by Jay Quinn
Karl didn’t answer, but he nodded his head. Suddenly, he didn’t want anything else from his father’s home. The weight of the crucifix and what it stood for was almost more than he could bear. He couldn’t imagine wanting another thing to bind him to what he had been, and what he still was somewhere inside. He sidled up to Caroline and asked her what she’d done with her purse.
“It’s on the chair in the living room,” she said. “Why?”
“Dad gave me his crucifix and I don’t want to forget it,” he said.
“Let me see,” she said.
He handed it to her and she looked at it admiringly. “It’s very old,” she said.
“It was a wedding gift from Frank’s priest,” Annike said clearly. “It’s hung in every place we’ve ever lived.”
“Then we will cherish it,” Caroline told her and stood. “I’m going to put it in my purse.”
“It has been blessed,” Annike said. “It will bless your home.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Karl said as he resumed his seat and Caroline strode away.
“It’s a big deal, Karl,” Sven said seriously. “I don’t think he could have given you anything that meant more to him.”
“I think it was sweet of him,” Melanie said. “I’ll have to get one for my place with Drew.”
“No,” Karl said suddenly. “Your mother and I will get one for you and have it blessed. It’s a family tradition.”
“Okay,’’ Melanie said in surprise. She knew her father was not an overtly religious man. “I didn’t know it meant so much to you.”
Karl looked at his daughter and told her—as he was telling himself at that moment—”Some traditions are worth keeping.”
“I have a request,” Annike announced quietly. As everyone turned to her, she placed her hands on the table and folded them together in a gesture that could have meant either pleading or prayer. After a moment, she said, “It would make me very happy if we could all go to mass together tomorrow morning. I know it’s very early, but I promise you won’t have to dress up. I wear pants myself,” she admitted with a nervous chuckle. “But since it’s the last time we will all be together, I’d like to have you all in church with me,” she concluded humbly.
“Mom, it’s not going to be the last time we all get together,” Sven said gently.
“It will be the last time I will be aware that we are,” Annike said baldly. “It’s no good pretending we don’t all know that. In a way, I am leaving you all. At least when I lose my mind I get to watch moments of my life again, like reruns on TV. One of the memories I’d like to have is all of us together in church, as a family.”
Karl felt blackmailed. His mother’s request was certainly not out of character. She had always been the one to get them to church each and every Sunday morning when Karl was a boy. She was the one responsible for the inculcation of the faith in her two sons. It was out of fear of offending her that Karl had insisted that he and Caroline be married in the Catholic Church, despite the fact that Caroline’s religious life was spotty at best and she had announced her intention to remain a Protestant. However, at Annike’s insistence, she and Karl had raised Melanie as Catholic. Karl felt the maternal steeliness in Annike’s attitude toward Catholicism that he had been subjected to all his life. Presented with her request at that moment, part of him wanted to rebel and refuse outright. He had long marginalized religion in his life, and with this request his mother was making a last-ditch effort to bring him back into the fold.
In the silence that followed Annike’s request, Karl felt Caroline’s knee press his thigh under the table. He knew what she was communicating, but he remained silent despite her insistent urging with her knee.
“I’d love to go with you, Grandmere,” Melanie finally said. “The last time I went to church was Ash Wednesday. It’ll be nice to go as a family. I remember going to Christmas Eve masses at your church since I was a little girl.”
“I didn’t know you went to mass on Ash Wednesday,” Karl said to his daughter. “You didn’t mention it.”
“It’s no big deal, Dad,” Melanie said defensively. “I go on all the holy days. I always have, even in college.”
“I had no idea,” Karl said honestly. In that moment, he wavered. As he was about to speak, Caroline reached across the table and folded her hand around Annike’s clasped ones. “We’ll all come,” she said, without even glancing at Karl. “We’ll pile into Sven’s big Excursion and meet you and Dad there.”
“It’s no big deal to me,” Sven said. “I usually meet Mom and Dad there on Sunday mornings anyway. I like going to the 8: 00 A. M. mass. That way I have it over and done with.”
