A Theory of Relativity

  Jurgen had been talking quietly with Tim, making it clear he intended to sleep that night at Tim’s apartment, and Tim—though he’d met Jurgen only once before, on a visit to Florida—was going along with the plan as if it had been his own invitation, as if they’d been brothers for life. That was Jurgen’s effect on people, a wonder to Gordon as long as he’d known him. People said he, Gordon, took things lightly, but Carl had nerves of steel, or of silk.

  Sometime during the night, in a befuddled way, Gordon had decided that Jurgen would be someone to confide in. Jurgen was, after all, almost a lawyer, one of the few of his friends from college who hadn’t been math or science grinds.

  And so he had waited. He had waited, trying to do his part in recalling, for the Tall Trees bunch, the impossible rapture of their Southern college days and nights, which seemed at this point, in alcohol-fueled retrospect, like an endless sunlit kiss on a white beach that stretched on forever.

  “Tonight,” Jurgen said then—with elegance out of keeping with the pie tins rubbled with two roach ends and the butts of Kip’s Camels, and flies drowning in the pool of cranberry juice that had jelled on the cable spool Tim used for a coffee table—“Despite all . . . this revelry, which is probably unseemly, we are all a little older than we should be. So let’s remember when we were young.” He’d added, “For my beloved pal, Ray Nye, Junior.”

  And Jurgen went on, his recall for place and words so much more acute than Gordon’s own. He’d told them all about the sandwich guy they’d tortured with their weekend raids on his marquee—by Sunday morning, “Meatball Subs” read “Bust Me Balls,” “Hot Dog and Fries” ended up “Sand Ho Got Fried.” About using Carl’s lawyer father’s credit card to charge cases of Hula Girl at the Sunoco station, the weary guy behind the counter deadpanning, “Regular or unleaded?” slapping the charge slip right on top of the sweating beer cans. They’d traded stories of adventures that led up to the fall when Georgia had come to Florida State. For Gordon, a Northerner utterly infatuated with the languor of the South, life had then been perfect. With new friends, Georgia had taken on the role of unofficial little sister to the Evans Scholars, organizing softball matches and dress-up dances. The first Thanksgiving after, as Jurgen put it, “Georgia conquered Florida,” there’d been a big golf tournament. And so a dozen of them couldn’t go home for the holiday.

  Georgia had cooked a dinner, and in lieu of a blessing, had sung, in her sweet alto, the old Louis Armstrong song, “What a Wonderful World,” whereupon strong men sobbed and rushed from the table to call their mothers.

  It was on the tide of those memories, at dawn, when pink flossy clouds were shredding overhead, that Gordon had asked Carl to join him on the balcony at Tim’s place, finally able to give voice to his troubles.

  “I guess, you know, we haven’t had a chance to work everything out, about my niece,” he’d begun. “But I guess we’ll take care of her all together. The three of us. Me, mostly, I guess.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Jurgen said solemnly, and Gordon’s neck prickled. “I can’t imagine raising a baby alone.”

  “I can’t imagine raising a baby at all. But it’s Keefer. I have to.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “It’s Keefer.”

  “Big Ray and Diane,” Jurgen said thoughtfully, “are they okay with this?”

  The thought of that student’s dad, Mr. . . . Liotis, lawyer Liotis, rapped at Gordon’s chest.

  He wanted to ask Jurgen, did the last will stand in force even if the principals revoked it? Did they have to work out all these complexities immediately, and for all time? His words stalled in his mouth. Georgia seemed to be receding, fast, away from him down a long passage, like a vanishing train.

  “My sister and Ray named us guardians,” he’d ventured. “That’s what they both wanted.”

  “Us,” Jurgen repeated.

  “Didn’t the Nyes talk about it?”

  “Yes, they did,” Jurgen acknowledged.

  “What, do you feel okay telling me what they said?”

  “All they said was, they were meeting with Ray’s lawyer. Friday. Tomorrow. Today, I guess, by now. And I assumed this had something to do with their estate.”

  “They didn’t have much of an estate, Carl, and it’s all Keefer’s, I mean, whatever we can get for the condo, or whatever . . . it will pay for her college and all.”

