Everything We Ever Wanted (11 page)

Scott didn’t flinch. His gaze was eerily neutral. There was a presence behind them, a horrified crowd, a gasp. Charles could smell Bronwyn’s perfume. He heard his father’s signature, guttural cough. His father had heard every uttered, and almost uttered, word.
Scott had the view of whoever was behind them. His gaze wavered from Charles, and his eyes dimmed. When he refocused on Charles again, things got blurry, and in a split second Charles was on the ground, gasping for air. Scott’s face loomed above him, his breath hot on his cheeks. Their father appeared and pulled Scott to his feet. Charles rolled to his side, coughing.
It was amazing how quickly they hushed things up, how Scott was shuttled to one room and Charles to another. He could hear their father shouting and Scott shouting back, but he couldn’t make out the words. Charles’s mother ran into the house, crying, “What happened? What happened?”
Bronwyn volunteered to take him away for a while. She helped Charles into her car and they snaked down the driveway. Charles crumpled against the seat, repentant. He didn’t dare ask Bronwyn if she’d heard what he’d said. The answer, he knew, was yes—she’d been right there.
They drove to the bottom of the hill and parked at the edge of the cornfield. Bronwyn gripped the steering wheel hard. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she whispered.
Charles kept his chin wedged to his chest. His stomach felt slashed open.
It took Bronwyn a long time to speak. “I think it would be best if we spent some time apart.”
“Okay,” he answered stonily. He wasn’t about to ask why. He didn’t need to hear how disgusted she was that he had the capacity to say such things. He didn’t want to hear her say, You deserved it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
There were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” Which made him feel even worse: what the hell did she have to be sorry for?
She offered to drive him back up the hill to the party, but he said that wouldn’t be necessary, he could walk. She took off fast. He never saw her again.

D
id Charles really need to revisit that? Did he really need to face someone who obviously detested him enough to not just cut all ties with him, but every single one of his friends, too? And yet, it was tempting. There would be something both edifying and purifying about seeing Bronwyn now. Having Bronwyn say her piece, once and for all. It could be good to know who Charles had been before in order to know who he had become. It could be good to know the damage he might have done.

It was tempting to see her and know she was real, that it had really happened. Because if it truly was her, what she’d done was the same thing Scott had done—take everything she had been given and cast it aside. Maybe there was something to doing that, something Charles didn’t yet understand. Maybe her decision had been the right one.

S ylvie didn’t even notice the rain until it turned to hail. It pelted on the roof, making harsh, ugly smacks so forceful she thought it might be taking off whole shingles and layers of paint. Just

minutes had passed and there was already a small stream in the front yard. Hail bounced off the roof of Scott’s car in crazy angles, ricocheting off the metal pole of the basketball hoop Scott still used. She ran around shutting all the windows.

She went to the living room and nestled under a blanket. It was almost midnight, but she was too wide-eyed to sleep. Once again, she went over the day.

It astonished her that Christian’s father had been . . . a person?human, capable of complex and contradictory feelings. She often felt this way about people she didn’t know. That it was incredible that their inner lives were as complicated as hers was. It reminded her of when Scott was very young and used to play with Legos, dumping the garbage can of blocks on the living room floor and creating entire towns—houses, doctor’s offices, gas stations, grocery stores, airports. He would leave the backs of the buildings exposed so he could reach inside and move the people around. Once Sylvie noticed him leaning over the blocks, frantically moving a bunch of the tiny Lego people at once—making a woman get into her car, guiding a spaceman from a gas-station parking lot to the mini-mart, then quickly moving a blackhaired man in a fireman suit from the upstairs part of the house to the downstairs to turn on the giant, battery-run windmill. “Why are you moving them all so fast?” Sylvie asked.

“This is how life works,” Scott told her matter-of-factly. That was when he still talked to her. When he still answered her questions. “It all happens at once. But I don’t have enough hands for all of it. I never know what they want to do next.”

Sylvie didn’t have enough hands for all of it either. She hadn’t expected Christian’s father to have another emotion besides anger. She hadn’t expected him to look at her, recognize her, and not immediately fly into a rage.

There was pounding on the side door. She stood up, shuffled through the kitchen, and squinted. With all the lights on in here, she could only see her reflection in the side door’s window. Her straight, bluntly cut hair was mussed and the corners of her mouth turned down. She looked tired and puffy, a hundred years old.

Scott was on the porch. He was hugging himself tightly, and there was water dripping from the ends of his hair and the tip of his nose. “Oh.” Sylvie whipped open the door. There was something embarrassing, or maybe vulnerable, about seeing him so late at night, in her robe and slippers, her makeup washed off.

