I had to stand by and watch my beautiful , perfect wife waste away until there was nothing left . It didn 't matter that I have money and success . It didn 't matter that I 'm called an " important " writer . It didn 't matter that Pat and I had finally started building our dream house , an engineering miracle that hung onto a cliff wall and would allow us to sit quietly and look out across the Pacific . Nothing at all mattered from the moment Pat came home and interrupted me while I was writing - something she never did - to tell me that she had cancer , and that it was in an advanced stage . I thought it was one of her jokes . Pat had a quirky sense of humor ; she said I was too serious , too morose , too doom - and - gloom , and too afraid of everything on earth . From the first , she 'd made me laugh . We met at college . Two more different people would be hard to find , and even Pat 's family was completely alien to me . I 'd seen families like hers on television , but it never occurred to me that they actually existed . She lived in a pretty little house with a front porch and - I swear this is true - a white picket fence . On summer evenings her parents - Martha and Edwin - would sit on the front porch and wave at the neighbors as they passed by . Her mother would wear an apron and snap green beans or shell peas while she waved and chatted . " How is Tommy today ? " she 'd ask some passerby . " Is his cold better ? " Pat 's father sat just a few feet away from his wife at a wrought iron table , an old floor lamp nearby , and a box of gleaming German tools , all precisely arranged , at his feet . He was - again , I swear this is true - known as Mr . Fix - It around the neighborhood and he repaired broken things for his own family and his neighbors . Free of charge . He said he liked to help people and a smile was enough payment for him . When I went to Pat 's house to pick her up for a date , I 'd go early just so I could sit and watch her parents . To me , it was like watching a science fiction movie . As soon as I arrived , Pat 's mother - " call me Martha , everyone does " - would get up and get me something to eat and drink . " I know that growing boys need their nourishment , " she 'd say , then disappear inside her spotlessly clean house . I 'd sit there in silence , watching Pat 's father as he worked on a toaster or maybe a broken toy . That big oak box of tools at his feet used to fascinate me . They were all perfectly clean , perfectly matched . And I knew they had to have cost a fortune . One time I was in the city - that ubiquitous " city " that seems to lie within fifty miles of all college towns - and I saw a hardware store across the street . Since hardware stores had only bad memories for me , it took courage on my part to cross the street , open the door , and go inside . But since I 'd met Pat , I 'd found that I 'd become braver . Even way back then her laughter was beginning to echo in my ears , laughter that encouraged me to try things I never would have before , simply because of the painful emotions they stirred up . After a while he quit talking and gave me one of those looks I 'd seen so many times from my uncles and cousins . It was a look that divided men from Men . It usually preceded a fatal pronouncement like : " He don 't know which end of a chain saw to use . " But then , I 'd always played the brain to my relatives ' brawn . I wanted to leave the hardware store . I didn 't belong there and it held too many old fears for me . But I could hear Pat 's laughter and it gave me courage . " I want to buy a gift for someone , " I said loudly and knew right away that I 'd made a mistake . " Gift " was not a word my uncles and cousins would have used . They would have said , " I need a set a socket wrenches for my brother - in - law . What 'd ' ya got ? " But the clerk turned and smiled at me . After all , " gift " meant money . " So what kind of gift ? " he asked . He went behind a counter that was scarred from years of router blades and drill bits having been dropped on it , and reached below to pull out a catalog . " We don 't carry those in the store but we can order whatever you want . " I nodded in what I hoped was a truly manly way , trying to imply that I knew exactly what I wanted , and flipped through the catalog . The photos were full color ; the paper was expensive . And no wonder since the prices were astronomical . " Precision , " the man said , summing up everything in that one word . I pressed my lower lip against the bottom of my upper teeth in a way I 'd seen my uncles do a thousand times , and nodded as though I knew the difference between a " precision " screwdriver and one out of a kid 's Home Depot kit . " I wouldn 't have anything else , " I said in that tight - lipped way my uncles spoke of all things mechanical . The glory of the words " two stroke engine " made them clamp their back teeth together so that the words were almost unintelligible . " You can take that catalog , " the man said , and my face unclenched for a moment . I almost said gleefully , " Yeah ? That 's kind of you . " But I remembered in time to do the bottom lip gesture and mumble " much obliged " from somewhere in the back of my throat . I wished I 'd had on a dirty baseball cap with the name of some sports team so I could tug at the brim in a Man 's goodbye as I left the store . When I got back to my tiny , gray apartment off campus later that night , I looked up some of Pat 's father 's tools in the catalog . Those tools of his were worth thousands . Not hundreds . Thousands . The next day when I saw Pat between classes - she was studying chemistry and I was English lit - I mentioned the tools to her as casually as possible . She wasn 't fooled ; she knew this was important to me . " Why do you always fear the worst ? " she asked , smiling . " Possessions don 't matter , only people do . " " You should tell that to my uncle Reg , " I said , trying to make a joke . The smile left her pretty face . " I 'd love to , " she said . Pat wasn 't afraid of anything . But because I didn 't want her to look at me differently , I wouldn 't introduce her to my relatives . Instead , I let myself pretend that I was part of her family , the one that had big Thanksgiving dinners , and Christmases with eggnog and gifts under the tree . " Is it me or my family you love ? " Pat once asked , smiling , but her eyes were serious . " Is it me or my rotten childhood you love ? " I shot back , and we smiled at each other . Then my big toe went up her pants leg and the next moment we were on top of one another . Pat and I were exotic to each other . Her sweet , loving , trusting family never failed to fascinate me . I was sitting in their living room one day waiting for Pat when her mother came home with her arms pulled down by the weight of four shopping bags . Back then I didn 't know that I should have jumped up and helped her with them . Instead , I just stared at her . What she was saying was ordinary to her . Pat and her parents easily and casually said things to make other