The Nix(204)

“I really seriously doubt that.”

“About you and her.”

“There are certain things that children let’s say have the right not to know about their mothers.”

“You met each other in college.”

“What I mean is I seriously doubt she wants you to know everything.”

“That was her word. That was the word she used.”

“Yes, but did she mean it literally? Because there are certain things—”

“You met each other in college. You were lovers.”

“This is what I’m saying! There are certain details, certain sexual things of a sexual nature—”

“Tell me the truth, please.”

“Certain, let us say, racy particulars you and I would almost definitely agree we should be spared the embarrassment of, if you understand my drift.”

“You knew my mother in college, in Chicago. Yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“How did you know her?”

“Biblically.”

“What I mean is, how did you come to meet her?”

“She was a new student. I was a counterculture hero. Back then I went by a different name. Sebastian. Sexy, right? And so much better than Guy. You can’t be a counterculture hero and a Guy. That name is way too average. Anyway, your mother sort of fell for me. It happened. And, yeah, I fell for her too. She was a cool girl. Sweet and smart and compassionate and totally uninterested in getting people to pay attention to her, which was unusual for my social circle back then, when even my friends’ wardrobe choices had a kind of Look at me! subtext. Faye never bought into it, which was refreshing. Anyway, I published a newspaper called the Chicago Free Voice. It was the thing all the turned-on kids read. Your late-sixties version of an internet meme, to put it in terms you might understand.”

“It doesn’t sound like my mother to be drawn to something like that.”

“It was a seriously influential newspaper. Really. You can read every edition at the Chicago History Museum. They’ll make you wear these tiny white gloves to touch it. Or you can access it on microfiche. They’ve all been archived and microfiched.”

“My mother is not exactly a people person. Why did she get involved with a protest movement?”

“She didn’t intend to. She was more like dropped into the middle of it, so to speak. Do you even know what microfiche is? Or are you too young for that? Little black-and-white coils that you spool into this machine that blows hot air and goes ka-chunk when you turn the page. Very analog.”

“She was dropped into the middle of it because of you?”

“Me and Alice and this cop who got involved, this guy with some serious jealousy-management issues.”

“Judge Brown.”

“Yes. That was unexpected, encountering him again. Back in ’68 he was a cop who, I think, really wanted to kill your mother.”

“Because he thought she was having an affair with Alice, whom he loved.”

“That’s right! That’s right all the way down to the correct usage of ‘whom.’ Congratulations. Now keep going. Tell me what you know. Tell me about 1988. It’s twenty years later and your mother finally leaves your father, leaves you. Where does she go? Tell me.”

“I have no idea. She goes to live in Chicago? In her tiny apartment?”

“Think harder,” Periwinkle says. He leans forward in his chair, his hands clasped and resting on his desk. “One moment your mother’s in college, in the beating heart of the protest movement, the next she’s married to your dad, the frozen-foods salesman, living his safe suburban life. Imagine how that must have felt for her after all the thrills and drugs and sex of which I’m not going to give you any details. How long could she last being Henry’s housewife before it started burning her up, the decision she didn’t make, the life she could have had?”

“She went to you?”

“She went to me, Guy Periwinkle, counterculture hero.” He spreads his arms like he wants a hug.

“She left my dad for you?”

“Your mother is the kind of person who never feels at home no matter where she is. She didn’t leave your dad for me, per se. She left your dad because leaving is what she does.”

“So she left you too.”

“Not as dramatically, but yes. There was some yelling, some disgust on her part. She said I was abandoning my principles. It was the eighties. I was getting rich. Everyone was getting rich. She wanted a life of books and poetry, but that wasn’t my, shall we say, career trajectory. She wanted another chance to live like a radical, since she blew it the first time. I told her to grow up. I suppose this is what she meant by telling you everything?”

“I think I need to sit down.”

“Here,” Periwinkle says, getting up from his chair. He withdraws to the window and stares out.

Samuel sits and rubs his temples at what feels suddenly like a migraine or hangover or concussion.

“The drumming down there sounds like it’s improvised and chaotic,” Periwinkle says, “but it’s actually on a loop. You just have to wait long enough for the repeats.”

Samuel’s feeling about all this new information is simply to be numb to it for now. He suspects he will be feeling something very powerful, very soon. But right now all he can really do is imagine his mother working up the courage to go to New York, only to be utterly disillusioned once she got here. He imagines her doing this and he feels sad for her. They are exactly alike.