It came, just the same.
September 16, 1979
Reality came last summer without boxes or ribbons or packages or bows.
It came without warnings or excuses,
And gripped me from my head to my toes.
And I puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore.
How could I have missed something at my essence, at my very core?
Reality came, yes it did, with its own devilish plot.
It came like a net, and I like the fish, that in it was caught.
It struck like a fist, hitting me square in the jaw.
A blow without warning, unapologetic, and savagely raw.
The pain lingered for days, then for months and, finally, years.
It lingered and lingered until its message became clear.
The world, it seemed, had been busy playing chess,
While I had played checkers . . . and ignored the rest.
PART I
I AIN’T NO SENATOR’S SON
August 26, 1967
“Don’t stand out. Just blend in. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Mom.”
My mother draped a gold chain over my head and pressed her hand to the crucifix.
“And don’t be a hero. Just blend in and come home.”
“I will,” I told her, because I knew it was what she wanted to hear.
And I didn’t want to think about the alternative.
Chapter 1
August 29, 2015
I walked into a wall where once had been the entry to our kitchen. I’d had my head down, flipping through the pages of the journal I’d kept at seventeen and wondering what happened to the young man who had wanted to write.
“Damn,” I said.
Elizabeth looked up from the remodel plans she had spread across our dining room table and laughed. “Old habits die hard, I guess,” she said.
“I guess,” I said, rubbing where I had bumped my head. “When did this go in?”
“Yesterday. They’re moving the staircase tomorrow.”
“Moving the staircase?” I said, my tone sharpening and volume rising.
“I’m kidding.”
“Very funny.”
We were in the middle of a remodel that started with just removing a nonstructural wall between the kitchen and the dining room no one ever used. The kitchen had since doubled in size and shifted, to make the family room larger. Elizabeth decided a new kitchen needed new appliances, and a bay window, and, apparently, a new entry. I wasn’t complaining, at least not out loud. It would be nice to have a larger family room, which meant a larger flat-screen, in my way of thinking. It was also practical. Beau, our eighteen-year-old, who would be a high school senior, brought friends home after summer football conditioning, and that would likely continue after Friday-night games in the fall. I’d warned Elizabeth that eighteen-year-old young men after an extended workout were like stray dogs. Feed them and they would keep coming back. They did. I wished I had bought stock in Costco pizza.
Mary Beth, our freshman daughter, a basketball player, would likely do the same with her friends and teammates in the winter. Elizabeth and I had decided it was better to have them at home with friends than driving all over town.
Holding both William’s and my journals made me think of that lost dream—the one I had to be a writer, maybe even someday write a novel. I forsook that dream for a stable job and a stable income as an attorney. I had justified my decision to go to law school as best I could—I told myself that having a law degree would give me something to fall back on if the writing didn’t work out. I then justified becoming a lawyer by telling myself I would need to save money for when I took a sabbatical to write. More recently, I told myself my savings and investments would allow me to retire young, and that I could write that novel after both our kids graduated college.
I had only been fooling myself.
I had chickened out when I went to law school. I had been afraid to write, afraid I would fail. What would people think of me? Class valedictorian. And he’s a nobody. A failure.
And now? Well, the law was indeed a jealous mistress. Days became months and months became years and years became decades. I devoted too much time to my job. I stayed at the office late, got in early, worked too many weekends. It was easier that way, I suppose—not having the time to write, rather than admitting that I simply didn’t have the heart or the courage.
I pacified myself with things like the remodel, things we could afford, but, frankly, that I didn’t care about. I told myself Elizabeth and I could give our kids more than I had growing up with nine siblings, but I realize now that kids don’t want much, just to know they are loved.