people feel good . " That 's just your color , " Pat 's mother would say to an ugly woman . " You should wear that color every day . And who does your hair ? " From someone else , the words would have been facetious . But any compliment Pat 's mother - I could never call her " Martha " or " Mrs . Pendergast " - gave came out sincere - sounding because it was sincere . She put the shopping bags down by the coffee table , removed the pretty arrangement of fresh flowers she 'd cut from her backyard garden , and began pulling little squares of cloth out of the bags . I 'd never seen anything like them before and had no idea what they were . But then Pat 's parents were always introducing me to new and wondrous things . I wanted to ask why she cared what I thought , but back then I was constantly trying to make Pat 's parents believe that I 'd grown up in a world like theirs . I looked at the fabric pieces and saw that each one was different . There were pieces with big flowers on them , and some with little flowers . There were stripes , solids , and some with blue line drawings . When I looked up at Pat 's mother , I could see she was expecting me to say something . But what ? Was it a trick ? If I chose the wrong one would she tell me to leave the house and never see Pat again ? It was what I feared every minute I was with them . I was fascinated by their sheer niceness , but at the same time they scared me . What would they do if they found out that inside I was no more like their daughter than a scorpion was like a ladybug ? Pat saved me . When she came into the living room , her hands pulling her thick blonde hair up into a ponytail , she saw me looking at her mother , my eyes wild with the fear of being found out . " Oh , Mother , " Pat said . " Ford doesn 't know anything about upholstery fabrics . He can recite Chaucer in the original English , so what does he need to know about chintz and toile ? " " Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote , " I murmured , smiling at Pat . Two weeks before I 'd found out that if I whispered Chaucer while I was biting on her earlobe , it made her wild for sex . Like her father , an accountant , she had a mathematician 's brain , and anything poetic excited her . I looked back at the fabrics . Ah . Upholstery . I made a mental note to look up the words " chintz " and " toile . " And later I 'd have to ask Pat why being able to recite medieval poetry should exclude knowledge of upholstery fabrics . " What do you plan to upholster ? " I asked Pat 's mother , hoping I sounded familiar with the subject . " The whole room , " Pat said in exasperation . " She redoes the entire living room every four years . New slipcovers , new curtains , everything . And she sews all of it herself . " " I think I 'll go Mediterranean , " Pat 's mother said . " Terra cotta and brick . I was thinking of trying my hand at leather upholstery with all those little nails around the edge . What do you think of that idea , Ford ? Would that look nice ? " I could only blink at her . In the many houses I had lived in , new furniture was bought only when there were holes in the old , and price was the only consideration for purchase . One of my aunts had a whole set of furniture covered in three - inch - long purple acrylic . Everyone thought it was wonderful because all three pieces had cost only twenty - five dollars . Only I minded having to remove long purple fibers from my food . Pulling the little hair tie out of her mouth , Pat deftly wrapped it around her ponytail , and rolled her eyes . Three weekends before , her parents had visited a sick relative so Pat and I 'd spent two nights alone in their house . We 'd played at being married , at being our own little family , and that that perfect house was ours . We 'd sat at the kitchen table and shucked corn , then we 'd eaten dinner at the mahogany dining table - just like grown - ups . I 'd told Pat a lot about my childhood , but I 'd only told her the deep angst part , the part that was likely to get me sympathy and sex . I 'd not told her the mundane , day - to - day things , such as rarely eating meals not in front of a TV , never having used a cloth napkin , and only using candles when the electric bill hadn 't been paid . It was odd , but telling her that my father was in prison and that my mother had used me to punish my father 's brothers made me seem heroic , while asking her what the hell an artichoke was made me feel like the village idiot . So , later , when she looked at me over her mother 's head , I knew she was remembering the night we 'd made love on the carpet in front of the fire . And from the looks she was giving me , I knew that if we didn 't get out of there soon I 'd be throwing her down on top of her mother 's fabric samples . " You 're so alive , " Pat had said to me . " So primitive . So real . " I didn 't like the " primitive " part but if it turned her on … " You two go on , " Pat 's mother said , smiling and seeming to intuit what Pat and I were feeling . And , as always , she was unselfish and thinking of others before herself . When the drunk teenager who killed her a few years later was pulled from his car , he said , " What 's the big deal ? She was just an old woman . " Pat and I were married for twenty - one years before she was taken from me . Twenty - one years sounds like a long time , but it was only minutes . Right after we graduated from college , one of the teaching jobs she was offered paid exceptionally well , but it was in an inner city school . " Hazard pay , " the man on the phone who was begging her to take the job said . " It 's a rough school , and last year one of our teachers was knifed . She recovered but she wears a colostomy bag now . " He waited for this to sink in , waited for Pat to slam down the phone . It was difficult for me to understand such selfless love as hers , and I was always trying to figure out the why of it . Sometimes it would run through my head that Pat loved me because of my childhood , not in spite of it . If I were the same man but had grown up in an orderly house like hers , she wouldn 't have been interested in me . When I told her that , she 'd laughed . " Maybe so . If I 'd wanted a clone of myself I 'd have married Jimmie Wilkins and spent my life hearing him tell me I was half a woman because I couldn 't have kids . " For all that Pat and her family looked like they lived an ideal life , the truth was , there were several tragedies in their past . In my father 's family - my mother was an orphan and I was glad of it as my father 's eleven brothers were all the family I could handle - a tragedy was a reason to stop life . One of my uncle Clyde 's sons drowned when he was twelve . After that Uncle Clyde hit the bottle and stopped going to his night security job . He and his wife and their six other kids ended up living on what she made at McDonald 's , and one by one their kids dropped out of school , or ended up in jail or on welfare , or they just wandered away . Everyone in my family seemed to think that this is what should