Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

sure how taxing the climb to the tower would be.
    As it happened, there was an elevator. We rode it to a glass-walled observation deck that turned the park into a dark-green comforter flung over the city. We were higher than anything around, yet still low enough to see birds threading through the trees. It was like a fire tower in a well-groomed forest, bordered on every side by bay or sea or city.
    “Well,” said Anna softly, seeing the view, “this is a new one.”
    I murmured my agreement. There was a long mutual silence—the silence of churchgoers—as we gazed at the mystic model-train village laid out before us.
    “It’s good to be a tourist,” Anna said at last. “We joke about them, but it’s quite a worthwhile thing. To…appreciate…deliberately.”
    The way she broke up the words told me we’d moved into another realm.
    “I’ve tried to do that,” she went on. “To name the things that have brought me joy.” She didn’t look at me as she took my hand in hers. It was as large as mine but fragile. Cool silk over bones. “You’ve been good company, Michael. You’ve been a good son. I want you to know that. Here and now.” She was briskly efficient about this, like someone tidying up before a trip. I couldn’t handle it; I sabotaged the moment.
    “You’re not planning to jump, are you?”
    She squeezed my hand reprovingly. “I want you to hear this, dear.”
    “I’m hearing it…I hear you.”
    “Good.” She squeezed my hand again, as if to seal the deal.
    I should have reciprocated and told her everything she’d meant to me, but I couldn’t. It would have felt too official somehow, too final. I told myself there would be other times, better opportunities, that it didn’t really have to be here and now.

    The café overlooked the sculpture garden. It was a little too big for a café, and a little too austere, despite the gumdrop globes dangling whimsically from the ceiling. We ordered sandwiches made with chunky slabs of bread. Mine was roast beef, Brie, and horseradish mayonnaise. Anna, somewhat to my amusement, chose the peanut butter and strawberry jam. Most of the ingredients were “artisanal,” according to our server.
    “Such a peculiar word,” Anna observed. “Like they hammered it out on an anvil. Or wove it on a loom. Why can’t they just say homemade?”
    Right on—as we used to say. Sometimes Northern California just wears me the fuck down, and I get fed up with our precious patois, our fetishizing of almost everything. Then I remember the places (some of them not that far away) where no one seems to mind if milkshakes taste like chemicals and tomatoes taste like nothing at all.
    Which made me think of Florida. And Irwin.
    “My brother called,” I began. “He’s coming out to visit.”
    “That’s nice.”
    “It’s not exactly to visit. It’s just to talk, apparently.”
    Her brow wrinkled as she munched laboriously on her sandwich.
    “It’s not about our mother,” I said. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
    “Was there…friction when you were in Florida?”
    “Nothing to speak of. He was sweeter than usual, actually. We got drunk together in his boat.”
    “That doesn’t sound very safe.”
    I smiled. “It wasn’t moving. It was out in his yard. He goes there to get away from his wife.”
    Anna dabbed demurely at her mouth with a napkin. “I’ve always wondered why you don’t talk about him.”
    I shrugged. “Nothing to talk about. I’m going to hell and he’s not.”
    “Oh… that .”
    “And I think he’s pissed at me now, to be honest.”
    “Why?”
    “Because Mama told me something she didn’t tell him.”
    “Oh, my.” She widened her eyes melodramatically as if to suggest that this was merely about two grown boys quarreling, a conventional case of sibling rivalry.
    “I know it sounds silly,” I said, “but he really seemed to be hurt. I felt bad for him. For better or worse, he and Lenore have been tending to Mama ever since Papa died…and she ends up confiding in me…a virtual stranger in the scheme of things.”
    “You’re hardly that.”
    “No…I am, believe me. She’s wanted it that way. She’s been terrified of me for years. We’re from different planets now.”
    “So…what did she tell you?”
    “That she tried to leave my father several times.”
    Anna set her sandwich down. “For any particular reason?”
    “I presume because he was a domineering old bastard.”
    She nodded thoughtfully.