“I’ve been knocking for ten minutes,” he yelled over the sound of the rain.
She opened the door wider and let him in. His T-shirt hung heavily past his belt and his waterlogged pant legs dragged on the ground. His shoes squished as he walked.
“Damn,” he said, fumbling into the laundry room for a towel. “I kept knocking. I saw you on the couch.”
“The rain must be too loud. I didn’t hear.”
Scott rubbed the towel over his sopping hair.
“You should change clothes,” Sylvie said. “I’ll get you something from upstairs.”
He nodded from underneath the towel. Sylvie dashed upstairs to Scott’s old bedroom, but his closet was bare. Charles’s was empty, too. She paused, considering, and then padded down the hall to her own room.
She and James had separate walk-in closets, and Sylvie hadn’t gone into James’s side much since he’d died. His suits and shirts still hung in neat lines. His shined shoes, their leather smell so dignified, were in a row on the closet floor. He kept sweaters and T-shirts at the back on shelves. She pulled out an oversize gray sweatshirt and a plain white T-shirt. To her relief they didn’t smell like much of anything except for detergent. On one of the shelves was a pair of black sweatpants, the tags still on. She pulled them out, too.
She quickly threw on a pair of khaki pants and a navy cashmere cardigan and kicked her slippers into the corner. On her way down the stairs, she paused. It was portentous seeing Scott tonight of all nights. They sometimes went days without interacting. Could he sense where she’d been this afternoon, who she’d been talking to? Had he come to ask what she thought she’d accomplish by talking to Christian’s father? For really, what did going to see him imply? Did it mean she doubted Scott’s innocence once and for all?
Back in the living room there was a puddle of water at Scott’s feet. “I think I might take a shower, if that’s okay,” he said. “I’m freezing.”
“Sure,” Sylvie said. “Of course.”
They eyed each other warily, neither moving. “There’s a leak,” Scott finally explained. “Right over my bed. My sheets are soaked. And another big one near my bathroom.”
Sylvie swiveled around, searching the counter for the house keys. “We should go take a look.”
“It’s late,” Scott said. “I put a bucket under the leaks. No one will come to fix it now anyway.” He paused to scratch his nose, staring blankly at a watercolor painting of a bunch of violets on the laundry room wall. “I was going to stay at Lee’s. I was waiting for it to stop raining so hard, but …”
“Stay in your old room tonight. Until we have it figured out.”
He glanced out the window. “I could make it. At least there won’t be much traffic.”
Am I that horrible to be around? Sylvie thought. “You’re welcome to stay here. Really.”
“Fine,” Scott conceded, rolling his eyes.
She followed Scott upstairs and got him extra towels, like he was a guest. Because she knew making up his bed would seem overbearing, she pointed out sheets and pillowcases. Scott nodded and then glanced at her. “It was so weird. That ceiling was suddenly like …” He extended his arms and made a boom sound.
“Well, this rain is sort of …” She fluttered her hands, unsure of the word she was looking for, ” … angry.”
“All of a sudden this water drips on my head.
Like that water torture method they use in interrogations.”
Sylvie looked away. She wondered if Scott even realized the irony in what he’d just said. “Well,” she said. “That certainly doesn’t sound pleasant.”
Scott paused on her for a moment, almost smiling. He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder. Sylvie stiffened, his touch unfamiliar. He pulled her in, just slightly, and then let go abruptly as
though he had suddenly become aware of what his limbs were doing. A dull ache rippled through her. This tenderness was heartbreakingly ill-timed, too much to bear. She saw the picture of Christian
propped up against that tree at Feverview Dwellings. The father leaning over his thighs, wracked with sobs.
Scott turned awkwardly to the bathroom. “Well, thanks for answering the door.”
“Of course,” Sylvie said quietly. “Sorry I didn’t get there sooner.” Then Scott shut the door.
She stood there for a moment, and then gazed down the hall into
her bedroom. James’s closet gaped open, the light still on. He was so
meticulously organized. His ties on a rack, his sweaters neatly folded,
his shirts organized by color. She scanned the blazers, searching for
the one he’d worn his last day of work. They’d returned his clothes to
her, after it was all over. His shirt had been ruined—they’d had to cut
it off him—but he hadn’t been wearing his blazer when he collapsed,
so she’d brought it back to his closet and returned it to its hanger, as if
he still would someday return and wear it again.
Then she turned and stared down the hall into James’s office. It
was just the same as it had been the last time she looked inside this
morning. The same generic desk, the same dust on the bookcase, and
the same locked filing cabinet, the only place she hadn’t yet searched. Sometimes she wondered if she would’ve been better off never
knowing she had a reason to search at all. For if the door hadn’t been
left unlocked and open just a few months ago, in the fall, if she hadn’t
gone inside to dust, maybe she would have never seen it. Their whole
lives could have gone by and she might have never found out. Would
she have been better for it?
For she hadn’t even suspected. Yes, they had gone through periods of distance. Yes, there were certain points in his life where James seemed inconsistent, resentful, frustrated. They certainly didn’t agree on how to raise their children. But she kept herself busy through their rough patches, and so did he, and lately, with the kids grown up, things had become better between them.
