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  • Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey
  • Elizabeth McCracken (bio)

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Debra Riffe

“When I die,” the five-year-old told his little sister, who was three, “I won’t be in the forest.”

I’m not going die,” she answered.

“You will, Jane. Nothing lasts forever.”

“I’m not going die,” she clarified.

“When you’re an old woman, you will.”

“I’m not going die!”

“Jane! Listen! Calm down. It will be so, so peaceful.”

But she was already crying.

Their mother called down the hall: “What’s going on in there?”

“Desi says I’m going die!”

“Desi!”

“I didn’t say now. But she will die. Everyone does!”

“I’m not going die! Mama!”

“Desi, tell your sister she’s not going to die. Janie, you’re not—nobody’s dying.”

“But—”

“Nobody’s dying,” their mother said firmly.

But somebody was dying, downstairs in the den that overlooked the woods behind the town house. His name was Peter Elroy, once a well-known name, still known in some circles, though never for the reasons he’d hoped. Years ago he had been the best friend of the children’s father. More recently and for longer they’d been enemies. So why had he come? A broken promise will tie two people together more surely than any ceremony.

His wife had arranged the visit, had called the boy’s father to say that Peter Elroy was [End Page 130] dying and was trying to put his affairs in order. That wasn’t true. He was dying, yes, but it was his wife who was putting things in order. You needed to think of the last line of your obituary, Myra liked to say—to be fair, she’d advanced this theory before Peter’s diagnosis. You want to give people hope. So she had called and extracted an invitation. She would deliver Peter and go see her sister, who lived nearby, whom Peter Elroy loathed. Evie, the sister, was made of rice pudding, body and soul. One of the things that rice-pudding Evie had once said to him: “You take up all the available oxygen in any room you’re in.” Of course he did. That was how you won. You took up as much of the available anything as you could.

Ian wants to see you, Myra had said, and Peter Elroy had answered, Ian doesn’t want to see me. But his wife, who liked to make people hope, had made him hope. They got to the awful place, a duplex in a development called Drake’s Landing (though there was no landing nor body of water to land from nor any interested party named Drake), only to be told that Ian Casey had been called away on business and would be back the next day. Ian’s wife, who broke the news, was decades younger. She had long black hair with the kind of ragged hem that came of never having it cut. “He gives his greatest regrets,” she said. “But please, come in.” The note said in Ian’s dyspeptic scrawl, Sorry, sit tight and I’ll be back. The paper was now crumpled in the otherwise empty leather trash can in the corner of the den-slash-guest-room.

What was killing Peter Elroy was pancreatic cancer.

Now he sat, jilted, ditched, first by Ian and then by his wife. When they had found out that Ian had gone, he had turned to Myra and said, “Let’s go.” She looked helpless, shook her head. “No, love,” she said, and he understood this had never been about seeing Ian: It had been about Myra, her need for the oxygen he was always gobbling up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His polarized glasses had turned amethyst against the sun that came through the sliding doors. Outside the house it was winter, sort of, but bright and clear, with thin snow cover that showed the pentimenti of fallen leaves and tree roots beneath it. His glasses were the opposite of the weather: overcast when it was bright, clear when it was cloudy. They suited his mood...

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