Page 60 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

Toward the end, it was exciting. The man told his mother how
much he loved her, and how he couldn’t wait to see her, to
“touch your beautiful breasts, and rub my fingers over your belly.”

Harry stopped reading before he reached the end and put
the letter back into his pocket. He didn’t want to see the signa-
ture at the end. He didn’t want to know who it was. It might
be someone he knew, someone who was still alive. He didn’t
want to know. He began walking toward the car, which was
parked a few blocks away.

His mother. His own mother. Having an affair with a mar-
ried man. And he was in love with her. Of that there was no
question. He said so. “I love you,” he said.

And his mother? What about her? Was she in love with
him? Whenever his father came up in conversation, he mother
always said, “There was nobody like your father.” Her eyes got
wispy whenever she talked about his father. Even if she was
telling the truth, she had reason to know if there was anybody
like him. There was someone, at least one other person, to
compare him with.

Harry always assumed his father was the only person his
mother was ever with. She was pregnant with his sister when
she was only fifteen and they were married when she was six-
teen. But there was someone else, and now Harry wanted to
know if his mother loved this other person more than his fa-
ther who she lived with and punished with her criticism and
her hounding nature for nearly sixty years. Could it all have
been different. If she had left his father before he was born,
it would all have been different. He might not be here now,

58