What Just Happened, page 25
One of the last long times I spent with her was at Yaddo. She was 83, and I was 23. She was in excellent health, though as it happened she had almost no time left. We drove all over Saratoga and into the countryside, where we stopped to pick a few apples and have apple cider and donuts outside on a crisp autumn day, talking about her work, my own grandiose plans (I wonder now what they were), the same conversation we had been having more or less without stopping since the day I was born, my mother too when it was the three of us, and both subordinate to the hours they had been talking daily since my mother was one, in person or by phone. As we were walking back through the rows of apple trees toward the car, she needed a rest, as she often did, and we sat down on a bench. I remember her saying, “Chooch, when you have a grandson, you can remember how kind you were to me.” I told her that was silly, of course it was nothing to stop. Only now that she’s gone do I realize how many breadcrumbs she left like that one, to find in my mind after she was gone. I think she knew I would be sad without her.
After I had been there for a week, she drove me to the Amtrak station in Saratoga. It felt too soon to say goodbye for both of us, though I would be visiting her in Washington a few weeks later, planning to stay for two weeks before Christmas. We sat in her small hunter-green Subaru and chatted, half an hour early to the train, and then at last the train rounded the corner slowly toward us and it was time to say goodbye, and we hugged, and I smelled the good clean laundered smell of her, her skin. I jumped out of the car and grabbed my duffel bag and waved to her, walking over to the train. It had started to rain harder, and I turned back and waved one last time. She was standing by her door, having put on her yellow slicker, and maybe because we had both been feeling a little blue she stood there beaming at me and waved. I got on the train thinking that was it, we’d said goodbye, only to see, when I had finally chosen a seat, that she was still there, standing and smiling, occasionally putting a hand up and waving, watching the train. The thing I think about now is that she had no idea if I’d even sat on the side of the train where I could see her. But she stayed just in case, even as the train pulled away, so that I would see her and know she was there. That’s the image I try to remember, as I walk these hills for the thousandth time since March and try to calm my nerves, try to last until the vaccine.
A right wing talking point that started immediately with covid was that at least most of the fatalities were among the elderly, those who have lived “full lives,” were “already vulnerable,” etc. And though it’s not even the whole truth, people of all kinds are getting sick from this fucking thing right now, beyond which we don’t even know its long term effects yet—besides all that, I think, even if every single one of the 400,000 people gone were old, it shouldn’t matter if they were old, they were people. I knew an old person once.
As I near home, I call my mother (golden herself, my grandmother would have said) and we talk for a long time, until, after we hang up, I take down the correspondence box full of my grandmother’s letters to me and open it for the first time in years. It’s just too bad we can’t talk, I think for the millionth time. I would love to catch up, that’s it. Instead I talk to her more and more, though I know she can’t hear me. But it’s like the way she waved, I figure. It’s only fair.
* * *
—
“Thousands of young men had died that things might go on,” wrote Virginia Woolf after the war. I’m out in the yard, in the soft late light, reading her diaries again, when I come across a line that makes me laugh out loud in surprise: “Must order macaroni from London.” Virginia, I know this feeling! A grin on my face, I hold my place in the book with a thumb and look up. A sudden loose fling of birds moves left to right across the orange-pink sky, a few palm trees jutting into it here and there, beautiful little incidents on the flat horizon. The birds wheel in a loose beautiful pattern made only of their senses, then disappear east, leaving behind the clean impersonal swept sky, scentless and seasonless and far. Inside I feel a yearning for something I have never understood, god probably, and I wonder the usual things, which is who we are, and why, and why it ends. I change the album, roll a neat joint, and watch as eventually the last light goes. And so the days glide forward, into a future we have to hope other people haven’t already made for us.
Acknowledgments
This book owes so much to Reagan Arthur, such a graceful and smart editor that any amount of hassle would be worth working with her. Instead, she’s amazing, funny, warm, and wonderful—without her friendship, I really don’t know if I could have finished writing this. Reagan, thank you so much.
Reagan’s assistant editor Annie Bishai was an invaluable voice in early readings of the manuscript, a constant source of welcome good cheer, and saved me from my own disorganization more times than I can count. Boris Kachka and Peter Schjeldahl both provided indispensable early feedback. Additionally, I’m very thankful to Erinn Hartman, Maria Massey, Lisa Montebello, Julianne Clancy, Janet Hansen, Demetris Papadimitropoulos, Isabel Meyers, and the other great people at Knopf. Cosmo Bjorkenheim did a superlative job of fact-checking the manuscript.
To the friends who got me through the pandemic, you accidentally also made it possible for me to write this book. So that’s on your consciences. Nathan, Rebecca, Matteo, John, Matt, Rachel, Jared, Dan, Peter, Jess, Alice, Chris, Ben: thank you. I love you all.
Nobody has ever had a better mother than I do. Mom, thank you for doing exactly what Rosie said—teaching me unconditional love. Henry, Julia, Rosie, Isabelle, I miss you all every second I’m not with you. I just love you all so much. Dennis, Linda, I love you both and feel so fortunate to have you. Your steadfastness during the pandemic was heroic. And finally, Emily, to borrow a line from one of our old trips—somewhere in my youth or childhood.
A Note About the Author
Charles Finch is a book critic and novelist. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Charles Finch, What Just Happened
