Eventually, I came to believe that if I wanted to break through the fortress Francis Oh was hiding behind, then maybe the chink in the wall—no pun intended—was the grandfather I had known only slightly. I had two photographs of Henry Oh: the one taken shortly after he’d arrived in America and the one of him among his family at that California reunion. I also had my in-person memories of Grandpa Oh: his lined, unsmiling face. The way he would scan the open room of his big, noisy dim sum palace, overseeing his staff of dour waitresses wheeling their carts. The way he would stop tableside to chat with customers he knew, go back and forth through the swinging doors of the restaurant’s kitchen.
But I’d been blocked for a while in my efforts to bring Grandpa Oh’s story to life—jammed up to the point that I started thinking about giving up. Henry Oh began to seem as elusive as his son, Francis. But then I read an article in the Times, “Your Brain on Fiction,” and what a gift! The article talked about studies that examined how the language of fiction—metaphors, sensory details, emotional fireworks between characters—activates different parts of a reader’s brain. It said brain scientists at Emory and in Canada and Europe—Spain, I think it was—had studied the MRIs of subjects when they read fiction and found out that the olfactory cortex and the motor cortex were being stimulated in the same way as if these subjects were experiencing the real deal: smelling, feeling textures, running away from bad guys. And that narrative—the opportunity to get inside a character’s head and think what he’s thinking and feeling—takes the reader beyond the boundaries of his own experiences and hones his ability to empathize. I tore that article out of the paper, reread it a few times, and then bam! It hit me. What if, instead of writing about my grandfather, I became him? Traveled back in time and simulated his life as he was living it? And so I crossed over the border from nonfiction to fiction, and the floodgates opened up. I pinned that picture of Grandpa Oh my cousin had sent me to the bulletin board over my desk, the one of him when he was a pigtailed adolescent who’d just entered the country. Started tapping into his hopes and fears, his homesickness. And now it’s a ritual. Every morning when I start my work, I stare into those dark eyes of his and ask him to take me back into his life. And most days, it works. Transports me into “the zone” so that, for the next two or three hours, I get to climb out of my own skin and into his. Zip it up the way Ariane zips Dario into his sleeper when she gets him ready for bed. My guess is that my own motor cortex and sensory cortex must be lighting up while I’m writing. Because the writer has to live the vicarious experience before the reader can. Right?
Is it any good, this novel I’m constructing? Will it ever get published? Probably not. But at least when I’m finished, a document will exist. Something that, should they ever want to pick it up and read it, my kids will be able to know that their ancestor was more than the stereotypical Chinaman who came here and worked hard to achieve his version of the American dream. Grandpa Oh looks so stoic and unreadable in that early photo, so unattainable. But I’ve gotten inside his head. I know him now—a version of him, at least. I can see behind those inscrutable eyes. And maybe this process will help me to come back full circle to my original goal. Help me to crack the mystery of my own inscrutable father—if not the factual Francis Oh, then a fictional construction of who he might have been. . . .
It’s another big part of what saved me—pulled me out of my anger and despair about the brain stuff, the paraplegia. Not to mention the despair that Andrew’s confession had left me with. I went down for the count for a while after he unburdened himself that day. Got stuck in a depression so dark and deep that it might as well have been me down there in that well. The SSRIs didn’t touch it: Zoloft, Luvox, Lexapro. . . . After I gave Tracy her walking papers—told her I didn’t want her to waste the rest of her life taking care of an invalid, and that in some ways I wished she hadn’t even found me alive that night—I started flirting with the idea of suicide. Considered how I might do it, looked again and again at the Hemlock Society’s Web site. I couldn’t do it, though. Couldn’t saddle my kids with the aftermath—Andrew, especially. I’d kept my promise to him. Kept that cell phone with me day and night. What if I did myself in, and a minute or so later, he called me? Needed my help? . . .
