In almost all respects, though, his mother’s original saga was far more credible. Its general thrust-Look how far your father has fallen without me to look after him-was completely in character. It wasn’t just how she would feel, but indeed any woman similarly horse-traded. Its logic was consistent, and the visual evidence corroborated it. Griffin hadn’t visited him during his year at Amherst, but he’d seen him shortly after his return and vividly recalled his physical and emotional state, his health ruined, his nervous system shattered. Emaciated, ill, exhausted, he’d looked like a desperately lonely man who’d come unglued. That’s what his mother’s gleeful account had prepared Griffin to see, granted, but still. If he credited the Morphine Narrative and his parents had instead been having the best sex of their lives, then his haggard, distraught appearance afterward was due to what, carpal fatigue? And if he and Griffin ’s mother were still passionately involved, why would he have surrendered a cushy full professorship for crappier jobs? And why keep such a secret from his son?
But that, of course, was the whole point of the latter version. You never knew us. You thought you did, but how wrong you were. Our lives were a glorious secret, even from you. And this was also the problem in a nutshell. The most compelling thing about the Morphine Narrative was his mother’s need to tell it. At a stage of life when most people wanted to unburden themselves, why had she so desperately needed to lie? With so little time left, why use your last ounce of strength to invent such an elaborate falsehood? What difference could it possibly make to her what he thought about their marriage? No, the whole thing was nonsense, and the clincher was this: if the Morphine Narrative was true, in whole or part, then why, before falling ill, had his mother been so adamant that his father’s ashes be scattered on one side of the Cape, her own on the other? If their lives were intertwined right to the end, wouldn’t she want their ashes to commingle?
Still, the nearer she got to the end-of her Morphine Narrative, of her life-the more he found himself wanting the story to be true, or if not true at least not completely false, not completely morphine. He kept hoping for a load-bearing detail strong enough to support the weight of its creaky structure, to fortify the too-often-chimerical motives of its characters. If she’d told him, for instance, that she’d been with his father when he died at that rest stop on the Mass Pike, that they’d decided to make one last trip to the Cape together, maybe hoping to find a little bungalow there, he’d have believed her, and not just because he’d never told her the details of how his father had been discovered in the passenger seat, never shared his suspicion that a woman had been with him. Okay, there’d still have been cause for doubt (if his mother was the mystery driver, why had she run off?), but also reason, at least a writer’s reason, to believe. Because in its own way that ending would have been perfect, symmetrical, implied in its beginning. A love story.
Perhaps the oddest thing of all was how satisfied his mother had been when she finally finished telling it. Whatever urgency had driven the story evaporated when she finally let her voice fall. She no longer seemed to care whether he believed her or not, and shortly thereafter she’d lapsed into virtual silence for the three days that remained to her. “When is Christmas?” she wondered at one point, and he had to think. He’d been measuring time by her narration and by the snow, which by then had nearly covered the window, darkening the room in the middle of the day.
“The day after tomorrow,” he told her.
“You’ll be going home then,” she said.
“No, I’ll be spending Christmas here,” he told her. “Did you really think I meant to leave you alone?”
“How,” she asked, matter-of-factly, “does having you sit there day after day make me any less alone?”
He then did think about leaving, going home, and he might have if he’d known where home was, but he didn’t, not anymore, and so he’d stayed. On Christmas morning she asked if he remembered how as a boy he liked to crawl under the tree and look up at the lights. And later that afternoon she said, “So… your marriage is ruined,” and he said yes, he supposed it was. After that, he remembered her saying only one other thing. “He’d be here,” she assured him, smiling, “if he wasn’t dead.”
Unlike so many of her smiles, this one was neither sly nor lewd. Beatific was more like it. And for that reason he said, “I know, Mom. I know.”
She was right about one thing: the fucking kid was a monster.
Tired of trying to play volleyball with a kid on his shoulders, Andy returned him to his oblivious mother, but the little brat was having none of that. He clearly enjoyed being the center of attention and liked the applause even more, so he followed Andy right back onto the court, his arms raised, demanding to be restored to Andy’s shoulders. By this time all the other kids had been coaxed away by parents who were calling it a night. Several of the little ones had fallen asleep, and others were rubbing their eyes.
Seeing the kid had followed him back into the fray, Andy took him by the wrist and tried to pull him gently back to the sideline, but no dice. Wrenching his hand free, the little bastard balled it into a fist and punched the groom in the groin.
Witnessing this, his mother, instead of marching onto the court and removing the brat by force, went down on one knee and entreated him. “Come on now, Justin, come to Mommy. Can’t you see you’re holding up the game? And you hurt that nice boy. Come on now, sweetie.” But Justin had other thoughts. His original strategy had worked before, and he saw no reason why it shouldn’t again. Ignoring his mother, he plopped down on the court and stuck out his lower lip.
Five bucks says she gives up, Griffin ’s mother said, which was precisely what the woman did, returning to her conversation. Tell me you wouldn’t like to blister his little behind.
I’m going home now, Mom, he told her. Why don’t you stay here, since you’re enjoying yourself so much.
The game resumed, rather tentatively now, the players trying as best they could to navigate around the pouting boy. Andy was taking deep breaths and leaning on his bride, who seemed to be inquiring, given these new developments, what their prospects now were for a successful prewedding night. By the time Griffin emerged onto the porch, parents were calling their teenagers off the court, and the game began to break up. His sulk pointless now, the brat got to his feet and ran crying toward his mother. Griffin saw what was going to happen next before it did. Stationary, the kid had been relatively safe, in full view of the players in the back line, as well as those dancing around the net. But now the ball was in the air, and the kid wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Jason, no doubt hoping for one last hard spike at his brother, lunged a step to his right and leapt, his knee catching the boy under the chin and snapping his head back. The next instant the kid lay flat on his back, motionless, and before Griffin could prevent her from weighing in, his mother said, Good. Or possibly, face it, the sentiment so succinctly expressed was his own.
Jane and June let out simultaneous, identical yelps, and everyone on the porch hurried down onto the lawn, where a circle formed around the fallen child, his mouth now open and working like a fish’s, though no sound came out. Griffin, alone on the porch and ashamed of himself (or his mother), caught a quick glimpse of the little shit’s bloody face. Finally able to catch his breath, he began to wail, and his mother, gathering him to her ample bosom, joined in. “Oh, poor sweetie! Poor, poor sweetie! What happened? Did the big people play too rough?”