Chapter 157: It Beats The Alternative

Sunday, July 1, 1984

We would likely wind up eating out with Mom and Dad a lot, but today we instead ate in with them. I’d given Dad directions to the RV place, and he and Mom came over around nine and joined us for breakfast. It was a bit cramped with six of us, but that was fun, too, with all of us in the little space, laughing and talking.

I’m sure we would do this again, but mostly we would go out. That was fine, too. This was, after all, the family vacation. It was just the new family vacation.

I had never taken a trip even vaguely like this in my first life, of course. The last time I had seen any of these relatives in my first life was in 1988, except for two of my cousins — Robert’s kids — who came to Mom’s funeral. Perhaps they shouldn’t have come, given how Dad felt about their visit. He thought they were just angling to get into the will, and perhaps he was right, considering they hadn’t talked to him in the decade before her funeral and barely talked to him after it.

Things might be different in this one, or they might not. It was impossible to tell. Mom and Dad had largely stopped visiting after Grandmother and Grandma died. They’d occasionally visited Uncle Robert, Uncle Tim, and Uncle Ryan, but very rarely. If they weren’t going, it was very unlikely that I would, considering.

That, and we had built our own family, one that would have us busy with other visits. Given the choice between visiting Camille and Francis, or even Tony and Jean — or, for that matter, Curtis and Marsha, who weren’t really even ‘family’ — they would win out over my uncles every time.

We would see. There was a lot of time to figure this out. We would keep visiting as long as my grandmothers and Professor Berman were alive. After that? Who knew?

After breakfast, we headed out. Our first destination was the cemetery where Dad’s father and Frank were buried. Angie held Paige’s hand, I held Jasmine’s, and Dad held Mom’s as we stood quietly, looking at the markers and thinking.

My thoughts continued those from before. Here were the remains of two men with whom I had no biological relationship. Based on what we thought we knew, only Dad did. Dad’s father had died long before I was born — before Mom had even met Dad — so he was a mystery to all of us but Dad. Dad and Angie had known Frank well, Mom had known him fairly well, and I’d met him a few times, all of those when I was fairly young.

With all of that, they were family. The man buried here that I’d never met had shaped Dad, and he had shaped Angie and me, and in some ways shaped Mom, too. Frank (who that man had also shaped) had profoundly influenced Angie, of course, too, and he’d also influenced Dad. Angie had influenced me, and I’d influenced her.

And that filtered through to Paige and Jas, of course, through us. If we weren’t who we were, they wouldn’t see us the way they did.

Family is important, however they come to be family. But they have to be family. Robert and Monica’s kids had never really been ‘family.’ Tim and Helen’s had, at least somewhat, but they’d scattered to the winds over time and I’d lost track of them. Tim and Helen? More not than yes, especially with our difficulties relating to Helen. They’d been Mom’s family, but it hadn’t translated well to me.

As she had last year, Angie eventually knelt and whispered something to Frank. The difference this year was that Paige didn’t let Angie drop her hand this time, instead kneeling with her. I don’t know that Paige heard what she said, but that wasn’t the point.

Perhaps her words would find Frank, or whatever of him lingered near our world (if anything, of course). Our experience might suggest that none did. All of me was here, as was all of Angie. We hadn’t lingered in our old worlds. While I could argue that Frank had more reason to linger, I was curious about my kids and their futures would (almost certainly) always be a mystery to me.

When Angie rose, and Paige with her, we remained a few more minutes, then quietly walked back to the cars.

This cemetery had been the only family-related place in Chicago that I’d visited after 1988. I’d gone here once with my wife and kids. If it could draw me in then, it would certainly draw us back here every so often in this life, too.

We drove over to the retirement community, parked, and walked up to Grandmother and Professor Berman’s cottage.

I hope they missed my reaction when they opened the door. I was, frankly, a bit distressed, even knowing things might not be going as well as I’d hoped.

