Four Years from Home

by Larry Enright

  For four years Harry never came home, and Mom and Dad never went to visit him. He wouldn’t let them and he always had some lame excuse for it. He rarely wrote, never called, and invariably found a job there over the breaks and summer vacations. His letters were overly formal typed, report card-like messages — “Got all As, very happy with classes, people are great, miss everyone…” Even I realized they were emotionless and not like Harry at all. He had transformed into someone so completely different that he was unrecognizable as Harry to any of us. No one spoke of him at the dinner table or wondered aloud how he was really doing or why he had changed. His picture disappeared from the living room mantle. It was as if he had ceased to exist, had never existed, that the shining star had in fact been but a passing comet lost in time and memory. It hurt Mom and Dad a lot, so much that even I realized it. It hurt everyone — except me. I didn’t care.

  But enough of that… Me? Miracle of miracles, I was headed to grad school at M.I.T. My parents had tolerated well my rebellious years and apparently it paid off. I turned a corner my junior year, my ship came in, my star rose in the East, and the king was reborn. Actually, it wasn't quite that dramatic but I'll take what I can get.

  I had lucked into getting partnered with Kelly Erickson for our junior honors Computer Science project at Pitt and we (well, actually she more than me, but who's keeping track?) invented "in concept" a punchcardless computer that would revolutionize the industry. All we had to do was build it. Kelly and I continued the project through our senior year and were both accepted at M.I.T. on full fellowship with the expectation that we would continue the grandiose plan, making us famous and them richer. So when Harry left, I left, too, though my departure was with far more fanfare, pomp, and circumstance.

  But believe it or not, I somehow missed that boat, as big and unstoppable as it appeared, and ended up a designer for a board game company that was looking to the computer as the future of its business. They sent a recruiter to campus the first week of school, he found me, and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I accepted on the spot. All I had to do was work with them to develop games and my invention and get it patented before Kelly did the same at M.I.T. Piece of cake. I had their resources behind me and Kelly had nothing. No contest.

  That was the last I saw of M.I.T. and it was good riddance — what a bunch of over-achieving dopes. I didn’t have to leave if I didn’t want to, though. I could have stayed and gotten my degree and enjoyed torturing the nerds. The company didn’t care. They would have paid for it. They just wanted the technology and the games. But it was better that I left then — it never sat well with Kelly that all our work had somehow been mysteriously lost in the move to M.I.T.

  In one of those spur of the moment decisions, I made up my mind not to tell anyone in the family that I had left. After all, it was none of their business and it made for better dinner conversation. “Oh yes, Tom is at M.I.T., you know. He’s working on a fellowship with... What’s her name, Tom? Judy? Kelly? How is she doing anyway? Any future plans for you two?” It was just so much more convenient for them to think I was still there. Actually, the company told me I could work from anywhere as long as I kept in touch and fed them work on a regular basis. I could have set up shop in Hawaii, or Alaska, or even Nowhere, Ohio.

  There had been so much snow the Christmas Eve of Harry's senior year that I was lucky I had gotten in several days before. My drive home had taken me twice as long as usual. The roads were a mess. The Pittsburgh airport had been shut down around midday and all flights canceled in and out. But the entire family had made it, well, everyone but Harry. We weren’t really expecting him, so it was no big deal, at least not for me. I had pretty much written him off and assumed everyone else had done the same. It was easier that way, less painful. Just forget about him.

  The world had bigger problems. It was a real mess. Nixon had just been reelected in November, him and his stupid silent majority. I had voted for George McGovern. George was our only hope for getting us out of Vietnam. Nobody liked that war, not even me, and I’m not exactly a peacenik. Army was my favorite game to play and picking on other kids my favorite pastime. You’d think that going to war would be a perfect fit for me, but along with millions of other draft-age young men I desperately wanted us out of that war.

  Everything seemed subdued to me on Christmas Eve. I guess it was the snow. There was a lot of staring out the windows at the wonder of a white Christmas by Mom and Dad, not much singing of carols (thank God), and plenty of punch and cookies. But the holiday warmed up Christmas morning with the traditional opening of presents and continued to build in spirit throughout the day. It was almost like old times. Sam opened a present that I promptly commandeered and broke accidently when he tried to get it back by putting me in a headlock. Kate mysteriously misplaced a bracelet that we later found dangling from the dining room chandelier. Just like old times.