And hey, this may not be the kind of life I ever imagined for myself, but I’m resigned to the fact that it is a life. I’ve got my writing, my daughter and her son here with me, Andrew living nearby. Every morning when Dario comes into my bedroom sleepy-eyed and climbs up into bed with me—with his Bumpa—I thank my lucky stars that I’m still around. That that SOB up there on the Cape didn’t kill me that day when he went after me, or that I didn’t finish what he started when I thought there was no way out. That it was all just hopeless.
I get through another thirty or forty pages of Chinese Immigration 1868–1892: Oral Histories, then start to get drowsy. Put the book on the night table. I’ll read some more in the morning before Annie and Viveca get here. Mr. Agnello’s funeral is at ten, Annie said, so they’ll be by sometime around noon and bring lunch. I’ll have to remember to tell Viveca what Belinda said: that she knew Josephus Jones. Or maybe I shouldn’t tell her. If I did, Viveca would want to speak to her, give her the third degree about him. And I don’t think Belinda would appreciate . . . I don’t think . . . I’m starting to doze. I reach over and turn out the light. That’s enough for today. Get some sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Orion Oh
Orion?”
“In here!”
“Where’s here?”
“I’m out in the sunroom.” I glance at the clock. It’s almost one thirty.
They enter, both of them in black, one as lovely as the other. “Sorry we’re so late,” Annie says. “Are you starving?”
“No, no. How was it?”
“Lovely,” Viveca says. “The music, the eulogy his son gave. It was a wonderful tribute, very touching but humorous, too,” Viveca says. “He obviously loved his father very much.”
“We went out to the cemetery for the interment and were going to come over here from there,” Annie says. “But when Joe invited us to the luncheon, he said he had set up a display—old family photos and several of Mr. Agnello’s paintings. So I kind of wanted to see it. That’s why we’re so late.”
“Not a problem,” I tell her. “You ate then?” She says they didn’t.
Viveca stands, suggests that Annie and I visit while she gets lunch ready. After she’s out of earshot, I shoot Annie a look of mock surprise. “She cooks?”
“We picked up deli,” she says. “Be nice. Where is everyone?”
“My aide has the rest of the day off, and Ariane and Dario went to some kiddie carnival at the mall. Andrew’s working today, gets out at five. He’s stopping over then.”
Her smile fades away. “How’s he doing?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure, really. He says he’s okay, but other than going to work and going to the gym, he doesn’t seem to have much of anything else. Except for the casino. He goes down there two or three times a week.”
“By himself?”
“Far as I know.”
She shakes her head. “Remember all the friends he used to have? Jay Jay, Josh, Luke. Those boys practically lived here.”
“Well, most of those guys have left the area by now. Gotten married, had kids. Remember Patrick Stanton, Andrew’s wrestling buddy? I ran into his dad at the bank a while ago. He told me Pat’s started his own tourist business in Kenya. Runs wild game tours or something.”
“Gee,” she says. “What about Andrew’s drinking? He was slurring his words the other night when I called him.”
“I don’t really know, Annie. He’ll have a couple of beers when he’s over here, but that’s about it. Not sure what he does when he goes back to his place. But yeah, this lone wolf stuff worries me, too. The way he’s isolating himself.”
“And I take it he’s not seeing anyone. Every time I ask him about girlfriends, he changes the
subject.”
“Nope, no girlfriends. Ariane tried to fix him up with someone she knows, but he told her no. I’ve talked to him about maybe getting on one of those matchmaking sites, but he says he’s not interested.”
“What do you think it’s about? His broken engagement?”
“I doubt it. That was what? Three years ago? And the breakup was his decision, not hers.” This is starting to make me uncomfortable, so I change the subject. “I tell you one thing, though. He’s crazy about that nephew of his, and vice versa. When he comes over here for supper, Dario sticks to him like Velcro. Andrew got his old Matchbox cars down from the attic a while back, and the two of them will get down on the rug and play. Crash the cars into each other. Dario’s really into those demolition derbies of theirs. Makes the sound effects. Rrrum-rrrum, rrrum. Crash!”
