walked tall and golden by my side as my only companion, had returned. It was a feeling that eventually metamorphosed outside the realm of human emotion. This unnameable thing I eventually called “vitaphobia” as a feeble attempt to get at the nastiness that was neurosis turned inside out—the fear of everything else turned into the fear of actually being alive. In simplest terms, vitaphobia was the fear of the sun shining or not shining, of opening my eyes or keeping them closed, of eating or not eating, of eating too much or too little, of darkness and light, of all the colors and hues of the rainbow, of every texture that my body could touch. Everything that I could register caused paralyzing fear, and the only solution to this that I could think of was to be dead. I am trying to keep this from becoming maudlin as much as I’m compelled to just open the window and scream, or writhe around on the floor right now. I ask the Lord, Do you know what you’ve been asking of me for all of these years? But of course. And how can you ask me to continue? All those nights in the woods, praying, hoping for an answer I could use!
Yet I didn’t kill myself then. There was something keeping me alive that I’ve since lost: a pessimistic optimism. One frantic afternoon I tied a belt around my neck in my bedroom and yanked hard, but I choked for only a second before I pried the pathetic noose away from my throat and threw it across the room. I didn’t tell Marianne. In the worst of it, I wanted to protect her, which was my first adult instinct; but not telling someone that you’ve got vitaphobia is like telling someone that you’re not covered in blood when you are—it doesn’t work, and you look the worse for denying it. She came to my house and I could see the fear that slipped over her face like a mourning veil. I lay in bed and she prayed at the foot of it, usually the Memorare, over and over, but I slept through most of it, and even my sleep was painful and shallow. I dreamed of Matka. Where was she? When she spoke, hovering over my face, I smelled the faintly sweet burn of vodka on her breath, her teeth the color of piano keys. I conflated her and the Virgin Mary as she cradled my head in her lap. Eventually I was my old self again—though hardened and glossy, having gone through a crucible—and later, as an adult, the doctors would explain to me that this was the natural course of my illness; even unmedicated, there would be times when I was well and times when I was sick, but I didn’t know that for years, and I attributed my wellness or lack thereof to whatever seemed an appropriate precipitant, like the seasons, or, later, the ups and downs of my marriage, or a nasty encounter at the K & Bee Grocery. It wasn’t a spiritual illness, they explained to me. And what are your spiritual beliefs? I asked them in turn. One said he was uncomfortable disclosing such a thing to a patient. Another said he was Lutheran. There were a few more, but even the Catholic one didn’t put his hand on my shoulder and say, Go, then, to a priest, and have yourself exorcised.
“I did,” Marianne informed me toward the end of my senior year, “talk to Father Danuta. I said to him that you might be possessed. It was naive, of course, but he was kind. He listened to the things I said, and then he asked me some questions, like a doctor palpating a pain. He said that you were very sick, but that you weren’t possessed by the Devil, and that the Church performed very few exorcisms to begin with. Is it strange to say that I was—”
“Disappointed?”
“No, not that…” (But she was. At least a demon could be cast out.)
She finally said, “I was afraid for you. I didn’t know what to do for you but pray.”
Eventually I was functioning again, but what had happened to my mind left me hobbled, as if I’d been hit by a car instead, and with poor healing to show for it. I graduated with mediocre marks; I suspect I avoided failing entirely only because adults pitied me, couldn’t help me in any other way, were too embarrassed to offer a kind ear, and so raised my grades. Good for you, I thought as I stared down at some written exam of mine, too beaten down for truly enthusiastic sarcasm. At the top was written 70.
And Mr. Pawlowski, my surrogate father now, squeezed me almost entirely out of any company matters, having me sign here and there on various dotted lines on papers I never read—not that I blamed him. What could he do, when I was the one who really owned everything, but could do almost nothing. Nothing, that is, but sell the company.
“If you’re going to sell, sell to George,” Matka said. “He knows what he’s doing.” But I still couldn’t forgive him for what he had said to me about Marianne, so I nodded and said, “Of course,” with no intention of following through; Matka would love me no matter what, though selling the company would give us both more than enough to live on for the rest of our lives.
There was a businessman from Maine who was interested in moving to New York. He was willing to keep the name intact, and offered $10 million for the factory and everything associated with the factory, including its workers and unsold pianos. I tried to get more because I was proud and hurt, which is a terrible combination for partaking in a business deal. He said, “Don’t you have an adult to handle these things for you?” I said, “Fuck you,” and hung up.
I thought there would be more offers, and there was one man who had dealt with my father before and seemed serious about making a purchase. There were two caveats. First, he would change the name of the company to Norris & Sons. Second, he would pay $8 million for the company, and no more. Having said no to the previous man, I felt compelled to say no to this one as well.
Mr. Pawlowski, then, having heard about my pathetic attempts, offered $20 million, and he would keep the name. I had always known he was wealthy, what with his extravagant car and lavish parties, and what funds he did need to raise were easily coaxed from his multitudes. What did I care if he took my place? I’d lost my marbles, or I was possessed. Either way, there was no hope for the future of the company with me at the helm. I made the choice to sell the factory, the brand, and the whole rest of a mess of it to Pawlowski. This is where the Nowak fortune is from. Half of it went to my mother, and the rest to me. This is the money that I’ve been living off of; this is the money that will be left behind for Gillian and William and Daisy when I’m gone, which ought to bring me a modicum of comfort.
News of the sale must have spread quickly, because it was only two days afterward that Mr. Orlich came to our door, his face flushed and blurry through the peephole like a poorly taken photograph, and I knew that if I opened the door I would only be inviting more of the bad fortune of which I already had an abundance. He rang the bell over and over, and then he resorted to banging with his fist. I had every intention of waiting him out. He could stand there and throw a tantrum if he wanted, I decided, and then I went upstairs, where the sound of his undoubtedly drunken anger continued to rage.
“What in God’s name is that?” I heard Matka call from her room. “Who’s there?”
“No one,” I said.
“Well, tell no one to go away.”
“He’ll go away when he’s tired.”
I had underestimated Mr. Orlich’s capability for persistence. He continued his campaign to have the door opened while I debated calling the police, and then I remembered that he was still Marianne’s father. To sully his name would do no good. For Marianne to know that I’d been the one to sully it was no better.
Finally I opened the door, and there he was, barking, “Why have a goddamn doorbell if you’re not going to answer it?” I couldn’t see Marianne’s face in his at all. He was, in fact, the exact opposite of her: the picture of a face so accustomed to scowling that it had hardened into cruelty.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I heard you sold your family’s company,” he said. “I heard you sold it for a substantial sum.”
“I did sell it.”
“And you want to marry my daughter. My Marianne.”
This was not how I had imagined asking for Marianne’s hand in marriage. I stuttered yes.
“What are your plans for this money you have now?”
I said nothing, noticing that he hadn’t asked to come in. I was grateful for this because I had no intention of letting him in, even if he was Marianne’s