Free What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman Page A

myself to Tilda. Stilted conversation along with no coffee, no scone—that was my breakfast with her. Except that as I was about to leave the bakery, Tilda said, "Wyatt, sit down again, will you?" So of course I sat right down and she cupped my hands in hers. "I need to ask you something. Please try to put aside your feelings toward Hans—or at least try to include my feelings for him—in how you listen to what I've got to say."
    "All right, Tilda," I said. "Ask your question."
    "Did you know that my father left broken pieces of all his gramophone records on our bed? Right upstairs from where we're sitting now. My own father trespassed in like a burglar or something. It had to be my dad. Nobody else would dare touch those records. Honestly, now, did you know he did that? Were you aware of it? Why would Pop do that? Because it was the most upsetting thing. Hans fixed an inside lock to the door of our rooms, can you imagine?"
    "Aunt Constance and me couldn't find the records, Tilda," I said. "But I didn't know what happened to them. And that's God's truth."
    "I believe you, Wyatt."
    "I know Aunt Constance's been to see you."
    "A number of times," Tilda said. "She didn't ask me to move back home. She said she's worried about Dad in all sorts of regards. You know what? Mom asked Cornelia, did my living out of wedlock with Hans above her bakery make her uncomfortable?"
    "What'd Cornelia say to that?"
    "She said, 'Constance, I lived with my husband Llewyn, rest in peace, two years before we got married. I'm no hypocrite.'"
    "Sounds like Cornelia, all right," I said.
    "Out of wedlock or no," Tilda said, "I'm getting sick of her sandwiches."
    "Yesterday we had stew from the French cookbook," I said. "It was just me and Aunt Constance at table, though. Uncle Donald's appetite, what's left of it, hasn't been kicking in till later in the evening, you might say."
    "Well, I'm not going home for supper, Wyatt," Tilda said. "But I am wanting to confide in you, because you're the most dignified man I know. Though not so dignified of late, eh?"
    "I wouldn't call me dignified of late, no."
    "Can I show you something?"
    "All right."
    Tilda reached into her Dutch school bag and took out a sheaf of papers held together by a paper clip. She set them in front of me and said, "I wrote this. Well, Hans talked to me and I took dictation. I'm hardly as capable as Lenore Teachout, but I did a pretty good job."
    "What is it, anyway?"
    "It's Hans's obituary. He provided a lot of facts, and I added some flourishes, you might say. Hans has the original, and he's writing one in German, too. For his parents."
    "This kind of gives me the creeps, Tilda," I said. "Why'd Hans want you to write his obituary? He's only twenty years old."
    "Twenty-one," Tilda said. "As to your question, maybe the best way to put it is, Hans doesn't take life for granted. Not like many people take it for granted. That's the big lesson out of history he's learned. Don't take any single day for granted. At any rate, it's how he thinks. And it's a way of thinking he's earned, believe me. You read this obituary, you'll understand. He said I could just keep adding to it after we'd set up house and such together, eh? As the years go by."
    "Maybe I'll get a coffee now." I poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the electric ring behind the counter and sat down across from Tilda again.
    "Wyatt," Tilda said, "I need to ask you a favor."
    "Favors aren't easy for you to ask," I said. "That much I still know about you."
    "I'd like you to show this obituary to my father."
    "Why on earth?"
    "Because the U-boats, the radio and everything else have got him halfway off his rocker, that's why," she said. "You're in the house, Wyatt. Don't act like you don't know exactly what I mean. And if Hans Mohring—
if.
If Hans should become my husband, then Dad's got to try and see him whole-cloth. I think the obituary might help Dad see Hans as someone who's not had an easy time of it. And that he