Life Sentences: A Story of Discovery and Recovery (Chapter Twenty-Two)
Chapter Twenty-Two - Making Sense of Things
William Occam was an English philosopher who lived in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. His rule of science and philosophy, called Occam’s Razor or the Law of Parsimony, states that among competing explanations, or theories, of a thing, the simplest one is usually correct. A corollary to Occam’s Razor is that if one creates too many assumptions to explain an event, the explanation is probably wrong. An explanation must fit the facts without an excess of assumptions. I have often thought of Occam’s Razor while trying to explain my mother’s death.
It may be that my mother arose in the middle of the night, perhaps because the baby was crying or she wanted a drink of water, and she descended the stairs from the upper level to the main level of the house; while on the main level, she realized she needed to use the bathroom, at which point she entered the foyer, chose the wrong door, and fell. This is the obituary’s version. My father’s version, necessarily, for who else could have written the obituary. It is my family’s history. It is simple. It is believable. But Occam would object. It does not fit the facts. It does not fit the facts without an excess of assumptions.
Consider the following exchanges and statements on the morning of November 15:
“Jim, you need to call an ambulance”—the stranger to my father as he hits my father on the shoulder to bring him to his senses as my mother lay on the basement floor.
“Shut up”—my father responding to the stranger.
“Jim, I just want to see my kids”—my mother to my father, repeatedly, while lying in a pool of her own blood.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”—my father to my sister as they drove to the hospital.
“Is there anything your father is hiding? Why is he begging us to keep your mother overnight”? —Dr. Wright to my sister, privately.
“He calls here, you tell him nothing.”—my father to my sister after she relayed her harrowing experience with the stranger, who had remained in the house after my father departed.
The people who said these things were angry and suspicious and scared and worried, their minds moved beyond a home accident to other emotions, and implications. Explanations must fit facts. The interaction between my father and the stranger was brief but tension filled. The stranger’s words and actions recognized the reality of the situation, regardless of how it was arrived at, and he was trying to bring my father back to that same reality, as if my father were shocked by the preceding moments. There was also urgency in the stranger’s words. Combined, his words and actions could be viewed on a spectrum, at one end is concern for my mother’s well-being and on the other, concern for his own or my father’s culpability in the situation. The former would be usual in an accident, but it that were the case, a usual person would call for help themselves instead of waiting for concurrence, waiting for a plan. “Shut up,” my father’s response, are angry words, seemingly directed at the stranger. But why? His reaction makes sense if the stranger was responsible for the fall, or if my father was angry at himself for his role in whatever happened, or anywhere along the spectrum of these two possibilities. This would be consistent with my father’s later response to my sister concerning the stranger, in which he seemed more focused on eliminating the stranger from my family’s life and withholding information from him, rather than concerned for my sister’s safety. In any other context, an accident for instance, my father’s angry response does not make sense.
Injured and bleeding on the floor, full of resignation, my mother’s words divulged an eerie finality: “Jim, I just want to see my kids.” She has reached the end of the totality of events that preceded this moment, whether the previous minutes or hours, or the whole of her affair. Maybe even her marriage or her life. She is conceding, conditioned on a closing act, seeing her children. I find it difficult to conceive that a trip to the bathroom led to this plea. “My kids” is a peculiar formulation, and though I often use it when speaking with third parties about my children, it is undoubtedly adversarial in the context of speaking to one’s spouse. For one child, at least, my mother was speaking to a third party. Michael was hers, not my father’s. Her plea throws a protective blanket over all of us as hers, while simultaneously casting doubt and blanketing our paternity. The moments before her fall were not happy ones. Rather, it seems more likely they were filled with crisis.
In the car, my father’s repeated apology for what happened and his confusion about what should happen next reveal a deep regret and a disorientation well beyond what would appear normal for the moment: How will my wife be after her accidental fall? The apology speaks for itself, he is sorry for something. But what? In isolation, a benign explanation is that he was sorry for creating the situation in which my mother was confused by the doors, for moving the family into the new house, which is why my sister was angry with our father for decades after his death. This explanation is consistent with the obituary and the investigatory report. But the apology to did not occur in isolation; it was accompanied by the confusion about what to do next, even as he followed the ambulance to the hospital. In my father’s mind, this action was insufficient to the circumstances, otherwise why express uncertainty about what to do. He was stating that he did not have a sound plan for his next steps. Why did he need a plan? Was he trying to protect something: himself; his family? And from what? Viewed in this context, his regret combined with his confusion complicate, indeed obviate, a benign account. Malign confrontation fits better with these facts.
