He coughed, once, and continued. “This went on for a while, and Abby kept asking Mother why Father didn’t come to her recital, why Father never took us out to dinner anymore. When he was home on the weekends—and he was even busy working then, bringing home a big briefcase stuffed with papers—he would throw a ball with me or listen to Abby on her cello, something he said he loved. But he still wasn’t always there—part of him was always back at the office. So one day—it was June and we weren’t in school—the doorbell rings and I go to answer it and it’s Uncle Wat, beaming down at me like Santa Claus without a beard. That’s how I remember him that day. Abby came running downstairs when she heard his voice, and he swept us both into a big bear hug and said he was coming to stay with us for a while if that was okay. We thought it was fantastic. We loved Uncle Wat—Mother didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so he was our only uncle. He always gave us great Christmas presents and told stories about hunting trips he’d gone on or how he’d once seen a live sperm whale. Wat told us that his town house had to be renovated, so he was going to stay in our guest room until it was finished.” Fritz started walking again—it was still chilly if you didn’t move around—and I kept pace with him as we slowly walked round the yard again.
“Even then, I figured there was something else going on,” Fritz said. “I think my parents had decided that if Father couldn’t be home much, then Uncle Wat could sort of step in as a replacement dad, someone to help Mother with us. Wat worked hard and spent a lot of time at NorthPoint, too, but he always seemed to have time to do something with us, whether it was attending one of Abby’s recitals or coming to one of my swim meets or just having dinner together, laughing and eating more than anyone else.
“I could tell Mother liked having him around, too. You know Wat—he’s bigger than life. When he’d walk into a room, it was like someone had turned on extra lights, and you hadn’t even realized until then that it had been kind of dark earlier. Mother craved the company of another adult. She’d been an art history major at Vassar and probably would have ended up curating at a museum, except that she married my father and stayed home to raise us. With Father being gone so much, she’d started reading a lot, hours at a time stretched out on the couch. Sometimes she wore her dressing gown all morning. She was smoking, too, every once in a while going out onto the deck out back for a cigarette. Abby actually yelled at her about it once, and Mother told her that she wasn’t doing it in the house, she wasn’t flaunting it in front of us, and that it was her business.
“With Wat home, though, Mother changed. She was . . . cautious, at first, protective of what had been her run of the house. That vanished inside of a week. She laughed more, for one thing. Wat told outrageous stories and jokes, and he was always very gallant with Mother, pulling out her seat for her at dinner, complimenting her food, all that. She started wearing lipstick again, too. Abby teased her about it at dinner one night, and Wat told her that beauty was something to be admired, not ridiculed. He was being the dashing gentleman, you know, even gave a little wink to Mother, like she was in on the joke, but she blushed a little.
“When Father came home one night, a bit earlier than usual, we were all eating dinner and listening to Wat tell a story about a hot air balloon ride and his beauty pageant date, who was getting airsick. It was hysterical. Abby was snorting, and my stomach hurt from laughing. Mother was holding her hand to her mouth, saying, ‘Wat, now stop,’ but clearly not wanting him to stop. I was the first one to see my father. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, right across from me, watching us. I stopped laughing immediately. His expression was pretty blank, but my first thought on seeing him was that I was doing something wrong. Then I realized that he was watching what our family was supposed to be like, but wasn’t. It was one of the few times I felt like I understood my father, empathized with him, even. After a minute, Mother saw him and stood up. He waved her down and pulled up another chair, and Wat finished his story, although what we had thought was hysterically funny now only seemed amusing. I remember feeling a little embarrassed and wondering why we’d all been laughing so hard.
“It was maybe a week later, I guess. It was pouring rain outside, had been all day. Abby was at another cello lesson, and Wat and Mother and I were stuck in the house. Father was at work, of course. I was in a funk. I didn’t want to listen to any of my music, read a book, watch TV, any of that. I was just bored, you know? The way we’d get sometimes at Blackburne on Sundays, sick of the day and wanting it to end but dreading Monday at the same time? Well, that was me that day.
“Mother tried to play Scrabble with me, but we ended up fighting about words and spelling. Wat was sitting in a corner, reading Shakespeare of all things, Much Ado about Nothing, but he would look over the top of his book to watch us play. Mother kept building really good words off mine. I’d play help and she’d build epoxy off that, and get a double-word score. She was getting a kick out of it, too, I could tell. Now I look back and think she wasn’t thinking about beating me as much as winning a game, if that makes sense. But all I saw was that my mother seemed to enjoy making me look stupid. Then she played jovial for something like sixty points, and I was so irritated, I shoved the board away from me. Next thing I knew, she got up out of her seat and slapped me. She’d never done that before. I was being an asshole, I know, but then she just . . . cracked me across my face. She was pissed, but it all drained out of her face as soon as she realized what she’d done, and then she looked . . . I don’t know, old, I guess, and scared. I stormed upstairs, ignoring her as she called to me, and I heard Wat say something to her before I slammed my bedroom door and fell on the bed. I cried, man. Bawled into my pillow. My own mother had hit me, you know?
“After a while, there was a knock on my door. It was Wat. He came in and closed the door behind him and came over and sat down on my bed, his hand on my back. He didn’t say anything. I felt . . . like I was safe. Like he was on my side. ‘It’s all right to cry,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing embarrassing about crying.’ I sat up and wiped my arm across my face, trying to get the snot off. He handed me a handkerchief, and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and all.”
Fritz stopped walking and looked again at the Saint Christopher medal in his hand, although I got the sense that he was no longer seeing the medal, or anything else other than his memory. We had walked around to the far side of the yard across from his trailer by a stack of hay bales. Somewhere beyond the trailer, I could hear men calling to one another, and a bull lowing. Fritz continued to stare at nothing. I was about to say something, his name maybe, when he sighed and looked at me, his eyes sad and weary.
“He kissed me,” he said.
I had no idea how to reply, so I simply parroted his words back at him. “He kissed you?”
“I turned to give him his handkerchief back, and he leaned over and kissed me, full on the mouth.” Fritz said this clearly and without obvious emotion in his voice, although the bleak look in his eyes was awful to see. “I was shocked, you know? Like I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there and let my uncle kiss me.”
“Fritz—”