room wasn’t cold. It occurred to me the next day, as I was wandering around the park outside the hospital, that it would feel good if I had something of Dad’s to wear, too. It would tie us together somehow.
I needed him so much. I couldn’t really go into it very far, this need, nor could my mother and I talk about it. But her wearing his robe was a sign to me of how she had to have the comfort of his presence in a basic way that I now understood. That night, I asked her if she’d packed Dad an extra shirt, and she nodded when I asked if I could wear it. She gave it to me.
I still have many of his shirts, and his ties as well. He purchased everything he wore at Silverman’s in Grand Forks. They carried the very best men’s clothing, and he didn’t buy much, but he was particular. I wore my father’s ties to get me through law school at the University of Minnesota, and the bar exam after. For the time I was a public prosecutor, I wore his ties for the last week of every jury trial. I used to carry around his fountain pen, too, but I became afraid of losing it. I still have it, but I don’t sign my tribal court opinions with it the way he did. The unfashionable ties are enough, the golden tassel in my drawer, and that I have always had a dog named Pearl.
I was wearing my father’s shirt on the day he stopped being vague, the second-to-last day we were there. He saw his shirt on me and looked quizzical. My mother left to get some coffee and I sat with him. This was the first time I was really alone with him. It did not surprise me that even while his incisions were healing he chose to revisit the situation, to ask if I knew anything of Lark’s whereabouts. I had been thinking the same way, but of course I didn’t. If Clemence had told my mother in their phone conversations from the hotel room, I didn’t know about it. But then that night I did get a call; it was while my mother was out buying a newspaper. It was Cappy.
Some members of our family paid a visit, he said.
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Here?
No, there.
Where?
They brought him around.
What?
The Holodeck, dummy. It was a situation like when Picard was the detective. Remember? The persuasion?
Right. I was flooded, tingling with relief. Right. Is he dead?
No, just persuaded. They messed him up good, man. He won’t come around you. Tell your mom and dad.
After the call, I was thinking how to tell them. How to make it sound like I didn’t know it was Doe and Randall and Whitey, even Uncle Edward, who went to Lark’s, when another call came in. My mother had come back. I could tell the call was from Opichi when my mother asked if there was something wrong at the office. The cadence of the voice, tiny in the receiver, was shrill and intense. My mother sat down on the bed. Whatever she heard wasn’t good. Eventually, she put the receiver in its cradle, and then she curled up on the bed, her back to me.
Mom?
She didn’t answer. I remember the buzz of lights on in the bathroom. I walked around to the other side of the bed and knelt down beside it. She opened her eyes and looked at me. At first she seemed confused and her eyes searched my face almost as if she were looking at me for the first time, or at least after a long absence. Then she focused and her mouth creased in a frown. She whispered.
I guess people beat him up.
That’s good, I said. Yeah.
And then, Opichi says, he drove back all crazy and blasted up to the gas station. He said something to Whitey about his rich girlfriend. How Whitey’s rich girlfriend had herself a nice setup and he was thinking of joining her. He drove through, yelling, making fun of Whitey. He got away. Whitey chased him with a wrench. What was he talking about? Sonja isn’t rich.
I sat there with my mouth open.
Joe?
I put my head down in my hands, my elbows on my knees. After a while, I lay down and put a pillow over my head.
This room’s hot, said my mother. Let’s get the blower going.