Interstate by Stephen Dixon Page B

can make it or same time you can you’ll see him for dinner or lunch and everything you talk about he’ll tell me,” and he says “But you know what I’ve been wanting to say to you now so I don’t have to, right?” and she says “If it’s not that you’re very pleased to be with me here and somewhat despondent that we’re leaving tomorrow,” and he says “Tomorrow?” and she says “The other kids, Dad…but that sort of thing, then I don’t,” and he says “It’s more, but that also, but of course, but okay, here: now that I’ve seen you, and excuse me for blubbering again, even these little tears now, but that’s good, isn’t it? not bad, for these compared to the bigger ones before for Julie and also your mom leaving me, are radically different tears, but where was I?” and she says “‘Now that you’ve seen me again,’” and he says “And one of my wonderful grandkids—let’s skip the ‘wonderful,’ he’s obviously a good kid but it’d be dumb or just what? presuming to think I really know yet what kind deep down inside— presumptuous , or anyone but his parents and later on his wife and maybe much later on his own kids at a later age could, but now that I’ve seen you, sure, and to a smaller extent, Saul, and that you seem quite happy with Glen and same with him with you and so on and that he seems like a nice guy—sweet to you and kind to the kid and attentive to you both and that sort of thing…oh, this is such silly awful straight-from-the-farty-heart crappy shit-stupid talk, and no excuse me’s,” and she says “No, go on, not so much with the profanities if you prefer, but you started, so get it over with,” and he says “Words right out of, for that’s essentially what I was going to say—now that I’ve seen you I feel I’ve done everything in my life I ever wanted to except maybe—no ‘maybe’—except to see my kids grow up before me and maybe get married at their actual marriage, the ceremony I’m saying, and maybe to have stayed married another ten years myself or at least for those years hooked up with someone else; now, as for your little sister,” and she says “Let’s not go into her again, it affects me too,” and he says “Let me just say this about her and that’ll be it, not forever, but I swear—that as for her, thinking of how old she’d be now as I did before and all the things that wonderful big brain and person of hers could be and also have done, like the marriage I mentioned and schools—medicine, I thought, since she was always so caring of people, asking them this and that when they were sick and saying she’s sorry and so on, maybe a passing phase but it really hit me, and interested in books in just looking at them so much because she was only starting to read and so curious of bugs and leaves and other scientific things—plus the kid or kids she would have had and the side things and ideas and stuff, all still in there to come out, but still knowing me through all this right till today, that it kills me, literally kills me every single day, for that’s how often—” and she says “I know, you’ve said, I don’t think of her as often as that, having my own children in a way that you didn’t after she died and still don’t have me and also that second but much younger sister Mom gave me, but I certainly think of her and miss her or sort of like you when I do, but let me tell you also, Mom says she thinks of her that way too, maybe more like I do and around the same amount or maybe a lot more than I do but not as much as you because I still lived with her and she fairly soon after had that other child, so it was equal in a way for all of us, you can say, or a little to maybe a little more than a little for you