CHAPTER 23

I found my dad asleep on the living room couch, his shoes on the floor next to him and the newspaper, open to the crossword puzzle, across his chest. I tiptoed back into the kitchen, put away the ice cream, milk, and other groceries and then stood at the counter. I could clean although the kitchen was spotless. Instead, I walked into my mother’s office.

A small room, it had most likely been a large pantry or the maid’s room back when the house was built. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases covered two walls. A small window, on a third wall, looked out into the backyard. My mother’s desk, a wood behemoth she’d bought from the widow of a Shakespearean, floated in the middle of the room. I sat in the leather chair and pulled myself up to the desk.

Growing up, I hadn’t come in here much. It wasn’t interesting in the way that some of my high school friends’ parents’ offices were. There were no pictures on the wall, no snacks in the drawers, no surprises (we found a bag of pot in Mr. Kepler’s drawer). Just books. Her typewriter. A box of typewriter paper. Pens. And because she threw nothing out, stacks of manuscripts and correspondence. Which were now conspicuously missing. We’d gone through most everything, giving much of it to the university library for its Eleanor Michaels collection.

All that was left to go through were these drawers.

Not long after my mother died, my dad told me that he’d finally read over what she’d been working on for the last five years. It was about a ground patrol company in Europe during the latter part of the Second World War. Did I want to see it? No, I’d said. I was tired of her war stories. And I needed space from her.

When my mother became terminal at the beginning of last summer, I came here every day. I stayed with her while my dad ran errands or rested. I went with them to appointments at Dana Farber. I made meals and read to her. Occasionally my dad and I were alone together while she slept or the visiting nurse was with her. During those times, he never complained or criticized her. He was so crushed by what was happening that I didn’t have the heart to complain or criticize, either.

But it was unbearable. A hospice nurse once said to me that “passing” was sometimes graceful, even peaceful. Not for my mother. Her fear of death was palpable in her shrieks and moans and dry heaves and shakes. She had bedsores, bleeding skin, terrible hallucinations, and a face constantly contorted with pain and fear. She had only twenty-four hours of unconsciousness before she died. It was hard to remember that day. Mostly I remembered her misery. And that there was absolutely nothing I could do to save her. Was there any wonder why I felt ready to move on when she finally died?

Under the desk and to the right were three large drawers, each stuffed. I’d tried to go at them before, but my dad had been adamant about leaving this for last. I pulled open the bottom drawer as far as it would go and lifted out a stack of papers. There were a few letters from Janice, a bunch of envelopes tied together with a rubber band, a box of pencils (unsharpened), a dry cleaning receipt, and a large manuscript in a blue binder. I opened to the first page. It was a draft of the ground patrol story. I glanced at the note she’d scrawled at the top of the page. Draft #1.

This would have to go to the library with the other drafts. I closed the cover and when I lifted it again, a paper slipped out and fell to the floor. It wasn’t part of the manuscript. It was a letter. From Lucy. I sat back in my seat. I’d often thought of her over the years, especially toward the end of my mother’s life when she lay in bed, thumbing through her copy of Listen, and I sat silent and baffled, unable (because she was dying? Because I was a coward?) to confront her with my understanding of what she’d done to this poor woman. I picked up the letter and began to read.

Dear Eleanor,

I have written you three times, all delivered to your publisher, without a response, and so I don’t imagine you’ll write me back this time. But I hope you will because I’m sure that I deserve answers.

I was a vulnerable sophomore when I met you. I used to sit in your Milton class, admiring you. You were so confident and smart! Soon afterward, we began having meaningful office hour conversations. Remember how you clapped after I recited that memorized part of Book One from Paradise Lost? You said you’d never had a student do that before. Never. I was the first and only.

We talked about my family, and you listened and smiled and gave me that extension on my first paper. That was so nice! But then something changed. Something always changes. And it wasn’t because I didn’t have “boundaries,” like you said, or that I needed “real help.” I was okay when you said we couldn’t go out to dinner or coffee. I was! Here’s what I think: You were so interested when I said my brother had come back, unhappy, from Vietnam. I think you were planning on stealing my story about him all along.

But you messed it up. My brother didn’t kill himself. He wasn’t ashamed of what he did over there. He didn’t have mental problems. Nobody in our family has mental problems! He was a hero, even if he never got the medals he deserved. And the Phoebe character you created wasn’t me, either. I wasn’t some weird kid who “listened” and could only talk to adults. I had friends. People liked me. They did. You can ask anyone. And my brother liked me, too. But now he won’t even let me in his house. He won’t let me near his three children! And the reason is because of that book. It’s because of you.

You owe me an explanation. You owe me part of the royalty money, too.

These years have been very hard. Because of this. I can’t work because I have terrible migraines. My roommate is forcing me to leave our apartment. And my family refuses to help me. I’m not asking for much. (I know you’ve made millions. I’ve done research. You’ve sold hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books.) All I’m asking is for $15,000. I don’t think this is too much to ask.

I scanned the rest of the letter, which was more of the same, and left it on the desk as I hurried from the room. I stopped in the kitchen and dropped into a chair. Lucy was emotionally unstable. How had I not seen that? Or maybe I had seen it but ultimately chose to believe her, anyway?

The letter made things clearer. My mother may have gotten the idea for Phoebe and Whit from Lucy, but there hadn’t been an actual story to steal. My mother’s version of the characters, and the suicide, weren’t Lucy’s, either. And yet I’d believed Lucy. For years, I’d been angry with my mother because I thought she’d been in the wrong.

“Hello? Who’s there?” My dad’s voice was shaky, full of confusion.

In the living room, I found him sitting on the couch, hair askew and his face in his hands as if he were crying. I knelt in front of him. “Are you okay?”

He dropped his hands. “I heard something. I didn’t know it was you.”

“I’m sorry. You were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I was having the most vivid dream,” he said. “Your mother and I were walking on Middle Road and we’d stopped to admire a bunch of wildflowers and she’d turned to me, her face lit up and alive. Just like she used to be!”

I sat back on my heels. There it was on his face and in his voice; he’d like nothing more than to have her back with us. He stared at me for confirmation, for agreement, and I nodded even though I wasn’t sure. Despite what I’d just learned, my mother still confused me. And I wasn’t ready to forgive her.