have happened after Ronny 's death . Forever after , they talked about Uncle Clyde 's great grief over his son 's tragic death in mournful whispers . I was seven when my cousin Ronny drowned and I wasn 't sad because I knew that Cousin Ronny had been a brute . He 'd drowned while terrorizing a four - year - old girl . He 'd grabbed her doll , run into the pond , and proceeded to dismember it , throwing the body parts into the murky water , all while the little girl stood on the bank , crying and begging . But as Cousin Ronny ran into the deep water , he disturbed a snapping turtle that bit his big toe , and he and what was left of the doll went under , where he hit his head on a rock and knocked himself unconscious . By the time anybody realized he wasn 't pretending to be dead ( Cousin Ronny was a great one for crying wolf ) he actually was dead . But after Ronny died , Uncle Clyde went into a state of bereavement that lasted the rest of his life . And he wasn 't the only full - time mourner in my family . I had three aunts , two uncles , and four cousins who were also in lifelong mourning . A miscarriage , a chopped - off limb , a broken engagement , whatever , were all reason enough to put life on hold forever . When I met Pat 's extended family and saw that they were all laughing and happy , I shook my head at the irony of it all . So many tragedies had been thrust on my family , yet here were people who had been blessed - without tragedy - for generations . Was it their church - going ways that had made their lives so free of catastrophe ? No , my uncle Horace had gone to church for years , but after his second wife ran off with a deacon , he 'd never entered a church again . " What do you mean ? " she asked , so I told her about Uncle Clyde and Cousin Ronny who had drowned . I left out the parts about the doll , the turtle , and Uncle Clyde 's drinking . Instead , I used my natural - born gift for storytelling to make him sound like a man who loved deeply . I sighed . " Sure he did , but his love for Cousin Ronny overrode everything else . " This last bit was difficult for me . I 'm cursed with a clear memory and I could almost hear again the ugly fights that used to rage between Uncle Clyde and his bully of a son . Truthfully , before the boy drowned I never saw any love between Uncle Clyde and Cousin Ronny . That 's when she told me she couldn 't have children . When she was eight she 'd been riding her bike near a construction site and had fallen . A piece of rebar , embedded in concrete , had pierced her lower abdomen and gone through her tiny prepubescent uterus . She went on to tell me how her mother had lost her first husband and infant son in a train accident . " She and her husband were sitting together and she 'd just handed him the baby when a runaway truck hit them , " Pat said . " My mother wasn 't touched but her husband and baby son were killed instantly . Her husband was decapitated . " She looked at me . " His head fell onto her lap . " We lay there in bed , both of us naked , and looked at each other . I was young and in bed with a girl I was in love with , but I didn 't see her beautiful bare breasts or the soft , perfect curve of her hip . Her words had shocked me to the core . I felt like a medieval man hearing for the first time that the earth wasn 't flat . I couldn 't reconcile that sweet woman who was Pat 's mother with the woman who 'd had a severed head drop onto her lap . And Pat . If one of my female cousins had had a hysterectomy at eight years old her life would have stopped then and there . Every family gathering would have had everyone clucking in sympathy . " Pooooorrr Pat , " they would have called her . " I was breech so I was Caesarean and the doctor had been called from a party so … so his hand wasn 't steady . Her uterus was accidently cut and they couldn 't stop the bleeding . " Pat got out of bed , picked up my T - shirt off the floor , and pulled it on over her head , where it reached to her knees . The irony of this matter of uteruses and families flooded my brain . In my family girls got pregnant early and often . So why were my uncles able to reproduce themselves lavishly , but Pat 's parents had only one child and no hope of grandchildren ? As I watched Pat dress , I knew there was something else in what she 'd just told me about her birth . " A party ? Are you saying that the doctor who delivered you was drunk ? " People like Pat 's family didn 't have drunken doctors who " accidently " destroyed a woman 's uterus . That was the turning point . After that day , I changed my attitude toward life . I stopped being smug . I stopped feeling that only my family had experienced " true life . " And I relinquished my biggest fear : that if something truly awful happened to me , I 'd have to stop living and retreat into myself . You go on , I told myself . No matter what , you go on . And I thought I 'd managed to do that . After that kid ran his car into Pat 's mother and killed her , I tried to be an adult . Right after it happened , I thought that maybe if I heard the details of her death I 'd feel better , so I went to a young policeman standing by the wreckage and asked him what happened . Maybe he didn 't know I was related to the deceased by marriage , or maybe he was just callous . He told me what the kid who 'd killed her had said . " She was just an old woman , " he 'd said , as though Pat 's mother had been insignificant . Three weeks after the funeral , we all seemed to be back to normal . Pat returned to teaching in her inner city school , I went back to the night school where I taught English to people trying to get their green card , and back to my day job of writing what I hoped would become a great work of literature and give me immortality - and a top slot on the New York Times Bestseller List . Pat 's father hired a full - time housekeeper and spent his evenings on the porch repairing his neighbor 's appliances , something he planned to do as long as his eyesight held out . A year after the funeral , everyone seemed to have accepted the loss of Pat 's mother as " God 's will . " True , there was an empty place that her absence left behind , and she was spoken of often , but her passing was accepted . I thought it was accepted . But I also thought I was the only one who felt old - fashioned , white - hot rage at the loss of someone so good . I seemed to see things that no one else did . There was a little hole on the arm of the couch where the stitching had come apart . It wasn 't more than a half inch long , but I saw it and thought how Pat 's mother would have hated that little hole . At Christmas , everyone except me was jolly and laughing and exclaiming in delight over their gifts . It had been over a year since Pat 's mother 's needless death and I was still holding the anger inside me . I hadn 't told Pat but I hadn 't written a word in that year . Not that what I 'd written in the previous years had been worth anything , but at least I 'd been making an effort . I 'd had three agents but none of them could get