Grandmother looked like she’d lost an inch or two, and just looked worn. Even so, she looked better than Professor Berman. He was hunched over, leaning on his cane, and looked smaller and almost less there. His eyes still had their sparkle, and the intelligence still showed, but he was obviously not the man he’d been a year ago.

All of this was inevitable, perhaps, but it was sad. I didn’t remember this from before. One trip he’d been generally okay; the next he’d been gone. I couldn’t remember when that had happened, but it had.

Angie grabbed my hand and squeezed it, just as Jas grabbed the other. Paige had Angie’s other hand, I was pretty sure. Glancing over, it’d hit them just as hard.

Dad hid it well, and so did Mom, but then they’d been up here much more recently and had perhaps seen some of this. That, or they were good at hiding their reactions. Most likely, by the time they looked at us, we’d gotten ourselves together.

They ushered us in and everyone took seats in the living room — Grandmother and Professor Berman in chairs that seemed to be their favorites, Mom and Dad on the couch, the rest of us on the floor.

We talked for a bit. They seemed mostly together, but there were some warning signs with Grandmother. For one thing, I heard her say ‘I swear, sometimes I think they’re stealing from me!’ for the first time in this life. It was something she’d said a number of times in my first life. It turns out that ‘they’ had been, but I suspected that was as much coincidence as astute observation on her part.

After perhaps thirty minutes, Professor Berman rose and said, “Come with me, young people, so that Jane can talk to her son and daughter-in-law a bit in peace.”

We rose and joined him in the kitchen. He took a seat, and so did Angie, Paige, and Jas, while I remained standing since there were only four chairs.

“It’s a shock, isn’t it?” he said, and I could see even more of the old sparkle in his eyes.

Angie was the brave one. “It is. I’m sorry. How are you feeling, Professor?”

He waved his hand. “Allan. You’re all adults now. And you’re not my students!” he added, chuckling a bit. “Anyway, I’m ... I’m tired. The stroke took a lot out of me. I’m much better off than I could be, but I’m tired. Still, I made it to see all of you graduate and step into the wider world, and that makes me very happy. And, if you’ll forgive me, I got to see the people I imagine might be my grandchildren-in-law one day. That makes me even happier still!”

“We’re very happy, too,” Angie said.

“Indulge me in a few thoughts?” he said.

“Happy to,” I said, with the others echoing me.

He smiled and nodded. “Thanks. Angie, you would have made Frank so proud, and Steve, I know how proud you’ve made Sam and Helen. And you two! Jasmine and Paige, I’ve heard so much about what you’ve accomplished, and the most important of that is that you’re good people. Quality people! Don’t lose that. What I always tried to teach my students is that knowing the law will only make you a good lawyer. Knowing how to apply it, when to apply it, and when not to — that will make you a great lawyer. It’s always about character, not just brains. The four of you have both.”

“Thank you,” Angie said, softly, with a few tears in her eyes.

“Yes, thank you,” I said, with a few in mine, and Jas and Paige echoed me.

“I’ve been keeping up with you, of course. That story in your newspaper about your school was amazing, and I see your fingers all over it. You two were so lovely in your Prom dresses! No one could’ve done that when I was your age, but there were those who would have if they could, and it was wrong that they could not, at least in my opinion. It does my heart good to see my grandchildren — you might not be an in-law, technically, Paige, but indulge an old man...”

Paige smiled and nodded, sniffling just a bit.

“Anyway, that you stood up for yourselves and were proud to be who you are, that does my heart good,” he said. “I’ve heard from Curtis, too. He’s very impressed with the four of you, and that says a lot. It’s another thing that does my heart good — seeing him move up. He’s one of the special ones.”

“He’s a very good man,” Paige said.

“I like him a lot,” Jas agreed.

He sighed. “I’m tired, but I’m not gone yet. I’d love to see you all graduate college, but ... it’s not in my hands. It never is, of course. I’ve gotten an unexpected blessing in getting to know you, Jasmine and Paige, and to see you all become adults.”