But that day she’d noticed dust on his new, modern desk of his, while holding a feather duster. She innocently cleaned the glass top of his desk and then his bookcase, marveling at the items on the shelves. This was the first time she’d been inside the room for years, probably since James had replaced her grandfather’s desk with this new furniture. James had cleaned out all of her grandfather’s knickknacks, too—the old sculpture of the gray whale, the small, tan-colored globe, the jade paperweight—with some items of his own: a Lucite plaque congratulating him for helping launch an IPO in 1999, those busts of Laurel and Hardy he oddly found so funny. On the third shelf, she noticed a velvet box; stamped on the lid was the name of a jewelry store that had been out of business for ten years. Sylvie picked it up and turned it over. Then she opened it.
Inside was a bracelet made of white gold, chunky and modern. A feeling swept through her; she knew right away. The bracelet was an odd choice, surely selected to suit someone’s taste. Someone who wasn’t her.
She brought it to him at dinner, holding it by its clasp, afraid to touch it fully. She laid it next to his dinner plate and waited. His eyes rested on it. She watched for telltale signs—paling skin, a shaking hand, darting eyes. James simply looked angry. His whole face tightened.
“You went in my office?” he finally said.
“Who did you buy this for?” she asked.
“You went in my office?” he repeated.
She blinked, aggravated. “Yes! I went in your office! Is this why you keep the door locked? Because … this was in there? Who is this for?”
“I told you not to go into my office.”
She stared at him, astonished. She pointed at the box. “You bought this at Goebel’s. They closed ten years ago.”
He said nothing.
“Was this for someone else? Someone ten years ago?”
“Sylvie,” he said. And then he hung his head. “It wasn’t like that.”
Her mouth fell open. Then what was it like? “Tell me her name,” she demanded, starting to shake.
“It wasn’t—”
“Tell me her name,” she screamed. “Do you still see her? Do you still think about her? What’s she doing now? Is it someone I know?” And then, “Why would you do this? What reason did I ever give you?”
“Sylvie,” he pleaded. “Please leave it.”
She mined her memories for clues. Ten years ago. Eleven. Twelve. Both kids had been in high school. Charles was getting good grades, dating Bronwyn, and he had all those nice friends. Even Scott seemed steadier, doing so well in wrestling, only an occasional detention here and there. Okay, so things with James weren’t at their most romantic. She was harried with all the work she did for Swithin, and he’d just switched to his current employer. Sometimes they were so tired they fell asleep without really talking; sometimes he came home after she was in bed. He’d eaten a lot of dinners with clients, heavy meals with a lot of meat and wine. He’d purchased a membership to a health club right around that time, too, saying that all the other guys at the office went and it was a good place to make connections. Could that have been a cover-up for something more sinister? Was health club a code for … for what? He’d taken lots of business trips back then, but she couldn’t recall where. She thought of the time she’d called her father’s hotel in New York. Are you looking for Teddy? the woman in his room had asked. She had a thick city accent, a husky smoker’s rasp.
Sylvie dug her nails into the kitchen table. “Tell me her name.”
A little sound escaped from the back of James’s throat. “I can’t.”
She’d been so blindsided and stricken that she’d fallen ill, spiking a fever that lasted for days. James took time off work. Sometimes she woke and heard him down the hall in his office. The filing-cabinet drawers slid open and closed. She had a feverish dream about him stuffing a woman in the filing cabinet, putting her in ass-first and folding up her legs and then closing the door tight so that only a few locks of hair hung over the cabinet’s sides. Sometimes she woke and he was sitting next to her, a look of remorse and concern on his face. I’m sorry, he kept mouthing.
When her fever broke, they went out to dinner. He slid a velvet box across the table. It was from a different jeweler; a better one.
“No,” she said when she gazed upon the canary-yellow diamond ring. “I can’t take this.”
“I just want to show you how I feel about you,” he said. “I just want you to know.”
In the end, she accepted it. Maybe she shouldn’t have—it conveyed that she forgave him. It meant she wouldn’t bring it up again. But she felt too breathless to fight. She wanted it to be over, forgotten, and maybe she could forget. So she took the ring and slid it on her finger and pretended it was simply a gift, something without subtext.
That was in September. Six months later, in February, James didn’t check in from work at 6 p.m. as usual. Sylvie had been annoyed. Was he ignoring her because she’d brought up the affair again the previous night? Was he punishing her? It wasn’t funny.
The minutes ticked by. Maybe what she’d said the night before had been a turning point, shoving him over the edge. Maybe he no longer cared about holding things together. Who was he with right now? What was he doing? Her heart pounded. She tried to picture him places. She called his cell phone again and again, but there was no answer. The more time passed, the more her panic spiraled. He was out with someone, doing something floridly awful. All of the feelings she’d tried to contain were urgently present. I thought you said you’d let that go, James had said to her at the party the night before. But of course she couldn’t let it go. How could he not understand that? How could he just brush it off? It altered the whole landscape of her life.