  We were at the dinner table Christmas night, laughing and joking about all the crazy things we had done on Christmases past, filling in the cracks with pumpkin pie and coffee when Kate started retelling a memory, “Remember when Harry…” She stopped; everyone stopped. But once the lid to the forbidden box had been opened, there was no going back. Pandora was out, Christmas was officially over and we all knew it.

  Mom had begun clearing the dishes when the phone rang. Dad answered it in the kitchen with his usual, "Yallo." You have to elongate the first syllable to get the full effect of Dad’s patented greeting, something like “eeeeee-allo.”

  None of us paid much attention to the conversation until we all heard him say "What? What did you say? Dear Lord…” He paused. I think he was crying, but Dad never cried. Mom stood frozen to the terrazzo floor with a stack of dishes in her hands. Kate was studying her in horror. Sam and Mary were looking at each other. I looked out the window. The snow was pounding on the window like a hammer… no, that was my heart racing.

  “No, that will be fine. Tomorrow then… Yes, good-bye." We heard the click when he hung up the receiver and the creak of the third step as he headed upstairs to his bedroom. I had doctored that step myself to create the telltale creak so I would know when the enemy was approaching my bedroom. This came in very handy when I was shooting my BB rifle out the window at the neighbors. A chilling dismay spread across the room. The blue-white ice collecting on the windows as the snow melted and refroze on them bore the face of a cold, heartless death.

  "Mom?" Kate whispered hoarsely.

  She ignored the little brat and whispered, "Tom, make sure your father's all right." Mom set the dishes on the table, sat down and tried to take a sip of tea. Her cup rattled on the saucer. I made a mental note that this would make a great lie-detector test at some point. I would call it the “Rattling Cup” and copyright it.

  Instinctively I wanted to respond, "Who elected me?" but for some odd reason I simply nodded and left the table. Even I, with my usual insensitivity, knew that something was really wrong — really wrong. My mind jumped at once to thoughts of death. After all, it was the Christmas season and that was usually when old relatives kicked the bucket. Maybe Great Aunt Nola had finally passed. She had to be at least a hundred. Or Uncle Bill — he had been battling cancer for years. It's amazing how many names of potential candidates can crowd into one small corner of your brain in those thirteen steps from the first floor to the second floor of the family split-level home. There’s probably a Guinness World Record for it. And the more names I filled my pea brain with, the less room it had for the dread we had all felt. The list grew until I knocked lightly on Dad's door and entered.

  "Dad? You okay?"

  He was sitting on his bed rummaging through an old Thom McAnn shoebox. He pulled a black and white photograph from the box and slowly ran his thumb over it. Physically I was there in that time and place with him, but when I glanced at the photo I was suddenly eleven years old again and was standing beside Harry in front of our house on Gaylord Avenue. The six-year-old Harry was holding a leg brace bravely in
one hand, staring stoically at the camera. I was smiling and packing a snowball to throw at Dad when he was done taking the picture.

  Harry had just come back from the hospital with Dad after the doctors removed his brace — the last vestiges of his yearlong bout with a broken leg. When he was five, Harry's leg had been crushed under a car when the wagon he had been riding in hit a bump and flew into the street, putting him directly in the car's path. But after one year and three operations and months in the hospital, he had triumphed. Even I had to admit, it took a lot of guts for a kid his age to pull through that ordeal.

  "He was so brave..." Dad's voice trailed off.

  "He wrecked my wagon," I answered angrily, without thinking, realizing I had just replayed my eleven-year-old response when I had seen my Radio Flyer in pieces on the pavement, totally oblivious to my brother lying under the car screaming.

  Dad looked up at me, his eyes glistening with moisture. A faint smile crossed his face. "Yes, I remember that. You weren't a happy camper for the longest time."

  Something I had not remembered in years came back, "And that story you made up about it being insured and not to worry — that was a good one.” He had replaced the wagon a week after Harry’s accident. That sort of made it right, but it was not the same.

