Calypso

by David Sedaris

One of the things he noted during their stay was that, with the exception of Amy and me, no one in my family ever says goodnight. Rather, they just leave the room—sometimes halfway through dinner—and reappear the following morning.

I’d counted the days until my sisters’ arrival, so why wasn’t I next door, sitting with Hugh in our perfect-couple sixteenth-century kitchen with its stone floor and crackling fire? Perhaps I worried that if I didn’t wander off, my family would get on my nerves, or—far more likely—I would get on theirs, and that our week together wouldn’t be as ideal as I’d told myself it would be.

Gretchen’s waist-length hair has gone silver since that Christmas, and when she walks in her sleep, she limps a little. But then, we’re all getting older.

Our sister-in-law, Kathy, swears by eBay, but I like the social aspect of shopping, the getting out. The touching things and talking to people. I work at home, so most days the only contact I have, except for Hugh, is with salespeople and cashiers.

I suppose I could have asked him questions about his job, or his childhood, but it already seemed too late to get into it. These were the sorts of conversations that should have begun years earlier. They needed foundations built brick by brick, and not just thwacked down whole. He could have asked about my life, but I don’t know how articulate I would have been.

The silence my father and I inflicted on each other back then is now exacerbated by his advanced age. Every time I see him could be the last, and the pressure I feel to make our conversation meaningful paralyzes me.

I can see him doing the same thing I am, trying to make some sort of connection. We’re like a pair of bad trapeze artists, reaching for each other’s hands and missing every time. Meanwhile the stage crew has gathered below us and begun to roll up the safety net.

The road was ours, and we marched right down the center of it, all the way to the front of the house and through the garden gate to the kitchen door. I didn’t know it then, but this would be the last time I would see Carol.

I still call for her when I step into the yard at night. Still look into the shadows for some hint of movement, waiting to change my tone from the voice you use when summoning someone, to the less plaintive and much more preferable one you use to welcome them back home.

Maybe ours wasn’t the house I’d have chosen had I been in charge of things. It wasn’t as clean as I’d have liked. From the outside, it wasn’t remarkable. We had no view, but still it was the place I held in mind, and proudly, when I thought, Home.

The fight we had following Trump’s election had been particularly ugly, and we could easily have it again every hour of every day. I don’t want to, though, don’t want what could be the last words we say to each other to be ugly. It’s why I didn’t bring up Jim Comey during our visit. Easier to put on a straw hat that once belonged to my mother and to accept with grace the framed postcards and nature calendars I dropped into an airport trash can before boarding my flight to Washington. It wasn’t where they belonged, necessarily. It was just where they ended up.