Safe Passage (30 page)

    
It was only Cynthia she resented.
Cynthia the psychologist.
Cynthia the paragon parent.
Cynthia the shit.
This evening when Joshua grew sleepy and whined, Darren and Merle invented a game for him, covering their lips so Merle's mustache was invisible, and making him guess which twin was which. Joshua cheered up, but Jason, the older one, looked left out. Cynthia went to him at once with a storybook to read. The display of good motherhood irritated
Mag
no end. She herself had never been so fair. With each new baby, her affection had transferred at once from the older child to the younger one—instinct, maybe, or madness, to which Cynthia would surely be immune.
Izzy
had to cling to Alfred after Percival arrived, the way Gideon would later attach himself to Percival when the twins were born. But Percival had never followed the rule. He hadn't wanted mothering from older brothers, only from
Mag
. If he was lying dead now, just when he was coming into his own, all she would be left with were regrets. But Cynthia would never face such a thing. She was rational, even-handed, fair to her boys the way
Mag
should
have been but never was. And for that,
Mag
hated her.

    
Cynthia poured more wine. The bottle was almost empty. Cynthia's gray-green eyes were alert, even after all the alcohol, certainly not languid. Wary. "I know you're concerned we won't be able to afford other children, but Alfred and I both have good chances for a promotion…and I'd keep the higher pay even if I took a year's maternity leave a few years down the road."

    
Such logic, it sounded like Alfred himself. Anyway,
Mag
did not believe Cynthia would want other babies. Somewhere along the way she had swallowed her languor whole, had her babies, and gone on for her master's degree. And
Mag
had turned down a job in Washington because a near-collision on the highway convinced her it was a sign to stay home with her sons.

    
She was very drunk now, a little sleepy. The wine turned on her again and she was not angry anymore. She'd been such a fool. It was only luck that Alfred hadn't been a bastard. Why should she blame Cynthia for a little bad timing? She'd been a better mother than
Mag
. Why should she blame Cynthia for anything?

    
"I made a few smart decisions,"
Mag
said, suddenly wanting to defend
herself
. "At least I finished school."

    
Cynthia nodded but
Mag
could not tell if her expression was approving or only benign. She wanted to go on but could not think of a single other thing she had done intelligently. As to her grand idea of a career…she had jettisoned it the minute Patrick stared at her suntan, hadn't she? And jettisoned it repeatedly during those years he was coming home drunk all those times. She had always felt superior to her nieces because she believed their passivity was a condition of being female in some undesirable way that she was not. But now it seemed she was just like them. It was Cynthia who was different.

    
She sighed, as if she'd finally come face to face with herself.

    
God.

    
She'd let her jobs come to nothing. She'd used up her energies tangling with Patrick under the covers—swearing she wouldn't but doing it anyway. She'd gotten pregnant with Simon in the moldy shower stall because the bathroom door was the only one that locked against the children. She'd sat in her living room listening to music, reading books, ignoring the boys' laundry, letting them go to school without finishing their homework, refusing to take a job in Washington. She was such an ass. Screwing Patrick, wanting to be near Patrick, having his kids. Her inactivity was not a condition of being female, but a condition of being
Mag
.

  
  
Even drunk, Cynthia did not look as if she would ever be so foolish. She looked like a woman who would find a
birthcontrol
method that worked, carry on with the business of being a psychologist, and never allow
herself
to be trapped, even by Alfred.

   
 
Good for Cynthia.

    
The idea wiped the alcohol right out of her.

    
Cynthia's eyes began to close. There was not a single line in her face.
Mag
felt ancient.

    
To come this far—to the possible death of a grown son.
And to be able to change nothing.

    
She felt a little ill. She remembered Patrick blind this morning…yesterday…and saw him blind all the days to come—bumping against the walls, carrying the cat in his arms, pretending it was perfectly normal to walk like that, acting as if the blindness was a mere inconvenience. She saw herself pointing out that no, the fork was on the other side, dear, the shirts in the other drawer…forced to tend him the way she had tended children, only this time with no way out, because he would never grow up and leave her alone. If Alfred moved into her house with Cynthia, she would be banished to the Keys with a
blindman
forever. And Cynthia—younger, wiser—would be free.

    
Cynthia opened her eyes and smiled again, in a pleasant, bleary way. Even drunk, she looked so capable.

    
Mag's
mind was working slowly because of the wine, but the idea that came to her was very clear. Cynthia and Alfred did not have to be her downfall. They could be her salvation. Even if she agreed to relinquish her house—she did not have to go to the Keys. She had always sunburned so badly, except for that one summer when she was seventeen. She could tell Patrick that. Patrick would not admit to wanting a babysitter, even in a
subtIe
, unmentionable way. He wanted to think he could do everything—even blind—by himself. She could make an excuse. That was what Cynthia would do. She would say she couldn't bear to be twelve hundred miles away from Simon. She would like a vacation from the house—she would be gracious about Alfred's taking it—but she would not go very far from Simon. Patrick would agree to it. He would go to the Keys alone. She must not spend the rest of her days taking care of a
blindman
.

    
She was not drunk anymore. She knew exactly what she must do. She would take a little apartment near Rock Creek Park in Washington, in one of those older buildings that was not so expensive. She would spend her winter looking for a job. She had always known she could not bear to be sitting at home if something happened to one of her sons. She had waited for years to have her career, and now she must have it. There was nothing left to lose.

    
She had always thought freedom would feel light. She had waited for it for so long. She thought she would feel like a girl again, all her possessions in a backpack and the world opening at her feet.

