Calypso(41)

“I don’t think kidneys have corners,” Madelyn said.

“Don’t be such a know-it-all,” I told her. “It’s a really bad trait for a child.”



I’d think back on this exchange the following day, after I’d repeated the story about the iPad to Hugh’s mother. You’re not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you. If there’s a disaster, for instance, and someone tells me he donated five thousand dollars to the relief effort—this while I gave a lesser amount, or nothing at all—I don’t think, Goodness, how bighearted you are, but, rather, Fuck you for making me look selfish.

That said, Hugh’s mother could have given me a little more credit. What I got instead was “You bought a brand-new iPad for some kid you don’t even know? Now, that’s just showing off.”

“Now hold on a minute—,” I said.

“If you really want to help someone, you should think about those Syrian refugees,” she continued.

“I know, but—”

“I see them on TV, some of them drowning, their children dead, and it just tears me apart. That’s who you should be reaching out to, not some American who probably has a car and who knows what else.”

Syria, like Kosovo before it, was one of those stories that started while I wasn’t paying attention or, rather, while I was paying attention to something else—a celebrity wedding, perhaps. Then all of a sudden it was everywhere and I felt it was too late to get into it. The teenager, on the other hand, was right in front of me. Doing something nice for him was easy and immediate and didn’t lead to the mountain of junk mail you’re punished with whenever you give to an established charity.



We had lunch on the deck that afternoon—a salad with shrimp in it. As Hugh brought it to the table, his sister recounted the flight she and Joan had taken from Louisville. There was nothing much to her story—she’d asked a woman to swap seats so she could sit beside her mother, and the woman, quite logically to my mind, said no.

All I do is fly, so one-upping Ann was pretty easy. “A few years back, at a book signing, I met a pilot,” I began. “He flew the Newark to Palm Beach route, right? So it’s December twenty-third, and as they touch down in Florida, one of the flight attendants takes the microphone and delivers her standard landing speech. ‘Please remain seated until the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign has been turned off and be careful when opening the overhead bins. We’d like to wish you a merry Christmas and, to those of you already standing, happy Hanukkah.’”

Joan put down her fork. “Oh, now, she didn’t say that!”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it’s prejudiced.”

“Of course it is, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t say it.”

“Well, that’s just nonsense,” Joan continued. “That never happened. The pilot was just pulling your leg.”

I hate being challenged over a story someone told me. “Really?” I asked. “And do you know him? Were you there?”

“No, but—”

“So actually,” I said, my heart racing as I pushed myself away from the table, “you have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”

Hugh’s opening line when scolding me afterward in the privacy of our bedroom was “How dare you talk to my mother that way.”

I tried to explain why it had so bothered me, and he cut me off. “What’s it like to know that the best part of yourself just got fed to a snapping turtle?”

I then reminded him of the time my father came for Christmas. “It was 1998 in Normandy, and you told him to get the fuck out of your kitchen.”

Hugh crossed his arms. “Again, you’re wrong. What I said was ‘I need for you to get the fuck out of my kitchen.’”

“That’s not better,” I said. “It’s just…longer.”

He insisted I apologize to his mother, and then he stomped into the storage room in search of something—his cloak of self-righteousness, maybe. After he’d left, I changed into my bathing suit and joined my sister on her beach blanket. It was early afternoon, hot and bright. Gretchen was wearing a fudge-colored tankini that disappeared against her skin and made it look like she was naked. “Is that the swimsuit you bought the time we went to Hawaii together?” I asked, still stinging from my most recent arguments. Joan was right, of course, I had been showing off, but so what? A truly decent kid got an iPad out of it. It made him happy, and if it made me happy to tell a few dozen people about it, or, OK, a few thousand, what was the harm? As for the story the pilot told me, why would he have made it up? Why does everything that counters Joan’s worldview have to be false? Bad things happen: People are discriminated against and tortured. Kittens swallow fishhooks and get shot in the head. I’m not saying you should dwell solely on the negative, but why blot it out entirely, especially in a social setting where it’s practically your duty to spark debate and lively conversation?

Then too, why am I always the one to apologize? It wouldn’t kill me to return to the house and say I’m sorry, but I couldn’t have said it with any conviction. It would, in fact, make me the liar I’d just been accused of being, and how was that fair?