Good Riddance(60)

“Her photo albums. Her grading books. Cards and letters she kept.”

“We went through her stuff together. Why didn’t I see it?”

“I didn’t know what I had till I got everything home. You signed off on the albums because you thought it would be nice for my girls to have them. The rest looked like nothing.”

That was true. I remembered that gesture of mine, meant to seem auntly and altruistic, but it had more to do with the limited storage space in my apartment. “When did you find it?”

“What does that matter? At some point, when I was back home, I went through everything.”

“And you found a letter from Mr. Roundtree?”

“No. From his wife.”

“Saying what?”

“Saying, very angrily, leave him alone.”

“Holly, don’t you remember that his wife was crazy? She was in and out of a mental hospital. She thought every woman who ever talked to her husband was in love with him.”

“Why’d Mom keep the letter if the woman was crazy?”

“As evidence. It could be exhibit A in a court case if Mrs. Roundtree ever got sprung from the state hospital and came after Mom.”

“I think there’s something to it. I think he could’ve been the man Mom had an affair with.”

“That’s the best you can do—Lyman Roundtree? I’m almost offended on Mom’s behalf.”

“I think the whole idea of Mom’s cheating on Dad horrifies you. You don’t want to go near it.”

Hmmm. How to play this? I decided to plead guilty to protecting my innocent mother’s virtue. I said, “I think you’re right. I’m bending over backward to keep her memory . . . pure.”

“The podcast sure wants us to think she fooled around with some students. Do you also want to leave that unexplored?”

I said yes; to what end, what good, would it serve otherwise?

“Because if it’s true, Mom and Lyman Roundtree, it explains why she was fired.”

“She was never fired! She was teaching the whole time I was at Pickering High.”

“The union got it fixed. I can’t believe you didn’t know this.”

That again, the favorite/better-daughter competition. I couldn’t admit that I’d missed something so major, so I said, “It’s a little fuzzy, but now I remember Mom and Dad whispering about something job related.” I followed up that lie by asking who had fired her. Surely not Principal Maritch.

“The school board tried to fire her. In executive session.”

“You’re quite the authority on all things Mom.”

Her answer was a nonresponsive, overly breezy “I have another theory: Peter Armstrong.”

Uh-oh. “What makes you say that?”

“Dad getting arrested in his office? C’mon. Dad was angry at something. Does he live in Concord or still in Pickering?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“Why? What possible good would that do anyone? And who’s going to admit to a daughter that he fooled around with her mother? If he’s the one.”

“I’d be fact-checking. I don’t want to get sued for reporting something that never happened—”

“Report to whom? What are you talking about?”

“It’s public knowledge now, Daff. Our mother’s love life has been turned into a podcast. Which reminds me: Weren’t you going to overnight the yearbook to me?”

I told her no, never. I had enough trouble getting it back into my possession. It was in a secure location, locked up.

“I’ll need it eventually. There’s a lot of research still to be done, and I want the original source.”

Had I not caught on yet? “To give to Doug’s lawyer friend?”

“No! For my project!”

After additional backs and forths, purposely vague on Holly’s part, increasingly agitated on mine, I finally got a concrete answer: My sister, who’d dropped out of law school specifically so she’d never have to pick up a pen again, thought she’d witnessed enough dysfunction and scandal to write a memoir.





30


Further Confusion



I’d sent Jeremy a purely informational email announcing a dinner at which I’d be telling my dad everything, laying my soul bare.

Jeremy called immediately even though it was 10:55 p.m. “I think I should be there,” he said.

“Do you mean now?”

“No, the dinner.”

“Why?”

“Can’t it just be for moral support?”

“A little late for that,” I said.

“Unfair and off topic. Deets, please, the when and the where.”

“My place, six o’clock, but—”

“I can do six.”

“On a Saturday? You don’t have tickets to a sold-out Broadway hit?”

“C’mon, Daff.”

“C’mon what?”

“You still sound pissed.”

I didn’t say, You’re right, I’m beyond pissed. How could you do this to us? What a bumpkin, what a romantic fool, thinking that fate and real estate were the things we’d be toasting at . . . Oh, never mind. What I did say was “Why should I be? I always knew our thing came with an expiration date.” Before he could answer, I pivoted to the dinner he wouldn’t be attending, asking, “Do you think I’ll need to play episodes of The Yearbook for my dad or just kinda outline them?”