a publishing house to buy what I wrote . " Beautifully written , " I heard over and over . " But not for us . " But " beautiful " or not , my writing wasn 't good enough in the eyes of New York editors to be published - and it wasn 't good enough in the eyes of my wife . " Not bad , " she 'd say . " Actually , it 's not bad at all . " Then she 'd ask what I wanted for dinner . She never spoke a word of criticism , but I knew I wasn 't reaching her . That Christmas , the second one after Pat 's mother 's death , I was sitting on the sofa in front of the fire and running my fingertips over the little hole in the seam . To my left I could hear the women in the kitchen , all of them chattering and quietly laughing . Behind me in the den the TV was blaring and the males were watching some sporting contest . The kids were on the closed - in porch at the back of the house , counting their loot and eating too much candy . I was worried that I was becoming like my father 's relatives . What was wrong with me that I couldn 't get over the death of my mother - in - law ? Couldn 't get over the waste of it ? The injustice ? The kid who 'd killed her turned out to be the son of a rich man ; a battalion of lawyers had freed him on a technicality . He was holding a little pink basket with a hinged lid . As he sat down on the end of the couch , just where I 'd been sitting , he opened it . It was a sewing basket , the back of the lid padded to make a pincushion that held several pre - threaded needles . I watched him remove a needle , his old hands running down the long thread to check for a knot at the end . His hands were shaking a bit . But he couldn 't find the hole . There were tears blocking his limited vision and his hands were shaking too badly to feel anything . On my knees , I went to the other side of the arm and put my hands over his . He didn 't express any surprise when I touched him , and he offered no explanation for what he was doing . Together , slowly , for my hands were trembling and my eyes , too , were blurred , he and I sewed up the hole . A two - minute job took fifteen minutes , and during that time neither of us spoke . We could hear the other people in the rooms around us , but it was as though they were far away . Maybe it was that touch . Or maybe it was what we 'd just done together . Or maybe it was just my desperate need for a man in my life who didn 't love his truck more than he loved any human . Still on my knees , I dropped my head onto Pat 's father 's lap , and I began to cry . As he stroked my hair , I felt his silent tears fall onto the side of my face . After a while , my tears began to slow and , as all those women 's magazines said , I felt " better . " Not good , but there was a knot in my chest that had been loosened . Maybe now it could go away , I thought . " I 'd like to kill that bastard kid , " Pat 's father said and I don 't know how to explain this , but what he said made me laugh . I 'd been surrounded for over a year by polite , nonviolent grief , but I couldn 't feel that way . Twice , I 'd come close to calling one of my uncles . He 'd know someone who would " take out " that kid for a fee . I was tempted , but I knew that a revenge killing wouldn 't bring Pat 's mother back . " Me , too , " I whispered as I got up , wiping my face on the sleeve of my new Christmas shirt . He and I were alone in the room . When a log in the fire burned through and fell , I turned toward it . But then , on impulse , I put my hand on his shoulder , bent , and kissed his forehead . For a moment he held my wrist with both his hands , and I thought his tears were going to start again , but they didn 't . Instead , he smiled . " I 'm glad my daughter married you , " he said , and no praise before or since has ever meant as much to me as those words . They broke something inside of me , something hard and suffocating that had taken up residence in my chest . An hour later , I was the life of the party . I was Mr . Entertainment . I was laughing and joking and telling stories that had everyone howling . No one , not even Pat , had ever seen me that way . I 'd told her that I 'd learned to " sing for my supper " when I was a kid , but I hadn 't elaborated . The full story was that my mother said that since my father 's eleven brothers had been the ones to get her husband thrown into prison , they could take turns being a father to me . For my entire childhood I was moved every three months from one uncle to the next . " Here comes Punishment , " my cousins would shout when my mother drove me from one house or trailer to the next . She 'd push me toward a door , my one suitcase with all my worldly possessions at my feet , and give my shoulder a little squeeze , the only sign of affection she ever showed me . I 'd not see her again until the three months were up and she delivered me to the next uncle . Even if they lived next door to each other , my mother made a point of driving me . Over the years I 'd learned that I couldn 't compete with my cousins ' fighting skills or their native ability to operate all large machinery that was painted either yellow or green , but I had a talent they didn 't have : storytelling . Lord only knows where I got it , although an ancient great - aunt told me that my grandfather was the best liar she 'd ever met , so maybe it came from him . In fact , I was so different , one of my uncles said that if I didn 't look like a Newcombe he 'd swear I wasn 't kin to them at all . I didn 't say much in answer to her question . Actually , I didn 't say much on the whole trip back because I was thinking about what Pat 's father had said , that he 'd like to kill that kid . How could a man who couldn 't see well enough to thread a needle kill someone ? One thing for sure was that if he could pull it off , no one would suspect him . And what kind of punishment would a kid like that deserve ? Just sneaking up behind him and shooting him wouldn 't be enough . He 'd need to suffer like the people who 'd loved Pat 's mother suffered . He 'd have to have what he loved most on earth taken away from him . But what did a kid like that love ? Booze ? His dad who got him off ? And what about Pat 's mother ? I thought . What about her spirit ? Did her spirit , the essence of her , have to be taken off the earth just because her body was gone ? What if her husband or daughter needed help ? Would she be there ? And what was the spirit world like anyway ? Was her decapitated first husband there ? Her infant son ? What about the spirits of the babies she 'd miscarried ? Not that I - a real writer - would ever , in a million years actually write a crime - slash - ghost - slash - revenge novel . But , still , maybe I could someday use the ideas in one of my good stories . You know , the great literary masterpiece that was going to win me a National Book Award and a Pulitzer . And spend multiple weeks on all the bestseller lists . When I got to my typewriter , set up in an alcove off the living room , I was startled to see that I 'd left it on . I wasn 't usually