“Was he bigger than you?” I asked.
“He was.”
The secret was terrible, and real. It explained why my parents were proud of Hart and treated me like a poor, fragile mistake. I was sure they loved me, but it was love soaked in fear. Now I understood. My existence had come at a terrible price and we weren’t finished paying yet. It all made sense: my many trips to the hospital, tests, operations. The way my mother hugged me, assured me I was beautiful, thereby planting doubt.
I did not question Hart’s revelation. But I no longer believed his wounds. Looking down at the bandaged knee, his wound, plump and probably phoney, I tried to think of a question worthy of his wisdom. His eyes brimmed with anticipation, his ever-agile mind preparing an answer that would prove the existence and (thanks to me) the loss of Bill. So I whacked his bandaged knee. He howled, and punched me hard. I ran off wailing to Mother who demanded Hart come downstairs, but he’d already gone into his room and locked the door.
Wrapped in her arms, I cried myself weak over the loss of poor Bill, banished from our family so that I could have his place. Yet it would be false to say I felt guilty. I was deeply relieved. Following the secret to its logical, selfish conclusion, I knew I had escaped a terrible fate, a lifetime spent scrunched up inside my mother’s stomach beside mashed potatoes and coffee. Thanks to Bill, I had a room, pink slippers, dolls and teddies.
That night I climbed into bed and lay awake for what seemed like a very long time. After dark, the ceiling clouds disappeared and were replaced by a Milky Way of fluorescent stars. Looking up at the night sky, I cast my racing mind back to the day he left, then forward, to the cold, misty field of emptiness where he must be now. Thus I began to share my room with the memory of my brother Bill.
Had he stopped there, Hart’s breathless fabrication might have faded like any other childhood nightmare. Instead, he kept up a stream of carefully prepared references calculated to pique my interest. He pointed out Bill’s one-of-a-kind tumbler with a moose-head decal. He showed me which man he’d used for monopoly. Then he found a baseball glove Bill had left behind by mistake, and claimed it had to be thrown out. I begged him to let me keep it but he said if Mum saw the glove, she’d be reduced to hysterical tears, go insane and ruin the family. So I waited till he left the house, slipped into his room, took it out of a dresser drawer and hid it under my mattress. The smell of leather seemed to permeate the sheets. I was terrified of discovery.
The following September, I started school at Roslyn and was relieved to find I’d been assigned my own hook in the cloakroom with a cubby above it for my lunch. I smuggled the glove in my koala bear backpack, and kept it hidden all winter, wrapped up in a sweater. The ball of wool reeked of leather and sweat. Walking home each afternoon, I wore my coat unbuttoned even in winter and took in great gulps of air so that no trace of Bill would linger when I walked in the door. In June we had to take everything home. I wanted desperately to hang onto my memento, but fear of damage to our family kept me strong. I gave the glove to Kenny Wilkinson, a boy in my class.
Then there were the pictures. Mom, Dad, Hart aged six, with a huge rip down the side of the photograph where Bill’s image had been removed. No trace of the missing son could remain inside the walls of our home. After I obediently got down on my knees to beg, he handed over one mutilated snapshot, but warned that, should it be discovered, he’d deny everything. I kept the picture locked in my diary. I was careful to write nothing about Bill, a difficult omission that deepened my sense of betrayal and smothered the joy of writing for a very long time.
In 1967, my father was promoted to chief surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital and we moved into a bigger house on Grosvenor Street. By then I was old enough follow the logic: surely our parents could have moved to a bigger house before I was born, with enough rooms for three children. I’d noticed several of my schoolmates slept two to a room. Why didn’t my two brothers get bunk beds? Just as I was about to confront Hart with the irrefutable proof that he had lied, he confessed.
How he confessed! He didn’t just say: “I lied. There is no Bill.” He came into my room in the middle of the night, woke me up with a flashlight pointed at my eyes. Tears running down his cheeks, lips swollen as though he’d been sucking on some poisonous weed, he stroked my hair and begged for forgiveness. Once again I had to swear never to tell anyone, most of all not Mum and Dad.
