Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  My mother rings me in from the lobby, and I ride the elevator to the third floor, where her condo is. She has a view of the downtown streets. It’s a very nice place, although I still prefer my bungalow on Clark Avenue.

  My mother opens the door and sweeps me into her condo.

  Jay L. Lamb is standing in the living room.

  “Hello, Edward,” he says.

  “Hello, Mr. Lamb.”

  My mother, having closed the door, has walked up behind me and wrapped an arm around me.

  “Jay was just telling me about your new job. I’m so glad this worked out.”

  I wrench myself out of my mother’s arm.

  “My ribs still hurt,” I say, and she quickly apologizes.

  “Why don’t you two chat?” she says. “I’ll finish with the dip.”

  Jay sits down and invites me to take a spot on the couch opposite him. Instead, I follow my mother into the kitchen.

  “Do you need something to drink?” she asks.

  “No, Mother. Why is Jay L. Lamb here?”

  “I invited him.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s our friend, and he just did something very nice for you.”

  “And I appreciate that. I thought you and I were going to talk.”

  “We are.”

  “With Jay L. Lamb here? I have some things I need to say to you.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  My mother is being obtuse. I leave her and go back into the living room. Jay L. Lamb is stirring his drink. I go to the window and look down on Broadway, with my back to Jay L. Lamb and my mother so they don’t see how flummoxed I am.

  “What’s new, Edward?” Jay asks me.

  “Since you saw me four hours ago? Not much.”

  My mother comes into the room carrying a tray of crackers. I can see her reflection in the glass.

  “Edward, are you ready to talk? We have some time before the roast comes out of the oven.”

  “No.”

  “Could you come sit down, dear? We’d like to chat.”

  I turn from the window and walk to the couch across from Jay L. Lamb and my mother, who are sitting together. I sit on the far end, as far from them as I can. I’m not hungry. I thought I was, but I’m not.

  “Edward,” Jay L. Lamb says, “you remember how I told you I’m retiring.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother has asked me to come with her to Texas, and that’s what I’m going to do—if it’s all right with you.”

  I look at my mother. She’s nodding, smiling at me.

  “Why?”

  “Because we care about each other.”

  He reaches into my mother’s lap and takes her hand in his.

  Holy shit!

  “You mean, like, you’re her boyfriend?” I ask.

  “Something like that.”

  “Something exactly like that,” my mother says.

  I look at them sitting there, holding hands. They look so happy, and that makes me angry. Two days ago, I was holding hands with someone, too. Now look what has happened.

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “Until recently, there wasn’t a lot to tell,” Jay says. “I know you’re surprised, Edward. We were, too.”

  I want him to shut up and never say another word to me. I don’t look at him. I look only at my mother.

  “We’re selling the condo,” my mother says. “We’re going to live full time in Texas.”

  I cannot even believe what I’m hearing.

  “But Jay L. Lamb just told me ‘if it’s all right with you.’ Does that mean I have veto power over this?”

  My mother squeezes Jay L. Lamb’s hand tightly.

  “Not exactly veto power. What Jay wants is your blessing. It’s important to him, and to me, too. I think he’s showing a lot of respect for you by asking.”

  I am dimensions beyond flummoxed.

  “You told me you didn’t want a smelly old man living with you!”

  Jay L. Lamb coughs some of his drink back into his glass, and then he looks at my mother incredulously.

  “That’s what I thought when I said it. And by the way, Jay, you’re not smelly at all. Things change, Son.”

  “How long have things been changing?”

  I sound shrill and angry, and I realize that I am shrill and angry and that, furthermore, Dr. Bryan Thomsen’s best advice is not going to help me now.

  “It’s been gradual,” Jay L. Lamb says. “Imperceptible. We’ve spent time together these past couple of years, gone to a lot of the same functions, shared our hearts. It just happened.”

  “You should be happy,” my mother says. “For me, you should be happy.”

  I stand up again and return to the window.

  “I’m not happy, Mother. Not just about this, but about a lot of things.”

  “Let’s talk about it,” she says.

  “No.”

  “I should go,” Jay L. Lamb says. “You two should talk first.”

  “No,” my mother says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Jay L. Lamb looks like a trapped animal. I take bitter pleasure in this.

  “Jay, please sit down,” my mother says, and he does.

  I turn around and face them.

  “I’m leaving. I’m going home. I can’t believe you are just going to leave here. And with Jay L. Lamb! What would Father think? No wonder you said you don’t miss him.”

  My mother’s face has lost color.

  “I think he would be happy for me, unlike you. But it doesn’t matter. He’s gone, and I’m here. I found someone I want to be with. You’re selfish to be against that.”

  “It’s selfish of you!”

  I leave the condo, and once I’m in the hallway, I run for the elevator. My ribs scream out their objection to this, and I don’t care.

  On the street, I find my new Cadillac DTS. The one Jay L. Lamb bought for me. The one my mother drove to take me away from Cheyenne Wells. The one parked next to Jay L. Lamb’s Volvo.

