30 Pieces of a Novel (80 page)

mistake,” but
they push him away and run to their mother's room.
“So run
, run; that's what everyone should do with me. What's it matter anyway?” and thinks, It's always going to be like this. He's kidding himself to no end if he thinks he can ever change. Things pile up on him or seem to and it gets to him, that's all. Or it's not that but this: They'll do relatively nothing, he'll think it's a lot, he'll start berating and insulting them, they'll do what they should do and that's to fight back, he'll insult harder, they'll start crying, and he'll suddenly see what he's done and apologize but by then it'll be too late. It's never going to be
anything but that
. Or it will, but only for a few days to a week. Then back to normal and worse. Something like that. It's all one big confusion now, but he has to face it: when it comes to this home here, he's a hopeless case. He has to get away before he does even more damage to them. What was it someone once said? Forget it, what's the use of anything anyone says? No, years ago, when Fanny was less than a year old, not even walking yet. One of his married colleagues, over to the house for dinner, Fanny sitting on Gould's lap, and she reached out her bare feet till they were on the table and he said, probably kissing the top of her head, “Sweetheart, no little tootsies on the table while people are eating,” and put them on his lap, and she laughed and extended them again to the table and he put them back on his lap and held them there while he ate or drank with his other hand, and she started crying and he set her down and said, “Just sit there, or crawl to your mother, but you have to learn sometime about not putting your feet on the table,” and his colleague said, “What a responsibility, and I don't say this facetiously, and I'm only taking this minor incident as an example, to be so important to her in her formative years. The magnitude of it and the consumption of one's time makes me feel I could never be self-neglectful enough to have a child.” And what did he answer the guy? What's the difference? The point here is that those formative years are long gone for both girls, and he failed. Now he's ruining their adolescent and teenage years, and if he stays with them he can be sure they'll be screwed up as adults. No matter what, he knows they'll be a lot better off without him than whatever good could come by his sticking around. So it's settled, then, right? and he thinks he tried but just couldn't swing it—“swing” isn't the word he wanted, but he knows what he means—and calls a cab, quickly sticks a few things of his into a shopping bag, cleans up the orange juice mess with the rest of the cloth napkins, starts up the washing machine with the napkins and a couple of soiled dish towels and a few things his wife had put in the night before, listens for his family—if one of them did come out he'd say the car isn't working and he's taking a cab to work and will see to the car later on—and goes outside to wait for the cab. During the drive he thinks, A note. No, by late tonight they won't even need a phone call from him or from someone at work asking why he hasn't come in to know that he's gone for good. This could be the saddest moment in his life if he thinks of it, he thinks, so he's not going to think of it if he can help it, and he stares out the window and breaks down. He gets on the train and a day later gets off in a big midwest city. No reason he chose this one other than to get far away in a not-too-strange place but one he's never been to before and where there'll be plenty of prospects for work. He rents a room, gets a job, tells people his wife and children died in a fire and he wanted to live someplace else because of that. Uses his real name and Social Security number, but no one in the family or a representative of it tries contacting him. The work he gets—waiting on tables and looking after the bar—is a step up from the last job he had when he ran off but has nothing to do with the kind of work he did for twenty years. One of the customers becomes interested in him. Comes in almost every other night, usually sits at the bar or one of his two tables; they talk about literature, art, music, and culture in between the time he makes drinks for the waitering staff or serves his other customers. She asks him one night if he'd like to take in a late movie after work sometime this week. They meet, see each other a few times after that for coffee and walks and other things before they start sleeping together. She has a nice apartment and invites him to move in with her. She gets him an ad-writing job with a friend of hers. They get married and have two children. He never tells her the truth about his previous family. She in fact tells him that one reason—maybe the main one—she wanted to have children, even though she was almost past the age for it and never thought of herself as a mother, was to help him replace the ones he lost. “Two children on earth who'd never be here if your previous two hadn't died so tragically,” is the way she put it. He never calls his first wife and children and only wrote them one letter, a year after he left them and before he met this new woman, saying he hopes the following will serve as a legal document.
But it's more likely that what I'm about to say is a moot point and that my wife, because of my desertion, has already been granted a divorce and legal entitlement to everything I owned. Anyway: I, Gould Bookbinder, in right and sound mind, or however legal experts word it, do hereby declare that I willingly left my family a year ago
. Make that “voluntarily.”
