The Dogs of Littlefield (16 page)

George might not believe her, but he would be interested. That's what she had thought, at least, when she e-mailed him and asked him to meet her at the Forge. For him it would be a story, it would make that kind of sense. He would want details, what they looked like and what it felt like whenever she saw them—like a tremendous
irritation,
she would tell him, like the air is filled with bees.

Often now she got up in the middle of the night and went down to the living room to look out of the window. Sometimes she opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the patio in her nightgown, trembling in the frigid, glassy air. It was shocking, exhilarating, to be so afraid—and yet what she felt was not quite fear, more like a brightly polished dread, black and cold, that fit exactly in the base of her belly. For whole minutes she stood looking out at her stone waterfall, silhouetted against the night sky.
I know you're there. I haven't forgotten about you.

George's interest would be consoling, no matter what he thought of her. That's what she'd told herself, anyway, as she sat waiting for him in a booth at the back of the café that afternoon, sipping a glass of ice water; she'd also relived, for the countless time, the few minutes when his mouth was against hers, tongue probing, stubbly chin scouring her face. She'd played with packets of sugar, stacking them like miniature sandbags, trying not to watch the café door.

The next morning she received an e-mail message:
Sorry to miss you yesterday. Something came up. Could we try again?
She had not answered.

“Okay, everyone,” called Bill, finally sitting down. “Don't let your food get cold.”

“But wouldn't you want to
know
if something's wrong?” Naomi was persisting with her analysis of Nicholas. “What's the good of denying a problem that's right in front of you?”

“I was there,” George said testily. He rolled the stem of his wineglass between his fingers. “I was there when the dog died. The kid was pretty calm, all things considered.”

“Why were you there?” asked Hedy.

“On my way to meet someone. But I got held up.”

Finally Margaret looked at him.
Oh, really?

George looked back at her.
Yes, really
.

“Will he be all right?” Clarice Watkins was asking about Emily's little boy, Nicholas. She had been quiet all evening, apparently content to listen to the conversation. Now at the sound of her voice everyone turned toward her, impassive in her gold turban and leopard skins, facing candles and baskets of rolls, the wall behind her like a stage curtain.

Naomi set down her wineglass and gave it a small deliberative turn. “I certainly hope so. Kids are resilient.”

“
Some
kids,” said Hedy.

Binx was groaning beneath the table.

Resilient, thought Margaret, or just good at disguising that they weren't, which maybe added up to the same thing. When she'd come home the night of the town hall hearing, Bill had been waiting for her in the kitchen. As she took off her coat, he commented on the two empty wineglasses and the empty bottle sitting by the sink. A friend stopped by, she said. She stood holding her coat, waiting for him to ask, “Who?” Prepared to tell him about George, wanting and not wanting to see the expression on his face when she said, “I had a glass of wine with George Wechsler. The guy whose book I've told you about.” Here, in our kitchen. We talked about adultery. George loves olives; he ate almost all of them. Look, here are the pits. Then I kissed him in his car. “Fun night?” Bill said. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the refrigerator. “Oh, you know,” she said, moving toward the door, “how these things go.”

Poor Bill. Pasty and drawn, his tie askew, leaning on one elbow at the head of the table, smiling at Hannah Melman, who was talking about the middle school chorus. Stupid Bill. With that cataleptic smile. She could, this instant, lay down her fork, tuck her napkin under her plate, and announce to her guests at the table that she was seeing ghosts, that Bill did not love her, that she had kissed George Wechsler in his car. She could say all that and the evening would slip from before to after, like an eel gliding into a pond. Everyone would be shocked. But then they would go home, and after a little while they would not be shocked anymore and would eventually forget about what she had said, and remember this evening only vaguely, and she would be as alone with her problems as she was now.

What
happened
to me? she thought. How could my life have ended up this way?

But yes, she thought, renewing her effort to focus on the dinner table conversation instead of the one inside her head, children are resilient. Julia, she hoped, was resilient. (Yet so hard to talk to these days.) That little boy would probably grow out of whatever was making him so unhappy and become a sensible adult. Unless he really did need a diagnosis?

“Do you ever wake up at night,” she asked Stan in an undertone, “and find yourself asking, ‘Where are the parents?' ”

Stan smiled attentively, as if waiting for the punch line, and then said he supposed occasionally he did. She smiled back and asked him to pass the wine bottle, topping off his glass before she refilled her own. Margaret had been aware of Hedy watching her with shrewd crinkle-eyed attention since the beginning of dinner; but now Hedy and Clarice Watkins were discussing Marv Fischman's health-care coverage. At the other end of the table, Aaron and Bradley Wechsler had started complaining about the SAT exam to Hannah, while Julia fed scraps of turkey to Binx under the tablecloth and Matthew kept interrupting to say what was the point of going to college when you'd never get a job anyway. Wind was racketing against the windowpanes. Margaret listened to the chink of silverware against china, wishing people would talk about something entertaining and sophisticated, something distracting. Books, or art, or movies. Naomi was wagging her finger at Bill, trying to persuade him, with the help of George, that free-market economies were incapable of self-regulation.

The roasted red beets on her plate seemed to be doing a lazy backstroke in a little white pool. When she looked up again George was pouring her some water.