Karl looked at his brother and nodded. Finally, he turned to his mother and said, “I’ll go. But I want you to know I’m doing it for you and nobody else.”
Annike looked at him and smiled. “Thank you, Son.”
She won, Karl thought bitterly, but she always dots. Resentfully, he shifted in his seat to move away from the touch of Caroline’s knee under the table. For a moment, his resentment rested on an adolescent feeling that his opinions and ideas weren’t being considered or respected. That his mother had so shamelessly played her health card on something he considered trivial annoyed him. And the fact that he was so easily and deftly manipulated by her stung.
“You guys ready to divvy up the loot?” Frank asked cheerfully as he laid his legal pad, masking tape, and pens on the table and sat down.
Caroline laughed nervously and looked around the table. “Well, I’m not shy,” she said. “Annike, could I please have your desk? I’ve admired it for so long, and I’m trying to put my office together in the town house. I promise you I’ll take good care of it.”
“You certainly may have my desk,” Annike responded happily. “But I will tell you to get another chair for it. The one I have is not comfortable. Better to let it go to Saint Vincent de Paul.”
“Thank you so much,” Caroline said and stood. She walked to her mother-in-law’s side and hugged her.
“It has so many happy memories for me. Frank and I bought it in a very nice shop in Stockholm, when I went home after my mother died,” Annike told her as Caroline patted her shoulder and looked up at her with her still-clear blue eyes. “I am so pleased it will have a new home with you.”
“Mom, I want your grandmother’s blue-and-white china,” Sven said eagerly.
“There’s not a great deal of it,” Annike told him. “I think there are only five full place settings. It was old when my grandmother was a girl.”
“It’s genuine Chinese export,” Sven told her. “If you let me have it, I won’t just put it away. I’ll use it every day.”
“Oh, I know you will,” Annike said with a smile, then she turned to Melanie and said, “Sven used to beg me to use those dishes when he was a little boy. Sometimes he would surprise me by taking them out and setting the table here in the dining room.”
“I did,” Sven said and grinned. “I used to pretend we were having a big dinner party with all kinds of interesting people. When Dad got home, I’d take him by the hand and drag him in to look at the table, and he’d always ask me if I was having another party—didn’t you?” he asked his father.
“Yeah, I played along,” Frank admitted grudgingly, “but I always used to wonder why you spent your afternoon planning a dinner party instead of playing outside.”
“Old things have always interested Sven,” Annike said proudly. “Even when he was little, he used to ask me about the stories behind those dishes and the clocks. Those were really the only old things we had. When I met Frank, he was stationed in Germany and I was still living in Paris, working as a secretary at an engineering firm that had contracts with the army. I had nothing and your grandfather had less. When we married just before he was discharged, I came here with only my two suitcases.”
“How did you get the china and clocks here, Grandmere?” Melanie asked. She was genuinely interested. She’d never heard this part of the s
tory before.
“My grandmere shipped them to me,” Annike said as her eyes grew misty. “She said I must have something of my homeland, of my past, to make my home in America more familiar.”
“I think Melanie or Caroline should have first dibs on the china, Sven,” his father said abruptly.
“Uncle Sven is welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned,” Melanie told her grandfather. “I already have my wedding china picked out, and I’ve been buying my everyday dishes and storing them away for the past two years.”
“How about you, Caroline?” Frank offered. “Wouldn’t you like that antique china? It should stay in the family. You could keep it for Melanie’s children.”
Caroline shook her head. “No, thank you, Frank. I have tons of china of my own and I really don’t have anywhere to store it since we’ve moved into the town house. I think Sven should take it.”
“Dad, I promise you that I’ll pass it along to Melanie’s kids someday. I think it should stay in the family as well,’’ Sven said earnestly.
Frank gave him a sour look. “Are you sure you won’t get sick of it and sell it in that store of yours? You know how much something that old is worth. Who’s to say you won’t mark it up and move it along?”
Everyone looked away from Frank nervously. Karl finally spoke up and said, “Dad, Sven really appreciates it, and I don’t think he’d ever sell it. I think Sven should have it.