I voluntarily, in right and sound mind, or relatively so at the time, deserted my family and home a year ago. Thereby, from this day on, I relinquish everything to my wife, Sally, and my daughters, Francine and Josephine: home, car, all money and possessions I might own, everything in the joint accounts held by my wife and me, and my pension money, royalties, the works, and from this day forward I will never make claim on any of these items or anything I didn't list here. Why did I go? That wasn't what I intended to write about but I suppose, while I have the opportunity (since I don't expect to write another letter like this)—and perhaps because it might also make this document more authentic and less contestable in a court of law, thus fulfilling the wish expressed here
—I
should. I just couldn't stay. I know that's not enough of a reason, but what can I say? It was all too much for me. No matter what I did or tried or hoped to do I didn't see how it could ever cease to be, with only brief reprieves or intermittent periods of peace, too much for me, and I'm sure it was too much
—I
was too much—for my family too. I felt I had to start a new life some other place. More for the sake of my family I felt this. But all explanations about this are futile and useless. Please don't try to find me. You can, I know—I'm not hiding, I'm even putting my address on the envelope—but please don't. I love you all deeply and madly and shall for the rest of my life, perhaps even more than I love you right now. I know you can say those are only words, but again, what can I say? With almost terrifying regrets and sadness, I remain,”
and signed his full name and wrote the date and had the letter notarized and put it in an envelope and addressed it and put his return address and a stamp on it. When he got to the mailbox to mail it he thought there was something wrong with the last part, it sounded so fake, and went home with the letter, blacked out “terrifying,” and wrote in the margin beside it, I
blacked out the word myself because it was so fake; the word was “terrifying,” and I should have blacked out the words “madly” and “deeply” too, solely so they wouldn't disturb you, which I sincerely hope they didn't do
, and initialed that part, had the letter renotarized, thought, That word “sincerely”; ah, mail it or he never will, and dropped it through the letter slot at the post office. About ten years later, when his wife's away on a business trip and his two daughters are sleeping, he sits in the living room reading a novel while listening to music and drinking. Maybe because of the drinks (a second and then a third grapefruit juice and vodka) and the music (to him, a particularly sorrowful part of a Bach cantata) and because of something he reads (“Hubert's family life broke apart, and as a result he was devastated to the point of never being whole again,” an awful line that finishes the book for him on page 14), but he begins thinking of his first wife and children and becomes sentimental and gets out the photos of them he came to this city with and hasn't looked at for years and gets very sad and says to himself, “Oh, go on; what's the harm by now? All you want to do is hear one of them. If it's an answering machine or a strange voice and you ask for them and the person says the number's no longer theirs, then that's it till something else who-knows-when later.” He dials his old number. A recorded message says the area code's incorrect for that number, and he gets the new area code and dials with it. Sally says hello. He stays silent. “Hello, hello?” He bursts out crying. “Gould?” “I've been such a bum,” and he hangs up. He gets sick after that, knows it's related to the phone call. He doesn't try to fight it because he doesn't want to get well. He's taken to the hospital, brings the photos with him, and sneaks looks at them when no one's around. He does it to get even worse, maybe even die. He
has
been a bum, he tells himself, and he should pay for it. He won't eat; pulls out his tubes when he's able to. His second wife and two daughters visit him, and when they start crying he thinks, What's he doing? He has to be around for them as long as he can or it'll be like what he did to Sally and the kids. Maybe, if he gets well, he can apologize to his old family and they'll let him come see them and something can be worked out after all these years. A visit every few months; his two oldest daughters can visit here and see their stepsisters. They're all such great kids, he's sure they'll love one another. And money for Sally for whatever she needs. He tells himself to get better and gets better and when he's out of the hospital and recuperating at home he calls his old number and she answers and he says, “After my last call to you I nearly died. Literally, I mean, and I'm not saying that for sympathy. I'm just so sorry and ashamed for what I did to you and the girls. Please tell me they're alive and healthy. And you?” “I am, as you probably surmised, in much worse shape than when you last saw me. The girls are long out of the house and I've a permanent helper. Fanny's married and has a baby and is doing well in her work and lives in a city whose name I'm not going to divulge. Josie's in med school, but even that's more than she'd want me to say about her to you. I told them I thought you had called and started to sob and might call back and they each said they didn't want to hear about it and not to tell them if you call again. That you had probably remarried and have children and they're not interested in you anymore. That you damaged them enough the second time you left us and you're completely out of their lives. That's their message to you, although they didn't tell me to deliver it. I feel the same. I don't want to think or know anything more about you. We've been legally divorced since a short time before you sent me your one