really that hot then I can fill up the tub with ice to help you cool off, but if you don’t close that window I honestly might not live to see the morning.”

Erin stopped waving the magazine and stared down at me unsympathetically. “Fine.” She reached back to slide the window closed, mumbling to herself as she did so. “I’ve gained forty pounds and my hips are as wide as a barn, but my husband can’t put up with a little fresh air.” I knew she was half joking, so I kindly thanked her for sparing my life. Braving the cold, I jumped quickly out of bed and put on another layer of pajamas, and then hopped back under the covers. I was drifting peacefully back to sleep when Erin spoke again.

“August?”

I kept my eyes closed. “Yes.”

“Are you ready to be a dad?” The tone she used let me know that this question had been weighing heavily on her mind.

“I’m too cold right now to think about it,” I replied. “Once I thaw out I’ll let you know.”

“C’mon,” she urged. “This is important. Are you ready? It’s coming up quickly.”

I rolled onto my side again so that I could see her. She was the most beautiful, amazing person I’d ever known, and my best friend to boot, which made it all the harder to give her a straight answer to that particular question, because I didn’t think that my honest answer was what she really wanted to hear. “No,” I said frankly. “I’m not ready by a long shot.”

She forced an apprehensive nod. “Me neither.” Erin put her hand on her stomach and rubbed it gently. “I wanted so much to be a mother, and now that it’s almost here I’m worried that maybe I won’t be good at it. What if I’m a terrible mother? What if I can’t give our child all the love and attention he or she needs? It’s scary, you know—all this responsibility that comes with parenthood. What if I’m just not prepared to deal with it?”

I placed my hand on top of hers. “I’m sure you’ll be an incredible mother,” I said truthfully. “But if worse comes to worst, I’ll teach you how to play golf after the baby arrives.”

She scrunched her face, which exaggerated the bend of her crooked nose. “What?”

I chuckled. “I suppose it’s about time I filled you in on these crazy golf lessons I’ve been getting. I’ve been waiting for… I dunno, the right time, I guess.”

“What?” she asked again. “Why?”

In the cold of the night I shared with Erin all of the details of my golf lessons, expounding not only the things London made me do on the course, but also the underlying meaning that each lesson was meant to illustrate. She asked a few clarifying questions as I spoke, but mostly she just listened. Before finishing, I also mentioned the odd change that I’d seen in my father recently.

“I’m floored,” she said when I was through. “This is London we’re talking about, right? The same man who came to our wedding reception just so he could warn us that marriage was ‘a breeding ground for misfortune and disappointment’?”

“I know, huh—it’s weird. For the first time in my life I can actually talk to the man without regretting it. And to top it all off, the things he shares are actually beginning to make sense. Who would have guessed that he knew about anything other than how to move a ball from point a to point b? It’s been a real eye-opener.”

She got quiet again. “So the lessons have helped you, but… you still don’t feel ready to be a father?”

I thought back once more to my very first golf lesson where I was only allowed to use my putter from tee to cup, and how inadequate I had felt. “That’s just it. I’m not sure that we’re supposed to feel ready.”

She accepted that answer and sat thinking quietly for several minutes. When she spoke again, Erin’s voice was just above a whisper. “August, I know how you felt at first—about the baby. And I know we can’t go back in time and undo this pregnancy, but… do you want to be a father?”

Part of me wanted to tell her, “Yes,” if only to see her eyes light up. But inside I was still so unsure. Was I growing more comfortable with the idea of filling the role of a father? Definitely. Had I resolved to do the best I could, regardless of my shortcomings? Absolutely. But had my heart changed enough that I could honestly say I
wanted
to be a father? Unfortunately, it had not. “I’m sorry, Schatzi,” I said as gently as I could. “I’m just not there yet.”

I thought Erin was going to cry. I warned her that if she did the tears would freeze to her beautiful cheeks. She tried to laugh, but couldn’t bring herself to it. We both rolled over to our respective edges of the bed without another word, waiting for sleep to arrive. The last sound I heard before finally drifting off was Erin praying quietly that God would find a way to soften my heart.

