The Second Baptism of Albert Simmel. Rodney Clapp

was reduction, diminishment, and humiliation.

      So Ray and Alva Simmel were taught. With the squandrels as a moral foil, Ray and Alva and their peers learned to honor toughness and a self-sufficiency accompanied by concern for your neighbors’ welfare. They prized loyalty and living lightly on the earth. It was clear they would never have much, by way of money or material goods, to hand on to their heirs, so they expected the most valuable bequest they could leave their children was a good name and some semblance of a sustainable world.

      Trying to fathom the motives of his mother’s note via what he knew of her character, Albert lay under candlelight until dawn’s first light was announced by noisy birdcalls in the trees just outside his window. He rose at 5:30 and set to work on assignments for his tutelary charges. Bulking up his students’ homework would allow him to depart them early, and arrive sooner at the meeting with his mother.

      Al arrived in the city and attended to his tutoring duties. Then, the workday behind him, Al trained out of the city toward Mother Simmel’s neighborhood. Anxious and again attempting to divine the intent of her meeting, he found only bafflement. But reminiscence on her flinty and colorful character brought to mind one of his favorite incidents from her life, and he decided to indulge the memory of it as a diversion from the frustration at the failed anticipation of what his mother might have to tell him.

      The incident had occurred in the third year of Alva’s widowhood. She had grieved Ray Simmel severely and, though she refused to move in with her son or close friends, admitted she was terribly lonely. To occupy herself across empty days, she enlarged her garden and, in season, spent many of her daylight hours seeding, cultivating, watering, and harvesting. In late fall and winter she knitted, endlessly supplying neighbors and their children with caps, sweaters, stockings, and blankets. She remained active with her church, but otherwise curtailed her social life. Then she began regular visits to and from a widower neighbor, Harold “Corky” Angleton. Alva had known Corky for years and always enjoyed his company. But now, in the changed marital circumstances of their lives, mild amusement and appreciation morphed into infatuation. It had been decades, a lifetime, since Alva had been “in love,” and she had thought the capability for it had passed with her youth. How was it, then, that she once more felt her heart leap when she heard a man’s voice, and focused on this man with her last conscious thought every night and her first thought every morning?

      Corky himself was a bit of a bon vivant, overflowing with stories and a knack for turning the most mundane chore into a small adventure. Corky and Alva were both healthy and energetic, though each one had a significant handicap. For Corky, it was his eyesight—he was basically blind, sojourning now in a world of shadows and dim lights. For Alva, it was her hearing—she struggled to sustain conversation through a sonic murkiness of dull plinks and echoes, as if she were underwater. Typically, though, the couple suffered their impairments with humor, suggesting that with Alva’s eyesight and Corky’s hearing, they could get on just fine.

      The most pleasing proof of their elegant complementarity occurred one evening in Albert’s presence. He, Corky, and his mother were dining at a restaurant when a tall, grandly stomached gentleman ambled up to the table and talked, familiarly, with Corky and Alva. It was clear from the gentleman’s demeanor and address—he called them “Corky” and “Alva”—that he knew them well. And that they should know him. But after a few minutes, it was just as clear to Albert that neither his mother nor Corky were sure who was visiting with them. Their laughter was forced, their agreement with his suggestions cautiously delayed, then greeted with over-eager enthusiasm once the suggestions appeared innocuous. If the visitor detected their struggle at recognition, he betrayed no hint of the detection. After five minutes he departed as amiably as he had arrived. Corky held his tongue until the gentleman’s voice faded into the distance, then he queried Alva: “Who was that man? What did he look like?”

      “I don’t know,” she responded. “What did he say?”

      It said much about Mother Simmel that she never complained about her ailments or limitations, that she laughed delightedly at her foibles when Al retold this and similar anecdotes. He loved her not least for her courage, for her strength in weakness.

      ≤

      Alva Simmel ushered her son into her cozy apartment with maternal enthusiasm. Her head came no higher than his shoulder, and he braced himself for her hug—which was always accompanied by stinging slaps on his kidneys. After the painful administration of her affection, he unstiffened and kissed her on the forehead. She clucked approval. He could restrain himself no longer, and burst out, “Mother, what’s going on?” She took a step backward. It was her turn to stiffen. Recovering her sense of command, she ordered him to a seat in her parlor. She insisted that she prepare cups of tea before they began their talk.

      Al seated himself on the front edge of a floral-printed couch. He heard her knocking about in the kitchen, occasionally sending forth perfunctory inquiries about his work, or comments on the weather. Al basically grunted in reply. He tried sitting back and relaxing, but within moments found himself scooted forward onto the edge of couch.