He said that to me, that day. My father.
* * *
—
But I could not enjoy the scenery. I was too overwhelmed by watching the girls in the pool; they were so tiny and yet loved to splash in it, and Catherine had bought them blow-up rings that went around them and helped keep them afloat. Once in a while Catherine would get into the pool with the girls, and she would point to me where I stood nearby and say to the girls, “Swim to Mommy, swim to Mommy!” And she would laugh and clap her hands. And then she would get out of the pool and go back to the beach and read. If William was near the pool or, better yet, in the pool, I felt better, I felt safer from all the people who were sitting around the edge, wrists draping over their lounge chairs, eyes closed to the sun. But William would never stay in the pool very long, and I was left there alone with the girls—and I would be frightened.
On the trips back home the girls would be cranky, and （in my memory） their father would be silent as we waited at the airport. Once on the plane I would sit between the girls and try to keep them entertained, although I often felt angry. Because if one of them cried, other passengers looked over with scowls, and William and his mother would be seated somewhere else on the plane.
* * *
—
Since that time I have traveled the world with my work—my books come out and foreign publishers invite me and there are festivals in all parts of the world—and since that time I have traveled to so many places, and I have traveled first-class, where they give you the little kit of toothpaste and a toothbrush and a mask to put over your eyes—I have done all that so many times now.
What a strange thing life is.
* * *
I met Becka and Chrissy at Bloomingdale’s on Saturday; this is something we have done with frequency over the years. We go to the place on the seventh floor where they serve frozen yogurt and then we walk through the store in a desultory fashion. I have written before about doing that with my girls.
But I mention it now because when they showed up Becka said, “Mom! What kind of crap is Dad going through? His wife leaves him and he just found out that he has some half-sister? Mom!” She stared at me with her brown eyes.
“I know,” I said.
Chrissy stood there, looking serious. She said, “It’s kind of awful, Mom.”
“Yes, I should say so,” I said. And both girls said they were glad I was going with their father to Maine.
I took a close look at Chrissy but she did not seem pregnant to me, and she said nothing about it, until—as we were walking through the shoe section after our frozen yogurt—she said, “I’m going to a specialist, Mom. I’m not getting any younger.”
“Okay, good for you,” I said, and she slipped her arm through mine.
I know there are cultures in our society where a mother would be very pushy and say, Who is the specialist? Can I go with you? What is going on exactly? But that is not my culture; I come from a Puritan background, both my parents came from Puritan stock—which they were proud of—and we did not talk like that to one another. There was not much talk in my childhood house at all.
But when we parted I kissed the girls as I always do, and as is always true there is pain at my leaving them. A little bit, this time, my heart ached more.
“Good luck! Good luck!” they called out from across the street as they started to go down into the subway. “Stay in touch and let us know! Bye, Mom! Bye, Mom!”
* * *
Because I recently mentioned my father I would like to say something more about the man. He also had terrible post-traumatic stress. He had been in World War II, in Germany, and he had been very, very damaged by it. He never spoke of the war; my mother must have told us that he fought in it, because I was aware of that fact growing up. The way in which his post-traumatic stress （although I did not know that term at the time） manifested itself was an anxiety so great that it seemed to produce sexual urges in him almost constantly. Often he walked around the house—
I am not going to say anything more about this.
But I loved him, my father.
I did.
* * *
—
I think I have mentioned the business about my father because as I was packing for Maine, I thought of William’s father. He had been fighting on the side of the Nazis, as I have said. （And my father had been fighting against them.） There were letters between William’s father and Catherine, and she told us that he said, when he got back to Germany, that he “did not like the things the country had done.” But none of those letters are in existence—I mean that when Catherine died, William and I never found those letters—and so I guess we do not know what William’s father thought about the war, except for one conversation William remembered having with him when William was about twelve, and his father had said that about Germany—that he did not like what they had done. I thought about this as I packed a summer blouse; why had his father come over to America? Did the man just want to be with Catherine? Or did he want to be American? He had been picked up in a ditch in France by American GIs, and he had thought that they would shoot him, but they did not. And he said—according to William and Catherine—that he wished he could find those men and thank them. He probably did want to be with Catherine, and also to be an American. Probably both. He went to MIT and, as I have said, became a civil engineer.