The first snow in Vermont usually doesn’t fall until sometime near Thanksgiving, but during the late autumn months of my wife’s pregnancy we endured a premature nor’easter—a brew of arctic cold and Atlantic moisture that brought heavy snowfall to the New England states more than a week before Halloween. In the space of three days it dumped nearly three feet of the frozen powder, which was more than the road crews could keep up with. Due to the mess on the streets the local government asked that only essential emergency personnel leave their homes, which meant I had a wonderful three-day reprieve from neutering dogs.

By the time the roads were cleared enough that people could resume their regular daily activities it was the weekend. Near midmorning on Saturday I was in the middle of shoveling snow from the back porch when Erin brought me the portable phone.

“It’s London,” she mouthed.

I pulled back the hood on my parka and put the handset up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Augusta, where are you?”

“On the back porch, why?”

“I mean, why am I the only one here at the bloody golf course? You’re late for our next lesson.”

I looked at the blanket of snow across the yard just to verify it was still there. “Have you looked around? The golf season is over—there’s almost three feet here at my house. I bet the course has drifts that are twice that.”

“I see,” he said, sounding very disappointed. “So you’re not going to follow through with our deal then?”

Erin was still hovering, waiting to get the scoop. “What does he want?” she whispered.

I pulled the phone away from my mouth and whispered back. “He wants me to play golf. He’s at the course waiting for me. He really is nuts.” I put the phone back to speak. “You’re serious about playing today?”

“Yes, Augusta, and I’m not nuts.”

“You heard that?” I laughed.

“Every bloody word.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting. Oh, and Augusta—don’t forget your snowshoes.”

I shook my head in disbelief and hung up the phone.

Only the main roads were plowed so I had to park at the bottom of the course’s private drive just behind my father’s car. I strapped on my old snowshoes, heaved my bag of golf clubs over my shoulder, and hiked in.

I followed the only other set of tracks all the way up to the tenth tee box, where London was reclining in a deep snowdrift.

“About time,” he growled, pretending to be very put out.

“Yeah? Well I wouldn’t have been late if I had thought for a minute that we’d be playing golf in the snow.”

London scratched his chin with the wool gloves he wore on his hands. “This is Vermont, the birthplace of snow. We’re not true Vermonters if we let a few feet of snow stand between us and our dreams.”

“You’re from England.”

He pointed a wool finger at me and tried very hard to frown. “I raised a bloody child here, which more than qualifies me as an official Vermonter. Besides, I’ve got maple syrup in my veins just as thick as anyone’s.”

“Fine,” I chuckled, “but can we please get on with this? I may be a Vermonter, but I still hate the cold.” I drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly, watching as it condensed to form a small cloud in the brisk air.

London picked himself up from his bed of snow and pulled a club from his bag. “It’s actually warmed up a bit in the last twenty-four hours. Last I checked the thermometer was hovering around thirty. It may be freezing out here, but only just.”

“Well, the syrup in my veins is turning to ice, so let’s get going.”

My father chopped with his club at the snow near his feet, sending a plume of icy powder showering all over me. “Fine,” he said, obviously pleased with himself. “You got any big worries you’d like to sort out on the course today?”

I dusted myself off slowly. “At the moment?” I grimaced. “I’m a little worried that I let you talk me into this. But other than that I’ve got nothing.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then let’s just use today to work on one of the fundamental elements of your golf swing, and forget all of that golf-life stuff. What do you say?”

“Really? No similes or metaphors or parables or analogies, or anything of that nature? Just golf?”

He smiled wryly. “Not unless something presents itself.” London produced five black balls from his coat pocket and handed four to me. “These are the only balls I could scrounge up, so whenever we run out we’re done. But until then let’s work on your follow-through.” He continued speaking for several minutes, rambling on about how the follow-through is one of the most critical aspects of a proper swing. Particularly on cold days, he explained, the human body is naturally stiff and tends to stop short of a complete rotation in order to conserve energy. Failure to follow through on the swing will prevent the ball from gaining its proper trajectory, causing it to fall flat.