She smiles. “Boys will be boys.”
Viveca appears in the doorway. “Either of you want coffee?”
“I do.” We say it simultaneously. I tell her Belinda’s set it up before she left. That all she has to do is hit the “on” button.
“Got it,” Viveca says, then disappears.
“So how are things going with you two?” I ask Annie. Fine, she says. “Your trip to Greece is coming up pretty soon, huh? Finally.”
“Now don’t start that again,” she says. “There was no way I was going off on a trip abroad when things were so touch and go with you. Viveca either. She was worried about you, too.”
I nod. “Worried enough to let me borrow you back that first year. I think you spent more time in the hospital and at that rehab place than you did with her. And I know from Marissa that it was an issue—all the time you were spending here. That there was even some talk about a separation.”
“Well, we weathered that, Orion,” she says. “Every marriage goes through its rough patches. You know that. In therapy? One of the things I had to work on—learn to put to rest—was my guilt about our comfortable lifestyle. The fact that I’d come from nothing and she hadn’t. It was a roadblock between us that I had to take down. And Viveca is generous in her own way. But we’re fine now. Better than we’ve ever been, in fact.”
I nod, smile. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. She saved my ass financially with those sales of the Jones paintings that the cops recovered. I don’t know how I would have paid off all those bills otherwise. And the fact that she took a reduced commission on them? That was above and beyond. Was that your idea or hers?”
“Hers. But those sales have paid off for her, too, prestige- and publicity-wise. The gallery’s been doing brisk business ever since—even in this economy.”
“Good for her then—for both of you. So, onward to Mykonos then. You looking forward to it?”
“Very much so. There are some amazing ruins on Delos, the island next to Mykonos, that I can’t wait to see. The Sacred Lake, the Minoan Fountain, the Meeting Hall of the Poseidonists.”
“The Poseidonists? As in the god of the sea?”
“Uh-uh. They worshipped him. I’ve started planning a new series with a water theme. Oceans, rivers, rain. I’m thinking of calling it We Are Water. What do you think?”
“Nice,” I tell her. “Sounds promising.”
“I’ve done some preliminary sketches, but it’s all just conceptual and open-ended at this point. I kind of want to see what feeds me once I’m over there. But that’s enough about my work. What about yours? How’s your book coming along?”
“Pretty good. Did I tell you I’ve decided to turn it into a novel?”
She nods. “Last time we talked. Well, whenever you want to show it to me, I’d love to read it. Have Ariane or Andrew read any of it?”
“No. I’m not ready for that yet.”
She frowns. “You know what I think the trouble with Andrew is? Why he’s isolating himself? I don’t think he’s ever gotten over that shooting at Fort Hood. He worked with that doctor, you know. The one who killed all those people.”
“Yeah, I do know that.” But I also know that what’s eating away at Andrew is another killing. A hidden corpse.
“That was the worst day of my life,” Annie says. “When I heard about those shootings down there? I sat in front of the television, almost as if I were in a trance or something. Then I got ahold of myself—told myself I had to do something. So I put my coat on and walked down to the Church of the Most Precious Blood. Got down on my knees and prayed harder than ever before that Andrew wasn’t one of that maniac’s victims.”
“Church of the Most Precious Blood—why does that sound familiar?”
“It’s in Little Italy. Remember the San Gennaro festival?”
“Ah,” I say. “That’s it.”
“I’d been going there all along. Not for Mass, but during odd hours when the church was empty, or almost empty. And I’d kneel and ask God to keep him safe—to not let him have to go over there to Afghanistan or Iraq. And then, suddenly, not even that hospital in Texas was safe. After I left the church and went back to the apartment? The day of the shootings? When I heard his voice on the message machine—heard him say that he wasn’t even scheduled to go in that day—I just stood there and wailed.” Just thinking about that scare has brought her to tears again. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when he decided not to reenlist—to get out of the army and move back here to help you. I cried when I heard that news, too. I tell you one thing, Orion. I know you don’t believe in the power of prayer, but I sure do.”