forgetful . There was a note on the keys . " I put three sandwiches in the ' frig . Don 't drink the beer ; it 'll make you sleepy . If you 're still at it by four tomorrow afternoon , I 'll call you in sick . " What 's the big deal ? She was just an old woman were the first words I typed , and after that , they just seemed to pour out of me . The first time I had the ghost of the murdered woman enter the story , I thought , I can 't do this . This isn 't literature . But then I remembered something I 'd heard a best - selling writer say in a speech . " You can 't choose what you write . No one comes down to you , sitting on a pink cloud , and says , ' I 'm going to give you the ability to write . So which talent do you want ? The Jane Austin model that lives forever , or the kind that makes you lots of money while you 're alive but dies when you do ? ' No one gives you that choice . You just take whatever talent you 're given and thank God four times a day for giving you any talent at all . " I had to remind myself of those words several times during the next months . I even typed them on a piece of paper and hung them on the wall above the typewriter . At some point , Pat wrote " Amen ! " at the bottom . I never went back to my classroom full of non - English - speaking students . At first Pat called in sick for me , and for a week she took over the class , but after the third student asked her to marry him so he could stay in the U . S . , she quit . And she told them that I quit , too . The book took me six months to write , and during that time I didn 't come up for air . I saw Pat but I didn 't see her . As far as I remember , we had no conversations . I didn 't think about how she was managing to pay the bills without my income , but I imagine her father helped . I really don 't know . My book was all the life I had . When it was done , I turned to Pat where she was curled up on the end of the couch reading , and said , " I finished it . " While I was writing , she 'd never asked to read a word of the book and I 'd never offered to show it to her . Now , shyly , feeling sheepish , I said , " Would you like to read it ? " Instantly , she said , " No , " and I nearly collapsed on the floor . What had I done ? Did she hate me ? In the seconds before she spoke again , I imagined at least a dozen reasons why she didn 't want to read my book - all of them bad . I stared at her for a few silent moments . It was one thing to bare my soul to her but to her father ? ! I searched for some excuse that would get me out of it . " But what about your job ? You can 't miss school . Those kids need you . " Pat 's father was waiting for us with fat turkey sandwiches , but I knew that if I took a bite , I 'd choke . Pat seemed to understand . She put her father on the sofa , and me in a chair , then she dropped the first half of my manuscript on my lap . Without a word , she settled herself on the sofa beside her father , full plates on their laps . That manuscript needed a lot of work . It was full of dangling participles , and contained thousands of ambiguous antecedents . I 'd been writing so fast that I forgot to put in " he said " and " she said , " so sometimes it was difficult to figure out who was talking . And my dates were all mixed up . I had people being born after they were married . I would have a character named John and twenty pages later I 'd call him George . And I don 't even want to think about the misspellings and typos . But for all the errors , the book had something that all my previous work hadn 't . At the sixth chapter I looked up and saw that Pat 's father had tears running down his cheeks . The book had heart . My heart . And in writing about what was inside me , I had at last broken up that huge , hard structure that had been living inside my chest . I had put the ugly thing , molecule by molecule , onto paper . Night came , Pat put a glass of iced tea by my hand and I kept on reading , and when my voice gave out , she took the pages from me and began to read out loud herself . When the sun came up , I took over again while Pat scrambled eggs and toasted half a loaf of bread . When anyone went to the bathroom , we all went down the hall together and stood outside the door , never breaking in the rhythm of reading . His opinion was important to me , but it was the opinion of the love of my life , Pat , that I wanted to hear . But she didn 't say a word . Instead , she set the pages on the floor , got up and walked out the front door , taking the car keys and her handbag off the foyer table as she left . Her behavior was so odd that I wasn 't even hurt by it . The book had been about her mother so maybe Pat was upset , I thought . Or maybe - " Nonsense ! " Pat said , taking the bottle and glasses off the table and placing a huge pizza box before us . She opened it to reveal a giant pizza covered with hot sausage and three colors of peppers - my favorite . My head ached and my stomach was queasy , and I was beginning to worry because she still hadn 't made even one comment about my book . " What are you doing ? " I asked , trying to sound everyday and as though I didn 't want to jump up and down and scream , " Tell me ! Tell me ! Tell me ! " " I 'm editing , " she said , looking up at me . " Ford , it 's the best book I 've ever read , but even I could hear the errors in it . You and I are going over it sentence by sentence and correct it , and when it 's done we 're sending it to a publishing house . " Removing her hand from my grasp , she looked back at the manuscript . " Patronize me all you want , but while you 've been writing I 've been thinking and I know I can do it . All I ask is that you give me the chance . " When she turned to me , her eyes were fierce , determined , almost scary . " I have no talent , " she said in a hard tone I 'd never heard her use before . " And I 'll never have children . I have nothing but you and your talent to thank God for four times a day . " She put her hand on the tall two - box stack of typed pages . " You don 't know it yet but this is brilliant . And I know that right now , this minute , is my one chance in life . I can step back and become the writer 's wife and be stuck at the end of the table with all the other stars ' spouses - or I can become your partner . Maybe I can 't write , but I 'm better with numbers and money than you are , and I can organize anything . You write and I 'll take care of the rest of it . I 'll take care of contracts and promotion and defined benefit plans and royalties and - " She stopped talking and looked at me . " Do we have a deal ? " she asked softly , but her voice was full of steel . She wanted this as much as I wanted to write . " Yes , " I said , but when she put out her hand to shake mine , I kissed her palm , then her wrist , then I ran my lips all the way up her arm . We ended up making love on her mother 's dining room table on top of the manuscript , which slid out of the boxes and spread itself out under us . For the six weeks that it took us to edit and rewrite the book , whenever