The Stolen Child(37)

For a moment, I thought my father would drive off the road. He lit a cigarette and let Mom take

over the conversation.

"Henry, you know how I feel about quitting...."

"Did you hear what that lady said?" Mary chimed in. "She thought you lived in the woods."

"You don't even like to stand next to a tree." Elizabeth laughed.

"This isn't about your feelings, Mom, but mine."

My father stared at the white line in the middle of the road.

"You are a sensitive boy," my mother continued. "But you can't let one woman with one story ruin

your life. You don't mean to tell me you're going to quit eight years of work on the basis of a fairy tale."

"It isn't the woman in the red coat. I've had enough. Gone as far as I can go."

"Bill, why don't you say something?"

"Dad, I'm tired of it. Sick of practice, practice, practice. Tired of wasting my Saturdays. I think I

should have a say over my own life."

He drew a deep breath and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The rest of the Days

understood the signal. Quiet all the way home. That night I could hear them talking, make out the ebb

and flow of a loud and emotional confrontation, but I had lost all ability to eavesdrop from a distance.

Once in a while I'd hear a "goddam" or "bloody" explode from him, and she may have cried—I suppose

she did—but that's it. Near midnight, he stormed out of the house, and the sound of the car pulling away

left a desolation. I went downstairs to see if Mom had survived the ordeal and found her calmly sitting in

the kitchen, a shoebox open on the table before her.

"Henry, it's late." She tied a ribbon around a bundle of letters and set it in the box. "Your father

used to write once a week while he was over in North Africa." I knew the story by heart, but she

unwound it again. Pregnant, with a husband overseas at war, all of nineteen at the time, she lived with his

parents. She was still alone at the time of Henry's birth, and I was now almost as old as she had been

through the whole ordeal. Counting my life as a hob-goblin, I was old enough to be her grandfather.

Untamed age had crept into her heart.

"You think life's easy when you're young, and can take almost anything because your emotions run

so strong. When you're up, you're in the stars, and when you're down, you're at the bottom of the well.

But although I've grown old—"

She was thirty-five by my calculations.

"That doesn't mean I've forgotten what it's like to be young. Of course, it's your life to do with what

you choose. I had high hopes for you as a pianist, Henry, but you can be whatever you wish. If it's not in

your heart, I under-stand."

"Would you like a cup of tea, Mom?"

"That would be grand."

Two weeks later, during the afternoon before Christmas, Oscar Love and I drove into the city to

celebrate my newly won independence. Ever since that episode with Sally, I'd had a question or two

about my capability to have in-tercourse, so the trip was not without apprehension. When I lived in the

for-est, only one of those monsters could do the trick. He had been captured too late in his childhood, at

the cusp of puberty, and he gave the poor females nothing but trouble. The rest of us were not ready

physically to perform the act.

But I was ready to experience sex that night. Oscar and I tipped back a bottle of cheap wine. Thus

fortified, we approached the house at dusk as the girls were opening up shop. I would like to report that

losing my virginity was both exotic and erotic, but the truth is that it was mainly dark, rough, and over

much more quickly than I had expected. She was fair-skinned and past her glory, the crown of platinum

hair a come-on and a ruse, and among her sev-eral rules for the duration, no kissing. When I displayed a

tentative uncertainty as to where and how to go about the act, she grabbed me with her hand and pushed

me into position. A short time later, all that remained was to get dressed, pay the bill, and wish her merry

Christmas.

When morning came with gifts around the tree and the family lounging in pajamas and robes, I felt

on my way to a brand-new life. Mom and the twins were oblivious to any change as they went about

their cheerful tasks, offering genuine affection and consideration of one another. My father, on the other

hand, may have suspected my debauch of the night before. Earlier that morning, when I came home

around two o'clock, the living room smelled of Camels, as if he had been waiting up for me and only

gone to bed when Oscar's car pulled into the driveway. Throughout that drowsy holiday, my fa-ther

moved about the house the way a bear moves through its territory when it smells the presence of another