When the phone finally rang, the reality of the situation caught her off guard. A cleaning woman in his office had found James collapsed on the executive bathroom floor. He didn’t have his ID on him, and because it was after hours no one knew who he was. Luckily, a doctor in the ER was a friend and had recognized him; he’d sent a nurse to call Sylvie.
At first, she thought it was part of the ruse. Her mind was so fixed in one direction that it was hard to switch gears. She couldn’t turn from scorned rage to … to this. To panic. Concern. Fear for his life. She kept saying to the nurse, “I’m sorry, what?” The nurse had had to repeat what had happened three times, maybe four, before she started to understand.
They’d all rushed to the hospital to be with him. They had to sit in the ER waiting room for the first few hours. Even though it was the middle of the night, the waiting room was crowded, full of screaming babies and sallow-skinned old people and a shoeless, sour-smelling man. Charles sat next to Sylvie, his back straight, his hands folded in his lap. Joanna picked at a loose thread on her sweater until she’d unraveled almost an entire row. Scott slid a pair of padded headphones over his ears and bounced silently to what he called music.
At one point, Scott removed his headphones and asked Sylvie if he could borrow her cell phone. His battery had died, and he wanted to call a friend to see if they were still meeting up tomorrow. Sylvie stared at him. He’d left the music on; she heard a pounding bass through the headphones, someone’s voice pattering tonelessly. Could he really think that far ahead? Could he really worry about something as trivial as a social obligation he had to keep? Was this the kind of kid she’d raised, someone who thought his ailing father was an inconvenience? James had bent over backward to be a good father to Scott. He was still bending over backward, even though Scott barely noticed. And this was what he got for it?
Scott noted her look of disgust and raised his hands in surrender. “Jesus. Forget it.”
Sylvie couldn’t stand to be next to him for one more minute. She stood up, straightened her skirt, and stormed to the vending machine area. She sat in a phone kiosk, picked up the receiver, and listened to the dial tone clang in her ear. She felt like yelling at the operator when she interrupted, demanding that Sylvie insert fifty cents.
Finally, a doctor came and retrieved Sylvie. James had collapsed because of an artery leading to his brain, he explained. The artery had been widening over time, and it had burst. He’d had an aneurysm and was now bleeding quite severely.
They were going to treat the aneurysm by feeding a catheter into a blood vessel in James’s groin, slowly pushing it through the aorta, up into the brain’s main artery, and creating a clot. They were going to excavate him. They were going to dig a trench.
“Isn’t there an easier way?” she asked, mortified. The doctor shook his head and told her that he and his team had talked and evaluated, and this was their best shot at saving him. He handed her a consent form for the surgery. “It’s in your hands,” he said.
She signed it, practically threw the clipboard back at him, and then said she needed a minute.
The doctor slid the curtain shut. Sylvie peered down at James. He looked so damn old and small. And even though she should have concentrated all her energy on what the doctors were about to do to him and that she might, possibly, lose him, in that moment, the only thing she could think about was what she’d brought up the night before. What he’d done. All she could think about was what the woman’s name was. She wanted to shake him awake and ask him.
She hated herself for even thinking it. She hated herself for how numb she was, too—numb to fear, numb to the possibilities. She knew she should be sobbing at his bedside, cooing soothing words to him, making promises for their lives, but her anger pushed those parts of her away. She shoved out of James’s curtained-off area and went into the ICU waiting room. It was smaller and more intimate than the vast holding pen of the ER, with a stained-glass window and church pew shoved into the corner, a crucifix of Jesus on the far wall. Scott was lying on the twin bed the hospital put out in case visitors wanted to rest. His head nestled on the flat, dingy pillow.
When Scott saw her, he sat up, laying a copy of Maxim on his lap. She stood over him quivering, taking in his enormous, filthy jeans, his headphones, that permanent apathetic look on his face. James might have been an inert, unresponsive receptacle for her anger, but Scott wasn’t.
“Did you see Dad?” Scott asked. “Is he okay?”
“You could at least brush those knots out of your hair once in a while,” she exploded. “And put on something that covers up all those tattoos. I don’t want to be seen with you. You look like a criminal.”
And then she whirled around and took the stairs all the way to the main level. In the lobby, nurses pushed heavily pregnant women in wheelchairs. Elderly people dragged their IV poles outside for some fresh morning air. A man, woman, and two kids pushed by her for the elevator, holding a big bouquet of flowers and smiling. Sylvie smiled back at them as if she wasn’t going through what she was going through. As if the person she was visiting was suffering from something minor, too.