we came to stuck - together pages , we looked at each other and smiled warmly . After we 'd edited the book , had it professionally typed , and made six photocopies of it , Pat made appointments with editors in New York and we went there for two days . She went to the meetings alone because she said that I 'd turn into a whining baby when people started putting a dollar value to my " blood on a page . " I protested that I was never a " whining baby , " but I knew she was right . That book was about Pat 's mother 's life so how could that be worth less than billions ? In the end , I spent the days wandering around Central Park worrying so much that I lost four pounds . " If I 'm not around you don 't even eat , " Pat said , disgusted , but I could tell that she was as nervous as I was . We never talked about the " what if " but it hung in the air . What if she wasn 't suited for agenting ? What if she couldn 't sell the book ? And , the worst , what if no one liked the book enough to want to buy it ? At the end of the two days we went home to wait . The people she 'd given the book to had to have time to read it . They had to discuss money with their bosses , and they had to - Who knew what they had to do ? Pat pretended she was cool and calm , laughing smugly whenever I jumped at some noise and looked at the telephone . But I got her back . I arranged with a guy I used to work with to call our number , then I hid the two telephones in our house . Pat had forbidden me to answer the phone , so when it rang I remained sitting at the table , the newspaper hiding my face . When the phone rang , Pat went running , and when she couldn 't find the phone , she started throwing things around until the house was a jumble . I kept the newspaper over my face to hide the fact that I was laughing so hard . I thought I 'd pulled one over on her until a minute later she refilled my coffee cup . When I took a drink , I sputtered . She 'd put dishwashing detergent in it . When the phone rang again , I was still at the sink , Pat was rummaging in the refrigerator , and I could see she had no intention of answering it . I grimaced . It was probably Charley asking if he 'd done all right . I couldn 't speak . Holding the phone away from my ear , I looked at the back of Pat . By some sixth sense , she turned , saw my white face , and nearly leaped over the couch to take the phone from me . Sitting down at the table , I took a deep drink of my coffee , and listened . Pat mostly said , " Yes . Yes . I understand , " then she hung up and looked at me . The first thing she did was to take away my cup and pour out the soap - laden coffee . I 'd drunk nearly half of it and hadn 't noticed . As she handed me a paper towel to wipe out the inside of my mouth , she said , " They 're going to auction the book . " Seeing that I didn 't understand , Pat sat down at the table beside me and took my hand in hers . " Three publishing houses want to buy the book , so they 're going to bid on it . Highest bidder gets your book . The auction will go on all day today . " What I didn 't know until later was that Pat and I had done everything wrong . We should have presented the book to one publishing house at a time . But she had given the book to three houses and she 'd told each house who else was looking at it . Because all three houses liked the book , and because they didn 't want to offend the wife of the author , the publishing houses had done the agent 's job and arranged the auction themselves . But on that long ago day , in our innocence , neither Pat nor I knew of anything " wrong . " We just settled back and did the only thing we could do : wait . The phone rang every hour as the houses presented their bids to us and asked us about the other bids . It was an exciting , frightening , exhausting day . Pat and I didn 't eat a thing and I suspect that her father didn 't either . We wouldn 't move inches away from the phone for fear we 'd miss something . How do you celebrate something like that ? It was more than we could comprehend . Champagne wasn 't enough . This was a life change , and it was too big for either of us to grasp . We sat at the breakfast table in silence , not sure what to do , and having nothing to say . Pat clasped her hands in front of her , then started examining her fingernails . I picked up a pen from the table and began to color in the o 's on the front page of the newspaper . After several minutes of silence , I looked at Pat and she looked at me . I could hear her thoughts as clearly as if she were saying them aloud . " You call your dad , " I said , " and I 'll … Uh … " My mind was so blank I couldn 't think of what I should do . We were almost there before we realized that the party was in her dad 's house and it was for us . Neither Pat nor I could figure out how he 'd done it , but in just six hours Edwin Pendergast had put together a party that will live in history . All the doors of his house were open , but so were the doors of the two houses flanking his , and guests and waiters and caterers were swarming all over the three lots and three houses . In front of the band were half a dozen professional dancers dressed in forties costumes swinging to a horn player who had to have been a blood relative of Harry James . Neighbors and people I 'd never seen before , aged from eight to eighty , were dancing right along with the professionals . They all shouted hellos and congratulations when they saw Pat and me , but they were having too good a time to stop dancing . The backyard of the house on the left of Pat 's father 's house was enclosed by a high fence . They had a pool , and when we heard laughter coming from the other side of the fence , Pat shouted , " Give me a boost up . " I cupped my hands , she put her foot in them , and looked over the top of the fence . " What 's going on ? " I shouted above the music . I saw her eyes widen in shock , but she didn 't say anything until she was back on the ground . But it worked . The truth was , the clashing bands were just how I felt . I had hungered after being published for as long as I could remember . I used to write comic books when I was a kid . One time when I was staying with a church - going uncle , I wrote a new book to the Bible . All I 'd ever wanted all my life was to write stories and have them published - and now it was going to happen . But I was also scared to death . Maybe this book was a fluke . A onetime accomplishment . It had been based on the needless death of a woman I had come to love . So what was I to write about for the second book ? She knew what I was saying . My success had happened because I 'd written about a personal experience . No , I had exposed my personal experience . What else did I have to expose ? Shaking her head at me , Pat took my hand , led me into the downstairs bathroom and locked the door . It was quieter in there and I could hear her . " Ford Newcombe , you are an idiot , " she said . " You have a mother who used you as a weapon for punishment . You have a father who 's in prison , and you