“I did a terrible thing,” he murmured over and over. “I should never, ever have told you that story. Do not believe me. I’m evil. I will go to hell. Keep your distance from me, Amanda. You’re a good girl. Save yourself. I am the devil.”
That was the essence of Hart’s confession, though it seemed to go on all night. When he finally finished bludgeoning me with self-accusations and semi-comprehensible ravings, I was exhausted and unable to sleep. He seemed to feel much better. He thanked me for understanding and kissed me on the mouth. His spit tasted like milkweed juice and made me shiver.
When he’d gone, I put on the light. I had no idea why Hart had been so churned up by what he wanted to say (to this day, I’m still not sure). But I was no longer afraid. My mind was clear and seething. Carefully, word by word, I replayed everything he’d said, struggling to sort out the implications. Despite his hand-wringing and hysterical sobs, he definitely had not denied the existence of Bill. He simply regretted telling me.
By morning, I’d convinced myself that the truth about our long-lost brother was far darker and more complex than Hart had been able to convey. He might be a boy genius with a brilliant future in any number of fields. He had a cast of spectacular friends, musical talent and athletic prowess to burn, while I struggled with my small body, a hole in my heart that needed operations, and one passion: reading books. But from that night on, I knew Hart also had his limitations. There were issues surrounding the history and health of our family that he was incapable of understanding, though maybe he had coped as well as he could. It hit me then that there were things I knew that Hart did not. He possessed facts but I felt the truth in my bones, and my feelings were somehow more important than Hart’s facts. Stronger, more durable.
With the cold shock of Hart’s “confession,” I discovered in myself a source of protective, big sister love for the ace goalie. I no longer worshipped him, I was concerned about him, and concern gave me confidence. That winter, when I saw him drop to his knees on the ice, watched the puck go whirling through his legs and score a point for the enemy team, I knew there were tears behind the mask. I no longer said: “Ouch!” I shook my fists and yelled: “Get up!”
* * *
Sandrine’s approach to other people’s lives frequently included full-blown scripts and dramatic scenes. One of her fantasies for Hart’s fiftieth was that he would pick up his sax again and blow the roof off. While they were married and trying to live at the same address, his so-called wild side drove her crazy. But she seemed to relish symptoms of creativity in an ex-husband.
At the beginning of the party, Hart had spied the instrument case lying on the brocade ottoman, and snarled. Despite murmurs of gratitude and considerable liquor, he was not totally reconciled to having his golden age revealed to people he rarely if ever bothered to look up. A command performance was, he proclaimed, an invitation to humiliation. It was clear early in the party that Hart was not about to play the saxophone, and he didn’t. But Leroy Munger did.
While Hart went to the door to greet the mystery guest, Leo picked up the sax. He played like a wounded demon, long, sad notes strung together with excruciating clarity. A sublime blues solo, it seemed to come from far away and settle on us all like a melancholy cloud. I wish I could identify the tune, offer an obscure and weirdly appropriate title that would make true blues fans nod sagely and say, how apropos. I can hum the melody and pick it out on the piano, but even the most fanatical scholars have been unable to provide me with a clue. Nor could Munger recall what he played that night, so words will have to do: It was a song that filled you with sorrow
yet somehow made you grateful. An aching wave of knowing, it drowned out an old life and opened up a way to the new, made you feel you were ready, eager, and the only thing to do was close your eyes, pick up a suitcase. Twenty seconds, maybe thirty, that song was an invitation to fly.
I watched my mother listen, saw her lean in, lips open, drinking in the music. The conversation didn’t actually stop; people went on talking but their bodies swayed. I had a strange desire to laugh and cry, and made no effort to resist.
Then we heard the shouts.
