Will Boast - Epilogue

Acknowledgments

My great and enduring gratitude for all of those who read, listened, and helped me along the way:

Molly Antopol, Ann Beattie, Ryan Bieber, Erin Brown, John Casey, Harriet Clark, Jennifer DuBois, Rob Ehle, Deborah Eisenberg, Tom Franklin, Sarah Frisch, Jim Gavin, John Hickey, Skip Horack, Vanessa Hutchinson, Drew Johnson, Ammi Keller, Jason Labbe, John LHeureux, Ryan McIlvain, Robin Metz, Kim Philley, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Justin St. Germain, Caitlin Satchell, Maggie Shipstead, Stephanie Soileau, Mary Austin Speaker, Elizabeth Tallent, Chris Tilghman, Jesmyn Ward, Gina Welch, and Tobias Wolff.

For all of their careful, intelligent work and guidance in helping bring this book into the world:

Katie Adams, Charlie Brotherstone, Cordelia Calvert, Gail Hochman, Jody Klein, Peter Miller, Max Porter, and Paul Reyes.

For the generous support of these institutions and individuals:

The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Martin Pick and the Charles Pick Fellowship, the San Francisco Foundation, Stanford University, the Truman Capote Literary Trust, the University of East Anglia, and the University of Virginia.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the support and love of my friends and family. Ill never be able to thank you enough.

ALSO BY WILL BOAST

Power Ballads (fiction)

Authors Note

Epilogue is a work of nonfiction. Certain names and
identifying characteristics of the people who appear in
these pages have been changed.

T wo days before the funeral, Nanny, Aunty Sarah, and Aunty Janet arrived from England, unpacking their floral print canvas suitcases, bringing out their crochet hooks and Alan Titchmarsh gardening/antiquing/romance novels. Nanny had even packed a small tin of Typhoo tea bags: You just cant get a good cup in the States. They sat in the back room of the house, chatting about the state of their gardens, the ghastly weather back home, all the dreadful rubbish on telly. This was the third trip theyd made to America for a funeral; the bleary confusion of jet lag and shock must almost have felt familiar. When my dads name came up, theyd fall silent. Aunty Sarah, my fathers sister, would sigh, make a tutting sound, and say how often shed nagged him about his health and his weight. But he never would listen, would he?

Whether shed nagged him about his drinking, I didnt know. (Perforated ulcer: the death of such champion alcoholics as James Joyce and Charlie Parker.) I, for one, never said a thing about the cabinet continuously stocked with jugs of Seagrams Canadian. It wasnt a sons place to tell his father his business.

Once you get past the funeral, Nanny told me, everything feels a bit easier.

It helped having her there. When she said those words, I heard her saying that loss is ordinary, a common injury that must be patiently endured. Just grit your teeth and wait for the bone to be reset.

For all that, I couldnt help thinking Id been singled out for special punishment.

A CALL CAME for me from Pastor Dan. At my mothers and brothers funerals, Dad had arranged for him to handle the ceremonies. Pastor Dan led a booming Lutheran congregation over in Lynn Township. He lived in one of the lakeside condo developments, drove a convertible (its vanity plate read bayrev ), and before taking up his vocation had worked, semiprofessionally, as a comedian in the area resorts. My family was nominallyvery nominallyChurch of England. Religion was just something weird that Americans did. Only my mother had any belief, and that came near the end, after a chunk of her brain had been cut out and the morphine started blurring the line between her sleeping and waking.

In his murmuring, magnetic voice, Pastor Dan was telling me how sorry he was for my lossesmy mother, my brother, and now my dad. Its been a difficult few years for you, he said. You must be facing some tough questions right now.

Id prefer a nondenominational funeral.

Lets cut to the chase , I was thinking.

The service neednt adhere to any one denomination, Pastor Dan suggested. I could make some general remarks.

But I remembered the churchy things hed said standing up in front of my mothers and brothers coffins, and I wanted none of it.

You know what? I said, losing patience. I think well be okay. I think well be just fine. Ill get Tom Solheim to officiate.

The truth was Pastor Dan had done a fine job for Rory and Mom. He brought comfort, perspective, and the proper amount of ceremony to the proceedings. Relating a few stories about Mom and Rory told to him by family friends, hed even gotten a few laughs.

DOWN IN Solheims basement showroom, I perused the gleaming, brass-handled coffins, their hinged top halves lolling open to reveal plush, cream-colored, velveteen interiors. (Even in death, it seemed, the body needed its comforts.) I had my eye on a mahogany model, lacquered black with elegant scrollwork, that or the next model up, a hulking slab of teak. Then Tom Solheim showed me his price list.

I asked which coffin my dad had chosen for Mom and Rory. The pine, he said, pointing to the second-to-least-expensive option, just above the cloth and pressboard model. All his life my father kept up a tortured courtship with money. He railed against anyone who had it, especially Americans, who lived on credit. Of course, wed come to America for just that sort of life. Dad worked feverishly to get ahead and could hardly bring himself to spend a dime. In almost everything, hed imposed his own private austerity. Even here in the funeral parlor hed scrimped. But I didnt fault him. What did I do that night he spanked me with his slipper, after I dried my tears and climbed out of the tub? I went to my dresser and, from the top drawer, where it sat in a little nest of socks, took out my prize possession: a twelve-tool Victorinox Swiss Army knife. I carried it downstairs in my hot little hand and found my dad in the bathroom, where he was inspecting his already purpling eye. At eight years old, Id already become his acolyte to the profane sanctity of money, the dread importance of how much everything cost. Here, Dad, I said, offering up my knife for him to sell, to fix your eye.

A coffin was a purely functional purchase, I told myself. After the funeral, it was just going to be burned to cinders, along with my fathers body. Still, I hesitated. Lets go one up from there. Tom Solheim brought in the paperwork. There would be a slight up-charge for the oversize casket, he explained. My father, after all, was a large man.

AS I STOOD in the lobby of Solheims shaking hands, I had to fight it down. Family friends and neighbors were filing in, giving me, my nanny, and my aunts their best wishes, their sympathy, their condolences. Was I doing all right? they wanted to know. Was I holding up okay? Doing okay, I kept saying, doing okay, nodding manfully to confirm it. The whole time the corners of my lips were twitching. It was all I could do to keep it in.

A succession of men with bristly mustaches, looking uncomfortable in sport coats either too big or too small, came up to introduce themselves. They told me how much theyd respected my father, how much theyd learned from him. Hed expected a lot, they said. He always made sure they gave a hundred and ten percent. This was company-speak, but I understood. For my dad, the job always came first. If the transmission department, which hed headed for the last fifteen years, made up a fair slice of the companys business, he hadnt made many buddies on the shop floor along the way. He spoke about people the way he spoke about engineering, always in terms of problems.

Next came the sales reps, tanned and wearing gold watches. One of them, Bob, the company rep to GM, I knew well. Whenever he came in from Detroit, Dad took him out for dinner, and I went along and got us into long, vague arguments about politics. Bob was the very portrait of a heartland Republican (he listened to Reagans recorded speeches in his car), but I liked him. He was the closest my dad had to a best friend.