The Things We Never Say

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It is the middle of June, and the sun keeps shining over the coast of Massachusetts. At Spud's Bar and Grille, Artie Dam sits with his friend Flossie MacDonald for their last Tuesday-night dinner together: Flossie is moving to Ohio to be near her daughter, Sophie, and she has been wiping her eyes with her napkin, pleading with Artie to promise to stay his old jovial self. He assures her he will. Flossie has said the same thing every time they have met since her husband died last year, calling Reginald, a retired math professor, "such an asshole," and then declaring, "And I miss him so much!" The bay outside is calm, and Artie tells Flossie the water is amazing. She answers, "What's amazing is you."

Artie loves Flossie without being remotely in love with her. He loves her overly made-up face, her too-yellow hair, the perfume that follows her, the delicate way she lowers her large body into a chair. With her, he can be himself. His wife, Evie, has never cared for Flossie, saying she is "too much," and that night when Artie comes home and reports that Flossie misses Reginald and calls him an asshole, Evie says nothing at first. Then she observes that Reginald must have drunk too much to live with Flossie, and that Flossie drinks too much herself. Artie lets both remarks go because both are true.

The house Artie lives in still astonishes him after nearly thirty years: a spacious place on a private road right on the ocean, with a high ceiling with rafters, a newly renovated kitchen looking out over the water, a grand piano on which Artie composes little pieces despite having had no lessons, and many small boxes from Evie's family set among framed photographs. The house came from Evie's parents, now both dead.

The Last Class of the Day

Now it is the first week of September, a Friday, and the weather is still warm. From his second-floor classroom windows, Artie can see the soccer field and the trees behind it, with one tree turning red at its very top. His eleventh-grade history students are restless on this last class of the day, but they look up with interest when Artie leans back against his desk and asks, "Would you folks like to know about venereal disease during the Civil War?" A shaggy-haired student named Willoughby says, "Whoa, Damn-dam," and Artie promises the topic for Monday, then sends the students into the four groups he assigned on the first day of the school year.

Artie has taught history at the local high school for years, and for years he was the assistant coach to the boys' soccer team until his growing stomach made running down the field impossible; he switched to assistant coach for the baseball team. His students call him "Damn-dam, the greatest man," their faces shining with affection, and he waves them off, chuckling. At fifty-seven, he still loves his students. But he has noticed, in the more than three years since the pandemic, that they have changed: they are anxious, not argumentative as they once were, and it is often difficult to get them to talk at all. On the first day of every school year, Artie hands out white lined paper and asks for at least two pages about anything, so he can get to know them and see how they put sentences together. He is always moved by what they write. Many have written about the pandemic lately. Two students this year began with the sentence "I'm scared," and neither could articulate what scared them.

Today the students talk quietly in their groups, taking on the roles of Civil War soldiers or nurses from Massachusetts. Artie hears a young woman with long red hair, Tamera, tell her group that one soldier wrote to his girlfriend that he enlisted because of slavery, that he did not think people should buy other people. Artie nods and praises her for using the letters home. He walks to the window and sees again the red-topped tree, and something moves deep inside him: a memory from his childhood in Revere, where his father was the super of the three-story wooden apartment buildings they lived in, and Artie and his family lived in what was essentially a basement apartment. The memory clicks into place: the state hospital his mother was sent to twice in his youth, visiting her on weekends with his father and sister, seeing her slumped on a thin mattress on a metal bed. There might have been such a tree outside her window.

Every year Artie receives notes from students saying he changed their lives, that he is their favorite teacher ever. In recent years these arrive by email, and Artie prints them out and puts them in his mother's big jewelry box in the attic. He tells no one about these notes except Evie.

Rhonda Lazarre raises her hand to ask for the bathroom, and Artie grants it gently. He has a special place in his heart for this girl, whom he had in study hall last year: she is short, her neck is short, her glasses are always skewed, her mouth is often open, and she walks with her arms out. On her first-day essay she wrote, "I don't understand much, and sometimes I get mad at God." She smiles shyly and leaves.