Sven looked at his father anxiously but didn’t say anything more.
“Take it, then,” Frank told him dismissively. “I suppose you have other stuff picked out as well, though I don’t know why. It’s not like you haven’t already gotten your share.”
Karl watched Sven’s expression drop in defeat, and it seemed as if his shoulders sagged as well. Karl sensed his father’s comment was aimed deliberately below the belt, and he wondered why. “Wait a minute, Dad. Why are you being so difficult to Sven? What are you talking about?” Karl said with some annoyance. It seemed to him that his father was just being obnoxious.
“Dad loaned me thirty-five thousand dollars for the down payment on my house,” Sven said evenly. “To date, I’ve only been able to pay him back about seven thousand.”
“Six thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars, to be exact,” Frank announced.
“That’s none of our business,” Karl said abruptly. “That’s just between you and Dad.”
“No,” Frank insisted. “It came out of the pot, and turnabout is fair play. You didn’t come whining to me for a down payment on your first house. I’ve never favored one of you over the other, and I think that the way things are going, Sven won’t ever pay me back.”
“Dad, really…” Karl began.
“So what else do you want, Sven?” their father demanded.
“Actually, that was it, Dad,” Sven said and stood. “I just wanted the blue-and-white china. That’s all. If you guys will excuse me, I’m going to start washing up.”
“Sven, wait,” Annike said as he began to make his way to the kitchen.
“Let him go,” Frank said disgustedly. “You have always been so eager to give him anything he wants. It’s always been you two in your own little world. It’s always made me wonder.”
“Wonder what, dear?” Annike asked placatingly.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Frank insisted.
“No, Frank. I have no idea why you’re always so hard on Sven,” Annike said defensively.
“Well, since you brought it up,” Frank said angrily, “I’ve always had my doubts that he was my son to begin with.”
Sven stopped and turned around to glare at his father.
“Frank, no one wants to hear your wild imaginings right now. This is family time. Besides, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Annike said confusedly.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” Frank said dismissively. “Look at him! He’s Fredrik Von Schewen’s kid, not mine. I’ve always thought you had an affair with Fredrik. That’s why you’ve been so partial to Sven all these years. He’s your lover’s son. And I may have forgiven you, but I can’t ever seem to accept him,” Frank said, punctuating his remarks by jabbing a finger at Annike and at Sven.
Everyone was dumbfounded by Frank’s venomous accusation and outburst. Sven stood frozen in place. Caroline and Melanie looked at each other and then at the tabletop before them. Only Karl looked at his father with openmouthed amazement.
Karl remembered Fredrik Von Schewen. For a period of about eight months when he was eleven years old, the young Swede had been a frequent visitor to their home in New Jersey. Single and alone in the United States after college, he had worked with Frank as a developmental engineer for the company Frank had been employed by before IBM. Sensing the young man’s loneliness and remembering his own when he’d been stationed in Germany as an army engineer after World War II, Frank had taken the young man under his wing and brought him home to visit with his Swedish wife. Karl had taught the man how to play softball. They had often played catch in the backyard before his mother called them in for dinner.
Karl remembered him fondly. To be honest, Karl thought, Sven did have the look of the man. Compared with Karl’s dark hair and height, which were obviously a result of his father’s genes, Sven looked as if he could be the offspring of the young, blond, compact Swede Fredrik. Karl searched his mind, trying to remember why the young man had stopped coming by, but he’d been only a kid, and the comings and goings of the adult friends of his parents weren’t his main concern at the time. His father’s accusation had summoned the man from nowhere, forty years later, in the dining room of his parents’ house so far from that place and time.
“You are a goddamn jealous fool,” Annike said and slammed her hand down on the table, startling everyone to attention.
Frank eyed his wife with the look of a cur that had been kicked.
“How dare you accuse me of being unfaithful!” Annike said, and leaned forward across the table as if to slap her husband.
“Convince me I’m wrong,” Frank demanded.
“No! You have wasted forty years of our lives with this insane stupidity,” Annike shouted. “This is not the first time you’ve brought it up, and I have had enough.”
