Best Boy (23 page)

“Quite some recall you got after forty years,” said Ron. “Here, let me help you.”

He came over and lifted the painted panel off. Underneath it was an older piece of the darker wood that I remembered. This was the door. It had a tiny hook in it. Ron undid the hook and the door opened. The darkness shined out.

“God, do the memories come back,” said my brother. Then he turned and looked at me. “Don't they?”

“Yes.”

“I think it's really sweet,” said Beth, “him wanting to see his childhood places.”

“I wanna go in,” I said.

My brother's face fell.

“In?” he said. “Todd, I don't think you can fit anymore.”

“Yes, I can.”

“He wants to reconnect with something,” Beth said, nodding.

“But it's full of creepy-crawlies in there.”

“Nate, he'll be fine,” Beth said.

Nate looked at Beth and shrugged his shoulders. “Don't let me be the guy who ruins everybody's fun. Sure, whatever—if it's all right with you, Ron.”

“No prob by me,” said Ron, “as long as your brother doesn't hurt himself.”

“You heard it from the man,” said Nate. “Go ahead, then. You want me with you?”

“No,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Honey,” said Beth, “I really think this is a solo mission, if you know what I mean.”

“Right,” said Nate, and he made a face, looking at me, “but what about his nice new pants?”

“We'll wash his pants,” said Beth. “Will you please stop being so difficult? Go right ahead,” she said to me and pushed at the crawl space with her chin. “Go.”

She continued nodding at me as I got on all fours and crawled slowly into the darkness. The sound of them chatting behind me got quieter as I moved farther inside. For a moment I couldn't really see but instead could smell the damp dark and feel my knees moving over old boards that were maybe broken-down pieces of furniture. I was looking for nails that if they puncture
your skin can give you tetanus which causes lockjaw. Then my eyes adjusted and I faintly began seeing piles of old books that had their covers curved from age and a tricycle with tassels on the handlebars. Also there were scattered towels and some baby clothes along with a pair of oars and shoes and piles of old hangers and some skis and boots.

I moved my arm and touched some of the things around me, stirring up clouds of dust. These sparkled in the tiny rods of light that came downwards from holes in the stairway overhead. In the distance as my eyes kept adjusting I could see two clear plastic clothes bags attached to a nail in a far wall. I knew those bags. They were my parents' clothes bags. The plastic on their sides was clouded but if you looked through the clouds you could see the colors of the clothes below like stones in water. I crawled slowly over to them and touched them with my fingers. They had long zippers running down their sides but the zipper was stuck on one when I tried it. I worked it back and forth for a few seconds until it finally came unstuck and gave a buzzing noise as I pulled it all the way down the bag. Inside were several of Daddy's coats that felt soft and new when I touched them. I knew these coats. I'd seen him in these coats and even gone with him to buy them at Gruber's Men's Shop in Little Falls. But my mouth turned down like tasting something bad from remembering and so I stopped touching them and instead poked around in the bag a little bit in the dark. My hand felt something at the very bottom and I pulled out a tiny purse, the size of a girl's slipper.

The purse had a little lock at the top and when I clicked it open it was empty inside. But suddenly I had an idea and stuck my nose quickly into the purse as far as it would go. I took a deep breath while the faint rose powder smell of my Momma came unmistakably into my head and the whole room brightened for a
second and then continued to brighten further as it slowly filled with the warm, perfect light of the sun. Then the light went out and I was sitting again in a low-ceilinged dark room hearing the noise of myself swallowing.

My mother had been holding her breath inside that little bag for forty years. She had left it behind hoping I'd find it and now I had it and her inside of me. I held my breath till my head began to pound and then I let it go with a big sigh, feeling it rush out of me and expand back into the world while a lightness and happiness came to me. I shut my eyes to keep feeling these feelings. When I opened them my eyes were even more adjusted to the dark and I saw a wooden box on the ground, not far from my foot. It looked like what my Dad used to store his cigars in that was called a humidor, only bigger. Boxes have a single purpose in life which is to separate what they have from what they don't. I like boxes. I bent over and opened it up. Inside it were two envelopes. But at that moment I heard my brother calling my name in a faint voice that came from outside and so I closed the box, put it under one arm, stuffed the purse into my pants pocket and slowly crawled back towards the door through the little rods of light.

“Here he is,” said Ron Salomon as I put my head back out into the basement.

“We were a little worried,” Nate said while I crawled out onto the floor and slowly stood up, “And, ah, he comes bearing gifts.”

“How was it?” Beth asked, reaching out smiling and rubbing my shoulder, which I don't like.

“Fine,” I said.

“You look like you're covered in spiderweb,” said Ron Salomon.

“Let's see what you got,” Beth said. I handed her the box and put the purse on top of it.

“Whoa,” she said, “check out this adorable little clutch, guys.
Paging the 1960s! Was your mom so stylish? I don't remember that.”

“Mom,” Nate said, “could occasionally cut the rug.”

“And then there's this,” said Beth, opening the box. She took out the two envelopes. On one of them was written the words, “To my son Todd Aaron.” The other said just one word: “pictures.”

“The mystery deepens,” Nate said in a voice from television.

“It's almost like,” Beth said, “she knew that sooner or later you'd come back here and would find this stuff.” She put her hand on her heart. “Is it just me, or does anyone else find that kinda unbelievably touching?”

“What else was in there?” said Nate.

“Clothes.”

“Of your folks?” Ron Salomon asked.

“Yes.”

“If Ron agrees,” Nate said, “maybe we could come back sometime in the near future and empty it out.”

“Absolutely,” said Ron.

“In the meantime,” said Nate, “how about we finish the tour and then go home and read the mysterious letter and look at the snaps?”

