600 Hours of Edward

photographs.
    “Edward, what was that letter that Jay gave you Monday?”
    “Father wrote it a couple of years ago to tell me that he was proud of me and loved me, and that he hoped he would say it before he died so he didn’t have to say it in that letter.”
    My mother’s eyes fill with tears. “I wish he would have told you,” she says softly.
    “So do I, but Dr. Buckley says he gave me a great gift. She says that she has clients who have waited all their lives to hear those things from their fathers. I only had to wait until I was thirty-nine years and two hundred and ninety-nine days old.”
    My mother laughs as a tear runs down her face. “I love you, too, Edward.”
    “I know, Mother. And I love you.”
    – • –
    Before I leave, my mother tells me that there’s one last order of business between us.
    “Leave your Toyota here and take the Cadillac.”
    My father’s Cadillac DTS is sitting in the driveway, gleaming in the early afternoon sunlight.
    “What will happen to the Toyota?”
    “I’ll have Jay dig up the title, and we’ll include it in all the things we’re sending to the Rescue Mission. Between your father’s clothes, the car, and the check we’re going to write, there ought to be enough to ensure some happy holidays for people who deserve some happiness, don’t you think?”
    “Yes. That sounds very nice.”
    “The keys are in the ignition. Enjoy your new car. Your father certainly did.”
    I kiss my mother on the cheek and then walk over to the car, which is a deep, beautiful cherry red. I open the door and climb in.
    I turn the key in the ignition to get a look at the instrument panel, which is a lot different from the one in my Camry. As I’m slipping into the seat belt, my mother raps her knuckles against the window on my side of the car.
    The DTS doesn’t have manual-crank windows like the Camry. Finally, I find the automatic window button.
    “Edward, it will take a while to sell this house, and I’m not planning to head to Texas until spring. Can I count on seeing you from time to time?”
    “Yes, Mother. Of course.”
    “Because we’re going to do better from now on, you and me, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. Take care, son. I’ll call you in a few days, or you call me, OK?”
    “Yes.”
    She puts her hand on my cheek and smiles, and then she steps away from the car and waves good-bye. I push the window button to roll it up, put the car in drive, and head down the driveway.
    A few minutes later, at 4:26 p.m., I’m riding along Highway 3, back toward downtown.
    The Cadillac DTS is a superior car in every way except one: I liked where the cup holders were on the Camry. It is yet another thing I will have to let go.
    – • –
    At home, I park the Cadillac DTS in the driveway, and then I get out and admire it.
    It’s a beautiful car.
    The STANTON vanity plates will have to go. My father was more flamboyant than I. (I love the word “flamboyant.”)
    The Dallas Cowboys license plate frames will stay.
    – • –
    I spend the next few hours ostensibly sorting through the pictures my mother has sent home with me. I say ostensibly—a word I love—because every ten minutes on the dot, I get up and peek through the curtains on the front window to see if I can spot Donna Middleton and/or Kyle. Each time, I see no one, though I can see by the car that they are home.
    The pictures I’ve selected span much of my life, but most of them are from the days when I was a young child and my father and I got along famously. As I thumb through the albums, I remove some of the ones I like best: my father and me on the Ferris wheel at the Montana State Fair, my mother and me standing outside a cave at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, my mother and father splashing around in a lake in Minnesota. I decide that these pictures and several others should not be closed up in an album but instead should be framed on a wall. As my walls are empty, I have plenty of room for such things.
    In considering where the photos I’ve picked out would look best, I find myself wishing that I had taken pictures of that snowy day in front my house when Kyle was riding his Blue Blaster and Donna and I were throwing snowballs. Photographs, it seems to me, are both moments in time and bits of memory. I have the memory of that day with Donna and Kyle, but I also know that memory is imprecise. If I’d had a camera, instead of just a memory, I could have caught the moments so that they would never