In One Person

clothes.”
    “Her clothes,” I repeated.
    “It seems he liked girls’ clothes—he liked trying them on, Billy,” Uncle Bob said.
    “Oh.”
    “Your grandmother found them in your mom’s bedroom—one day, after your mother had come home from the high school in Ezra Falls. Your mom and Franny Dean were trying on your mom’s clothes. It was just a childish game, but your aunt Muriel told me Franny had tried on
her
clothes, too. The next thing we knew, Mary had a crush on him, but by then Franny must have known he liked boys better. He was genuinely fond of your mom, Billy, but he mainly liked her clothes.”
    “She still managed to get
pregnant
,” I pointed out. “You don’t get a girl pregnant by fucking her clothes!”
    “Think about it, Billy—there was all this dressing and undressing going on,” Uncle Bob said. “They must have been in their underwear a lot—you know.”
    “I have trouble imagining it,” I told him.
    “Your grandpa thought the world of Franny Dean, Billy—I think Harry believed it could work,” Uncle Bob said. “Don’t forget, your mother was always a little
immature
—”
    “A little simpleminded, do you mean?” I interrupted him.
    “When Franny was a young boy, I think your mom sort of
managed
him—you know, Billy, she could kind of boss him around a little.”
    “But then Franny grew up,” I said.
    “There was also the guy—the one Franny met in the war, and they reconnected later,” Uncle Bob began.
    “It
was
you who told me that story—wasn’t it, Uncle Bob?” I asked. “You know, the toilet-seat skipper, the man on the ship—he lost control of
Madame Bovary
; he went sliding over the toilet seats. Later, they met on the MTA. The guy got on at the Kendall Square station—he got off at Central Square—and he said to my dad, ‘Hi. I’m Bovary. Remember me?’ I mean
that
guy. You told me that story—didn’t you, Uncle Bob?”
    “No, I didn’t, Billy,” Uncle Bob said. “Your dad himself told you that story, and that guy
didn’t
get off at the Central Square station—that guy stayed on the train, Billy. Your father and that guy were a
couple
. They may
still
be a couple, for all I know,” Uncle Bob told me. “I thought your grandfather told you
everything
,” he added suspiciously.
    “It looks like there’s more to ask Grandpa Harry about,” I told Uncle Bob.
    The admissions man was staring sadly at the floor of his office. “Did you have a good tour, Billy?” he asked me, a little absently. “Did that boy strike you as a promising candidate?”
    Of course I had no memory of the prospective student or his parents.
    “Thanks for everything, Uncle Bob,” I said to him; I really did like him, and I felt sorry for him. “I think you’re a good fella!” I called to him, as I ran out of the Admissions Office.
    I knew where Grandpa Harry was; it was a workday, so he wouldn’t be at home, under Nana Victoria’s thumb. Harry Marshall didn’t get a schoolteacher’s Christmas break. I knew that Grandpa Harry was at the sawmill and the lumberyard, where I soon found him.
    I told him I’d seen my father in the Favorite River Academy yearbooks; I said that Uncle Bob had confessed everything he knew about flaming Franny Dean, the effeminate cross-dressing boy who’d once tried on my mother’s clothes—even, I’d heard, my aunt
Muriel’s
clothes!
    But what was this I’d heard about my dad actually visiting
me
—when I was sick with scarlet fever, wasn’t it? And how was it possible that my father had actually told me that story of the soldier he met in the head of the Liberty ship during an Atlantic winter storm? The transport ship had just hit the open seas—the convoy was on its way to Italy from Hampton Roads, Virginia, Port of Embarkation—when my dad made the acquaintance of a toilet-seat skipper who was reading
Madame Bovary
.
    “Who the hell was that fella?” I asked Grandpa Harry.
    “That would be the someone
else
your mom saw Franny kissin’, Bill,” Grandpa Harry told me. “You had scarlet fever, Bill. Your dad heard you were sick, and he wanted to see you. I suspect, knowin’ Franny, he wanted to get a look at Richard Abbott, too,” Grandpa Harry said. “Franny just wanted to know you were in good hands, I guess. Franny wasn’t a bad guy, Bill—he just wasn’t really a guy!”
    “And nobody told me,” I said.
    “Ah, well—I don’t think any of us is proud of
that
, Bill!” Grandpa Harry exclaimed.