  I go around to the driver’s side door of the Volvo, rear back my right foot, and kick hard against the door, leaving a size-fourteen impression.

  I return to my car, open the driver’s side door, and climb in. I’m tired. I’m hurt. I’m flummoxed. I wonder how many shitburgers I can be expected to eat.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: What difference does it make?

  High temperature for Thursday, December 22, 2011, Day 356: Who cares?

  Low temperature for Thursday, December 22, 2011: What does it matter?

  Precipitation for Thursday, December 22, 2011: It doesn’t matter.

  Precipitation for 2011: This doesn’t matter, either.

  New entries:

  Fuck new entries.

  My mother’s Keurig arrived today, brought to my door by the UPS delivery man.

  I walked it through the house, out the back door, across the yard, into the alley, and tossed it into the garbage bin.

  Merry Christmas, Mother.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today:

  High temperature for Friday, December 23, 2011, Day 357:

  Low temperature for Friday, December 23, 2011:

  Precipitation for Friday, December 23, 2011:

  Precipitation for 2011:

  New entries:

  Fuck new entries. (This still stands.)

  The phone starts ringing at 7:38 a.m. today. By 8:56, I’ve had fourteen calls. I remove the line from the back of the phone.

  At 9:04, my bitchin’ iPhone rings. Kyle has changed my ringtone to “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” and even in my sour mood, I have to concede that’s funny. The phone call is from my mother. I turn the ringtone to silent. She calls thirty-six more times by 2:00 p.m. Every time the bitchin’ iPhone lights up, I hear “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” playing in my head. It
’s not funny anymore. I shut the phone completely off.

  Now I’m watching the Dallas Cowboys play against the Philadelphia Eagles. The New York Giants have already beaten the New York Jets, so no matter what happens in this game, the whole season comes down to January first, in New York against the Giants.

  It’s weird to be sitting in my living room in Billings, Montana, and watching a game that I was supposed to attend in person. It makes me think about how little things can change big things. If Kyle hadn’t stowed away in my car when I left Boise, I probably would have gone to Cheyenne Wells, spent a couple of days, driven home, and been aboard my scheduled flight to Texas. If I take Kyle out of the equation, I eliminate that awful moment when I found out what had happened to him, the frantic drive through the darkness to get him back with his family, the impact when I drove into the snowplow. If I take those things away, I take away Sheila Renfro finding my pills and my phone and chasing me down the highway. I take away her staying with me in the hospital and then bringing me back to Cheyenne Wells. I take away kissing on the couch, and holding her sleeping body in my arms after the drug raid at her motel. I take away my mother showing up the next day and bringing me back here. OK, that one I would like to take away, but I can’t without affecting everything else.

  If I take away all those things, I’m in Texas. I’m at my mother’s house in North Richland Hills, which would have been decked out for Christmas, the way her houses always are. I would be sipping eggnog with my mother and Aunt Corinne and meeting all the Texas ladies she always talks about.

  We would ride in her car to Cowboys Stadium, just the two of us, for this game. Maybe my mother would introduce me to Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, because she knows him. I would have to restrain myself from telling him what I really think about his stewardship (I love the word “stewardship”) of the team.

  Now, I’m thinking maybe it’s just as well that I didn’t end up at Cowboys Stadium. The Philadelphia Eagles just drove quarterback Tony Romo into the ground, and he has hurt his hand. The TV announcers are saying that they don’t expect to see him return, since the Cowboys have nothing to gain.

  On the other hand (not Tony Romo’s other hand; that’s a joke, because I’m pretty funny), maybe I would like to change everything. I can’t, of course. I’m speaking only hypothetically. I’m thinking now of the butterfly effect, which holds that one small change in a nonlinear system can cause massive changes in later situations. In other words, even if I could change something in my past—and, to be clear, I cannot—that single alteration would change many other things, perhaps in ways I didn’t like.

  I have to wonder what the difference would be. It seems to me that everything changes anyway and that God or the universe or whoever’s in charge doesn’t give a damn what I think about it.

  My mother knocks on my door at 6:11 p.m. I know it’s her because she says so.

  “Edward, I know you’re in there. Let me come in so we can talk.”

  I walk to the door and put my cheek against it.

  “Please leave me alone, Mother.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve. Let’s talk about this.”

  “Your present is in the alley in the garbage bin. You can go get it if you want. Other than that, I don’t want to talk to you, Mother.”

  “Edward!”

  “Please go away.”

  “Will you ever talk to me again?”

  “When I’m ready. It’s my sovereign right to choose when that is.”

  “I love you, Edward.”

  My mother is crying. I can hear it.

  “I know you do. I love you, too. Please go away.”

