Page 113 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

“That’s what Dad wants.” He picked up the phone. When he noticed I wasn’t moving, he shrugged and started to dial.
I turned to climb the back stairway. On one end of the long second-floor hallway was Elizabeth’s corner room with Maryanne’s on the other side of their joint bathroom; on the other, Donald and Robert’s shared bedroom was outfitted with blue-and-gold bedspreads and matching window treatments. My grandparents’ much larger master bedroom stood right next to theirs and included Gam’s separate dressing room with mirrored walls. In the middle of the hallway was the Cell. Dad’s cot had been stripped, exposing the thin mattress. His portable radio was still on the small bedside table. The door to the closet was ajar, and I saw a couple of white button-down shirts hanging askew on wire hangers. Even on such a sunny day, the only window let in little light, and the room looked austere in the shadows. I thought I should go in, but there was nothing for me there. I went back downstairs.
The wake fell on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, but many of Dad’s fraternity brothers still came. His friend Stu, who had often attended dinner parties and charity events at Jamaica Hospital with his wife, Judy, probably knew my family better than any of Dad’s friends other than Billy Drake. Stu saw my grandfather standing alone in the back of the room, and he walked over to pay his respects. The two men shook hands and, after offering his condolences, Stu said, “It looks like real estate isn’t doing so well. I hope Donald’s okay. I see him in the news a lot, and it looks like he owes the banks a lot of money.”
Fred put his arm around his dead son’s friend and said with a smile, “Stuart, don’t worry about Donald. He’s going to be just fine.” Donald wasn’t there.
My brother gave the only eulogy (or, at least, the only one I remember), written on a sheet of loose-leaf paper, probably on the plane ride from Orlando, where he was a sophomore at Rollins College. He reminisced about the good times he and Dad had had together, most of which had occurred before I had been old enough to remember them, but he refused to shy away from the fundamental reality of my father’s life. At one point he referred to Dad as the black sheep of the family, and there were audible gasps from the guests. I felt a thrill of recognition and a sense of vindication —at long last. My brother, who had always been so much better at negotiating the family than I was, had dared tell the truth. I admired his