  “They had insurance. I assume any responsible parent, with, I’m sorry, a very ill spouse, would be very careful about that.”

  “I, you know, I just hadn’t thought of it.”

  “No one would, in your circumstances.”

  “Do you think that the Nyes . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “Well, do you think they would consider wanting custody of Keefer?”

  “I think they would consider that, yes.”

  “Do you think that would be . . . ?”

  “I’m in a sort of place, here, Gordo. Ray was my best friend all my life. I’ve known the Nyes since I was in first grade. And two finer people never walked on land. They love that little girl. And your mom and dad are equally good people.”

  “And they’ve been with the baby, every day of her life, practically.”

  “It’s a tough one. I’m sure the Nyes want the very best for Keefer.” Something in his tone alerted Gordon. Implied a contest. Will there be sides, Gordon thought? Will Jurgen be on mine? South versus North? Friendship versus history?

  “I know they do. I know they do,” he’d finally managed, stupidly.

  “I’m sure good people can work this all out. You know, Georgia was in her way a great beauty, Gordo. I got to know her well in the time they lived down there, when you were off in the jungles with the earthy folk. She had a mouth on her, but what a sweet soul. Yep, I’m sure you all can work this out.”

  Was he sure? Gordon sneaked a look at Jurgen’s angular jaw. His friend looked placid, serene. Then Jurgen sighed. “I’m pulling for . . . well, for all of you.”

  All of you, Gordon’s mind repeated. Jurgen had to have an agenda here. The ties were deep and tangled. Jurgen, Gordon happened to know, had availed himself of Alison Nye’s virginity one fiercely hot night on the carpet of the ninth green at Sandpiper, though it had not been an enduring relationship, and Alison had married Andy several years later. At Georgia’s wedding, the fact that Gordon had been Ray’s best man, had been a sore point with Jurgen.

  But what significance could any of this have now, Gordon thought? Here, now, when they’d all grown up and Ray and Georgia were dead and he was sweating and nauseated, in the dawn of his grief, in a car in Tall Trees in the middle of a dusty field with Tim—Gordon noticed now—asleep in the driver’s seat?

  Gordon nudged him. “Isn’t it Friday? Don’t you have to go to work or something?”

  “Three days compassionate leave,” Tim snorted, wakening. “I told my boss it was a relative.”

  “We’re not your relatives,” Gordon said.

  “Same as.”

  “We . . . appreciate all you did.”

  “De nada.”

  “I have to get home, now, Church. For real. My folks need me. And I need aspirin and peanut butter toast.”

  “Absolutely,” Tim said.

  Cleveland Avenue was as quiet as a Sunday morning. I’m a teacher, Gordon thought, I should be sleeping. There are three great things about teaching, said the fridge magnet his mother had given him—June, July, and August. Tim parked the car. For a moment, both of them dozed against the seat, Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” gently vibrating from Tim’s very good speakers through their arms and butts.

  “Your mom is yelling on the lawn, Gordo,” Tim said sleepily.

  Gordon jerked into consciousness. Horse-smelling sweat poured down his chin. The air conditioner was blasting.

  His mom was indeed standing on the lawn, in her T-shirt and boxer shorts, her mouth snapping soundlessly. Gordon thought of a nutcracker. He rolled down the passenger
-side window.

  “—don! Now!” Lorraine scolded.

  To his shame, Gordon spotted the identical Dwors leaning out their porch window next door. He waved.

  “I need you to come in right now, Gordon,” she said, “Right now. Hi, Tim.” As if they were children and she were helping them out of the car, Lorraine began fumbling at the door handle.

  “Take it easy, Mom,” Gordon struggled to open the door from his side. His Grandma Lena would always do this. You could never open the car door for her because she’d be wrestling with the handle on the inside all the while you were trying from the outside. “Let it alone, Mom! I can’t get out if you’re messing with it.”

  Finally, Tim was gone and Gordon and Lorraine stood face-to-face on the lawn.

  “They have five hundred thousand dollars!” she practically yelled.

  “Who?”

  “The kids! Ray and Georgia! They have five hundred thousand dollars, and the insurance investigator just called me . . . they think it was a suicide!”

