600 Hours of Edward

grief.”
    “Where do you think you are?”
    “I’m not in denial. It happened. I know that. It was in the newspaper. I’m always in isolation. I don’t feel angry, except a little bit at my mother, who is deifying my father—”
    “Many people do that immediately after the death of a loved one.”
    “Yes. I’m not bargaining. I don’t think I’m depressed. I haven’t accepted it yet. I guess I would have to say that I’m dealing with it.”
    “OK. That’s good.”
    “Yes.”
    “Call me if you need anything. And I do mean anything.”
    “I will.”
    “Good-bye, Edward. I will see you Tuesday, if not sooner.”
    “Good-bye, Dr. Buckley.”
    – • –
    The phone rings again at 6:17 p.m. as I’m clearing away the dishes from my spaghetti dinner.
    “Hello?”
    “Edward.”
    “Hello, Mother.”
    “Edward, I want to apologize for yelling at you.”
    “OK.”
    “I feel so crazy sometimes. This can’t be happening.”
    “You’re not crazy, Mother. And it is happening.”
    “I know. Will you still be at the funeral tomorrow?”
    “I will be there.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Mother?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry for yelling, too.”
    – • –
    It is Halloween, but no one comes to the door. This is as I planned. On Halloween, I turn off all the lights and put my car in the garage, and it seems for all appearances that I am not home. That is so much easier than telling eager children at the door that, no, I have no candy for them. Children get sad when you say such a thing to them, and that is difficult enough. But some adults, they get violently angry. That I do not need.
    Kyle, I guess, is off enjoying Halloween in Laurel, at his grandparents’ house. I watched through a tiny slit in the curtain as he walked out to the car earlier today with his overnight bag, accompanied by Donna in her nurse’s scrubs. Jay L. Lamb’s “memorandum of understanding” said nothing about watching my friends from the living room of the house I live in, and even if it had, I would like to see him prove that I did it.
    – • –
    Tonight’s episode of
Dragnet
, the eleventh of the first season, is called “The Big Shooting,” and it’s one of my favorites. It originally aired on March 30, 1967.
    In this episode, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon investigate the shooting of a police officer, but they are hindered by two things: The cop, who survives the shooting, has a mental blackout about what happened. Also, there are no other eyewitnesses to the shooting.
    For months, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon keep at it, slowly accumulating clues and evidence about the shooter and his cohort. (I love the word “cohort.”) Finally, one of Sergeant Joe Friday’s informants lets him know where the men can be found. Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon bust in on them in a cheap motel and take them downtown. They still don’t have an eyewitness who can identify the men. But Sergeant Joe Friday has an idea.
    He dresses the amnesiac cop in his uniform and has him stand at the door when the men are interrogated. Thinking that they had killed the cop and now worried that he will identify him, they get spooked and admit to the shooting. Once again, Sergeant Joe Friday gets his men.
    I would like to be lucky enough to not remember those who take things away from me.
    – • –
    Tonight, I need a new green office folder.
    Dear Mother:
    Although you have apologized to me and I have forgiven you for the events of today, I feel that I must make it clear to you that there is much you either don’t know or don’t want to know about your now-dead husband, my father.
    I am not making these things up. You may think that Father hung the moon—which is an idiom, as no one has the physical capability to actually hang a moon. But my memories of him are mostly of being marginalized andbeing unable to please him. That makes me very sad now that I will never see him again.
    In Jay L. Lamb’s statement in the
Herald-Gleaner
article, he referred to “Maureen and the family.” I should not have to point out to you that “the family” is I. It is you and I now. Father is gone. And while I realize that you are in the denial-and-isolation stage of grief, I do hope that you can deal with it in a brisk manner. I would like to be your friend and your child. I could manage only one of those things with my father.
    I am, your son,
    Edward

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1
    On the second full day of my life without