have eleven uncles who are , each one , vile and despicable . You 've had enough bad in your life to supply you with a thousand books . " " Yeah , " I said , beginning to smile . Maybe I could write about Uncle Simon and his seven daughters , I thought . Or about my sweet Cousin Miranda who died young , but for whom no one had ever mourned . Why was it that only the bad ones were missed ? Was there a nonfiction book in this ? It was quite a while later that we left the bathroom , and I was ready to party . No more worries . I 'd thought of half a dozen personal experiences that I could write about . " You should have seen him and Mom together , " Pat shouted as she slipped under my arm and went to her father . He stopped dancing , exchanged some sentences , ear to mouth , with his daughter , waved at me , then resumed dancing . She returned to me , smiling . " We 're spending the night . " Since it was already nearly two A . M . , that seemed redundant information , but I nodded , then let Pat pull me out of the bedroom and back downstairs to the neighbor 's living room . All the kitchens of the three houses were full of catering people who were filling the dining rooms and backyards with enormous trays full of food . Since neither Pat nor I had eaten much for days , we made up for lost time . I was on my second plate when she told me she was going to say hello to some people . Nodding , I motioned that I was perfectly content to sit quietly in a corner and eat and drink . The second I saw her skirt disappear around the corner I was up the stairs in a flash . A suitless swimming party ! I was pretty sure there was a guest bedroom upstairs where I could look down on the pool . Sure enough , there were about a dozen young adults in the backyard , all beautifully naked , jumping off the diving board and swimming in the clear blue water . He chuckled . " She makes me understand why old men marry young girls . And the boys of the same age make me understand why the girls are attracted to older men . " He had a point . Even though several of the girls had removed their clothes , only one of the boys had . For the most part , the boys were skinny , with bad skin , and they looked scared to death of the girls , so they kept their big , baggy swim trunks on . The one boy who was naked had such a beautiful body , I figured he was probably captain of some local high school sports team . He reminded me of one of my cousins who 'd been killed in a car wreck the night of the high school prom . Later , I 'd thought that it was as though my cousin had known he was going to die early , because by seventeen he 'd been a man , not a gangly boy , but a full - grown man . " He 'll probably die before the year 's out , " I said , nodding toward the nude Adonis standing at the edge of the pool . I looked at my father - in - law . " I thought you were blind , or nearly so . " I put the food down and turned away . Please don 't talk of death today , I thought . Not today . Maybe if I said nothing , he 'd stop talking . But he didn 't stop . " I haven 't said anything to Pat and I don 't want you to , but I know I 'm finished here on earth . Did you know that I tried to end my life about a month after she died ? " " But Martha wouldn 't let me die . I think she knew you were to write your book about her and she wanted that . She wanted it for you , and for Pat , and for herself , too . I think she wanted her life to mean something . " " I know I don 't need to tell you this , but I want you to take care of Pat . She pretends that not being able to have kids isn 't important to her , but it is . When she was eight , after she got out of the hospital , she gave away all her dolls - and she had a roomful of them - and today she won 't so much as touch one . " A lump formed in my throat , a lump of guilt . I hadn 't noticed that about my wife . The truth was I hadn 't spent much time thinking about the accident that took away Pat 's fertility . Since I had Pat , it never mattered to me whether or not we had kids . And I 'd never thought to ask her how she felt about it . " Let her help you in this writing thing , " he said . " Don 't shut her out . Don 't ever think you 've become such a big success that you need to get some glitzy agent with a big name . Understand me ? " I still couldn 't look at him . Pat and I had been married for years . Why hadn 't I noticed the doll - thing ? Was I that unobservant ? Or had she been hiding it from me ? Did she have other secrets ? Pat 's father didn 't say any more , just put his hand on my shoulder for a moment , then quietly left the room , closing the door behind him . Minutes later a woman came out of the house downstairs by the pool and I recognized Janie Hughes 's mother . She shouted at her daughter so loudly I could hear her over two live bands and what had to be five hundred people partying . When the excitement was over , I sat down on the window seat . The plate beside me was still full but I couldn 't eat anymore . In essence , a man I loved had just told me he was about to die . There was a Raggedy Ann doll stuck in the corner of the window seat and I picked it up , looking at the ridiculous face . No matter how much money I made , how much success I had , there were some things - things I really wanted - that I 'd never be able to obtain . Never again would I sit at a table with Pat and her parents . Shaking my head , I remembered how I used to think that they were Chosen People who never had bad things happen to them . When the bedroom door opened , I looked up . " There you are , " Pat said . " I 've been looking everywhere for you . This party is for you , you know . " " Yeah ? " I said , pleased and astonished at the same time . I started to put the rag doll back where I found it , but on impulse , I put it against Pat 's chest , meaning for her to take it . Part of me wanted to ask questions , to make her confess . But to confess what ? What I already knew ? When she walked to the door , she stood there with her back to me , her shoulders heaving as though she 'd been running . I picked the doll up off the floor , put the poor thing back in its corner , walked to my wife , and slid my arm around her shoulders . " What we need is some champagne , and you haven 't told me what you want to buy with all the money we are going to get . " I put a slight emphasis on the " we . " " A house , " she said without hesitation . " Near the sea . Something high up , with a wall of glass so I can look out and see the waves and watch storms at sea . " " If I went to jail , I might get to see Dad . " I tightened my grip on her shoulders . " I want book number two , " I said honestly . When Pat 's mother died , I was the one who was full of anger , but Pat had held me together . When her father died , she was so full of grief and anger that our doctor wanted her to be hospitalized . There was no room for me to give way , too , so I held us both together . The only time I weakened was when the will was read and I was told that Pat 's father had left me his set of German