His bushy eyebrows came together. Nodding vaguely, he said, “Oh, well, sure, of course. We’ll just play it by ear then, pal, how’s that sound?” And then he walked off without waiting for an answer, pretending to see someone across the room whose elbow he needed to grab.
My mother announced that it was time to open presents. She always insisted I do this in front of everyone, which was a problem because, as I may have mentioned already, I’m not a good liar. That also means I’m not good at feigning gratitude for regifted CDs of country Christmas music or subscriptions to Field and Stream—for years Uncle Les had labored under the baffling delusion that I am “outdoorsy”—but for decorum’s sake I forced a smile and held up each unwrapped trinket for all to admire until the pile of presents left on the coffee table had shrunk to just three.
I reached for the smallest one first. Inside was the key to my parents’ four-year-old luxury sedan. They were getting a new one, my mom explained, so I was inheriting the old one. My first car! Everyone oohed and aahed, but I felt my face go hot. It was too much like showing off to accept such a lavish present in front of Ricky, whose car cost less than my monthly allowance at age twelve. It seemed like my parents were always trying to get me to care about money, but I didn’t, really. Then again, it’s easy to say you don’t care about money when you have plenty of it.
The next present was the digital camera I’d begged my parents for all last summer. “Wow,” I said, testing its weight in my hand. “This is awesome.”
“I’m outlining a new bird book,” my dad said. “I was thinking maybe you could take the pictures.”
“A new book!” my mom exclaimed. “That’s a phenomenal idea, Frank. Speaking of which, whatever happened to that last book you were working on?” Clearly, she’d had a few glasses of wine.
“I’m still ironing out a few things,” my dad replied quietly.
“Oh, I see.” I could hear Uncle Bobby snickering.
“Okay!” I said loudly, reaching for the last present. “This one’s from Aunt Susie.”
“Actually,” my aunt said as I began tearing away the wrapping paper, “it’s from your grandfather.”
I stopped midtear. The room went dead quiet, people looking at Aunt Susie as if she’d invoked the name of some evil spirit. My dad’s jaw tensed and my mom shot back the last of her wine.
“Just open it and you’ll see,” Aunt Susie said.
I ripped away the rest of the wrapping paper to find an old hardback book, dog-eared and missing its dust jacket. It was The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I stared at it as if trying to read through the cover, unable to comprehend how it had come to occupy my now-trembling hands. No one but Dr. Golan knew about the last words, and he’d promised on several occasions that unless I threatened to guzzle Drano or do a backflip off the Sunshine Skyway bridge, everything we talked about in his office would be held in confidence.
I looked at my aunt, a question on my face that I didn’t quite know how to ask. She managed a weak smile and said, “I found it in your grandfather’s desk when we were cleaning out the house. He wrote your name in the front. I think he meant for you to have it.”
God bless Aunt Susie. She had a heart after all.
“Neat. I didn’t know your grandpa was a reader,” my mom said, trying to lighten the mood. “That was thoughtful.”
“Yes,” said my dad through clenched teeth. “Thank you, Susan.”
I opened the book. Sure enough, the title page bore an inscription in my grandfather’s shaky handwriting.
I got up to leave, afraid I might start crying in front of everyone, and something slipped out from between the pages and fell to the floor.
I bent to pick it up. It was a letter.
Emerson. The letter.
I felt the blood drain from my face. My mother leaned toward me and in a tense whisper asked if I needed a drink of water, which was Mom-speak for keep it together, people are staring. I said, “I feel a little, uh ...” and then, with one hand over my stomach, I bolted to my room.
*
The letter was handwritten on fine, unlined paper in looping script so ornate it was almost calligraphy, the black ink varying in tone like that of an old fountain pen. It read:
As promised, the writer had enclosed an old snapshot.
I held it under the glow of my desk lamp, trying to read some detail in the woman’s silhouetted face, but there was none to find. The image was so strange, and yet it was nothing like my grandfather’s pictures. There were no tricks here. It was just a woman—a woman smoking a pipe. It looked like Sherlock Holmes’s pipe, curved and drooping from her lips. My eyes kept coming back to it.