FRANCE
December 27, 2013
Dear Felix,
Well, I must know: Did Stewart cook a Christmas goose for your first as a full-time citizen? All I can think of is that great hollow gong of a voice coming from Julia Child on the television:
BON APPÉTIT
Haven’t my gifts arrived yet? Damn the Federal Express. One should always go with the United States Postal Service, you know, it’s an institution as faithful and true as an old hound. The Federal Express ran their holiday special and I took the bait, and here I am paying the pied piper, though I probably ought to blame French customs, blasé and uninterested in expediency. If you haven’t gotten them, here’s spoiling. I sent two dress shirts, a pair of corduroys, and a tie with little hens from Nordstrom for Stewart, and for you it was a first edition ofUlyssesby James Joyce, which I found in a collectors bookstore in Annapolis several months ago when I was out to lunch with the birds (Trudy spotted it), as well as a new box of the good Smythson letter writing paper, envelopes, and a fountain pen. This is the way I will prevent you from ever moving our ongoing exchange to e-mail.
The children have all left this morning and I spent the day putting everything back to right. It was lovely. I wish you could have been here. The baby, Charles, is terribly skinny but good tempered, and Bruce’s kids (who asked me for cash in lieu of gifts) couldn’t keep away from him. Fiona does seem happy, if also thin—maybe it’s not that everyone is thin; maybe I’m getting fat—and I was in the kitchen with herself and Marie and we were drinking wine and making the big dinner, and Walt and Bruce outputting toys together and overseeing the children. I guess I rather told you most of this on the phone on the day, but it was the kind of moment that makes one grateful. Anyway, it was a nice Christmas having what remains of my family all in one place. Fiona didn’t pick at a single stitch.
Do you know about a website business called Kindred Project? This program will assist a person with uncovering his ethnicity through DNA TESTING. You can also use the program to investigate the network of all people who are using the program to make familial connections. Bruce gave this to me for my Christmas gift. It was a strange moment. Felix, do you have moments when you feel, I don’t know, like Pluto way out there on its own, rather observing the workings of the galaxy from a distance? This sense has come to me at odd times throughout my life and I’ve always attributed it to having been adopted. Does this affect you? I suppose Mother and Dad knew less about my birth situation than yours—and I know you expended a great deal of effort to find information about your birth family, an effort you felt compelled to put forth because of the complexities of that whole situation—but I am not like you. I have been content. (Of course it occurs to me from time to time, at odd times really, like a little bruise,whywould someone give up a child? A newborn I can certainly understand. A thing someone decided before the notion of a baby became an actual baby. But a child of fourteen months, what could possess a person to do that? These are thoughts I’ve had, but not in an urgent sense, just a little bruise I’d press on every once in a while.)
When I opened the gift from Bruce everyone was staring at me, quiet, as if I were on a stage under a spotlight and on display. I was humiliated! Imagining the discussions going on behind my back, them talking about it beforehand. And do you know, I was angry at Bruce for this. Bruce is like me. I have always felt we had a certain understanding. What was he thinking? They were allrather smiling, and Fiona, who hasn’t shown a speck of interest in me in a decade (I almost wonder if it was Fiona’s idea; it seems like something Fiona would concoct), was going on about finding out a bit about where I came from, as if I am an alien life form. I came from the planet Earth! Perhaps they want to know, for their own sakes, now with their father at death’s door. Sentimentality? Half Belgian elite, half WHO THE HELL KNOWS, PROBABLY TRAILER TRASH. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was doing my best to hold back tears. I was angry, on display like a fool! I’m very close to the end of my life, Felix, almost there, and I don’t want to muck it up more than I already have. It was presumptuous of them to assume I would want to know. I do not want to know. I am perfectly content.
Before I conclude, I wanted to update you on another matter, which is that my hair has fully grown into its natural state, and surprise of a lifetime, it looks elegant.
That is all. I’m angry, as much is clear, but it is as ever, with love, and the warmest regards for a happy and healthy new year, your loving sister,
Syb
December 27, 2013
Dear Mr. Lübeck,
Thank you for the cookies. Happy New Year.
Regards,
Sybil Van Antwerp
Sybil Vanantwerp
17 Farney Rd.
Arnold, MD 21012
20 January 2014
TO: Sybil Vanantwerp, former clerk to Judge Guy D. Donnelly
I imagine you reading my notes standing at the mailbox, heat growing on your neck and the sick feeling in your stomach. Or standing in your kitchen while the water whistled for tea and you didn’t hear it because you were distracted by that bad feeling. Or in a chair, I think maybe you squirmed as the meaning in my message became clear to you. I was pleased by that, but it was not enough. I went for a long drive again and I found your blue house with the steep roof and the mailbox like a fish, the bird bath. I sat outside in my car for some time. You have a nice house. It is probably worth a lot of money with the way you can see the river, even though part of your fence is falling. I can tell you are a good gardener, even though it’s winter. I am a gardener. I can see everything is organized and trimmed back. You know what you’re doing with it. I will come have a look in spring and maybe again in summer, and I hope you think of me outside your house and it disturbs you. I hope it poisons your days and you look out the window the times you feel chilled. I hope you have to look twice, and that little fear keeps you from enjoying the life you have left, in the same way that you impeded me.
Sincerely,
DM
February 4, 2014
Dear Mr. Lübeck,
This piece of mail was delivered to my house erroneously.
Regards,
Sybil Van Antwerp
