230
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Anything I can do?" she asked. I thanked her.
"No. No. I just wanted to talk."
I went back to the terminal. I read:
Remember. Remember the boy who slept in the attic, the boy
who slept in the boiler room when your sister visited, the boy
who was drunk and said he would kill his father, remember?
Your sister held his hand that night in the boiler room.
Remember? Remember the other brother, the baby who died
at six months, of suffocation? of heart attack? Remember,
everyone said he looked just like his father. But the other
brother doesn't look like his father, remember? Remember
Father tying the boy's hand so he could not suck his thumb?
Remember he was told his mouth would look like the asshole
of a cow, if he didn't stop sucking his tumb. Remember?
Remember the boy who was excluded from his sisters' games,
remember? Your father dreams that the boy who slept in the
attic in the cold will return in the cold. Your father dreams of
moose hunting and a boy's revenge. Your sister dreams of a
big party, lots of people, some terrible crime. She dreams of
your brother and drowning."
The phone rang. I picked it up and heard static on the line.
A foreign voice said, "Overseas operator calling...."
I hung up. I went back to the terminal and stared at the
print-out. I read:
Remember the boy who told his father:
"If
the ice breaks, I
will let you drown in the river."
The phone rang again. "Overseas operator calling... ."
Again I hung up. Back to the terminal.
Your dream. Your mother's dream. Your father's dream. Your
sister's dream. Your brother's dream.
My son came in. ''I'm hungry. When are we going to eat?"
Supper. I had forgotten about supper. I said "You want to
cook?"
"Yeah.
T.v.
Dinners?"