Doctor Wright was suspicious. So much so that he chose to interrogate a 13-year-old about her parents’ behavior. Whether his suspicions resulted from my mother’s injuries or from my parents’ noteworthy conduct in the Accident Room, or both, Dr. Wright’s actions bare a belief that something unusual had occurred. Why would my mother be hysterical? And why would my father want my mother to remain in the hospital? This behavior is difficult to explain away if the incident was an accident. For my mother, recovered from the initial shock of her injury, resignation morphed into determination manifesting in a heightened emotional response, hysteria in the doctor’s view, focused on seeing her children. Now, in the hospital, further from them, with her husband advocating for her to remain there against her fierce instinct to be with me and my siblings, she became emotive. This demonstrative focus, I believe, is what Wright noticed, not hysteria. Harm befell my mother; correct or not, she needed to protect us from similar harm.
My father’s motive for keeping my mother in the hospital is perplexing. Perhaps it was genuine concern for my mother’s health. After the crisis passed, in his mind, protecting my mother was a means to atone for whatever he had done, consistent with his repeated apologies. Alternatively, fearing reignition of the crisis, maybe he thought a cooling-off period apart from one another was beneficial. An argument about the children may explain their respective behavior. Once my mother was discharged, my parents regained an outward appearance of calm as they traveled home.
So, before and after my mother died, from the original police dispatch to 635 Narragansett Parkway, my home, through the investigation conducted by Detective Jordan, the consistent explanation for her injuries was that she fell down the stairs. It’s unclear when additional details were added to the narrative: she arose from her bed to go to the bathroom; she opened the door to the basement instead of the bathroom; no light had been turned on. The story and these details were cemented within hours of my mother’s death. My father must have authored this narrative, at least initially. Whether my mother contributed, whether she was sufficiently lucid to answer the responding officer’s questions, whether the responding officers even tried to ask her questions, is impossible to know now. But once my mother died, no one challenged the story. Not the detective conducting the police investigation. Not the medical professionals treating my mother. Not the pathologist who never performed his job. It was accepted as truth. And it may be, but I do not think so. Although it is a simple explanation, to me it does not fit the facts: not the young attending physician’s notes and suspicions, not the odd behavior in the immediate wake of the “accident,” not the police investigatory report, not the stranger’s presence, not my father’s attitude about the stranger, and not my father’s odd estrangement from his dear friends after my mother’s death. And it especially does not account for what may be the most relevant fact: the seven-week-old infant sleeping upstairs when my mother fell was not my father’s son. Some might call that infant motive.
So, did my father know Michael’s parentage? For a long time, I could not escape the conclusion that he did, particularly if my siblings were astute enough to sort it out at their young age. Maybe he could not stand it, I thought. He must have seen Herb Berg and my mother at the Vasa Club, for they—all three of them—frequented the establishment. Perhaps he viewed it as harmless flirtation, until Michael was born. Then, when he realized what had been happening, it piqued his darkest emotions. But he tried to suppress this anger, which he did successfully for several weeks until, on the morning of November 15, 1968, something triggered him. An incitement resulting from a confluence of circumstances, the control of which was lost to all those involved. My father was, undoubtedly, drunk. It is likely my mother was also. So was the stranger, probably. The three of them were settling in for some event, agreed or not. I have wondered if my father had sexual performance issues as a result of his health and the medication he was taking, and if my parents had developed coping mechanisms involving other men. On this particular night, was there a conflict? Had my father become so angry about his own inadequacies and so incensed by the baby who was lying in his bedroom, the baby of another man, that he determined to force my mother into a situation she did not welcome, despite whatever accommodations they had previously had. Was the event supposed to occur in the basement, out of earshot of children sleeping upstairs? Is this why my mother ended up on the basement floor, at the bottom of the stairs? Was she resisting whatever plan my father had? And did he push her, not intending that she fall down the stairs, but signaling he would not tolerate her resistance? Or did the stranger push her, while my father slept, passed out. The fact remains she did fall, and the fall killed her, eventually. Then, when my mother died, even before she died, my father covered up the truth, masterfully. The best lies are those that resemble the truth, altered only in slight detail. My mother fell down the stairs; she wasn’t pushed. Her detailed obituary cementing this truth appeared the day after she died. No one would question this story—least of all the police who gave deference to men, even in situations involving potential domestic violence. In the end, however, my father could not live with himself, so he withdrew from life for a time. He tried to focus on healing his family, what remained of it. Internal conflict consumed him, though, eventually contributing to the acceleration of his own demise. He could not escape what he had done.
