She exhales her words. “They killed him just like they did his brother.”
Nothing my mother ever said has stopped me so cold. This was not grief I was witness to, it was rage. I want to ask who “they” are, who is doing this killing, but I know better than to open my mouth. I want to know how people could be so angry or violent, but I know not to form this thought in words. Not right now. The only way to coax more information out of my mother is to stay silent and let her volunteer it. I delicately trace the five freckles on her forearm; I have them memorized. They are stars, the makings of a constellation filled with stardust and matter that holds the answer to every question that could ever be asked. You just have to be quiet enough to listen, so I put my ear to her arm.
She stubs her cigarette in the clay ashtray I made for her in Scouts, giving my handiwork her full attention as if soaking in its imperfections, its mottled shape and uneven glaze. She then turns to me, startled to see me leaning against her, and stares at me this time, taking in my imperfections, the excuses she would have not to love me if I were someone else’s son.
“Remember his name. Robert F. Kennedy. He was a good man.”
His full name does not help me place him, so I stare at the television, hoping the images will help. Most of the pictures are of chaos, and they move too quickly to clarify much of anything.
“Who is he?”
My mother thinks about how to answer. “He was Irish like we are Irish. He was Catholic like we are Catholic.” She clutches the cross that she wears around her neck. “He represented a hope that the future would be good. Now I don’t think I understand the future at all.” She kisses me on my head, as if to wish me luck in these unknowable times, and I lean in, trying to get her to do it again. But she doesn’t say anything else for so long, I think the conversation is over. Then, out of nowhere, she adds, “You share a name with him, in fact.”
I think of my name, James Smale, finding no overlap.
“Francis. You have the same middle names.”
“Dad gets mad when you call me Francis.”
“Your father gets mad about a lot of things.”
“I like Francis,” I say, my ability to suck up to my mother knowing no bounds.
“Your father’s name is James and he wanted you named after him. But I chose Francis, and so it became your middle name.” She starts to quiver again, but this time she doesn’t break. She gets up to turn off the television and I hear the hum of static and then nothing. Silence, except for the twittering of birds by the feeder outside and the faint singing of chimes. I want my mother to stop crying, but I also know that when she feels sad I am the only one who can comfort her—and that means maybe getting out of going to school today.
So I remain perfectly still.
It’s been like two minutes.”
The silence on the other end of the line is so absolute, I swear I can hear my mother’s refrigerator hum. My first instinct was to wait, to tell her about Jackie in person, but I knew in my gut this was news that wouldn’t age well. The best thing to do was to get it over with, rip off the Band-Aid and come clean. I drank half a bottle of merlot for liquid courage, then picked at the $5.99 price sticker while having a staring contest with the phone; eventually I blinked and dialed. When she picked up she said she was glad I called, having just had an uncomfortable exchange with the neighbor over a rapidly growing tree encroaching over her property line. When she finished recounting that, I asked after Domino, her overweight cocker spaniel recently diagnosed with canine diabetes (unsurprising, I suppose, given he’s named after the yellow bag of sugar). Domino’s responding to his medication, she said, but he has to go outside more often to pee. When we exhausted all possible topics of conversation, I dropped my news like I was carpet-bombing Baghdad in Desert Storm.
I check my watch. “Three minutes. It might help if you say something.”
The first time I ever mentioned the book to my mother, more than a year ago now, I had already finished a draft. I had an unexpected lull between temp assignments and I drove out to see her. Naïvely I thought she would be curious to know everything about it, so I printed her a copy at the shop near our apartment and had it spiral-bound—the presentation was a nice throwback to the stories I once typed on her typewriter. Instead, she diligently sliced a tomato as I told her about the undertaking, explained the inspiration, and described the long hours I put into the endeavor. When I finished, all she said was, “Have some tomato,” and she pushed the cutting board my way.
“I don’t want any tomato,” I replied. I wanted a reaction to the fact that I’d written a book. A book!
“Well, this is dinner,” I remember her saying, “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Dinner is a tomato?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not dinner even if you weren’t expecting company. I thought we could celebrate.”
I’ll never forget the look on her face, pallid yet outraged. “Celebrate what?”
Celebrate what. And that sums up where we’ve been ever since.
I’m about to switch the phone to my other ear and check my watch a third time when my mother finally speaks. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” If I’m not mistaken, there’s panic in her voice, but maybe it’s just surprise.
“You should at least read it.”
Another long silence.
“You’re still not going to read it?”
“What difference does it make if I read it now?”
I’m confused. “Do you not get this? It makes a difference to me.”
“Well, I just assume not.”
“You’re being crazy.” I don’t mean to be accusatory, it just comes out.
“How wonderful for you. Now you can tell Mrs. Kennedy I’m crazy and mean it.”
“You think I told her you were crazy and didn’t mean it?” I smile because it’s a clever line, though I’m aware my mother can’t see my smile over the telephone. I swirl the remaining wine in my glass; shame sets in as I watch it slow and then fall still. I know my mother’s not in the mood for jokes.
“I have no doubt you meant it.”
“I didn’t tell her you were crazy.”
The clanging of pots and pans. She’s always doing some ridiculous task when I call. Today’s project, it seems, is emptying the cupboards. “Maybe you didn’t say it in those exact words.”
“Maybe not in any words. I don’t think that you’re crazy, so it’s not something that’s in my head to tell.” When speaking on the telephone, it’s easy to conjure the mother I know from the past, when we were close. Her voice sounds much as it always has, at least since she gave up smoking. I like to think she’s frozen in time, and that’s mostly true; she looks to me the age she was when I was maybe fourteen—not young, far from old, with a kind of natural, easy beauty. The only difference: Her hair has gotten lighter over the years, dyed, perhaps, to mask the gray. I wonder if she’s all too aware of time passing, self-conscious about aging, but I could never ask. Certainly she doesn’t see herself through the same softening filter of nostalgia. And I’m sure it’s much harder for her to look at me and imagine I’m still fourteen.
“People are going to read this now. Is that what you’re telling me?”
I