Borhek - My Son Eric

It had been a pleasant Saturday. In the morning Emily, my daughter, had gone off to her job at the Art Institute. Hans, my son-in-law, a graduate student at The University of Illinois, was working on a paper in his study, so I had the living room with its fold-out sofa bed to myself.

This was my first visit to Emilys and Hanss apartment in Chicago. They had been married in June. Now it was February, and I had driven down from Minneapolis to see them. I had brought along several books, and I spent the morning enjoying the luxury of reading in bed with no household chores to nag me.

In the afternoon Hans took me to the Museum of Science and Industry, where we saw several of the exhibits, including the coal mine. In the evening we talked and listened to records. About midnight we all went to bed.

There had been one rather unusual occurrence at the museum. When Hans and I were down in the mock coal mine we had to get into little tramcars. There was a long seat running lengthwise on each side of the car, and because our tour was so crowded the guide told us to slide down as far as we could to make room for more people.

As I was sliding down the bench toward the end of the car I suddenly had a funny light-headed feeling, and I thought with a shock of dj vu, I dreamed this. How long ago I had dreamed it I had no idea. The dream had been lost to my conscious mind, as most dreams are. But now in the dim light, as I looked out the open sides of the tram at the mock coal face, I knew I had experienced the whole scene before.

I hadnt the slightest idea why I should have dreamed of the coal mine at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago when I had never seen it before that afternoon. I mentioned the peculiar incident to Hans later in the afternoon as we were driving back to the apartment. He couldnt offer much help as to why I should have had this odd experience.

* * * *

I was wakened by the ringing of a phone. It was ringing persistently in Hanss study. Emily padded out of the bedroom and into the study. I heard her say, Ill call him.

She roused Hans. They went into the study and closed the door.

I lay there on the sofa bed in the living room listening. The clock showed one-thirty. Who in the world was calling at one-thirty in the morning? Hans wasnt saying much. Apparently the person at the other end was doing most of the talking. Now and again I would hear him say something briefly in a low tone.

I waited. The clock ticked on. Everything inside me was cold and still. This was no casual chat from a Chicago friend. Was it Hanss grandmother on the West Coast? Not likely. If she called at that hour, it would be an emergency and they would not talk on and on. The same thing was true if it were his parents in Virginia. That left

That left Eric and Barbara. Eric was my nineteen-year-old son, who had his own apartment south of Minneapolis. Barbara was my sixteen-year-old daughter.

Three and one-half years earlier my husband, Tom, had resigned as pastor of his congregation in the suburb of Lakota, north of Minneapolis, and had divorced me. He had moved to St. Paul, but Barbara and I had remained in Lakota. She was home alone this weekend, having resisted my suggestion that she might like to have a friend stay with her. Im not a baby anymore, she had protested.

Had something happened to Barbara? Why did the phone conversation go on and on?

I couldnt lie still any longer. I got out of bed and walked a few steps back and forth beside the bed, stiff with fear and shivering with both cold and fright. It was Eric or Barbara, one or the other. Had there been an automobile accident?

Something kept me from going to the door of the study, knocking, and asking what was going on.

At last I climbed back, shivering, under the covers. I looked at the clock. It was quarter after two. Forty-five minutes since the phone had rung. I heard Hanss low voice say something, and then there was the almost imperceptible sound of the phone being set in its cradle.

I waited. Now they would come out of the study, and I could call Emily and ask her what was wrong. But they didnt. They remained in the study. Now and again I could hear their murmured voices.

I shall shortly go out of my mind, I thought. I felt suffocated. I had to know.

Emily, I called softly.

There was no answer. Everything was silent. Perhaps she had not heard me. I had the feeling that she had but that she was delaying the evil moment as long as possible.

Emily, I called again a little louder.

She came swiftly, as if she knew the game was up.

What is it? I asked.

Wordlessly she turned and went back to the study and came out with Hans. They stood together beside the sofa bed.

Who was it? I asked.

Hans answered, It was Barbara.

What happened? Is she all right? The weight on my chest was making it difficult to breathe.

I remembered the spaghetti party she had planned to have that evening. We had discussed it before I left, and I had given her permission to have it. She had asked if they might have wine with the dinner, and I had said no.

Were not going to get drunk or anything, she had said with scorn.

You may not get drunk, I had said, but sometimes you cant control what another person is going to do. Besides, youre all under age.

There had been no more argument about wine.

But had she in the end served wine? Or had one of the guests supplied it? Had there been an accident?

What happened? I repeated. Here, sit down, and I moved to make room for them to sit on the bed.

Hans sat down at the head end and drew his legs up under him. Emily perched at the foot like a small, tentative bird, ready to fly at a moments notice.

Is anybody hurt? I asked. I felt as if I were trying to push an enormous boulder uphill and could hardly budge it.

No, no one was hurt, Hans said.

Then what happened?

Barbara was getting ready for the spaghetti supper, and Eric dropped in with a friend and spoiled it for her.

Eric dropped in? I said in amazement. It was a good forty minutes from Erics apartment, and he was not in the habit of coming without a reason.

He wanted to do his wash and brought the friend along to see the house.

He wanted to do his wash! I exclaimed, perplexed. He never came to the house just to do his laundry. It did not pay, either in time or in money, to drive up only for the sake of using my machine. But why did that spoil the party?

Barbara didnt like the friend.

Eric and the friend came to the party?

No, they came before the party. While she was getting ready.

It didnt make sense. Not just the facts that Hans was giving me. There was some X factor, some unknown that would put the whole thing in perspective. Hans and Emily knew what the X was, but they were not telling me.

Why had Eric come visiting when I was gone? It wasnt because he was devoted to Barbara. When they had any contact at all, they were at each others throat. He had brought the friend to see the house. But my house was small and unspectacular. Why did he want his friend to see the house?

The friend. Who was the friend? I knew Eric had new friends, but he had told me almost nothing about them. Was this friend male or female?

Hans, I said, is the friend a man or a woman?

A man, Hans replied.

How strange, I thought, for Eric to bring a man friend to see the house. If it was a girl he was interested in, I could understand that he might want her to see his home. But another man?

Another man.

What if No, it couldnt be. It couldnt be. And yet for a long time there had been a nagging, unnamed fear buried deep within me, an unacknowledged awareness that in some way Eric was different.