Mr. X

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A few minutes later, I jumped into a brief, uncharacteristic lull to ask if my mother had said anything more about the terrible thing from which she wanted to protect me.

‘It wasn’t much,’ Nettie said. ‘I don’t suppose she could have explained.’

May said, ‘She asked how I was getting on without James. Star was here for his funeral, you know.’ A dark glance reminded me that I had been absent. ‘She didn’t seem lively and full of fun, the way she used to be. I remember she asked Nettie to get in touch with some of her old friends. Then she started toward the counter and made this funny surprised sound. That’s when she fell smack down on the floor. I swear, I thought she had left us. Lickety-split, Clark was on the phone.’

‘Superman never moved faster,’ Clark said.

I drew in a large breath and let it out. ‘This is going to sound funny, but did she mention anything about my father?’

May and Nettie stared at me, and Clark’s mouth dropped open, momentarily making him look witless.

‘I think she wants me to know who he was.’ An irresistible idea soared into my mind, and I hitched forward in my chair. ‘She wanted me to get here before it was too late. She didn’t want me to spend the rest of my life wondering about him.’

Clark seemed baffled. ‘Why in heaven would you wonder about that?’

‘Star never said a word about your father from the day you were born,’ Nettie said.

‘Probably she kept putting it off and putting it off until she realized that time was running out.’

The aunts exchanged a glance I could not interpret. ‘You must have felt that my mother brought shame on your family. You took her in, and you gave me a home. Aunt Nettie and Aunt May, I’m grateful for everything you did. But I’m not ashamed that Star wasn’t married when I was born.’

‘What the dickens are you talking about?’ Clark said.

Nettie said, ‘Star never brought shame on our family.’

‘At the time, you must have thought you had to conceal …’ The sentence trailed off before their absolute incomprehension.

May seemed to try to get me into better focus. ‘Neddie, Star was married when she had you.’

‘No, she wasn’t,’ I said. ‘This is exactly what I’m talking about.’

‘She most certainly was,’ Nettie insisted. ‘She took off, the way she did, and when she came back she was a married woman about a week before delivery. Her husband had left her, but I saw the papers.’

All three regarded me with varying degrees of disapproval, even indignation.

‘How come she never told me?’

‘Women don’t have to tell their children they were born on the right side of the blanket.’

A myriad of odd sensations, like the flares of tiny fireworks, sparkled through my chest. ‘Why did she give me her name instead of his?’

‘You were more a Dunstan than whatever he was. His name didn’t count for anything.’

‘Do you still have the papers?’

‘They’d be long gone, by now.’

I silently agreed. With the exception of her driver’s license, my mother’s attitude toward official documents tended toward a relaxation well past the point of carelessness.

‘Let me see if I have this right,’ I said. ‘She left home with a man you didn’t know, married him, and became pregnant. Her husband abandoned her shortly before I was born.’

‘It was something like that,’ Nettie said.

‘What did I get wrong?’

Nettie pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. Either she was trying to remember, or she was editing the story into acceptable form. ‘I recall her telling me that the fellow took off a couple months after she learned she was carrying. She could have come back here, but she bought a ticket somewhere … I can’t remember, but she had a girlfriend in school there. At the time she left town, Star wasn’t living with me. She was in with a crowd from Albertus, doing God knows what.’

The women got to their feet. A second later, I joined them. ‘Didn’t Star want us to call her friends?’

Nettie rammed the pickle jar into her bag. ‘Most of those people didn’t know how to conduct themselves in a decent home. Besides, they probably moved out a long time ago.’

‘She must have had someone in mind.’

‘If you want to waste your time, here’s her address book.’ She groped through the contents of her bag and brought out a worn, black leather book like a pocket diary.

From the door of the lounge, Clark was casting irritated glances at May’s efforts to unhook her cane from a chair. Nettie moved grandly away. I knelt down to free the cane and placed it in May’s outstretched hand.

‘Aunt May,’ I asked, ‘what did Joy say to you this morning?’

‘Oh. We straightened that out. Joy made a mistake.’

‘About what?’

‘I said to her, “Joy, you’ll never guess, Star’s over at Nettie’s.” “I know,” she said, “I saw her with my own eyes, standing out front and talking to her boy. He’s an extremely handsome young man!”’

‘I guess that proves it wasn’t me,’ I said.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said, ‘but I know what does. If Star met you outside the house, she wouldn’t ask Nettie to call you on the telephone.’

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Star’s address book was a palimpsest of the comings and goings of herself and her acquaintances over what looked like a great many years. I stood beside the bank of telephones on the ground floor and leafed through the chaos, looking for the Edgerton area code. I came up with three names, one of them that of a person in deep disfavor with Nettie and May.

I dialed his number first. A sandpaper voice said, ‘Pawnshop.’ When I spoke his name, he said, ‘Who were you expecting, Harry Truman?’ The impression that Nettie and May were right to despise their late sister’s husband vanished as soon as I had explained myself. ‘Ned, that’s terrible news. How is she doing?’

I told him what I could.

‘Look,’ Toby Kraft said, ‘I got some people in from out of town on a big estate deal, and I’m trying to expand my business, understand? I’ll be there quick as I can. Hey, I want to get a look at you, too, kid, it’s been a long time.’

Before he could hang up, I said, ‘Toby, Star wanted us to call her old friends, and I wondered if you knew two people who were in her book.’

‘Make it fast,’ he said.

I turned to the first of the Edgerton names. ‘Rachel Milton?’

‘Forget it. Way back when, she used to be Rachel Newborn. Used to go to Albertus. Nice knockers. Rachel was okay until she married this prick, Grennie Milton, and moved out to Ellendale.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece and said something I could not hear. ‘Kid, I have to go.’