CHAPTER 12

Tuesday, October25, 1983

    
Simon meant to get up the first time his alarm clock rang and not push the snooze button at all, but his eyes just wouldn't open. He'd slept through his paper deliveries yesterday and now he was going to do it again if he wasn't careful. He just couldn't get himself all the way up. Merle rolled over and said, "Turn the damned thing off, Simon," and later Darren grumbled, "What is this—reveille?" But Simon dozed on. Then his mother was in the room, poking at him, smelling just like Percival used to smell when he had a hangover, and he got up all at once, with a start, thinking: This is the day we're going to hear something. This is the day for sure.

    
"You don't have to help me," he told his mother. "You did it two days in a row." It was his paper route, not hers. He wished she'd go back to sleep. He was sick of her treating him like a baby.

    
"I'll help you," she said. "It's late. It's light already."

    
It was.
Gray and cloudy.
In Beirut it was after noon, the sun was shining on the rubble of the headquarters building. Simon had two clocks in his mind, one on
Maryland
time and the other on the time in
Lebanon
. "Get out of here while I put some clothes on," he said. His mother was already dressed. She went.

    
Downstairs, his mother didn't talk to him as they rubber-banded the papers. He figured she was too hung over. At the same time she seemed wrapped pretty tight, like an SS soldier in a Nazi movie. It wasn't like her.

    
They didn't talk as they drove over to
Applewood
Place, either. Not that he expected it. Their routine was old and established, and of course she smelled like she'd been drunk only a few hours before. But it was weird.

    
The day was chilly, but not cold like it would be a couple months from now. One thing he'd learned was not to concentrate too much on the weather. He'd learned just to bundle up and gut it out, so that even if it was dark and snowing, pretty soon he would be finished. Now he was sorry he was so good at that. Even the weather didn't occupy his mind this morning. He thought about his ear, which nobody was going to let him fix because he was still under age. He thought of his father giving him the Angel Solution lecture. He thought about what Hope had said last night when she finally called him back.

    
"It took me maybe half an hour, but finally I convinced Forsythe to let us have the moment of silence tomorrow," she told him.

    
"What's the big deal?"

    
"Well, he stalled for a long time on the phone and finally he said 'I'm afraid I can't give you permission for a moment of silent prayer because it's against the law to do that in a public school. But I could let you have just a
moment of silence
.' But really—if you're being silent—I mean, you can pray if you want to. Right?"

    
"Right," Simon said.

    
At the time, he'd been touched at Hope's bravery, to argue with Mr. Forsythe until he agreed to let her do something that was illegal. But now all that seemed a little silly. Last night on the news, one Marine had said that after the explosion there were so many guys trapped and calling out that it sounded like the ground was crying.

    
"Then you'd get there, and sometimes it was just quiet."

    
The cameras had gone to a shot of one of the rescue teams, carrying bags with bodies in them. He did not see how a moment of silence could change that. It would take something bigger.

    
He began to run, racing from house to house. He tried to get himself so out of breath that there would be only that in his mind, but as soon as he got breathless, he felt the way he had after his tonsils were out, coughing up the gook in his lungs, no more able to get enough air than Percival would be, crying out from under that rubble. He didn't throw the papers from the sidewalk, but bounded up onto the porches and dropped them at the doors. At least his customers would be happy, having their papers sitting at their feet. Across the way he could see his mother running, too, even with her hangover. He figured she was running for the same reason he was, but he was still so angry with her that it filled up his chest. It was partly her fault that there was nothing he could do for Percival. He couldn't even offer up his ear.

    
A guy Simon knew came out of his house and headed for the bus stop. That was how late he was with the papers. Normally he'd be on his way to school. He didn't nod to the guy; he didn't want to talk to anybody. He realized nobody else was out yet; this one kid was leaving pretty early. But he ran his papers faster, he wanted to get finished. He started to load his bag and take the footpath over to Trevor Circle. There was no bus stop on Trevor Circle and he wouldn't see anybody there. Then his mother yelled at him, "No, Simon, drive over there with me in the car. I'm almost finished here." She sounded so upset that he couldn't even go by himself. She would have a
hyperspasm
. He couldn't even
walk over there
by himself. He couldn't do anything. He didn't want her to freak out now, with people coming out of their houses, getting ready to go to work. So he got in the station wagon and they drove.

    
She parked at the bend of Trevor Circle. He would go one way and she the other. He was all loaded up, but she stood by the tailgate of the station wagon stuffing papers into her bag with no great sense of urgency. She looked like she was running out of energy.

    
Simon started to walk up the street. Just then the dog began barking. Honest to God, he had forgotten about Monster until that moment. Any other day he would be ready for him. He would be walking on the other side of the circle, carrying a paper in his hand like a baseball bat, just in case. But today he was thinking of so many other things.

    
The dog appeared from behind a bush, standing at the corner of its driveway. That was where it always hid. He had seen it next to this same bush both of the times it bit him and a couple of other times when it missed. His heart was beating fast, but the thoughts inside his head were slow and clear. There was still time to get away or to fight, either one. If he ran fast enough, he could get out of the dog's territory before it reached him. Normally it would chase him for a while and then turn back. The other choice was to get a paper out of his bag—it would only take a second—and fend it off. He was pretty good at playing bullfighter with the dog, waving the paper back and forth. Soon the dog would get frustrated and give up. The only times he'd been bitten, he'd been taken off his guard even more than he was this morning.