The power of prayer: someone else said the same thing to me recently. Can’t remember who.
Viveca calls in to us. “Everything’s just about ready. Anna, could you come in and set the table?”
Annie gets up, comes over to my wheelchair. “Shall we go in?” I tell her I need to check on something first. I don’t. I just need a minute by myself. When she says she’ll be back after she sets the table, I remind her that I can wheel myself in there—that I’m not a quadriplegic. “Right,” she says. Gives me a wink and walks out.
Alone, I sit there, thinking again about the real reason why our son has unplugged from everything except his work. I’m still the only one he’s told about what happened that day—what he did, where the body is. It must only be a skeleton now. I have to tell someone, Dad. It’s like my head is going to explode if I don’t. . . . Poor Andrew: the burden he has to live with. But what good would it have done if he’d turned himself in? The guy was a pedophile—had gone to prison for doing to some other little girl what he had done to Annie. And he’d been a loner, apparently. There’s never been anything on the Internet about his having gone missing—nothing I’ve ever found anyway. I still check from time to time. But whenever I Google the guy, all that ever comes up is the stuff about his arrest and conviction for having molested that other poor kid.
Sometimes I wish Andrew hadn’t told me. It’s not easy keeping his secret. But at least he’s not suffering in a prison somewhere. He’s doing good, useful work with those psych patients. Helping people instead of stagnating in some shit-hole cell. And at least he’s got me to share a little of the weight of his secret. Talk him down when he goes into those panics about it. And thanks to the anti-anxiety meds they put him on, he’s not having them as much lately.
“Orion?”
“Yup. Coming.”
After lunch, Viveca says she wants to walk down in back and look at the cottage where Joe Jones used to live and paint. “Would you like to come with me, darling?” she asks. Annie says no, that she’ll stay and do the dishes.
“The ground’s probably going to be mushy down there after that rain we had yesterday,” I tell Viveca. “If I were you, I’d take off those heels you’re wearing and put on Ari’s Timberlands. They’re over there by the door.”
She nods. “Good idea.” When she’s ready to go, I kid her about her fashion statement: her fancy tailored suit and those scuffed-up hiking boots. She laughs, strikes a model’s pose. Feels good to kid with her a little.
“Watch out for that well
down there,” Annie tells her. I flinch when she says it, but it goes undetected.
After the dishes are done, Annie pours us more coffee and sits at the table with me. “So,” I say. “Sounds like your old pal Mr. Agnello got a pretty nice send-off, eh?”
She nods, says the Mass was concelebrated by the bishop and two other priests. I ask her if it’s weird being a Catholic these days, given the church’s position on gay marriage. “A little,” she says. “But once a Catholic, always a Catholic. It’s like saying I’m not going to be Irish anymore.”
I nod. “What about Communion? Do you partake?”
“I do. I’m not about to let a bunch of old men dictate what I can or can’t do. Those are their rules, not God’s. I joined the Unitarian church in our neighborhood a while back, and I go to services there mostly. But I go to Mass when the spirit moves me. My relationship with God is between Him and me.”
“Atta girl,” I tell her. “What about all those pedophile scandals? That must hit home, too, I imagine. Fuel a little of your anger about priests.”
She looks away from me and nods. She’s been in therapy ever since all her secrets came tumbling out, but I can see it’s still hard for her—what happened the night of the flood, and then what happened after it.
The front door bangs open. Footsteps, big and little, come hurrying toward us. “Well, hi, Dario!” Annie says, dropping to her knees and grabbing him, giving him smooches. When she lets him go, he takes the balloon animal his mother’s holding. “Gamma, look!” he says.
“Oh, cool! What is it? A lion?”
He shakes his head. “A doggie.”
“And where did you get it?”
“A funny man made it for me.”
“A clown,” Ari reminds him.
Annie takes it from him. “And what does the doggie say?”
“Woof woof.”