Page 481 - WhyAsInY

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There were many other serious discussions with Rachel about the divorce, and they were extremely difficult, for the primary topic, raised by her both explicitly and implicitly, was her feeling that I had aban- doned her. After all, I was the one who packed a car and drove away, and the obvious question, raised both by her and by Dr. Kresch, was “Why did you leave?” I had taken him to mean “Why did you leave your wife?” but, for Rachel, it was an open-ended and broader question, one that obviously referred to the family in the house. At most, in my mind, I had left Phyllis, which I still do not see as what happened, but to Rachel, I had left my little girl. I have tried for years to overcome that feeling of hers.
Peter and I had our serious, not always articulated, interactions about the divorce as well (interactions that would come into sharpest focus when he chose to move in with me and Kathy), but it is another serious and much earlier discussion that we had that truly stands out: Even before Tom Osterman, who indirectly had an economic interest in the Mets, had become a fixture in Peter’s life, Peter had become a Mets fan, a very serious Mets fan. His room, which I saw on one occasion described below, was a veritable shrine to the team; Peter and his Mets jacket were virtually inseparable during the baseball season, and, of all of the Mets, Peter’s absolute favorite was Gary Carter, their catcher. On Saturday night, October 25, 1986, Peter (and only Peter) stayed over at 24E, and I took the occasion to bond with him in front of the TV, while the Mets, down three games to two against the Red Sox in the World Series, were at Shea Stadium, fighting to preserve their season.
With the Mets losing 5–3 going in the bottom of the tenth, Peter burst out in tears after the Sox had taken the two-run lead. Why? Two reasons: First, the Mets were bound to lose (as I also believed); and sec- ond, as Peter had somehow calculated, using the math that he inherited from my dad and the pessimism that he inherited from my mom, Gary, his hero, was going to make the last out to end the Series.
There are times when one knows that his job is to be as fatherly as possible. I put my arm around him and assured him that both the Mets and Carter had nothing to be ashamed of, that they had had a terrific
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