Hart’s friends from the hockey team had pretty well accomplished their mission to become obscenely drunk. A witness claimed the trouble started when they became involved. As far as I was able to reconstruct the scene later, Hart and the new arrival had exchanged words at the door, which two burly defensemen interpreted as trouble. They stepped in, that explains the shouts. But we never did discover a wound to account for the amount of blood that covered the stranger’s face and shirt when he was led through the kitchen to a bathroom at the far end of the apartment. Maybe it was just a nosebleed, a nervous reaction. I didn’t ask.
Still, the blood did not obscure his main features. He was a good six foot tall, muscular, with a full head of dark hair and a ruddy complexion. He was steeped in one of those imitation-leather colognes that lingered as he passed. He stayed in the bathroom a long time. When he came out, he was wearing one of Hart’s old shirts, which Sandrine just happened to have on hand. The strong scent was gone. He looked dazed. I noticed his skin wasn’t naturally ruddy. As he stared at the back of my mother’s head, the blood rushed through his body at a fierce rate.
Hart’s obnoxious teammates disappeared into the night with a blast of hale and raunchy farewells. Somebody put on a CD. The new guest, the man who blushed in my mother’s presence, accepted a cold beer and apologised for the mess. He leaned down close to my ear and said: “You must be Amanda.” I nodded.
“I’m Neil Springer. Sorry. I had no idea there’d be a party. I’m up here from Vermont for a Rotary Club convention. Went by the nursing home. They gave me this address. Don’t know what got into me. I should have phoned first . . . or waited.” His brown eyes jumped around the room, landing on my mother, who was slumped in her wheelchair, apparently oblivious to her surroundings.
I said: “You’re my brother, aren’t you?”
He lowered his voice, so nobody heard but me. “Well, your half-brother.”
Then he chug-a-lugged his beer and set the bottle down. “I’m at the Holiday Inn. The boys are waiting. I’d better go.”
On his way out, he stopped, turned around and looked at me. He just stood there, smiling, and it felt as good as a bear hug on New Year’s Eve. Then he nodded and disappeared.
I got myself a Scotch and went out to ask Hotlips Munger for a dance. The tune he was playing I can remember: Heartbreak Hotel. Not exactly original, but it fit my crazy wild state to perfection. I don’t remember feeling that kind of thrill, well, since Kenny Wilkinson.
After giving the baseball glove to Kenny, I had to put up with months of teasing from the other kids, who swore I had a crush on him. Eventually, I stopped minding. We stayed friends through high school, and though he never asked me out, I could tell he was proud of the compliment. When we graduated, he even offered to give me back the glove, but by then I’d dismissed Hart’s tall tale. At least, I was too stubborn to admit the memento meant anything, so I declined. I think I said, “Keep it,” and took a deep breath, a gesture I was working on at the time. It makes your breasts heave slightly and imprints whatever you’ve just said on a guy’s mind. Who was I kidding? I desperately hoped Kenny would never, ever part with that glove, and I would always know where to find it. The glove was part of a terrible secret, blurred by time into a vague memory of loss. Kenny bore the burden like a gallant knight, long after I’d stopped believing.
Next to getting boys to ask me out, my chief interest in high school was literature. I read every novel I could find, and rated them according to my own system. What counted was the initial flash, the moment when your interest clicks in and you just have to know how this is going to turn out. As long as you keep wondering, you keep on reading.
At university, I discovered literary theory, which temporarily dented my enjoyment of stories but fortunately did not completely kill it off. After graduation I burned my theory notes and returned to first principles: to trust the promise a writer makes, to hunger for the power of revelation, the desire for surprise; the exhilaration of being turned inside out by what happens next. I got a job at a publishing house, and after a few unpleasant scuffles with entrenched values, found a manuscript that answered all of my cravings. We published it. Many, many readers agreed with me, so I was on my way.
As a literary editor, I’ve come to know a great variety of creative individuals. Early on, I began to recognise their inventions for what they are: not exactly lies; rather, pools of energy, sparks that must be passed on. The more the spark burns, the more books sell. If there’s a secret to my success as an editor, it lies with my insatiable need to know how a story ends. I can see in the raw chaos of a fresh manuscript the details that should be cut, and those that must stand, in order to pull the reader on.