  I hear her climbing down the steps of my porch. I go to the window and open the curtain just enough to see into the yard. My mother crosses the street and climbs into Jay L. Lamb’s Volvo, which has the impression of my foot on the driver’s side door. He drives her away from me, just as he’ll soon do forever.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: 7:38 a.m. The 211th time this year I’ve awakened at this time, if you count yesterday, when the phone started ringing.

  High temperature for Saturday, December 24, 2011, Day 358: 51. Holy shit!

  Low temperature for Saturday, December 24, 2011: 23. I have no idea what the highs and lows were for December 23rd. I threw that newspaper away without looking at it.

  Precipitation for Saturday, December 24, 2011: 0.00 inches

  Precipitation for 2011: 19.49 inches, which means we picked up a hundredth of an inch Friday.

  Two days ago, I wrote in my logbook “Who cares?” about my regularly charted data. I care.

  Merry Christmas.

  At 9:03 a.m., someone knocks at my front door. I walk over and press my face against it.

  “Mother?”

  “Edward, it’s Bryan Thomsen. Can you let me in, please?”

  Holy shit!

  I open the door.

  Dr. Bryan Thomsen sits on my small loveseat and clasps his hands on his lap.

  “A lot of people are worried about you, Edward.”

  “My mother.”

  “Yes, your mother. Your friend Donna, who tried to call you last night after your mother called her. Your mother’s friend Jay—”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Look, Edward, I’m not here to take sides. I’m your counselor. People who care about you asked me to come make sure you’re all right, and because I care about you, too, I’m here and I’m making my wife and kids wait on Christmas morning. So how about we forget who’s an asshole and who isn’t and talk about things. OK?”

  “Yes. OK.”

  “Good. Now, do you want to tell me what happened?”

  I tell him, starting with our talk just two days ago and how invigorated I was by it. I came home, and I made a commitment to living my life fully and responsibly.

  “Then I went to my mother’s place and found out she’s in love with Jay L. Lamb, and everything crumbled.”

  “Do you still have an issue with this man that leads you to believe he won’t be a good partner for your mother?”

  I have to think about that one. There was a time in my life when Jay L. Lamb was the person I hated to hear from most, other than my father. But with my father, there was a history of love, which in a strange way made the anger between us much more powerful and personal. I tell Dr. Bryan Thomsen this, and he nods as if he knows exactly what I’m talking about. But his question is if I have an issue with Jay L. Lamb today that I believe puts my mother in some sort of jeopardy for being involved with him.

  I have to be honest; I do not. Jay L. Lamb has been dealing with me respectfully for more than three years. My mother clearly has fondness for him, although I cannot imagine why.

  “I would have liked to have known that he was courting my mother,” I tell Dr. Bryan Thomsen. “But aside from that, no, I have no issues with him.”

  “Is the issue with your mother?” he asks. “Did you ever talk to her about what we discussed?”

  “No. I didn’t have a chance.”

  “I want to make sure I have the sequence right,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says. “You went to her place to talk with her, this Jay Lamb was there, and so you didn’t want to talk about it in front of him, and then your mother and Jay spring the news on you that they’re a romantic item and they’ll be living in Texas full time? Is that how it went?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I tell you what I think?”

  “Yes.”

  “First, I think you continue to have a good reason to talk to your mother. She needs to know how her actions have affected you. If you’d felt comfortable enough to do so, this thing might not have gone as far as it has.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Dr. Bryan Thomsen sits forward and looks me in the eye, which makes me uncomfortable.

  “What was the word you used to describe how your mother had transgressed against you?”
>
  “Sovereignty. She invaded my sovereignty by making me leave Colorado before I was ready to go.”

  “She took a decision that should have been yours and made it hers,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says.

  “That’s correct.”

  “OK, good. Now, let me ask you something. If you’re angry at your mother for leaving Montana for good and becoming romantically involved with Jay Lamb, and you’re punishing her for that with your silence, what are you trying to do?”

  Dr. Bryan Thomsen doesn’t have to try to draw a picture for me. I see it.

  “I’ve been dumb,” I say.

  “No, you’ve been emotional. You’ve been human. And so has your mother. Each of you thinks he or she knows what’s best for the other, and you’ve both been behaving badly in an effort to exert that control. If your mother wants to move to Texas with Jay Lamb, you have to let her do that. You can’t change her decision. You can only decide how you’re going to live with it. Do you think you can?”

  “Yes. But I have to be honest. It bothers me to imagine her loving another man after my father. I don’t think that’s rational.”

  “Emotions often aren’t,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says.

  “It’s just that my mother told me she doesn’t miss my father, and that flummoxes me. I miss him all the time. In some ways, I miss him more now than I ever have.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it.”

  This is one of those areas where Dr. Bryan Thomsen bothers me. I’ve been thinking about it for days, months, and years. I don’t know.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “It sounds to me like your mother has made her peace with him,” Dr. Bryan Thomsen says. “Perhaps you should ask yourself if you have. You might better understand her point of view when you do. Failing that, maybe it’s time to ask her. You have a lot to talk about, don’t you?”