  "You were such a damn brat, Tom. I knew you'd be whining for weeks if I didn’t get you another wagon. And I didn’t want you to feel bad about your overreacting." Dad's voice softened. I could barely hear him. "But, you turned out okay. You're a good boy, Tom. A good man... And I'm proud of you." His gaze returned to the photo and he kissed it lovingly. This was one of those awkward moments normally requiring an appropriate response from me, something attributing all my success to him, but he gave me no opportunity to reply. He was crying. Dad never cried.

  "Dad?" I sat beside him and surprised myself — I put my arm around him. It was then that I noticed that the shoebox was full of photos. The box lid, which lay on the floor, had one word written on it in red magic marker: "Harry." My journey into the forbidden reaches of Mom and Dad's bedroom was always one of revelations and here was yet another. Harry had not ceased to exist these past four years. He had merely been put away in Mom and Dad's closet into a shoebox to be brought back at the appropriate time, that time when he would be returning to the family. And that time was now. The phone call — it had been Harry.

  "Dad? Is Harry coming home for Christmas?" I asked, certain then that Dad's tears were of joy. I had only ever seen my Dad cry once before, and only then for a moment, when I broke his arm playing touch football by cruelly piling on him after he had slipped, so I was not really experienced at the nuances of fatherly tears. But that would explain the phone call, the shoebox, the tears, and the joy at his favorite prodigal son finally returning to the fold. I immediately began devising a plan to ruin the homecoming.

  "Yes, Tom. Harry's coming home." He didn't sound overly happy. Parents were such odd creatures.

  "That's great! I'll tell the others. If you want to take a nap, I'll wake you later when we have the punch and cookies, okay?"

  I had work to do before Harry got home. I got up to leave but Dad grabbed my arm. "Wait," he rasped. "There's something I want you to tell everyone and then, yes, I will lie down for a bit."

  "I know, Harry's coming home; roll out the red carpet. When, anyway? Probably not till after Christmas with this snow and all unless he's already in town. Harry's in town, Dad?" My excitement grew and I realized that I, too, might have missed Harry these last four years. He was a part of the family whether he wanted to be or not, and that made him a part of me. His leaving had just been a phase in his growing up, a phase which none of the other children fully understood, but one which we all tacitly accepted. I was still going to ruin his homecoming. Something smelly perhaps… "Is he at the train station? If the streetcars are still running, he can be here in a few hours. He can still make it for Christmas."

  "Stop!” Dad didn’t yell often, but when he did it commanded attention and obedience. I’d worked hard on mimicking that technique, but in the end it was easier for me to use deception and cleverness to get my way.

  “Harry's dead, Tom. That's what you have to tell them. He's dead.” He said it as if it were just sinking in for him, too. “They just phoned from school. He had an accident or something at the college and was killed. I... I don't remember any more except that someone is coming here tomorrow. Please, just tell them. I don't think I can face them right now." Dad lay back on the bed, dropping the shoebox to the floor, and rolling onto his side to face the wall.

  I left him sobbing in the dark room and walked back down those thirteen interminable steps to the first floor. I didn't want to be the one to face the others. I didn't want to be anywhere near the others. A part of me, a part of my life, had just been ripped out of my scrapbook, crumpled up and thrown in the trash. I was at once angry and despairing, sad and afraid. How dare you run off like that and die without saying good-bye? Oh God, Harry, I miss you. What will happen to Mom and Dad? You bastard! Do you really think Kate will understand? She's too young, too vulnerable. Please, God, make it all a lie, an ugly horrible lie, and make Harry come home alive and well.

  By the thirteenth step I realized I had been praying. I can't remember the last time I prayed, or if I ever really had prayed and meant it, but I meant it then. And I felt ashamed. All those years of shunning God and religion and now, like some damned hypocrite, I was praying like the kid who had just been told that the world was ending tomorrow unless we all repented. I stopped at the bottom of the steps and cleared my throat, tried to clear my head, and walked quietly into the dining room and took my seat.

  Mom took my hand, saying nothing, looking at me quietly. It was that look. I remembered it from that time when I was in eighth grade and had been caught throwing snowballs at cars on Connor Road. We had just nailed our second victim when our neighbor Mr. Welty walked up behind us and marched the four of us to his car and, one by one, dropped us off at our homes. I don't know what he told the other parents but the only thing he said to Mom was, "Hello, Helen. Tom here has something to tell you about what he has been doing."

  Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down and held my hand in just the way she was now, waiting for me to confess to my crime. Total denial was out of the question — Mr. Welty was too reliable a witness. Coercion by the others? Not a likely tack. Mom would see right through that one. Temporary insanity? I had seen that one in action on a Perry Mason episode, but I was sure she had seen the same show. We all used to watch Perry Mason together, even Harry. No, there was no getting around it. The only safe plan was the truth. I lied most of the time anyway, so maybe she wouldn't believe the truth and I would then counter with a superbly concocted, believable lie. If she checked with Mr. Welty, I could always then claim that she didn't believe me when I told the truth, so I resorted to the next best thing.

  “Dad got a call from Harry's school.” I couldn't get another word out. It was just like the time Nicky Amendola had grabbed me by the throat in the locker room after Saint Catherine’s grade school basketball team had gotten trounced again by Saint Bernard's. He threatened to stuff me in my gym bag if I ever showed my face anywhere near him. I wanted to protest that I wasn't the only one who had missed every shot he took, that just because he, Nicky, had made our only four points in our twenty four to four loss didn’t make him the only kid worthy of playing. I wanted to reason with him and explain to the big thug that he couldn’t be a one-man team, but he was crushing my windpipe and all I could do was grunt and nod assent.

  Mom saw the tears welling in my eyes and my flushed face. My hands trembled. I fought back a desire to up and quit just like I had quit the grade school basketball team in eighth grade rather than spend the rest of my life in a gym bag. I have absolutely no idea how she knew, but she knew.

  All Mom said was, “Oh my Harry, dear God, not my Harry.” She covered her mouth with her hands and began to sob, then cry. My heart broke. For the first
time in my life I clearly saw the pain my mother had endured and the heartache, and the deep love she felt for my brother. But, more importantly, when her eyes met mine, I saw that she loved me, too. She'd always loved me. I was just too blockheaded to see it.

  Chapter 2

  We stayed up most of the night, which was not unusual for us on Christmas. When we were younger, we'd play with our toys and Mom and Dad would sit together on the sofa watching us, trying to figure out who would be the first to break one and start crying. I think they had some sort of bawl-o-meter to measure the degree of brokenness versus decibel level and thereby judge the winner. Funny how I never won that contest, but then I was always the breaker, not the breakee.

  Mom always made our favorite punch of grape juice and ginger ale. And Dad would get out his old violin and scratch out all eighteen verses of Tura-lura-lura, the Irish sandpaper ballad that made my hair stand on end. I know you know what I’m talking about. They used to play it in the Irish Concentration Camps to educate those who doubted that Saint Patrick drove out all the snakes from Ireland. Saint Patrick had a fiddle too. And we never had a snake problem at our house.

  Playing the board game Risk was one of the things we always did. Always — it was a Ryan tradition. Every year, after we’d all outgrown our urges to eat the shiny dice and the pretty game pieces, we would drag out that time-honored game of global conquest, set it up on the dining room table, and settle in with our cookies and punch to begin the epic fighting and arguing.

  Sam always holed up in Japan, building his forces up for one massive sweep across Asia. I called this the “Kamikaze” strategy since it invariably never worked for him but did have the effect of softening up Asia for my onslaught. Mary insisted on controlling the United States regardless of the losses involved. After all, she could not let such famous landmarks as the Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore, and Hollywood Boulevard fall into the wrong hands. I called this the “Stupid Landmark” strategy since it involved protecting positions that were useless and indefensible. Kate had very little interest in the game and didn't care where she was, usually winding up in the totally indefensible Europe. She would have been the first eliminated from the game every year had she not been the baby of the family, not in age, but in maturity level. I never had a term for her crybaby strategy since she apparently had none. Harry invariably went for Australia. His was the “Hide Out” strategy — hide out in Australia and let the world destroy itself while he watched from the safety of his four-marker stronghold. He never attacked anyone and no one dared attack him because there was only one way in and one way out. He just built up his forces and watched.