When Rhonda returns a few minutes later, Danny Marino rises up halfway in his chair and does an imitation of the way she walks, swinging his arms out with his mouth open, and everyone who sees it knows he is making fun of her. An unexpected fury rises in Artie. He stands and announces that one of them thought he was better than someone else in the class, without looking at either Danny or Rhonda. His face is hot, he can feel it burning. "Do not ever feel that you are superior to someone else. Because you are not." He sits down, holds out his finger, and shakes it at the whole class. "No one is superior to anyone else in this world." He glances at Danny, who understands he is the one being spoken to and looks down at the floor. Artie finishes with a final admonition: "Don't you ever think you are better than anyone else here on God's Earth!" Then he allows himself a quick look at Rhonda and sees that she has no idea she provoked this. That is good; she does not know she was mocked.

When the bell rings, Danny Marino leaves immediately, and the rest of the students walk out quietly, almost sheepishly. Artie sits at his desk for a long time staring out the window. In the teachers' room, Carl LeBlanc asks if he is going to take a sail this weekend, and Artie says the weather is supposed to hold. People know Artie loves sailing; his modest sailboat sits in the center of the small harbor, and he is often seen rowing out in his dinghy and setting off. Evie has never liked boats, but that is all right.

The Tragedy

Ten years earlier, Artie and Evie's only son, Rob, was seventeen years old when he was driving at night with his girlfriend and the car crashed and the girlfriend, Heather Morrison, was killed. Her family, naturally, went crazy with grief and tried for more than a year to sue Rob's parents. The case was eventually settled, and the Morrisons moved out of town. But Rob was never the same. Artie sat with his son at the conference room table during depositions, and he remembers this: a woman lawyer asking whether there was any sexual activity that preceded the crash, Rob hesitating with colorless lips and saying no, and then glancing at his father. That glance is how Artie understood. The police had found Rob with his belt buckle open. Heather had not been wearing a seatbelt and had been crushed beneath the steering wheel; the airbags saved Rob.

The accident changed the whole family. Within a year, Evie began classes to become a family therapist, saying "I have to do something!" To Artie, she became far more officious than she had been before the accident; he is certain she had been a warmer person earlier. It took years to reconfigure themselves, and they did. But Rob, who had graduated from high school one month before the crash, became a different person: the happy, energetic child who used to sail with Artie turned quiet. At MIT in Cambridge he made few friends. He now lives in Somerville, about an hour from his parents, working as a software engineer for a company with contracts with the Department of Defense, making more than twice Artie's salary. Two years ago he married Francesca, a concert pianist who plays throughout Europe and is nine years his senior. Evie loves their daughter-in-law; Artie finds her slightly odd and unknowable. His son, he thinks, has become a person who remains deeply inside himself.

But the worst thing for Artie is this: Rob has distanced himself increasingly from his father, and the distance feels far more acute this past year. Artie cannot stop wondering when it happened. Is it the ongoing aftermath of the accident? Is it the marriage? Not a day goes by that he does not think about it. He is thinking about it now as he drives home from school. He has a real fear of hitting a child coming home from school.

At home he tells Evie he yelled at the class today. She is surprised; she takes off her coat, and he tells her about Danny Marino making fun of Rhonda Lazarre. Evie is quiet, then

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Artie stays in the hospital for two nights, and to his own surprise, he feels safe and comfortable there at night. They warm him up slowly with heated oxygen. They keep him awake at first, then let him sleep, and he feels peaceful like a baby. When he wakes, they say one more night, "just to be sure."

He remembers losing consciousness as they dragged him back to shore, and the EMTs lifting him from the water. At the hospital, a tired nurse asks his name. He asks, "I'm not dreaming, am I?" She tells him he's alive and going to be fine. She knew his name from his wallet.

Then Evie hurries in. "Hello, sweetie heart," he says. She holds his hand tightly. "You scared me. I was so scared!" He tells her it's all fine now.

A doctor says he didn't have a heart attack, but they want to keep him two nights. Evie sits with him the whole time. "Artie, you could have died," she says. He thinks of his last few months and understands: I did not want to die, I just did not want to live.

