Cat In A Leopard Spot

“These are copies of the legal papers on the purchase of the two-flat. You know, from your father’s family’s lawyers. It’s got the firm name on it, and a lawyer signed for them. I thought if you had time to look into things—”

“You could do it more easily from here, Mom.”

She hesitated. “But I’m a woman. They never take a woman as seriously as a man at these big law firms. And you’re famous. Sort of. And…I can’t do it, Matt.” She looked away.

She meant that she was ashamed.

“It’s fine. I’ll do it.” He put his hand over hers, was surprised when her other hand suddenly clasped it, as warm and dry as hot-water-bottle-heated sheets in winter. They had never been demonstrative at home under Cliff Effinger’s despotic rule. Had never showed emotion so as not to trigger his rages.

Yet there had been comforts in that cold home, and Matt found himself wanting to go take final photographs of the old place before it was sold, even as part of him wanted to see it torn down board by shingle by rafter.

“You sure you want to find out who my real father was?” he asked. “He died in Vietnam, after all. The family lawyers made plain you would get that two-flat and that was all. There’s no advantage in it.”

“A photo maybe, huh? A name. I don’t want money. Never did. I want a memory.”

He looked away.

He was the product of a one-night stand between innocents on the brink of war. How many others like him lived in forgotten, bitter corners of the world? He was lucky he had been born in America of ethnically similar parents, that his mother’s unwed status had only resulted in an abusive stepfather and social discomfort, not utter ostracization.

“You deserve to know,” he told her at last. “I’ll do what I can.”

She nodded, and started asking him about the radio show, so he entertained her with anecdotes until the food came. He didn’t mention Elvis. It wasn’t nice to make fun of the dead, only of the living. But maybe Elvis was a little of both.

The food was hot, heavy, and delicious.

“I’m amazed that tourists eat up this old-style Polish stuff,” Matt commented after sampling the beets and dumplings.

“Ethnic is in. Speaking Polish actually comes in handy here. Too bad you and your cousins never learned anything but silly phrases.”

“We wanted to be mistaken for a more upscale group than the Poles,” Matt said. “The Irish.”

“Those Irish! They’ve got Chicago in their back pockets, that’s for sure, but they had a rougher time than the Poles a couple generations earlier. I imagine you worked with a lot of Irish priests.”

“That I did,” Matt said in a faint brogue, “and nuns too.”

“Now, that’s another thing! The nuns are literally dying out. Sometimes I don’t recognize this world.”

“And sometimes,” Matt reminded her gently, “we should be glad we don’t.”

She winced slightly as she nodded. They would never discuss her disastrous marriage with Cliff Effinger. Unlike the mixed feelings Matt still had about his childhood house, his feelings toward Effinger had evaporated after his successful search for the man. He had been like a devil who could be exorcized.

A house, though, being inanimate—being transcendent, as places always are—was an anonymous witness to the past with all its pain and survival. It was a shell you left behind as you moved on, and with it a record of how you’d grown.

He’d ask Krys, privately, to take some photos of the place.

Their plates were already cleared away when his mother looked up, beaming.

“Just in time for dessert! Krys!” She half stood to wave.

Matt felt a foreign pang, astounded to recognize it as a flutter of jealousy, a usually alien emotion.

Krys, his just-twenty cousin, came charging across the restaurant, booted to the knee, skirted to mid-thigh, her bare knees windburned in between, her spiky punk haircut grown out to shoulder-brushing Botticelli Venus tendrils, and her cheeks flushed with cold and probably a post-class beer or two.

Trailing her was loping young guy with hair half-shaved and half-moussed, wearing weathered jeans, a battered black leather jacket and a plaid flannel shirt so out it was in.

“Sit down,” his mother half ordered, half invited, like the hostess she was. “Doesn’t Matt look good?” So much for him looking tired.

“Yeah.” Krys flashed him a nod of intense recognition. “This is Zeke. He’s a sculpture major.”

“What do you sculpt, Zeke?” his mother asked politely. “I’ve been doing some clay models and it’s really fun.”

“Body parts. Out of rusted automobile pieces. It’s a statement.”

“You mean…auto body parts?” She was trying to comprehend.

“Naw. Body parts. Like hands. Hips. Boobs.”

Matt’s mother glanced quickly at Krys. Whose body parts, she wanted to ask, but knew better not to.

Probably his girlfriend’s, Mother, Matt wanted to answer the unspoken speculation. It’s a stage.

Krys was rearranging her silverware after shrugging out of a heavy wool jacket. “Your mother’s been taking some adult-ed art classes, and she’s really good.”

“I’m not surprised,” Matt said.