Page 59 of Nash Falls
Come on, just read it. How bad can it be? Surely no worse than what you already imagined.
He took a deep breath, slit open the envelope, took out the letter, and unfolded the pages.
Here goes.
Dear Walter Nash:
Nash said out loud, “Okay, that opening doesn’t bode well.”
We had a fine time together you and me sonny boy right up until you betrayed and destroyed the one person I held above all others.
Here, Nash stopped and his mind started whirling as to what in the hell his father was talking about. Had Agent Orange eaten his brain as well as his body? He read on.
You were fourteen just starting high school. I drove you and your mother to play tennis because you wanted to try out for the team and your mother was really good. I wanted you to play a sport which one didn’t matter. I hung around to watch. Do you remember that day as clearly as I do?
Nash slowly leaned back in his chair. Hedidremember it quite clearly. The girl’s name was Lisbeth Stamatis; she went by Liz. She was an incoming freshman like himself, and he’d had a hopeless crush on her. She had long, straight dark hair, huge brown eyes, andlovely olive skin. He had heard that her grandparents had come from Mykonos. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.
His stiff-limbed mother had been dressed in baggy sweatpants and an oversized shirt, with a bandanna around her head. She’d been under the weather for a while now. After several years of tests with no answers and lots of ineffective treatments and medications, she would finally be diagnosed with lupus. But despite her pain and lack of energy, she had been happy to play tennis with her son when he’d asked her to. And Nash was eager for his mother to show him some of the skills she had learned in her youth, when she’d been captain of her high school tennis team and had also won the state singles championship.
However, as soon as he and his mother had stepped out on the court, Nash had seen Stamatis and two of her girlfriends heading their way, rackets in hand. The real reason Nash had wanted to play tennis was because he knew Stamatis was trying out for the girls’ team. And he also knew that the girls’ and boys’ teams practiced together and also traveled to matches and tournaments together.
But that day Nash had freaked out.
He had rushed across the court and told his mother to please leave. He would walk home. She didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want to go, but he kept on and on until she became angry and stalked off. Nash had then gone over to Stamatis and her friends and suggested that they play doubles, since there were four of them now.
Nash returned to the letter.
As your mother walked away crying by the way because she couldn’t understand what was happening I drew closer. You were so absorbed with your pretty “friend” that you never saw me. But I heard the girl ask you who the woman was you had been there with. And you said just some sort of crazy person wandering around. And then all of you laughed. Only I didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was the opposite of funny. I thought it cruel and dirtyand a betrayal of the woman who smothered you with love her entire life. Did you know she took pain pills before going out with you that day? And that I rubbed her arms and legs to get the stiffness out and the circulation going? I told her to just tell you no, that she couldn’t play with you that day. But she said she would never disappoint you.
I never told your mother what I heard from you that day because it would have broken her heart. That night I held her as tightly as I could but she wouldn’t stop crying. Now I know you were only fourteen sonny boy but you damn sure should have known better. So when you came over that night with the food and beer when your mom was in the hospital you seemed shocked when I knocked your ass off my porch. But all I saw that night was your fourteen year old self being embarrassed by your poor sick mother. And my heart turned to flint and I forgot about the good husband and father that you grew up to be. I know I should have just let bygones be bygones. And for just about anything else I would have.
Your mother died loving you. And despite everything I’ve written in this letter I died loving you too. We all have regrets Walter and that one is mine. If I could do it over again I would have patched things up. But I am a proud old bastard set in my ways and more than capable of carrying a life-long grudge. I just never intended to do it with my only child. But I picked that hill of all hills to die on. I should have known better because I spent years of my life taking back and losing hills in Nam for no reason whatsoever. But sometimes people are so full of anger they can’t see straight and I guess that was me.
Thank you for doing right by your mother as I know you will do right by Rosie. Tell Judith and Maggie that I love them and to not think too harshly of an old foolish man. If you ever need help of any kind seek out the one person that I hold above all others with the sole exception of your mother. Shock will be there for you no matter what. Because I have asked him to be. I hope the rest of your life is everything you want it to be.
Love
For better or worse
Your Old Man
P.S. I’ve told Shock to kick your ass at the funeral service and I know that he will. It won’t be done to humiliate you Walter though I’m sure it will in a certain way. My father was neither kind nor good to me. But him raining hell down on me every day didn’t just make me rebellious and angry it made me tougher smarter and cagier. I know most shrinks wouldn’t agree with that approach and I never earned a sheepskin but who the hell knows? What I know is if I didn’t care about you I would have had Shock ignore you to show that you weren’t important to me at the end. But you are important to me Walter. You’re my son.
Nash slowly folded the paper after carefully blotting away all the teardrops and slid it back into the envelope. He placed it in a drawer of his desk.
He rose, turned out the light in his office, sat back down in his chair, and never really moved until he heard Judith come down the stairs the next morning.
CHAPTER
28
WALTER, HAVE YOU BEEN UPall night?” Judith exclaimed as she poked her head into the study after seeing him sitting there.
He glanced at his wife, who was outfitted in her workout gear. “No. I just came down a little bit ago.”
“But you’re still wearing the clothes you had on from last night?”
He stretched. “I slept in them, in the sitting room. Didn’t want to disturb you.”