Everyone else in the room did their best to keep their mouths closed. Annike’s forcefulness and anger stunned them like a blow. She had never been prone to arguments and shouting. Her outburst was so out of character for her normally placid personality that Karl and Sven had never witnessed anything remotely like it, even when they had angered her as children.
“Frank Preston,” she spat as she stood to confront him, “I am disgusted with you. I have always wondered why you were so resentful of your own child. I have listened to you as you have belittled him and mocked him his entire life. You! The man I have slept next to nearly all my life, the man I have loved for so long, have been tormenting yourself and Sven over Fredrik, a mere boy, who you yourself brought into our home. If you weren’t so blindly jealous, you would have seen it was you Fredrik Von Schewen fancied, not me. He was a poor, lonely, confused youth who needed your approval far more than mine.” And then Annike began to laugh.
“You’re crazy,” Frank said, stunned by her counterattack.
“So I’ve been told,” Annike managed to get out as she laughed even harder. Finally, she contained herself enough to say, “I may be crazy, but I am not lying. I confronted Fredrik with what I saw and he admitted he was in love with you. Oh, how he cried. He begged me not to tell you. He was so frightened for his job, his citizenship application. He thought if anyone knew he was a homosexual he would never work in this country again, maybe even be deported. Why do you think he stopped coming to our house? Did you think it was because of me?”
Frank looked as if Annike had hit him. Guiltily, he glanced around the table with obvious embarrassment. “You never told me any of this,” he said accusingly. “When you got pregnant after so long, I didn’t think I had anything to do with
it. I mean, it had been twelve years, for God’s sake. I thought something was wrong with me.”
“Let me tell you something, husband,” Annike said bitterly, “there was nothing wrong with you. You always told me birth control was a woman’s business. So I made it my business not to get pregnant again, until the emptiness in my life was unbearable.”
“I had no idea you thought your life was empty,” Frank managed to utter, raising his hands as if to ward off her words. “You never discussed it with me.”
“You were never interested,’’ Annike said and folded her arms across her chest. “I had Sven for me. You had abandoned me emotionally and kept me locked up in this birdcage, refusing to let me work or have any sort of life of my own. It was you that cheated by letting your own jealousy and wild imagination come between us. But Sven is your son just as much as your beloved Karl is. I couldn’t be unfaithful to you—I could never let myself do that. But I could have another child to fill my life, and I did, and I will not apologize.”
“Annike, when did I ever abandon you?” Frank pleaded.
“You must excuse me,” Annike said to the room, ignoring her husband. “I am afraid I have wet myself. It is because of all the laughter.” With that, she backed out of the room and left them.
Frank dropped his hands and looked up at his youngest son, “Sven…”
Sven just looked at him and shook his head before leaving the room and going into the kitchen.
“Karl, Caroline… I’m so sorry,” Frank said earnestly. “I hate that you had to hear that. But it’s been eating away at me for years. I admit I’m a jealous man. And Sven is just so goddamn not what I wanted or expected out of a son. Karl, you know I’m not a bad father. But you know you’ve always been my favorite. Please tell me you understand.”
Karl looked at his father for a moment, trying to think of how to respond. Suddenly so much became clear to him. He had always basked in his father’s approval, and all his life he’d geared circumstances and made decisions consciously and subconsciously to make his father proud, to keep his father’s approval. Then there was the realization of why his father was so vocal in his disapproval of Sven and his homosexuality: not only did this revelation make sense of his father’s emotional battering of Sven, it also made Karl realize that his father’s long-harbored jealousy was, at least in part, behind Karl’s own status as the favored son. It had never occurred to Karl that his father might have been desired by another man. But in the case of Fredrik Von Schewen, Frank had to have been aware of something. And the way he must have dealt with it was by projecting it all onto his wife. The resulting treatment of his son was such a complex puzzle of jealousy and self-doubt that it beggared Karl’s reckoning. He didn’t know what to say to his father. Forty years of abusive behavior couldn’t be excused or pardoned by a simple sentence.