A Son's Question

His son Robbie comes in. Evie leaves to get food. Rob pulls his chair close and asks in a low voice, "Dad, did you do it on purpose?" Artie says no, he slipped. Rob presses him. "I'm asking you if you were trying to die." Rob mentions they've always had an understanding between them, ever since Heather. Artie looks straight at him. "No, son. I wasn't trying to kill myself." Tears fill Rob's eyes. He takes Artie's hand. "Because, Dad—you can't do that. You're like my explorer. Remember when they sent robots ahead to the Moon so they knew it was safe? That's what you're like for me. If you ever did that, it would mean I could do it too." Artie says, "I will never do that."

First Night: The Smoking Woman

That first night, Artie remembers when he had his tonsils out as a kid. He recalls an old woman in the hospital corridor, weeping and smoking. She had tongue cancer, half her tongue removed, lived alone, was scared. Artie's father spoke kindly to her, asked what arrangements she had. She had none. Artie feels a stirring of something he's never been able to describe—almost a divine presence. Not a God above, but a presence very large and comforting. He's glad her suffering is over.

Carnegie Hall

He remembers the first night he heard Francesca perform at Carnegie Hall, almost two years ago. Evie had a bad cough, so Artie went with only Rob. Their seats are in the second tier. Francesca walks onto the stage alone, and she looks tremendously lonely to him. She plays her heart out. After intermission, she gives them hell. The audience goes wild. Rob sits calmly—Artie now understands Rob believed in her totally. She comes back for three encores.

Artie is concerned about her. Rob tells him not to see her after, that she'll be "a wreck, always is afterward." Artie texts her the next day. She replies only "Thanks, Artie." Lying in the almost dark, Artie hopes she'll be okay.

Precognition

Early in the morning, a young doctor appears. Artie stops him: "I had a dream one week ago that I was in the water floating, and it was exactly like what actually happened to me." The doctor sits down on the bed. "Precognition. I'm interested in that stuff." Artie tells him about the vivid dream. The doctor says, "Maybe you have a gift."

The second night is even better than the first.

Teacher of the Year

He remembers the night he was awarded Teacher of the Year. At the reception, Artie feels unease. Evie enjoys herself. Flossie is at the same table, across from him, tipsy, blowing him kisses. Artie is almost paralyzed with fear. But he stands and speaks. When he talks about teaching the Civil War, he relaxes. He catches Flossie beaming at him. Then he sees her husband Reginald roll his eyes at him.

Artie never mentions it to Flossie. After Reginald dies, she weeps at their table in Spud's, telling Artie what an asshole her husband had been and how she misses him. Lying in the hospital, Artie feels sorrow for the man—such a poverty of spirit.

The next morning, Artie tells Evie about the dream. She watches him carefully. "Very strange," she says, and no more is said about it.

The Man Who Saved Him

The man who saved Artie's life is Kenneth Moynihan, who recently moved to town. He comes to the hospital on the last morning. "Boy, am I glad to see you," he says. Artie takes his hand. "Wonderful to meet you. Thank you."

A few days after Artie gets out, Kenneth calls. He asks if Artie wants to go to Spud's with him on a Thursday night in two weeks. His wife has her book club.

Back in the Classroom

When Artie walks back into his classroom, a sign hangs above his desk: WELCOME BACK DAMN-DAM! His students seem eager to see him. He tells them he fell trying to get into his sailboat, that a man and his son saved his life. Rhonda Lazarre asks if he saw God when he was unconscious. He says he didn't see anything, but he felt very peaceful. He steers them to General Lee. Those who did the reading have more to say than they have in the past.

When class is over, Rhonda comes to his desk. "You have a guardian angel here on Earth."

Rachel

Rachel is tall and thin, like Rob. Artie thinks: Their kids will be tall and skinny. She's awkward, with a child's blue barrette in her hair. Artie and Evie struggle to make conversation. As she and Rob leave, Rachel picks up a small pillbox from the table. After they go, Evie says, "She's a kleptomaniac. She took that pillbox of my grandmother's." Artie finds the one he thought she noticed. Evie says, "No, Artie, she took a different one."