  “Let’s go inside, Mom. Who’s here?”

  “Your father. Nora.”

  “Okay, okay, let’s just settle down . . .”

  Nora and Mark were seated at the kitchen table. Each of them had a clean tablet and a sharpened number 2 pencil and a telephone book.

  “We have to call a lawyer,” Lorraine told him. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Well, I know one we can’t call,” Gordon said. He leaned over and kissed his aunt’s soft forehead, and then, after thinking about it for an instant, kissed his father’s cheek.

  It took him the better part of an hour to explain about Julius Liotis’s father, about Jurgen’s revelation about the Nyes’ meeting with the lawyer, about the revoked will. The process was halting, because Nora or Lorraine would interrupt about every fifteen seconds—“No!” or “That’s impossible!”—so that he could not complete a sentence. They hadn’t suspected a thing.

  “Why would they change their will?” Nora asked.

  “I have no idea, I only know what the lawyer said,” Gordon replied. “And Carl said they were meeting with the lawyer . . . today.”

  “Son, did he say that they had signed a new will?”

  “He said he was helping them prepare it. I assume so.”

  “So they have a will,” Mark sighed, “that we don’t know about.”

  “Diane Nye has convinced them to give her the baby,” Lorraine muttered. She had raked her hair into dreadlocks, the effect some of Gordon’s students achieved with dish soap.

  “But, Lor, wouldn’t you do the same thing?” Mark asked.

  “No”—Lorraine turned on her husband savagely—“I would not try to take a baby away from the only people she knows best and loves! I would not try to get control of all that baby’s money!”

  “Lorraine!” Mark admonished her, “We don’t know anything about that.”

  “Why would they think the children committed suicide?” Nora asked.

  “Well, Auntie,” Gordon began, “cars are . . . car accidents are a common method people . . . use to try to cover up a suicide.”

  “Like Porter Avery.”

  They all lapsed into silence, thinking of the farmer neighbor of the Nordstroms who had crushed himself with gruesome creativity under his own tractor. A cardinal whistled outside the open window, and they all jumped at the grinding of a truck’s gears.

  “It’s garbage day!” Mark announced. “I completely forgot it!”

  “Don’t you dare go get out those cans.” Lorraine warned her husband.

  “It’s going to smell, Lor; there’s a bunch of that food in it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Nora offered.

  “No, I will,” Gordon interrupted.

  Lorraine erupted, “Let the fucking cans sit! All of you! Am I the only one here who realizes we have to make a plan of some kind or Keefer is going to have a Southern accent?”

  Gordon had never heard his mother say “fuck.” He would not have imagined she knew how.

  The telephone rang, but no one answered. They all listened as Diane Nye’s soft, lilting voice spoke into the answering tape. “We have a little appointment about ten, Lorraine. And then we thought we’d take Baby up to the inn to visit with the grandkids. I think they’re going home tonight. Is that okay? Okay. And then we can make arrangements for Keefer coming back home with us—home to Jupiter, I mean. For Raymond’s memorial. And, of course, you are invited. Are you all doing okay? I slept a little. Thank your doctor for me.” After the funeral, Diane had suffered a migraine, and Eve Holly, from Pine Grove Medical, who’d been in attendance, had given her an injection. “Okay. Well, ’bye all.”

  They all watched the telephone as if it were a mad dog about to spring. Keefer wandered out into the kitchen, her diaper slung low like plumbers’ pants, her pink Elmo shirt pulled up over her belly, the terry-cloth frog she both cuddled and chewed under one arm.

  “Dory!” she beamed, and climbed into Gordon’s lap, a warm spreading squish of pee immediately dampening his thighs. “Moobie?”

  “She’s saying ‘movie,’ ” Lorraine explained.

  “I know what she’s saying, Mom,” Gordon said sharply. “It’s because we watched Wizard of Oz last week.”

  Nora busied herself with the moosh of soaked Cheerios in the mermaid bowl that Keefer demanded every morning for breakfast and, stripping the baby of her weighty diaper, swept her into her high chair. “Wed poon!” Keefer intoned, ominously.