What I retained from my years in academe was a belief in the importance of text over author, a choice rarely shared by the marketing department, where personality is king. Most writers, I’ve noticed, want two things (in addition to becoming rich and famous): they want to be loved and they want their butts kicked. In other words, they’re looking for mothers and fathers. I’m not the parental type of editor. I don’t love writers, though I do love the thrill of moving down a page of words and finding the spark, following stories that go off on side roads and then veer back and hit you in the face. Happy or sad, it doesn’t matter. Stories end.
Life, meanwhile, has its dramatic moments but tends to go on and on. Unlike literature, where structure provides at least an aesthetic equivalent to resolution, the story of “Bill” did not end cleanly or dissolve into a higher purpose. It sputtered and settled into a slow burn. My half-brother, Neil, is a welder who lives in Shelburne, Vermont. He is married to Wanda, who works part-time at a chain store. They have four children. Their youngest boy, Jack, is close in age to our oldest son, Jacob.
Since the night of Neil’s appearance, my mother — our mother, Kitty — has suffered another stroke, so she cannot effectively be quizzed about this secret from her past. Neil’s research uncovered all we will ever know. He was born when she was seventeen, at a home for unmarried pregnant girls in Vermont. After giving him up for adoption, she returned to Montreal, trained as a nurse and got a job at the Montreal General, where she met Terrance, my father. As far as we could tell, they lived happily ever after.
Neil is a big-hearted man, a well-adjusted human being with an intense love of family life and wonderful children. Wanda has come more slowly to the idea of a new family, but the kids are ecstatic about finding new cousins. I cannot say Neil is an individual I ever imagined having as a member of my family, or for that matter, even knowing — we have little in common besides our mother — and yet there are times when I think I’ve always known him; that the past was a kind of limbo, an unfinished story. Somehow his absence drove everything — my work, my quest to know and embrace America, to succeed in New York. Yes, I am prepared to say I felt the existence of Neil in the absence of the phantom Bill.
The only person who isn’t thrilled about the discovery of our missing brother is Hart. The morning after the birthday party, Neil and I had lunch at his hotel. We basically got acquainted and agreed that he and Wanda should visit Tom and me in New York, and our children. The first visit went very well. They saw a Broadway show and enjoyed getting to know the big city. After that, we planned a trip to Montreal so that Neil could call on Mother and then the whole family could go out to dinner.
Disaster! Hart moved from quiet hostility through scorn and finally left the restaurant in a huff without
touching the bill, which is unusual. Being generous and well off, he normally insists on treating everyone in sight. The following day I dropped by his office. I was furious about his rudeness and wanted to tell him so. He made a few sarcastic swipes at Neil that in retrospect sounded suspiciously like jealousy.
I love Hart dearly and always will. But I have a feeling this rift may grow worse with time. I am struggling to understand him. Maybe he carried a burden of guilt over the way he tortured me with the story of Bill. (His strange middle-of-the-night attempt at repentance only made it worse.) Now this burden has been shifted onto our lost brother. Subconsciously, Hart may have cast Neil as his surrogate self, and is forcing him to bear the loathing, the guilt, the bile Hart kept caged inside for years. This would explain why a fifty-year-old childless stockbroker who is weighted down with misspent intellect cannot accept a half-brother with great kids, and is willing to sacrifice his only sister, because she can accept Neil. Hart feels bad because he lied to me! This, in my opinion, is the deepest truth. His excuse, if he has one. I cannot imagine another.
Although there are smaller points that may illuminate his animosity: Hart is losing his hair, at least it’s thin and turning grey. Neil, though several years older, has a full head and could pass for being in his early forties. Hart has spent more money paying for his mistakes than Neil will ever earn, but Neil has a satisfying trade and a loving wife who thinks he’s a stellar success. He is deeply involved in philanthropic causes, Kiwanis, Rotary Club, junior coaching, his church.
Mankind & Other Stories of Women Page 8