Artie talks about how people have no sense of dress these days. He means it—things have changed so drastically since he started teaching. He watched a musical in Boston with a very large girl in the chorus who danced amazingly, and he breathed almost a sigh of relief. The world was changing. Except that it was not.

The Hallway

On Monday, Artie passes Rhonda Lazarre in the hallway. Two young women raise their hands to their faces as they walk by her. Artie turns and calls out, "Hello, Rhonda!" He asks how she is. She says she's good. He smiles and keeps walking.

That moment is something Rhonda Lazarre will always believe: it was when she decided she would become a minister, even if she didn't fully understand it then. She carries that memory and connects it to the future, and it is a good future for her.

So blind we humans are. So blind. To each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another's selves, including our own.

Evie had been carrying troubles Artie knew nothing about. She compartmentalized her emotions. For months she had been privately grieving, feeling deep pockets of abrupt sadness. It irritated her that Artie was soft, wanting to please. She did not believe he had precognition. But had she known her grief might have had something to do with Artie wanting to kill himself, she would have felt terrible.

Danny Marino was a mess. His mother moved out, then returned. His father wept. At night, Danny thought: I hate everyone.

Anne Merritt was in shock that Artie had almost died. She loved him that much. Many days later her fear receded.

Rob looked at Rachel in a slightly different way after introducing her to his parents. She seemed to change before his eyes into an adolescent girl, and this embarrassed him.

The Glorious Sail

That Saturday, Rob tells Artie to wear sneakers, not his rubber boots. Evie offers to go on the boat she hates, but Artie says no. He rows out to the boat and waves to her. She waves back with both arms.

The glory of that day. The glory of being back on the water, the sea sparkling, the sails billowing. Artie sits at the tiller, quietly saying, "My God. My God." For a couple of weeks, Artie is one of the happiest men alive on Earth.

The Soccer Game

On Wednesday, there's a soccer game. Danny Marino scores a goal within five minutes. But in the second half, a fight breaks out. A father runs onto the field, shaking his fist. Then students begin fighting with one another. Parents yell at each other. The principal gets on the loudspeaker, says any person caught fighting will be expelled. He is booed. Artie hears someone yell "Jew hater!" and someone yell

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Artie starts each school year with the same ritual: he tells his students his cellphone policy. No phones in sight, no phones heard. Pocket, purse, or knapsack, and if you have none of those, put them in the ancient pillowcase he pulls from his bottom desk drawer, the one with tiny green and yellow flowers that always makes the students laugh. Rhonda Lazarre often chooses the pillowcase. But today, Danny Marino keeps his phone in his front shirt pocket, and Artie taps his own chest until Danny rolls his eyes and shifts the phone to his back pants pocket.

The class turns to the fight at last week's soccer game. Artie was there, front row, and calls it a very disturbing thing to see. A quiet student named Jacob Aaronson says quietly, "It was because of me." The ref made a call in Jacob's favor, a father from the other team came down yelling, and the man said something about Jew-loving refs. Artie didn't know that was how it started. Tamera asks how the man knew Jacob was Jewish. His name, Jacob guesses. Then Tamera blushes and admits she doesn't even know what a Jewish name is. Artie shrugs. "You'll learn. Or not."

Willoughby, the shaggy-haired kid in the back, asks who Artie will vote for in the election. Artie tells him that in all his years of teaching, he has never made his political views available to his students. His mother taught him to never discuss sex, politics, or the state of one's bowels. Willoughby guesses he's a Republican; a young woman calls Willoughby an idiot, and Artie shouts at her to stop, tells her not to call people idiots, and then, to defuse the moment, threatens to tell them all about his constipation. The class laughs. Danny Marino raises his hand and asks to leave the room, and as he walks out, Artie sees him take his phone from his back pocket. Artie says nothing about it.

A note from the principal

At the end of the school day, Artie finds a note in his mailbox from Principal Hoover Lakeland: Come see me when you can—HL. Artie stops by the front office on his way out. Hoover motions him in, then gets up and shuts the door, which Artie finds slightly strange. Hoover asks if he's good after "your little mishap." Then he gets to the point. He knows Artie has a special way of teaching the Civil War, assigning each student a soldier from Massachusetts, or a nurse. Hoover says a few parents, not many, are worried and have complained that Artie doesn't also assign the Confederate side. They've gone to the school board, threatened to homeschool their kids. Artie asks if any of these students are even in his classroom. Not yet, Hoover says. Another year.

