occupied with sports like lacrosse and field hockey. Our house was so big that it took two furnaces to heat, and there was an entire floor that we never used. (After John Lennon was killed, I assumed proprietorship, dedicating the bedrooms to theme shrines devoted to each individual Beatle.) My brother’s room was in a completely separate wing from mine, and it was freezing. He was always getting sick. I felt scared for him, being alone there. Sometimes I would come to check on him on especially cold nights and find him shivering under his polyester-filled comforter, clinging to his elephant stuffie, Harold. I couldn’t understand why our parents didn’t do something.
There was a lot that we didn’t understand.
Although of course she must have, it seemed our mother never got out of bed the first year we lived back east. Being in bed has alwaysbeen among her favorite occupations, but this was different. She wasn’t reading metaphysical poetry while half-watching
Perry Mason
. She was always sleeping, always in the same nightgown. “Just get up and come outside with us,” we would urge nervously. “Oh, okay—in a bit,” she would croak. But she never did.
Dad hated it, too. He had always been the most popular guy on the block, the first to break the awkward first moments of a cocktail party with some fantastic story or outlandish observation that yielded laughter and looseness. But his charms were lost on the patriarchs of Main Line Philadelphia. “Goddamned stuffed shirts,” he would growl. “These guys are living off trust funds set up for them in the last century—not one of them has worked an honest day in his life.” More and more, Dad would come home after we were asleep and leave for work before we woke up. He drank more and more. On the nights he was at home, he would fall asleep in front of the TV, his fist still clenching a tumbler of scotch.
But after the first year, Mom got out of bed and got a job as head of the English department at a posh private school. Dad all but vanished, away on business trips. The last time he materialized in the context of our family was for what would turn out to be our last vacation together. We drove up to the Pocono Mountains, where friends had lent us the use of their cabin. Dad brought no climbing gear. “These aren’t mountains,” he snarled. “They’re just shitty hills.” He did, however, bring his telescope; we planned to look at the stars that night. When we arrived, the sun was merciless. Mom went indoors to unpack groceries and read, and Dad sat on the unsheltered patio with a tumbler of scotch, squinting out into the lawn and the field of tall, dead grass that lay beyond it. Ian and I had decided to make a bushwhacking trek into the grass, having been instructed by our mother to pull up our socks to avoid “penetration by ticks.” As we were crossing the yard en route to the field, Ian stopped suddenly. “Look!” he cried. I stopped and scanned. Everywhere, it seemed, there were bunnies, nibbling on stalks of grass and dandelions. Bunnies—they were so little! Their tiny upside-down-Y-shapedmouths quivered with agonizing cuteness, their hops like miniature lopes. “Look, Dad, look!” we hooted. “Bunnies!” He smiled faintly. “Look at that,” he said. Ian and I bent down and watched them earnestly, as if in that instant we had become charged with their care. After five minutes or so, we heard the first shriek.
It was unworldly, like the scream of the ghost of a murdered child. Ian and I looked at each other, panicked. What had happened? Then there was another shriek, and another. We screamed when we saw them: snakes. Tethers of black snakes were coasting through the grass. There were so many. Ian and I ran wildly, bawling, trying to rescue the bunnies, but our attempts scared them, forcing them into the tall grass, where they were killed. We screamed for our father. Dad ambled onto the lawn and stooped to pick up a twitching bunny,
There was a lot that we didn’t understand.
Although of course she must have, it seemed our mother never got out of bed the first year we lived back east. Being in bed has alwaysbeen among her favorite occupations, but this was different. She wasn’t reading metaphysical poetry while half-watching
Perry Mason
. She was always sleeping, always in the same nightgown. “Just get up and come outside with us,” we would urge nervously. “Oh, okay—in a bit,” she would croak. But she never did.
Dad hated it, too. He had always been the most popular guy on the block, the first to break the awkward first moments of a cocktail party with some fantastic story or outlandish observation that yielded laughter and looseness. But his charms were lost on the patriarchs of Main Line Philadelphia. “Goddamned stuffed shirts,” he would growl. “These guys are living off trust funds set up for them in the last century—not one of them has worked an honest day in his life.” More and more, Dad would come home after we were asleep and leave for work before we woke up. He drank more and more. On the nights he was at home, he would fall asleep in front of the TV, his fist still clenching a tumbler of scotch.
But after the first year, Mom got out of bed and got a job as head of the English department at a posh private school. Dad all but vanished, away on business trips. The last time he materialized in the context of our family was for what would turn out to be our last vacation together. We drove up to the Pocono Mountains, where friends had lent us the use of their cabin. Dad brought no climbing gear. “These aren’t mountains,” he snarled. “They’re just shitty hills.” He did, however, bring his telescope; we planned to look at the stars that night. When we arrived, the sun was merciless. Mom went indoors to unpack groceries and read, and Dad sat on the unsheltered patio with a tumbler of scotch, squinting out into the lawn and the field of tall, dead grass that lay beyond it. Ian and I had decided to make a bushwhacking trek into the grass, having been instructed by our mother to pull up our socks to avoid “penetration by ticks.” As we were crossing the yard en route to the field, Ian stopped suddenly. “Look!” he cried. I stopped and scanned. Everywhere, it seemed, there were bunnies, nibbling on stalks of grass and dandelions. Bunnies—they were so little! Their tiny upside-down-Y-shapedmouths quivered with agonizing cuteness, their hops like miniature lopes. “Look, Dad, look!” we hooted. “Bunnies!” He smiled faintly. “Look at that,” he said. Ian and I bent down and watched them earnestly, as if in that instant we had become charged with their care. After five minutes or so, we heard the first shriek.
It was unworldly, like the scream of the ghost of a murdered child. Ian and I looked at each other, panicked. What had happened? Then there was another shriek, and another. We screamed when we saw them: snakes. Tethers of black snakes were coasting through the grass. There were so many. Ian and I ran wildly, bawling, trying to rescue the bunnies, but our attempts scared them, forcing them into the tall grass, where they were killed. We screamed for our father. Dad ambled onto the lawn and stooped to pick up a twitching bunny,
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