As Close to Us as Breathing: A Novel by Elizabeth Poliner Page A

ocean as he was, his back to Howard even when Leo addressed him.
    Howard turned toward the ocean, which looked friendly enough, then toward Mort’s icy back. The summer before, a Friday in July, everything had been different, more convivial. Mort had been driving that day. When they’d pulled in to Savin Rock and Howard had asked what was up, Mort began laughing. “Something for us,” he’d finally said. Then they’d risen from the car and as they walked toward Jimmies, the smells of fried foods increasingly wafting their way, Mort had slapped Howard’s back over and over. “Us, us, us,” he’d eagerly repeated. Then he’d added, winking, “Don’t tell.”
    Howard had gone with the men to Jimmies again, later that summer. Once more Mort welcomed Howard’s joining them. He was even proud of Howard, who had come back to Middletown for a week to help with the store’s summer inventory. “Eat up,” Mort had told him then, adding a moment later, “What the hell, have two if you like.”
    But this day Mort merely said, “Ready?” exclusively to Leo, who nodded.
    At five o’clock they arrived at the cottage.
    Walking into a spotlessly clean kitchen, then past a dining room table perfectly set with flower-patterned china, wineglasses, and candlesticks, and then into a living room with the sofa bed folded up and no signs at all of two girls spending their nights there, Howard called, “Whoa, what happened here? ”
    Mort stood behind him, and Howard turned in time to see him remove his hat and place it, for one of the women to pick up, on the little telephone table in the dining room.
    Mort looked around, nodded his approval.
    “At least some people have respect,” he said, finally staring at Howard, but only for the purpose of directing the implied criticism his way. He then turned from Howard and toward the dining table, where he focused his gaze on the unlit candles at the table’s center.
    When he spoke next, Mort was still staring at the candles as if mesmerized by a flame they didn’t yet emit.
    “Lovely, lovely,” he said.

What They Tell Us We Are
     
    T here was something about Davy’s personality—a touch of silliness, a whole lot of energy, an easy likability—that allowed us to see in him what we wanted to. My father saw that part of himself, the boy so very good at being a shortstop, that was never allowed to be. Howard, in contrast, very often saw someone to protect, perhaps against the father to whom he felt at times so vulnerable. In the same breath, however, Davy could be a way for Howard to buffer himself against Mort. That’s why, perhaps, upon arriving at Woodmont that Friday evening, Howard grabbed Davy, threw him over his shoulder, and carried him, kicking and squealing, outside for a quick pre-dinner game of catch. The baseball gloves and ball were lying in a protected corner of the front porch, always ready for such an occasion. Without even stopping to take off his tie and shoes, Howard grabbed the mitts and ball and led Davy to the beach, where we could see them throwing the ball back and forth, and we could hear the distinctive thump of the hardball hitting the mitt’s leather, and we could even hear Howard’s gentle coaching of Davy— good one, run, get it —whose favorite part of the game was to chase a fly ball, the highest Howard could throw. Had he lived to play the game beyond his childhood, there’s no doubt in my mind that Davy was destined to be an outfielder and not the shortstop of my father’s projected dreams. But such is the way of family: we are what they tell us we are, and part of life’s great struggle, it’s always seemed to me, is to know oneself despite that imposing collective definition.
    That effort was perhaps my great task that summer, other than trying to hang out as much as possible with Nina, and to do this I found myself that first week in Woodmont drawn at times to the claw-footed tub in the upstairs bathroom, which I’d recently