Artie shakes his head as though water is in his ear. "The Confederate side?" They sit in silence in the gloom of Hoover's office, beneath the black-and-white photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. that has hung there for over twenty years. Artie's unease grows. Hoover says he's just asking Artie to think about it. Then Hoover agrees with him: "What a hell of a mess this country is headed for... we're all just standing around fiddling while Rome burns." He tells Artie he's thinking of leaving this job, though he can't afford to quit for a few years, and he asks Artie to keep it confidential. Then, gazing out the window, Hoover says: "He's going to win, you know." Artie thinks so too. People want authority, Hoover says, they crave it, and she doesn't have the kind they want and he does, in his cult following kind of way. He calls the Confederate soldiers demand "anticipatory obedience. This is how it all happens." He grows passionate, almost urgent: people say in four years it will be different, but in four years it could all be over. There might not be an election in four years. "Listen to what the man has said. He has said to people, You only have to vote this one time." Hoover mentions that he has talked to other principals; the kind of fight that broke out at the soccer game is breaking out everywhere. Artie says, "Oh God." The meeting ends. Hoover looks gray, though maybe it is just the light. As Artie reaches the door, Hoover calls him back to ask why, at Anne Merrill's house weeks ago, Artie asked him about free will. "Because I wanted to know." Hoover says he just doesn't know. Artie says he doesn't either. Hoover waves him away: "You're a good man, Artie Dam."

Two years from now, Hoover Lakeland will stay late at school one day, and when only the janitor is in the building, he will take a pistol from his desk drawer and shoot himself in the head. Weeks later it will come out that he was under FBI investigation for harboring illegal immigrants in his home, and that he had been receiving death threats unknown to many in town. A rumor will spread that it was Hoover's mistress who turned him in to ICE, angry that he would not leave his wife but would shelter their cleaning woman and her husband and child. The note Hoover leaves will say simply: "I'm done." His suicide will make headlines across the country, and when certain newspapers call for faculty responses, Artie will give none.

Driving home to Evie

Artie drives home through the angular streets, past the women's clothing stores and the butcher shop, along the narrowing road to his house, and his unease grows. He cannot stop the premonition of evil that came to him in Hoover's office. Artie went to Catholic school; he has not gone to church for years, but the concept of evil never left him. Evie, however, seems not at all concerned. She sits in a chair in the living room while Artie turns on lamps, trying to get some light into the room. "Oh, just do it, Artie. Seriously. Assign a few Confederates to anyone who wants one." She doesn't understand why he can't just wait and see about the election. Slowly, watching her, he calms down. What would be the problem, after all, in assigning a Confederate soldier to any student who wants one? Evie tells him about Reg MacDonald's deathbed words: "Goodbye, sweet world, you are all, every one of you here on Earth, you are all headed for hell." She laughs slightly. Artie doesn't find it funny; Evie says it's not funny, she's just telling him. She means the state of the world, the country. Then she asks what he wants for supper.

Sailing the harbor

That Sunday, Artie goes for a sail. The thick morning fog burns off by noon, and he steers the tiller with the slap of water against the boat, the wide expanse of wind and air, the sun hitting the water in sparkles. He waves to other boaters and rides out of the harbor, thinking of his mother. Mary O'Reilly came from a poor Irish family in South Boston. She and her sister were put in an orphanage because of their parents' poverty, and returned home only after their father died and their mother received a widow's check. Not long after, Mary's sister was hit by a truck and killed. In her early twenties, Mary met Artie's father at a dance. In the few photos from that time, she is an attractive woman with big blue eyes, like Maria's would be. But Artie can only recognize his mother a little from those pictures. She and Arthur Dam married, lived in South Boston briefly, and then moved to Revere when Art, who had not cared for being a butcher like his own father, was offered work as a super. This was before Maria and Artie were born.

