600 Hours of Edward

anything you want.”
    “I don’t want anything.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes. I don’t like golf shirts.”
    A glance around the room tells me that he has hundreds of golf shirts, and slacks, and golf sweater vests, and fleece pullovers. These clothes, destined for the Salvation Army and the Montana Rescue Mission thrift stores, will be fine items for someone. Iwould not be surprised to see a homeless man in a St. Andrew’s sweater this winter. That would be funny.
    “Why are you doing this now, Mother?”
    “Why not? No time like the present. And, frankly, it’s too much. Your father is no longer here to wear it, and it’s not right that we should have so much when others have so little.”
    That makes a lot of sense to me. And my mother seems invigorated with this project.
    “There’s another benefit to doing this, Edward.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Come here and smell this.” She’s holding out one of my father’s shirts, an aqua-blue long-sleeved shirt with the Augusta National logo on the left breast.
    “Smell a shirt?”
    “Yes, it’s not something bad. Give it a whiff.”
    I lean over but don’t let my nose touch the shirt. Even so, I can smell the faint essence of my father’s cologne, Canoe, on it.
    “You spend forty years of your life in the same house with a man, and you come to know his scent,” my mother says. “It’s like he’s here in the room with me. And that gives me comfort.”
    She smiles at me, and I back at her.
    “Maybe I’ll take one of them, Mother.” She hands me the aqua-blue long-sleeved shirt, which I place away from the stacks of clothing, and then I come back and help her fold and sort the piles of unprocessed clothes still to go.
    – • –
    “I’ve made a decision, Edward.”
    My mother and I are eating tuna sandwiches and carrot sticks in the kitchen.
    “What?”
    “I’m selling the house.”
    I am surprised.
    “Why?”
    “It’s too much for just me. I wouldn’t feel right living here alone. It’s too big and…Well, it’s something your father and I shared. Now that he’s gone, I think it might be time for me to find a place that’s just mine.”
    “What sort of place?”
    “There are some lovely new condos just downtown. They are small enough for just me, and they’re near the places I like to go. As nice as the view is from here, I’ve never much cared for how far we are from town and for driving down that hill in the nastiest days of winter. I think I would like downtown living.”
    “Yes.”
    “Also, I won’t be spending as much time here anymore.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes,” she says. “It’s like this, Edward: I’ve decided that I would like to split my time between here and Dallas. Your Aunt Corinne still lives down there, and I haven’t seen nearly as much of her as I would like.”
    “Didn’t Uncle Andy die last year?”
    “Yes. We can be the two crazy widow sisters, on the loose in Texas.”
    “That’s funny, Mother.”
    “Would that be OK with you, if I spent more time in Texas from now on?”
    “Yes. Why would you ask?”
    “I don’t know. You’re a grown man, Edward, and I know you can take care of yourself. But if you thought I was abandoning you, I wouldn’t want to leave.”
    “I know you’re not abandoning me, Mother.”
    “Good.”
    “I might even come see you sometimes.”
    “Edward, I would love that.”
    “I think I would, too.”
    She reaches out and clutches my right hand in hers. I squeeze back.
    – • –
    “Are you angry with me over some of the things your father did?”
    My mother and I are in his office going through photo albums. She thinks that I should take some and keep them in my house on Clark Avenue, and I think it is a very good idea.
    “No.”
    “I feel horrible about all the things I didn’t know. When I saw those letters in Jay’s file, I…I felt so betrayed. Betrayed by your father, and even Jay. Then later, I felt so stupid. I wondered, ‘How could I have not known? How could I have become so detached from your life? How could I have let him make me so detached from your life?’”
    “Dr. Buckley says that I should try to remember the good in Father and give him the benefit of the doubt that he was doing what he thought was best, even if it was off base.”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think that is easier to say than to do. But I also think Dr. Buckley is very wise and that it’s worth the effort.”
    “I guess so.”
    We keep looking at