Life Drawing by Robin Black Page B

insightful. Life and its walls, its before and after events. But maybe the war had always been a taboo subject—because of Millicent. Maybe he had promised my mother never to bring it up. Maybe his proposal to her had included a confession that there had been another love. “Her name was Millie and until I met you I never thought I’d love again.…” Maybe he’d been doing all those pull-ups all those years to be ready to reclaim his British rose once his daughters were all out of the house. But then she too had died. Or she’d run off with the greengrocer. Or they’d carried on in secret and he never told us, lest we feel our mother betrayed. Maybe dear old Millicent was the answer to the puzzle of why my father never settled with anyone else for all those many decades of widowerhood.
    As we drove, it crossed my mind that if I’d ever had children and then became demented enough to blurt, they would be asking each other,
Who the hell was Bill?
on their drive home. Except the chronology was off. If I’d had children, there wouldn’t have been a Bill. For a moment, I thought that with great conviction—as I had for many years. If my sister had lived. If my uterus had filled with life. If everything had gone according to plan, then I wouldn’t have …
    But who knew?
    “It really is amazing,” I said, “how little we understand about anything.”
    “Yes.” Alison raised both our windows. “Tell me if it gets too cold. I often think that about newborns, you know. That we’re always focused on how much knowledge they acquire. But then there’s also the business of learning how much cannot be known. Knowledge acquisition on the one hand and ignorance acceptance on the other.”
    “I suppose that’s right.” I thought then of launching into a whole theory about the role of religion in providing a story one could tell oneself; but I didn’t want to be rude about Alison’s child, now officially due to visit over Labor Day. And truly, my tired, unsatisfied heart wasn’t in the project of pointing out how badly other people were managing their lives or what illusions they needed in order to get by.
    “This is the best mall around,” I said, pointing. “If you run out of paints and need an emergency supply. There’s a craft store there. It’s not top-line stuff, but it’s okay if you’re desperate. Though I probably have anything you need. I tend to stock up for years at a time.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, then she lightly touched my arm. “You look so tired, Gus. Why don’t you close your eyes. I promise not to drive like a lunatic. Why don’t you try and get some sleep.”
    “Your daughter,” I said, “she really believes in it all? I mean, the heaven part? We’re all going to just keep on? A great big reunion one day.”
    Alison sighed. “Something like that. I haven’t questioned her too closely on certain things. Like the afterlife. Heaven. Hell. It would be hard for me to know how to deal with her believing in hell, I think. Much harder than just telling myself to be glad she thinks we’re never really going to have to say goodbye.”
    “Right,” I said. “I can see that. Never having to say goodbye.”I thought of Charlotte. “It’s easy to scoff,” I said. “But I do understand the appeal. I would like to never say goodbye. Ever, I mean. Never again,” I said. “There have already been too many goodbyes,” I said, as I closed my eyes.
    “Sweet dreams,” Alison said, with another pat on my arm. “Sweet dreams, Gus, and no more goodbyes.”

8

    I had imagined Nora small. All through Alison’s chatter about her, I had assumed she would be shorter than her mother—for no good reason at all. Small, but with the same round lines, soft curves of Alison’s figure, face, hair, even her personality. And I had also imagined her mousy—an indescribable quality, but a distinctive one nonetheless—doubtless because the most interesting thing I knew about her was