Artie's mother hated Revere. She complained about the Italians, said they were not nice to her, though in fact they were; even as a kid, Artie knew the trouble came from her own personality. She especially disliked the Ferraro family next door: "They look like sluts," she said, because the Ferraro girls went off to Revere Beach in their two-piece bathing suits with towels around their waists, wearing bright lipstick. And yet, sometimes Artie would come home from school to find his mother sitting on the back steps laughing with Mrs. Ferraro. When his mother was sent to the mental institution twice, Mrs. Ferraro came and made dinner for Artie and Maria. Artie remembers Mrs. Ferraro, once very pretty, with bad teeth, heavier than she had been, putting her hand on his head and telling him, "Your mother can't help the way she is. You know that, right?" He was embarrassed, but he said okay, and looked up into her eyes and saw real kindness.

The wind picks up. Artie comes about, the sails clanking overhead. He knows how to sail, and he feels the confidence of this within him. His love of the water, he assumes, began at Revere Beach, young childhood summers with dripping popsicles, beach umbrellas everywhere, children screaming and running. His mother never went to the beach, too fair for the sun. Maria never went either, being very fair as well, but mostly because she was Maria, a frightened child with big watchful eyes. Artie had friends,

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

At fifty-seven years old, Artie shoplifts for the first time in his life: a thin plastic comb from the drugstore in the next town over. He has no intention of stealing it, but he stands gazing at the combs near the travel-size toothpastes, picks one up, peels the price tag off when he thinks no one is watching, and slips it into his pants pocket.

Memories begin to surface. He recalls a late summer afternoon when Rob was about twelve, the two of them kicking a ball near the playground, and Reginald MacDonald suddenly appearing to watch. "Like this!" Artie yelled, showing Rob how to get the ball behind his foot, and when Rob couldn't manage it, Reginald said, "Cut him a break, Artie. Maybe he's not going to be a soccer player." He remembers Reginald standing up and clapping hard after Rob's valedictorian speech at high school graduation. He remembers Evie telling him recently that Reginald had married Flossie because Flossie had lied about being pregnant, and he wonders how Evie would have known that except through Reginald. He thinks of the dinners the two couples shared over the years, until that last one when Rob called Sophie a prissy little prick. Reginald used to smile at Evie in a way that made Artie happy; she had been liked, and this was a good thing.

Now he thinks again of Danny Marino's father weeping on the edge of the bathtub, saying something like: How did I not know this was happening? He remembers bumping into Reginald at the post office after Rob's accident, and how Reginald approached him with great seriousness and asked how Rob was holding up. He thinks of how often Evie has mentioned Reg since his death. Francesca said perhaps Evie had been a little bit in love with Reg on and off as they watched Rob growing up. Reg said in his letter that Rob's mother had been to see him recently on his "godawful deathbed." So Evie has been living with that deep sadness alongside Artie, and Artie thinks of his own loneliness, enough that he had wanted to die, which he attributed to Flossie's leaving town. But it was, he thinks now, his wife who had left him. It is as though he has lived these many years looking at things from one angle, and now someone has turned him partly in a different direction, and everything looks different.

The Comb Comes Back

Evie squints and holds out the stolen comb, found on the floor of the closet. Artie breaks out in a sweat. "A student left it in the classroom," he lies. "Do you want it?" "No, God no." He tosses it into the wastebasket. To cover his anxiety, he says casually that he lied to his class the other day, told them world peace was possible and that it was up to them. Evie points out that he already told her that. "Are you losing your mind?" she asks. "Maybe," he says.

A Call to Rob About Carl Jung

Two days after his visit with Rob, Artie takes his phone during his free period, walks out to his car in a light rain, and texts his son. Rob gets right back to him: "Yeah, call me, Dad!" Artie asks for help understanding Carl Jung's position on free will; he's been googling and is confused by phrases like "what he does most happily" and the claim that "Where there's a will there's a way" is a delusion of modern man. Rob laughs and explains Jung's theory of the unconscious at length, speaking with excitement. Artie worries he's interrupting Rob's work. Rob assures him. Artie hasn't told Evie yet; he tells Rob he can tell her any time he wants to, but Rob doesn't want to. Not now.