letter. The girls disowned you long ago. If you can, don't call again for the rest of your life, and no more letters,” and she hangs up. Why didn't he stay? he thinks. He loved her, was attracted to her body and face; she had a great mind and was a wonderful person, and taking care of her wasn't that bad and the condition she has gets worse slowly, so he would have had time to adjust to the changes. He now has another lovely wife and two beautiful young daughters, but he didn't have to have them. So why didn't he stay? What's the point of answering? He gets sick again and wants to die. He recovers, but because of nothing he did, and takes a lot of pills after and dies. He's got to get away from here, he thinks. He writes a note. Or he leaves and sends a letter from the place he ended up in. Or he calls that night from another city and says, “I've left for good.” Says it to his wife. First his older daughter answered and said hello and he said, “Hiya, my darling, how are you?” and she said, “Fine,” and he said, “And your sister?” and she said, “Fine, also, I guess. But we've been wondering—Mommy too—where you are and what happened to you. It's only been one day, but we've been worried,” and he said, “Don't be, and let me speak to Mommy, please?” Or sends an overnight letter to his wife: I
won't be home. I only stopped for a night in this city. I'm moving on. I probably won't even settle in a city. I might go live in a town or village in Canada or the Northwest or even overseas, japan's a place I always wanted to go and possibly live the rest of my life in—a remote mountain village somewhere—but that's not to say I'm going to do that. Anyway, everything—that means everything we own or possess together or what was solely mine—is yours and then yours to give to the kids or do what you want with. What can I say other than what you've heard from me in sometimes hysterical foul language a few hundred times before: I just couldn't take it or stay there anymore. But what's that actually mean? That even if things had been going swimmingly it would have eventually seemed horrible and unlivable to me no matter how good they continued to be. I don't think I can enjoy something for very long and in fact I think I start disbelieving and disliking it if it—well, I was going to say—ah, forget it. But know it's nothing you did or could have prevented, or the kids
—I
swear. I'm just hopeless, in both ways, and probably in more ways than I know
. He has some cash and settles in a small Alaskan town. Rents a shack, gets a job in a grocery store, stocking and selling and everything else. Meets a woman and she needs a place to stay. Why's he always have to have a woman with him after a short time without? he thinks. Why can't he this time just live out his life alone? He doesn't contact his wife and kids after the first time. He tells the woman what he did and she says she can understand: “Hey, sometimes situations get impossible—incourageable, if that's the right word for it—so best to get up and go and never gawk back. Your wife will do wonders without you—better than she did with, based on what you said—and same for your kids.” “You really think so? I don't, but what can I do about it, much as I love her and worship my kids, since if I went back it might be nice for a while for me and them but then I'd resort to my old impatient and hateful and crazy ways,” and she says, “That's sort of what I'm saying, silly. The devil only knows why I'd want to live with such a horror.” He leaves her a year later and never takes up again with anyone else. Why'd he break up with her and then give her the shack with its rent for the next year prepaid and leave everything he owned behind and get an even smaller, colder place to live? Why even go into it? He left like that because he wanted to get out fast. She was dumb and coarse and slovenly and smoked and watched TV most of the day and had nothing to say and vilified books and learning and good manners and smeared grease on her legs and face at night and spent an hour or two a day putting on ugly makeup and carped too long when she didn't think he'd tried hard enough to please her in bed, when the truth was, though he didn't say it—he only said, “Listen: it's the same as it's always been with me. I make life miserable for anybody I'm with”—he was thoroughly unattracted to her in every way and his inability to stay even semierect may also be because of his advanced age. Long after that he tries calling his old home, just to hear their voices and maybe, if they speak to him, to see how they are, but the number's been someone else's for a few years “and the party people used to call when I first got the phone doesn't sound like the one you're asking for,” the man says. He dials Information and is told they're not in the book or listed in that city. Maybe they're not living there anymore, he thinks, or even living, but he quickly closes and opens his eyes several times to get rid of that thought. He supposes he could call friends they once knew, if they're still around, to find out where she went or what happened to her and the kids, but he's sure they've all been told not to speak to him about that and he also feels too embarrassed to call. He begins to drink a great deal, gets sick, but works every day till he drops dead on the job. Before he died he thought it would have been nice to retire a few years before and have the time to walk and read and maybe draw things he sees. If he had stayed with his family he could have done all that: visited his daughters and their children, if they have any; looked after himself better. But he didn't even collect Social Security. He arranged it so that office would send the checks to his wife and, if she died, then to his kids. A few days before he died he wrote a note and left it on his night table, which was just a crate. The envelope the note was in said: To