“You’re not a pure hedgehog, are you?” Sam said.
Eleanor shook her head.
“My favorite movie is Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Sam said.
“Not Star Wars?”
“?‘He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him,’?” Sam said.
—
Lea called Sam. “What do we do about Harry?” she asked. “He’s stuck on being right. As if that mattered more than being decent. What did you say to him? He won’t tell me.”
“I said if he didn’t pull himself together, he’d wreck the family, and I’d never forgive him. I was very angry. I’m still very angry,” Sam said.
“I’m sorry,” Lea said.
“I loved my father,” Sam said. “He never for one minute wanted me to be straight. He wanted me to be me. In the world of parents of gays, that is so rare. Andrew says he was the snow leopard of dads.”
“Is this only about your father, not your mother?” Lea said.
“Both. I don’t understand why he’s so mad at her. He wasn’t close to Dad but he loves Mom,” Sam said. “He’s always believed he was her favorite. He’s always acted as though the rest of us were superfluous. Case in point.”
“He’s trapped himself. It’s reached a state of imminent mortification with him, backing down, that is. He was expecting Lana Turner; she gave him Bette Davis. He was sure she would confess; he still can’t believe she didn’t.”
“I don’t understand how he could have done it. He led the charge against the Wolinskis because their lawsuit was an insult to our parents. But he can insult them, is that it?”
“What do we do?” Lea said.
“He needs to apologize to Mom—a clean apology, or as clean as he can manage,” Sam said. “He can think whatever he wants, but he can’t talk about it to her. Or anyone. If he keeps on, there will be civil war, with Jack the only one on speakers with him.”
“Could he be right?” Lea said.
“Oh, Lea,” Sam said, “don’t go there. Don’t join him.”
“I love him. It’s been hard,” she said.
“Is something else going on with him?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. She was silent for a few moments. Sam waited. “Freud for dummies. All this displaced anger. Is he going to blame me for something he’s done, something he’s doing? It’s always the woman’s fault, isn’t it, ever since Eve?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said.
“Unlike him, I can’t ask,” she said. “I might have to leave him.”
“Dad dies, and we fall apart,” Sam said.
—
Sam had never seen his parents fight. When he was nine, he asked Harry and Will if they had. They hadn’t. “They don’t fight and they don’t hug or kiss,” Harry said. “They’re WASPs.” “Do they love each other?” Sam asked. “Of course,” Harry said. “They’re married.” Watching them sitting side by side on the library sofa, reading the paper or looking at TV, Sam longed for his mother to rest her head on his father’s shoulder, his father to lay his hand on her knee. He offered up his comic-book collection. Neither moved, though his father looked at his mother in a way that Sam thought was like an invisible hand on her knee. There were other signs too. They went to bed at the same hour and locked their bedroom door. He knew; he had tried the handle.
Sam had never seen his grandparents fight either, but he didn’t need to consult Harry. Their politeness to each other was guerrilla warfare. Every “please,” every “thank you” bristled with hostility. They couldn’t stand each other. It was a secret everyone knew and no one mentioned. At the holidays, Eleanor served buffet dinners so her father could sit in the living room, her mother in the dining room. At the end of an evening, Granddad would send Gran home alone in the car. He liked to stay on to smoke a cigar, an activity forbidden at home. The driver would come back later for him. No one liked Eleanor’s mother, but no one except Rupert was allowed to be rude to her.
Sam loved his grandfather the way he loved no one else ever; it was undefended love, love without boundaries. “There’s a meeting of the minds with me and Poppa,” he told his mother. For Sam’s tenth birthday, Mr. Phipps bought him a dissection kit and a fetal pig marinated in formaldehyde. Sam was over the moon. The next week, Mr. Phipps asked him two questions; they would become his standard greeting: “What did you observe today?” and “What did you think about what you observed?”
“Is this about my pig, Poppa?” Sam asked. “Are you training me to be a scientist?”
“Partly,” said his grandfather. “Mostly, I’m training you to be a person.”
“Sometimes I see things that make me sad, things I’d like to fix but can’t,” Sam said.
“Ah,” Poppa said.
“Do you have to live with Granny?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” Poppa said. “It’s my duty. Old-fashioned, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think I have a sense of duty,” Sam said.
“Good,” Poppa said. “It can hobble your life.”
When Eleanor’s mother died a year and a half later, only her father and Rupert went to the graveyard. The funeral service had been impersonal: readings, hymns, prayers. The priest gave a canned eulogy. Eleanor remembered him saying, “She was a remarkable woman.” The day was rainy and cold. “No one need go to the interment,” Mr. Phipps told the mourners. “We’ll meet you back at Eleanor’s.” At lunch, out of the presence of their parents, the boys speculated: “Pops and Dad went to the graveyard to make sure she was dead,” Jack said.
“I didn’t cry. Nobody cried,” Tom said.
“Will anyone miss her?” Sam asked.
“Did anyone love her?” Harry asked.
“Did she love anyone?” Will asked.
Sam knew she didn’t love him. When he was four, he had asked his grandmother if she knew how to wipe a little boy. There was some urgency to the question. His grandparents were looking after the boys while Eleanor went out briefly to do an errand. “Are you saying you can’t wipe yourself?” she said. “Are you a baby?” Mr. Phipps rose from the sofa. “This is between us men,” he said. He took Sam to the bathroom. “Was Granny ever a little girl?” Sam asked his grandfather. Sam would not miss her.
After the guests had left, Mr. Phipps took a walk over to Lincoln Center with Eleanor. “She was very beautiful, your mother, as a young woman, and I knew nothing of young women,” he said. “I can’t regret the marriage. There’s you. I’m sorry we stopped you from marrying Jim Cardozo.”
“No need to apologize,” Eleanor said. “I married the right man.” She gave a small laugh. “You kept me from making your mistake.”
“Well, well,” Mr. Phipps said. “I’ll take the credit.” He patted her hand. “I love Rupert,” Mr. Phipps said.