“Good idea,” said Ron, “because I'm itching to show you the master bath. I'm biased, of course, but people say it's Elsie's masterpiece.”

We went up the stairs and we saw the bathroom and the other upstairs rooms that had been redone and thickly covered with new paint and carpet and sometimes new walls. When I stood finally in the bedroom where I had been a boy I didn't recognize it. But I didn't care that much because every few minutes I was taking tiny little sips of air through my nose, trying to snuffle the actual remaining atoms of my Momma from my nostrils and
into my lungs so they could join the rest and the amount of her inside me could grow.

We said goodbye to Ron and thanked him. Afterwards as we went back up the hill to our house, Nate said, “Damn, I thought the Golden Years were for lying around and watching your annuities, not gut-renovating. I barely recognized the place. Geezers have been busy.”

“Must be those ace investments you set him up with,” Beth said.

“There you go. And how was that for you, Todd?”

“Good.”

“Good?” He looked at me while we continued going up the hill. “That's it? Good? Give us some milk, cow.”

Beth stuck her elbow in his ribs and he said, “Ow!”

“Maybe very good,” I said, but I was tired and also I didn't want to send my Momma out of my lungs from talking and so I didn't say anything more.

We went back to Nate's house. It was now late afternoon. The boys were at Little League and the dog was in his house in the yard. I sat on a stool near the kitchen while Beth went to get herself a glass of wine and Nate poured himself a drink. As they did these things I closed my eyes and continued to breathe as little as possible while I took all the memories I could find of my mother's rose powder and sent them to the very same place in my head where I mashed them together like potatoes and ketchup. When I tasted what I'd made it was very good. Nate sat on a stool next to me, in front of the kitchen “island,” and said, “Honey?”

“Yes,” Beth said from the kitchen.

“You ready?”

“Ready Freddy,” she said, coming back while holding her glass of wine.

Nate opened the box and took out the two envelopes and
placed them very carefully on the black surface of the island. Then he turned to me.

“You choose,” he said.

I looked down and I saw my Momma's handwriting and the words, “To my son Todd Aaron.”

“That one,” I said.

“Would you do the honors?” Nate asked Beth.

“Yep,” she said as she picked up the envelope and tried to open it for a few seconds with a hand and then stopped and reached across the table for a little knife. She slit the envelope up one side, poured the letter out of the side and then smoothed it on the wood of the island.

“Away we go,” she said, looking at me and smiling.

“Okay!”

“
Dearest Todd,
” she read:

Here we are and it's my fond hope to spend a few minutes with you. Remember Quiet Time? This is our quiet time. The world is loud with its same old business of living and dying but there will always be a place for a mother to talk to a son who made her life special because of how special
he
was.

Beth stopped and looked at me and smiled. Nate was looking at his half-emptied glass that he was turning slowly on the table. As soon as I'd heard the words of Momma I'd stood up and begun rocking slowly.

Lately and I'm not sure why, I've just been filled to the brim with memories. Do you remember the book
Quick Draw Mcgraw
and how I read it to you, word after word and you shaped your lips around the sounds and it made you happy?
Do you remember
The Cat in the Hat
? Or subway trains and limburger cheese and the sprinkles you always wanted on the Dairy Queen and how much you loved the heels on my black boots? Why did you love those heels so much?

Momma used to take Nate and me on the subway trains that poked lights in the darkness and rode along a fixed track deep in the belly of the city. I wanted to know where the subway ended. It was important that I know. Finally she took me and I saw the place where the train couldn't go any farther that was simply a wall. I spent a long time looking at that wall.

Darling, we've always told each other everything, and I'm going to tell you something now. Your Daddy is in the hospital because he has something wrong with how he swallows and it's given him one pneumonia after another and this one is the worst of them all and may be the last. I'm just so tired of it all and getting tireder by the day. You know, when you're young everything terrible is far away but the bad thing is looking at you anyway even if you can't see it and it comes towards you slowly and steadily through the years till suddenly it's in front of you and about to take something away for good. Things end, sweet boy. People end and houses end and families end and everything ends but one thing, which is love. The love between people and especially between mothers and their children doesn't end, ever. Do you hear me? Love doesn't end. It flows like a river through the world. Shut your eyes and you can feel it rising.

Momma died in bed. She died in her condo in Florida watching the birds out the window. They hopped on the lawn while
she died listening to the piano being played on the hi-fi by a man named Horowitz. Nate made a video of her that he showed me in the chapel at Payton. She died raising a hand in bed and waving goodbye by slowly moving her fingers like she was making one last run of piano notes that is called an
arpeggio
. Then she stared at the camera until the screen went black.

Everyone has to leave life, and there are no exceptions. I'll most likely be gone by the time you read this. But I know that you'll be well. I know it because you have your brother and you have your angels. On a more practical level, you'll have a roof over your head from some things like trusts and so forth that I've set up for you, based on the sale of the condo in Florida. Nate will help you in that as he's always helped you. But most of all I know you're well because from the very first day of your life you've had the gift of going goingly and doing doingly. You were a best boy who became a beautiful man and made everybody who knew you very proud.

And because no matter what you'll always have your mother.

Who is Netta Aaron
.

Then Beth stopped reading and took a tissue from a box of them on the table and pressed it to her eyes. Some time went by, though I don't know how much.

“A very special woman,” she said.

“Touching,” said Nate, “yes, it is. But then our Mom always knew how to turn a phrase. Even her condolence notes were poems.” He smiled a little bit and took a long drink from his glass and then put it down and began turning it around on the table.

Beth looked at me.

“Your mother loved you very much.”

“My Momma,” I said.

“And she really went out of her way to protect you.”

“That she did,” said Nate to the table, “in spades.”

“Yes,” I said.

Everyone was speaking slowly because they were still listening to the sound of Momma's voice in their heads.