As I said, that was my conclusion for a long time. In my story, though, nothing ever seems settled. As I was ending and editing my story, Michael performed an Ancestryâ DNA test; the results showed significant Nordic ancestry, which was not a surprise given Herb Berg’s background. Then, algorithms and social media and “small world-ism” collided, showering me with a host of new particles: questions, surprise, intrigue, wonder, pain. The Ancestryâ algorithm spit out possible relations for Michael, and he sent them to me. I used Facebookâ to explore these relations, one of whom went to my high school in the class before mine. I found a photograph of her in the high school band, standing a few feet away from my wife. I was amazed. Emboldened by the coincidence, I connected with this and other relations of Michael, and soon, I had an entirely new perspective on my parents. And my conclusion was affirmed. Not proven, just affirmed for me.
Michael’s Berg relations knew about him. About Herb’s relationship with my mother. About our entire family. About my mother’s “accident.” Herb and Carole had been in love, according to Michael’s cousin. Theirs was not a one-night stand or a short-lived affair but a years-long arrangement. My mother knew the extended Berg clan and visited them frequently, later with Michael in tow. Herb’s apartment was attached to his sister’s home, which is how Michael’s cousins met my mother. This may be the same apartment at which Debbie waited outside in the car. According to Michael’s new-found family, my father was part of the arrangement. He knew about it and, to the extent he had a say, agreed to my mother’s relationship with Herb. When I learned this, I was less surprised than one might think I should be. As I’ve said, my father was not well, and it is possible he could not satisfy needs of the marriage. And this was the 1960s, an age of open marriages if popular culture is to be believed. Regardless, the affair happened, and my father acceded to it, perhaps not in that order. Then Carole and Herb fell deeply in love – still, not surprised. The extent of their love evidenced by the depression into which Herb fell after my mother’s passing. He became almost a recluse. Not unlike my father.
Shock did arrive when the Berg cousins told me that my mother was considering leaving our family to be with Herb. I had long since given up on my idolized “Ozzie and Harriet” portrait of my family. It had been replaced by the more mundane: happy and not-so-happy times; challenges; strife. After concluding that my father contributed in some way to my mother’s death, my mental grip on him eased. I understood him to be a deeply flawed person. His crime of passion, if that’s what it was, was horrible, but still gazed at photos longing to know him. But after understanding my mother’s foibles and mistakes, I still held firm to her. She remained the missing part of me. A tragic figure I could not grasp. Then I learned she was going to abandon me. She left me once when she died; now she was leaving me again, in my heart. It hurt, but I find myself forgiving her.
After years of effort, this raw recent revelation demanded I assess the conclusions I’d reached about my parents, and specifically, my mother’s death. For instance, my father’s curious decision to exile “his” three youngest children—myself, Christina and Michael—to an orphanage could have been driven by paternal doubt. He knew Carole and Herb’s liaison was years-long, and if Michael was so obviously Herb’s son, why not others? Outlandish perhaps, but he was an emotional wreck at the time. And, though I have proved that mine and Michael’s paternity is different, I have not gone so far as to prove James is my father. Further testing may await. Additionally, I query my imagined “parents’ last night” fantasy of hope and reconciliation for the future. It’s still possible but unlikely. Nonetheless, I will maintain it, as fantasies are permitted to be unrealistic wishes. More sinister, the new revelation forced me to confront my mother’s death differently: whereas before I concluded it was caused by a spontaneous domestic incident, now I wondered whether it was premeditated. Had my parents discussed my mother leaving? Was the “going out thing” a ruse? A good-bye kiss? I’ve decided that these questions are better left to the next book, whenever that may be.
I never knew my mother, so in a sense it is difficult to miss her. Often one hears of adults with memories of the time when they were young children, under the age of three, and when I hear of them, I am envious. What would I give up for that memory? My answer used to be anything. As I’ve learned more about her, however, what I would give up for that memory becomes less and less. I consider that a success. That feeling is one of the reasons I embarked on this effort. Of course, I wish my mother had lived (and my father, too) and I wish I had had the chance to know her as I grew into an adult, but I am no longer obsessed with that wish. Instead, I find myself reflecting on my mother’s life for its own sake, for her sake. She lost her mother at a young age and, as a result, had a complicated upbringing, with her stepmother and aunts competing for influence in her life. She was too young when she became pregnant, presumably unintentionally, and consequently, sacrificed her opportunity for higher education. After 10 children, not including lost pregnancies, she died at the age of 34. Again, too young. Maybe her relationship with Herb Berg was a search for lost opportunities. Her imagined life, before it was interrupted. Oddly, when I think about the challenges and indignities my mother suffered, I think about her final day. As the surgical staff prepared my mother to have holes drilled in her head, I wonder how she would have felt as her locks fell to the floor. From her earliest friends to her children to her closest adult companions, each person to whom I spoke emphasized my mother’s beautiful hair and her love of it, regardless of its color, which varied greatly. I hope that she would have looked at her bald head and smiled, appreciating the irony of her Samson-like departure from this world.