  “She’s saying she wants her red spoon, Mom,” Gordon snapped.

  But Lorraine was leafing through the telephone book. Gordon caught sight of the page headings: Abortion, Adoption. “Do we need an estate lawyer, Mark? Or an adoption lawyer?”

  “Well,” Nora said mildly, “Bradie’s older sister is infertile, from endometriosis. And she’s adopting a baby girl from China, did you know that? And I know they went through an agency in Morehouse. So I’ll just call her, is all . . .” Nora gathered up her pad and removed herself to Mark’s tiny sunporch office.

  “It’s actually pretty obvious why they would consider it a suicide, Mom,” Gordon began.

  “It’s an insult,” Lorraine replied.

  “No, it’s pretty obvious. Ray was very depressed. It was more than Georgia. He had just given up the biggest victory—”

  “Oh, Christ, if I hear one more word about the miracle at Coachman’s Hill I’m going to throw up,” Lorraine said “Ray Nye should have quit the goddamned tour the minute she got sick, Gordon.”

  “They had to have the income, Mom.”

  “I know that. But that wasn’t his only motivation. His . . . work distracted him. He couldn’t face all this. He counted on us. He knew we would take care of our child. How often did you see Diane and Big Ray here cleaning up the . . . taking care of your sister? Diane didn’t come here once. Diane sent her tree bark crap in the mail, and it was surface mail, Gordon. She didn’t even FedEx it.”

  “Mom, wait—”

  “I mean it! Now here they come, talking about baby, baby, baby, like she doesn’t have a name—”

  “That’s just a Southern phrase—”

  “And their son, the great hero.”

  “Mom, Ray loved Georgia.”

  “Ray loved Georgia, and Ray went on with his life, Gordon! We quit our lives! I took time off school, and you took time off, and your dad barely went to work, and Mike and Nora, we all stopped our lives, Gordon. Even Lindsay and Tim interrupted their lives—”

  “How could we have done anything else, Mom?”

  “That’s the point! And now, they want Keefer because she’s their genetic link to Ray.”

  “That stinks, Mom.”

  “Okay, okay, it stinks. But I don’t have to be rational, Gordon. My child is dead. Your father’s child and mine is lying across the street under the ground.” Gordon thought, suddenly, Not your only child, Mom, but dismissed it. “And we have to figure out a way to keep what’s left of our family together.”


  Nora came back beaming. She held up her notepad, triumphant, a good girl who had finished her homework before the rest of the class. “I found it!” she told them, “I got the name of Amber Dugan’s agency. It’s Adoption Alliance—”

  “A . . . Aardvark,” Mark said. They stared at him, and he continued, flustered, “That’s why everyone does that. You know. A-One Auto Body. They want to be the first in the phone book.”

  “Thanks, Mark,” Lorraine said.

  “Anyhow, I got the name of the lawyer, too. Greg Katt. In Merill.”

  “Let’s get calling,” Lorraine whispered. “They’re going to be here in . . . what time is it?”

  “Wait a minute.” Gordon, nauseated and baffled, panted, “Wait a minute. Can’t we all just talk this over? With the Nyes?”

  “We have to find out how to secure custody of Keefer,” Lorraine explained, slowly, as if explaining to a middle-school child how to hold a pencil for shading. “We have to take the first step, before they do.”

  “But as of right now, we already have custody of Keefer. I’m worried about it, too, Mom. I’ve been thinking about it twenty-four-seven. But I don’t think we have to get out the big guns yet.”

  “Gordon, your father and I are almost sixty years old. Do you think a court is going to give us a toddler to raise? We’re not going to live forever,” Lorraine said, and then stopped, and went on more gently. “I don’t mean we’re going to die anytime soon. But we’re not wealthy people, honey, not like Big Ray, who builds all those instant communities, every one with its own golf course, they’ll be golfing on the ocean floor next—”

  “Mommy, you’re not saying this has anything to do with needing . . . the baby’s money?” Gordon glanced at Keefer, who grinned at him madly, poking the air in his direction with her spoon, as if to say, howsa about that? He felt his eyes start to burn and fill, “I mean needing the money to bring her up and stuff . . .”