The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [53]
Walked home at dusk. No father. Uncle Jared playing flute. Mother at rosewood piano. Sterling silver flute. Faite en France. Acis and Galatea. Writer heard music from room. Later Jared’s farewells. Was called then to kitchen where mother and brother were having confab. Smelled trouble. Mother, saintly old woman. God bless her! Never one to admit unhappiness or pain. Cried at music, sunsets. Never human things. Remember her at West River, wiping away tears while she watched sunsets, colored clouds. Dry eyed at all funerals. Asked me to sit down. “Your father has abandoned us,” she said. “He left me a note. I burned it in the fire. Moses knows. He says we can stay on here if we persevere. Your school days are over. You will go to work. Hamlet is going to California. We will never talk about your father again.”
Writer first tasted sorrow then. Bewilderment. The first of many hard knocks. Noticed kitchen. Dartmouth pump. Stain on ceiling like South America. Mother’s sewing bag made from scrap of old silk dress worn at St. Botolphs in happy summertime. Printing on stove; Pride of the Union. Saw everything. Gray in mother’s hair. Cracks in floor. Smoke on lamp chimney. A poor Yankee trait. Writer remembers turning point in life as cracked dishes, soot on glass, coal stove and pump.
Writer looked for work next morning. Plans afoot for Hamlet’s trip. Joined a company. Cousin Minerva put up the cash, sailed in June. Hamlet, mother’s favorite. Planned to begin sending money home in seven months. Save us all. Big farewell party for Hamlet. Moses, head cheese. All the rest too. Jared, Minerva, Eben, Rebecca, Juliana, many more. Jared did sleight of hand. Pulled brooch out of Minerva’s topknot. Made watch disappear. Took same out of vase made of lava from Mount Vesuvius. Mead to drink. Homemade. Delicious. Mother played piano. Hamlet sang. Sympathetic tenor voice:
Youth and pleasure go together,
Soon will come the winter cold
Not a dry eye in the house. A dark night. Many lamps. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Not sweet for me.
Father gone. Hamlet sailing away. Writer left alone with dear old mother. God bless her! Stern company though. Writer led clean life. Cold bath every morning. Stone Hills boat club. Single-oared shells. Gymnasium twice a week. Missed father, brother. Father most. Lonely places. Bedroom hallway. Staircase turning. Looked for father in crowds. Straight back. Black coat. Walking home from work. Always looked for father in crowds. Looked in stations both north and south. Looked on waterfront. Watched disembarkations of all kinds. Passenger ships. Fishing boats. Ghosts rattle chains. Live in castles. Gauzy things with kindly voices mostly. Partial to blue light. Vanish at cock’s crow. God give me such a ghost I cried.
Asked mother once for news of father but received no reply. Spoke later of old times. Asked me if I remembered St. Botolphs. Reminisced. Plums on Hales Island. Picked a bushel basket every year. Recalled famous church picnic with twenty-one varieties of pie. Sails. All good things. House still empty. Falling down. Old mother’s eyes brightened. First time she ever seemed gay. Laughing, talking about old river-bottom place, Godforsaken. Took advantage of high spirits and asked once more for father. “Is he living or dead?”
“Remember one night last autumn when we had steak and tomatoes for supper?” she said. “The Boston police notified me while you were at work the day before that your father had been found dead in a Charles Street lodging. I made all the arrangements with no help from anyone. Early in the morning I took the body in the cars to St. Botolphs. Mr. Frisbee said the words.