He started in by saying he felt we had made real progress over the past couple of weeks and that he had enjoyed having me stay at his house, especially because he got to meet my eclectic group of friends.
I sat there listening to all of the compliments, knowing that there would be bad shit on the other side of the forthcoming “but.” Finally that “but” was verbalized, which took us to the news that Femke was back in the picture permanently. She had supposedly gotten all of the weatherman-fucking out of her system and was now allegedly ready to become a faithful wife again, and a loving mother too.
Despite everything that had happened, she still somehow had her job at that “sister school,” which apparently did not value attendance when it came to its professors skipping entire weeks of class just to satisfy their sexual urges.
I could understand Femke wanting to come back to the greatest country in the world. You’d have to be a fucking moron to pick the Netherlands over America—that was a no-brainer. But I couldn’t really understand what was driving her back to Hank. My dumb and financially irresponsible son had not made Femke sign a prenuptial agreement, or at least he got fucking red-faced mad at me when I suggested it, back in the day, so that Dutch bitch could have easily run off with Ella and half of Hank’s hard-earned art-selling fortune, despite the fact that she had been unfaithful. My son lacks the killer instinct necessary to turn the tables and fight for a favorable outcome. He’s never lawyered up in his entire life.
Right there on the side of the ice-skating rink, Hank told me that he loved Femke enough to forgive her, and that he was doing this for Ella too, because she needed a mother.
I didn’t say anything in response. I know when I am beat.
Hank kept talking, trying to convince himself that he was right, saying things about my Jessica and how I would have surely taken her back had she had a “single moment of weakness.”
And that’s when I put a finger in Hank’s face and said his mother’s whole goddamn life was one big moment of weakness on account of her depression, but she managed to refrain from fucking other men while we were married.
And that’s when Hank said, “But Mom still left us, and she never came back. Never. At least Femke returned home.”
That sad bit of logic caught me off guard. On one hand, Hank was right. His mother had left us, and I’d never really held her accountable for that, because I loved her so goddamn much.
On the other hand, Jessica’s suicide had fucked up my son to the point where he was still unable to see clearly when it came to women, even three decades after his mother’s fiery exit from the planet. And I had to blame Jessica a little bit for that, even though I didn’t want to.
So I pressed my lips together tightly, trying to keep the fighting words from coming out of my mouth.
I watched Ella push her little feet right and left as she glided around the rink on two shiny blades of steel, mouthing the lyrics to some bubblegum pop song that was playing and I didn’t know.
Maybe it would be better for her if her mother never left again. Maybe she would avoid Hank’s fate. I didn’t know much about how modern families worked. I only knew that I had fucked up my own beyond repair long ago.
“Femke calls me ‘Aap,’ ” I finally said. “She hates me. So I guess I’m out.”
Hank went on to say that he had shared with Femke all that he had learned about me, meaning that I exercised and did business with the gays and had a genetically Vietnamese daughter now and was soon to have a black son-in-law too. He said that Femke was impressed with all of the above, because she’s a moron who keeps track of these things. I didn’t believe that I would ever be able to forgive her, nor would I ever get used to being called Aap, but there was such hope in my son’s expression—hope that I hadn’t seen for a long time.
And Ella was trying to skate backward and doing a pretty good job of it, even if her legs were shaking because she was nervous. I was proud to see that my granddaughter was at least brave, and that’s when I decided that maybe I needed to be a little braver too.
And so I told Hank that I had to go face my nemesis from the Vietnam War so that I could have closure once and for all.
“Clayton Fire Bear?” Hank asked. “The name you kept repeating at the hospital? He was your nemesis?”
I nodded and told him about that big Indian motherfucker, only I didn’t go into great detail—I told Hank I had stolen an Indian soldier’s knife, and I had to return it before the Indian or I died, because it was the right thing to do.
“Should we be saying ‘Indian’ or ‘Native American’?” Hank asked, as if a tomahawk-wielding red man in a full feather headdress might skate by any moment just to answer him.
It was no use trying to explain. Hank had been lucky enough to avoid combat duty, and therefore he wouldn’t understand what I have been talking about in this here politically incorrect report. He asked a few more dumb civilian questions before I shut him down completely by saying, “Frank understands. He’s helping me. It doesn’t concern you.”
Hank got this wounded look on his face, but there was nothing I could do about that.
We just watched Ella go round and round for another hour or so, and there was part of me that wished we could just stand there watching her for the rest of our lives, free and clear of Femke forever. Your employer taking out a part of my brain had mellowed me a bit, no doubt, although I know that was not the US government’s primary intention.
The rest of the day went by in a blur. While Hank and Ella and I were walking through the mall and eating at the food court and then driving home, my thoughts were back in Vietnam, remembering the day when I was ordered to “break the wild Indian.”
I kept playing the whole scene over and over again in my head, thinking about what children we both were, and wondering if Fire Bear had actually carved his name in the bottom of Jessica’s underwear drawer, and what would happen when I showed up all these years later with his bear-bone knife and all of these questions.
Frank was convinced that it would be good for both of us, but I wasn’t so sure. What if Fire Bear still wanted to scalp me?
Hank kept asking me if I was okay, and I kept blaming my distance on the fucking brain meds they had me on, which are exceptionally awful, so that lie was partially true.
Back at my house, while Ella was watching some unicorn princess bullshit on the television and Hank was making an inedible heart-healthy meal, I caught a smoke in the backyard and called Frank.
When he picked up, he was out of breath, which meant he was either having a heart attack or he had just finished fucking Geneva, since Frank hasn’t exercised since high school. That was his business, so I left it alone.