tools . Pat sold her parents ' house and all the contents . If it had been my decision , I would have moved in there , as that house had held some of the best times of my life . But Pat kept only the photos - which she put in a safe - deposit box and never looked at - and sold everything else . The only thing we kept was the box of tools . For the next dozen years , I wrote and Pat wheeled and dealed . As she said , we were a partnership . I wrote and we edited , then she sold . And she was my first reader . She always told me what she thought of the content of my books , at times being almost brutal . It wasn 't easy swallowing my ego , and sometimes we had blazing fights . " Try it my way and see which is better , " she once shouted at me . In anger , to show her she was wrong , I rewrote the end of a book to her specification . And she 'd been right . Her way was better . After that , I listened more , trusted more . We didn 't buy her house by the sea . For one thing Pat couldn 't decide which sea she wanted to live by . And , too , she was fascinated by the idea that as a writer , I could live anywhere in the world , so " we " decided to try out a few places . We ended up moving around a lot . In all the twelve years , we visited my uncles and where I 'd grown up only once . The day before we arrived , I was sick with nerves . Pat tried to laugh me out of it but she couldn 't . I was eaten up with wondering how it would be to see all of them again . But I needn 't have worried . All my relatives treated me like a celebrity . They showed up with dog - eared copies of my books and asked me for my autograph . And what was really strange was that they collectively seemed to believe that the moment my first book was accepted for publication , a cloud of amnesia had settled on me . Each and every one of them seemed to believe that I didn 't remember anything about my childhood . Years earlier , I 'd visited them . It was after I 'd graduated from college , but before I was published , and that time no one had acted as though I remembered nothing . They didn 't introduce me to relatives who I 'd lived with as a kid . They didn 't describe places I 'd been to a hundred times . And absolutely no one said , " You won 't remember this , but … " He introduced me to Uncle Clyde as though I 'd never met the man . I gave Noble a look he ignored , then made an exaggerated little speech about how I most certainly did remember Uncle Clyde . " Imagine that , " the old man said . " Imagine somebody famous like you rememberin ' me . " I smiled , but I wanted to say , " I have a scar on the back of my calf from where you hit me with your belt buckle so I 'm not likely to forget you . " But I didn 't say that . Noble put his arm around my shoulders and led me away . " You have to forgive Uncle Clyde , " he said quietly . " He lost one of his children a few years back and he ain 't been the same since . " Again I looked at Noble as if he were crazy . After Cousin Ronny drowned , Noble and I and four other cousins lit a bonfire in celebration . Noble said he 'd had black eyes since he was four years old , all given to him by Cousin Ronny . I - the creative one - had made a big turtle out of rocks , mud , and sticks , and we 'd all pretended to worship it in thanks for taking Cousin Ronny out of our lives . " You won 't remember this , but - " for the thousandth time , I was pretty fed up . " Why the hell wouldn 't I remember it ? " I snapped at Uncle Reg . " It happened to me . I lived here , remember ? I was the Punishment . Me , Ford . Or Chrysler . Or John Deere . Me ! " Pat took my arm and pulled me away from them , and for a while she and I stood under a shade tree so I could calm down . I was grateful that she didn 't try to tell me they were just simple country folk who didn 't understand . Truthfully , I felt it was yet another attempt to exclude me , to make me feel that I didn 't belong . I 'd been different when I was a kid and now I was even more of an outsider . But even more than that I felt they were casting me in a role of their making . " He grew up here but he don 't remember us , " they 'd tell people . " He got to be a big star and plumb forgot us . " I wanted people to say , " Even though he made it to the top , he never forgot the little people . " Or something like that . But in spite of the facts , I was being told that now that I was a " celebrity " I 'd become a snob . " I wasn 't - " I began . " And I didn 't - " It took me a full minute of sputtering to understand what she was really saying . I kissed her forehead and we walked back to where everyone was waiting - and looking concerned about my inexplicable explosion of bad temper . But I guess that 's how celebrities are , their eyes seemed to say . After my talk with Pat , I was in such a good mood , that I started three fistfights . I knew where the sore spots were in my relatives so I dug at them . I asked Noble whatever happened to that old Pontiac he had and ten minutes later he and another cousin ( who 'd stolen the car but denied it ) were into it . When Pat loudly announced that we had to leave , not one of them suggested that we " come again . " Noble walked me out to the car . " You ain 't changed none , have you ? " he said , his eyes angry as he spit a glob that landed a quarter inch to the left of my shoe . " Neither have you , " I said , smiling broadly . The day before I left for college , Noble and three of his drinking buddies had ridiculed me until I was caught between homicidal rage and tears . I 'd stalked off into the woods to escape them . When I went back , just before dark , Uncle Cal had lightly smacked Noble across the back of the head for the " prank , " but he 'd made it clear he didn 't think what his son had done was so bad . " Just a little goin ' away present , " he said , smiling . No one had offered to help me rewash and iron my clothes , so I 'd had to stay up all night to do it , finishing just in time to catch the bus the next morning - the bus that took me away from the lot of them . With that I got into the car and Pat peeled away like she was competing at the local dirt track speedway . When I looked back at Noble , I saw that he was puzzling over my offer . Was I trying to rub it in that he 'd told me that only fairy boys went to college ? Or was I saying that I was the only one smart enough to get there ? I chuckled on and off for three hours at the consternation on his face . But he must have figured out that I 'd been sincere because over the years I sent several of the next generation of my relatives to college . One of them was Noble 's oldest daughter , Vanessa , who ended up teaching at the college level . The Girl from Summer Hill Ever After Change of Heart For All Time True Love Moonlight Masquerade Stranger in the Moonlight Moonlight in the Morning Heartwishes This page is having a slideshow that uses Javascript . Your browser either doesn 't support Javascript or you have it turned off . To see this page as it is meant to appear please use a Javascript enabled browser .