there be a service?”
“Yes, a memorial service.”
“I’ll be leaving here Wednesday and getting back to San Francisco next Thursday.”
“I know, Fiona told me. I’ve scheduled the service for Friday afternoon. You’ll be there?”
“Of course.”
“Afterwards, we’ll have supper?”
“Supper, that night?”
“I’m arranging my affairs and hope you’ll assist.”
“Sure.”
“That summer was such a long time ago. We were boys, young boys.”
“Drew, this call is costing you a fortune.”
“It’ll be a pleasant evening; I promise.”
***
That summer my mother told me to leave her. I implored her to explain, but she said, “Leave, I beg you.” She turned her face to the wall and refused to answer me. “Alexander, I beg you, leave me.”
I did and went to Drew. Around that time, the doctors told Fiona that my mother was self-destructive and should be institutionalized. Fiona asked for my advice. I was confused and couldn’t think, didn’t say. And my mother, well, she was Fiona’s problem.
Drew and I were the same age and had known each other for years. His father lived in Texas, and he spent summers with Fiona. When Drew was fourteen, Fiona sent him to a New England boarding school without discussing the matter. Drew charmed his way through the interviews but couldn’t charm Fiona out of her decision. For that Fiona would pay.
At fifteen, Drew was playing Fiona against his father; at eighteen, he was taking Fiona’s money with a sneer. With exquisite sarcasm, Drew goaded Fiona into rages that left her speechless. Fiona retaliated by acceding to Drew’s demands and replacing affection with frigid civility. Drew upped the stakes; Fiona withdrew ever further. Their hideous relationship was fascinating and repellent.
I couldn’t imagine treating my mother that way. But when she sent me away, Drew was there and understood such things. He told me my elegance had captivated him; I loved Drew for loving me. We were vivid young men with a passion for the arts, not artists per se, but prophets of a refinement uncommon in America and virtually unknown in California.
Contemptuous of the philistines who would send us into the professions, we scorned American colleges as middle-class vocational schools for dreary types who would spend their jejune lives toiling in commerce. With my breeding and Drew’s sophistication, the dreams we had fashioned were a far richer sustenance than any college could provide. As Drew put it, we had to “fly into the sun”—New York—where our talents would be appreciated and would flourish.
Fiona told me that she could not bear sequestering my mother in a mental hospital and requested my approval for twenty-four-hour homecare. Again, I had nothing to tell her. A few days later, Drew told Fiona that we were going to Santa Barbara to visit his friends from school. Fiona was consumed with my mother and agreed without a word.
Drew and I took all the Montrachet from Fiona’s wine cellar and headed off for a week at the Sinclair summer home overlooking Lake Tahoe. Alone in the idyllic world we had fashioned, the languid summer days were spent embellishing our dreams; the evenings, we drank the wine and fascinated each other. Late one morning, Drew and I were in bed and heard a car approaching up the steep driveway. It was Fiona.
My mother had killed herself around dawn the day before, and Fiona had tracked us down. I don’t remember the drive into Reno, the flight back to San Francisco, or the preparations for my mother’s funeral, such as it was. A suicide, she was denied an Orthodox funeral, and Fiona arranged a service at a funeral home nearby.
Facing my mother’s closed casket, Fiona, Drew, and I listened to Fiona’s minister speak to us. I couldn’t remember his sermon, or whatever it was. I do remember Shostakovich’s haunting Opus 97 that Fiona had chosen. Mother was denied burial in consecrated ground next to my father, and Fiona gave her a secluded corner in the Sinclair family plot. Later Fiona would arrange for a granite Russian cross with my mother’s name and dates in Cyrillic.
At the gravesite, the minister led us in prayers that I didn’t hear. I do remember Fiona giving me a rose to place on the casket as it was lowered into the grave. I can’t remember what went through my mind. Perhaps nothing at all, or too much to comprehend. I didn’t cry.
I accepted that my mother was gone, and that was pretty much that. Drew convinced his father that art school in New York was a better idea than Princeton. Dazed and depressed, Fiona agreed before Drew could torment her. Knowing that Fiona was vulnerable, I told her that I was going with Drew, but she refused to allow it.
As much as I longed for Drew, Fiona intimidated me too much to argue. I spent the rest of that summer wandering around San Francisco, smoking cigarettes and sitting in movie theaters. In the evenings, Fiona retired early while I drank whiskey or wine in front of the television and slept late. She tried sitting me down to talk about my mother.
Fiona’s guilt had numbed her into a stumbling incoherence, and I had nothing to say. Since we couldn’t talk, Fiona sent me to a psychologist without consulting me. I convinced him that starting college that fall was unwise given my mother’s suicide. Armed with his opinion, I tried persuading Fiona that I belonged in New York instead of a freshman dormitory. Fiona told me that I was going to college.
Early that September, she drove me to Palo Alto and left me at a Stanford freshman dorm. A week later, I hadn’t attended a lecture or a class, and my faculty advisor called. The meeting was brief; I told him that I belonged in New York, where my talents would be appreciated—end of discussion. Fiona drove me to her home the next day.
CHAPTER 5
EARLY DECEMBER 1986
DENVER
Wednesday evening in New York after my flight from Moscow, I had a steak sandwich at the hotel bar and watched the television’s weather reports. The weather lady said that the jet stream had plunged south, bringing storms down from Canada toward Colorado. My reserved flight to San Francisco changed planes in Denver. I called the airline and learned that all direct flights had been booked. Rerouting through the southwest had two options: standby connections through Dallas or Phoenix. I opted for Denver.
I left New York on a brisk autumn day. Around St. Louis, the upbeat pilot gave us the Denver weather reports: light snow, but the airport was open with all runways functioning. Somewhere over Kansas, the pilot reported that the snow had increased, but only one runway had been closed. As we descended over eastern Colorado, the pilot turned glum. “Folks, got some bad news, really bad. Denver is getting creamed, big time. Passengers with connecting flights, well, you’d better check with the airlines—not looking so hot.” Touching down, the plane skidded. “Welcome to Denver’s Stapleton Airport.”
My plane was one of the last to land. My flight to San Francisco had been cancelled. The ticket counters were bedlam. Badgering the ticket agents was useless, hotels and motels in the Denver area were full, and there were no cabs anyway. Local television news crews had braved the weather and were filming the confusion and interviewing stranded travelers. My luggage had been checked through, and I would spend the night at the airport. I went to the newsstand, grabbed some magazines, bought a pack
