He flipped me the bird, and just like that we were
mostly okay again
"You sent Pam the pictures, didn't you? You sent
her the JPEG file
"How did she react?"
"She was blown away, muchacho
I sat silently, trying to imagine Pam blown away
I could do it, but the face I saw lighting up in
surprise and wonder was a younger faceIt had
been quite a few years since I'd been able to
generate that sort of wind
Elizabeth was dozing off, but her hair was flying
against her cheeks and she pawed at them like a
woman troubled by insectsI got up, took an
elastic from the pouch on the arm of her
wheelchair - there was always a good supply of
557
them, in many bright colors - and pulled her hair
back into a horsetailThe memories of doing this
for Melinda and Ilse were sweet and terrible
"So how do I do it?" I askedI was holding my
palm on the side of Elizabeth's head, feeling the
smoothness of her hair as I had often felt the
smoothness of my daughters'
balenciaga replica handbags after it had been
shampooed; when memory takes its strongest hold,
our own bodies become ghosts, haunting us with the
gestures of our younger selves"How do I talk
about a process that's at least partially
supernatural?"
ThereThe root of the matter
Yet Wireman looked calm"Edgar!" he exclaimed
"Edgar what?"
The sonofabitch actually laughed"If you tell
them thatthey will believe you
I opened my mouth to refute thisThought of
Dal?'s workThought of that wonderful Van Gogh
picture, Starry NightThought of certain Andrew
Wyeth paintings - not Christina's World but his
interiors: spare rooms where the light is both
558
sane and strange, as if coming from two directions
at the same timeI closed my mouth again
"I can't tell you just what to say," Wireman said,
"but I can give you something like this He held
up the brochure/invitation"I can give you a
template
iv
"Hello?"
I was sitting on the couch in the Florida roomMy
heart was beating heavilyThis
vintage cartier watch was one of those
calls - everyone's made a few - where you
simultaneously hope it will go through the first
time, so you can get it over with, and hope it
won't, so you can put off some hard and probably
painful conversation a little while longer
I got Option One; Pam answered on the first ring
All I could hope was this conversation would go
better than the last oneThan the last couple, in
fact
559
"Pam, it's Edgar
"Hello, Edgar," she said cautiously"How are
you?"
"I'mI've been talking with my
friend WiremanHe showed me the invitation the
two of you worked up The two of you worked up
That sounded unfriendlyBut
what other way was there to put it?
"Yes?" Her voice was impossible to read
I drew in a breath and jumpedGod hates a coward,
Wireman says"I called to say
thanksI was being a horse's assYour jumping in
like that was what I needed
The silence was long enough for me to wonder if
maybe she'd quietly hung up at some pointThen
she said, "I'm
white leather chanel handbag still here, Eddie - I'm just
picking myself up off the floorI can't remember
the last time you apologized to me
Had I apologized? Well"Then I'm sorry about that, too," I said
"I owe you an apology myself," she said, "so I
guess this one's a wash
"You? What do you have to apologize for?"
560
"Tom Riley calledHe's back on
his medsHe's going to, I quote, 'see someone'
again - by which I assume he means a shrink - and
he called to thank me for saving his lifeHave
you ever had someone call and thank you for that?"
"No Although I'd recently had someone call and
thank me for saving his sight, so I kind of knew
what she was talking about
"It's quite an experience'If not for you I'd be
dead now' Those were his exact wordsAnd I
couldn't tell him he had you to thank, because it
would have sounded crazy
It was as if a tight belt cinching my middle had
suddenly been cut awaySometimes things work out
for the bestSometimes they actually do
"I've been on
fake cartier roadster to Ilse about this show of yours
"Yes, I-"
"Well, Illy and Lin both, but when I talked to
Ilse, I turned the conversation toward Tom and I
could tell right away that she doesn't know
anything about what went on between the two of us
I was wrong about that, tooAnd showed a very
unpleasant side of myself while I was at it
561
I realized, with alarm, that she was crying
"I've shown several unlovely sides of myself, to
several people, since you left me
I didn't leave you! I almost shoutedClose enough to make sweat pop out on my
foreheadI didn't leave you, you asked for a
divorce, you witting quench!
What I said was "Pam, that's enough
"But it was so hard to believe, even after you
called and told me those other thingsYou know,
about my new TV
I started to ask who Puffball was, then remembered
the cat
"I'm doing better, thoughI've started going to
church againCan you believe that? And a
therapistI see her once a week She paused,
then rushed
cheap chanel handbag on