Rob tells Artie about Jung's near-death experience in 1944: before any satellite had ever taken a picture of the Earth, Jung visualized the Earth from far away, and everything he reported seeing turned out to be right. And Jung saw, during that near-death experience, that his young doctor was going to die. When Jung came back, he tried to tell the doctor, who wasn't interested, and two weeks later the healthy young doctor died of septicemia. "Amazing, right?" Rob says, and Artie agrees. As he walks back through the now harder rain, the story stays with him.

The Wrapped Bushes

When Artie gets home, the bushes around the house are wrapped in off-white sailcloth, stapled perfectly up the sides; the gardener has come. The sense of confusion, or wonder, that he has been living with seems to increase. What is it about the wrapped bushes? Perhaps because this has happened toward the end of every autumn for years. Gazing at them, Artie has a sense of time going by. Twenty-seven years ago, his son was born. That night he asks Evie how long they've been having the bushes covered. "No idea," she says. "Forever?"

Telling Ken Moynihan

The next night at Spud's, Artie sits with Ken Moynihan. It is dark out; the water can be seen only from the lights in front of the restaurant, and a few waves lap at the dock. "Say," Artie says, and he thinks he sounds like his father. "Turns out my son is not my son." Ken stares, makes him repeat it, tells him to stop eating. Artie sets down his fork, puts both hands in his lap, takes a sip of red wine, and tells the whole story. Ken barely eats; he watches Artie the entire time. "I cannot believe this," Ken finally says. Artie says he knows, that he thought telling Ken would make it true. "Oh, I think it's true, DNA doesn't lie," Ken says, "but I only meant it sounds unbelievable." Artie says his son and he love each other as much as they ever did, maybe even more. Ken asks about Evie. Artie hasn't told her yet, and Rob isn't sure about telling her either. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Ken says. "Jesus effing Christ." Artie pushes back his plate: "Well, you're the only person I've told, so thank you for receiving it." Ken thanks him for sharing it, and means it.

The Election

The election comes and goes. Half of the country is stunned, the other half jubilant. On the morning after, as Artie walks through the living room on his way out the door, he has a sudden, very clear image: a large steel door sliding down from the top of a massive doorway, as large as a wall, and as it reaches the bottom, the strip of light shining from underneath is gone. He is stupefied, although he predicted the outcome. A text comes from Rob: "Dad, we're fucked." Artie writes back: "I think we are." Evie says it's bad, but they'll have to wait and see what he does.

Late that night Artie sits at the piano and plays a tune he has kept hearing in his head, slow and sad. As he plays, he understands what it is: a requiem for the world, and a love song to his son. Through the window, only one light can be seen on the bay.

Rob Calls

A few days later, Artie sees Rob's name appear on his phone while sitting in the teachers room. He excuses himself to Anne Merrill, walks through the gym where a whistle blows, and takes the call. Rob wants to know how Artie is doing with the election. "Makes me sick, the whole thing," Artie says. Francesca wept for thirty-six hours straight, Rob says, and then stopped and announced she was getting a manicure. She never gets manicures, afraid of infection because she depends so much on her hands, but she went off to some expensive place and got one. "Good for her," Artie says. He almost asks about Rachel, but doesn't. "What're we going to do?" Rob asks. "I suppose we'll live through it."

Artie walks out the back door of the gym. It is cold, but he doesn't care; he would stand in a blizzard just to talk to his son. He tells Rob about watching the candidate's party debates during the first campaign, and the night the man said of a competitor, "He looks like a girl." Every time afterward, Artie says, he saw that other man as a girl. "If he can do that to me, think what he can do to others. And that's when I realized: He has a particular kind of evil genius." "He's an idiot," Rob says. "He is," Artie agrees, "but he is also an evil genius." Rob says it's Musk he's worried about. Artie has been reading the biography; Musk is very, very smart and very, very crazy. Rob just read it too; his father is awful. "Awful," Artie agrees. The scene is barren: low gray sky, leafless trees, desolate cars in the parking lot.

Then Rob asks cautiously, "Dad? Am I an asshole?" Artie laughs, really laughs. "Not remotely. Why in the world would you ask that?" He feels he knows why. Rob says,