She glanced at him. Briefly said thank you, and then turned back to Stan.

— —

Someone asked for the red
wine and, before the bottle was passed down the table, Margaret splashed a little more into her glass and tried to listen to Stan, who had joined in the free-market conversation. Instead she found herself staring at Matthew, two seats down to her left. Matthew, in his striped rugby shirt, saturnine and faintly whiskered. Attacking his slice of ham as if he had not been properly taught how to handle a fork and knife. Naomi had told her about Matthew's run-in with the Littlefield police. Acting out, she'd said. Also, he wouldn't let her read his college application essay. More separation anxiety. Trying to show he didn't need her because he depended on her so much.

But, thought Margaret, by all logic shouldn't it be George's twins acting out? Their parents actually were separated, the mother taking up with a massage therapist, the father writing about zombie baseball players—shouldn't it be
those
boys getting drunk and having run-ins with the police? Instead it was Matthew, whose parents were not only married but both psychologists. Or could that be why?

In any case, poor Matthew, who looked like Raskolnikov.

She watched Matthew wolf down a bite of ham. Beside him sat small, grave Julia, both of them listening to Aaron and Bradley Wechsler describe their summer backpacking trip in Wyoming. Matthew had probably spent last summer sprawled on his bed, playing violent video games and downloading pornography. Selling his Adderall pills online.

Julia caught her eye and scowled.

When Julia was a baby, a bib round her neck, she'd banged her tiny hands against the high-chair tray at dinner, crowing as Margaret spooned applesauce into her mouth. It had been so gratifying to feed her, to see her quickly satisfied. Astonishing to think that Matthew, too, had once been a baby, and here he was now, in a shirt like a convict's coverall, sneering as he asked Hedy for the bread basket. Two weeks ago he was slumped in the front seat of his mother's van, lit up by the glare of a policeman's flashlight, slack-jawed, pimply neck showing above the collar of his black leather jacket, reeking of peppermint schnapps. What was next for him? College rejections, crack addiction, car theft, venereal disease. The degradations of isolation and fear, a dusty back room that smelled of old cigarette butts overlooking a parking lot in some distant city, where he lay weeping on a filthy mattress, streetlights shining through broken slatted blinds, barred shadows across his face, and as she followed Matthew to this desolate conclusion everyone at the table looked up at her.

“Did you say something, Margaret?”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.” She coughed. “Something in my throat.” Blindly, she reached for her wineglass, but again it was empty. She picked up her water glass instead.

Anything could happen to any of us, she thought as everyone else resumed talking. To me and Bill, to Julia. And who among the people at this table would truly care? They might be
interested,
but would they spend even one sleepless night?

She put down her water glass, feeling suddenly chilled. Was it possible that the dogs were a sign, a portent of something bad about to happen? It seemed so obvious a possibility and yet she had not until this instant considered it.

Silence fell over the table.

“The economy,” she stammered, realizing that once again she'd made a sound. “So awful. It's affected everyone. Bill's firm is being investigated by the SEC.”

“Margaret,”
she heard Bill gasp.

“Oh, God.” She tried to focus on him. “I'm so sorry. Was I not supposed to say anything?”

“It's probably nothing,” Bill was already explaining. “Just allegations.”

“Allegations?” echoed Stan.

Now everyone was peering across the candles at Bill, tallowfaced above his button-down shirt and striped Christmas tie. Margaret put a hand to her pearls. He had mentioned the investigation a couple of weeks ago while they were discussing a phone call she'd received that afternoon from Julia's social studies teacher. A bullying incident, not serious. Julia had been called a name in class. “Allegations” had sounded dry and unthreatening, and Bill had waved away her questions. “Probably nothing,” he'd said then, too. Margaret realized now she should have pressed him, but she'd been worrying about the phone call. In addition to the bullying incident, Julia was not participating enough in class.
Not achieving to her potential
.
Any concerns at home? Perhaps she is overscheduled?
“Well, I hope everything will be all right,” she'd said to Bill. When he didn't mention the investigation again, she'd assumed that whatever it was had been minor and hadn't involved him.

“I'm so sorry,” she said again.

And she really was sorry. Sorry for blurting out this news and catching Bill off guard, sorry for kissing George Wechsler, sorry for inviting people to dinner while out in the cold, whirling darkness thousands of shadows slunk just beyond her lit windows, leaving not a single paw print in the snow.

Bill picked up his napkin and patted his mouth. Once he'd been hit in the head by a Frisbee as they sat on a blanket in the park with Julia; he was wearing the same dazed, abject expression now.

She tried to smile at him, but already her thoughts were rushing away in a different direction. Could Bill's unhappiness, his depression over the past months, have been less about their marriage than about what was going on at the office? He had withheld his worries about work, probably not wanting to trouble her, not mentioning them during their sessions with Dr. Vogel. Could it be that Bill didn't know himself how much those worries could explain?

A new, orderly matrix began to emerge from the turmoil and anguish of the past months. Bill was depressed about work. And she had only kissed George out of loneliness and pity, because his book was not selling well and his wife had left him, and because he was smart and funny and that wasn't enough to guarantee him anything. Bill would understand. After everyone left tonight, they would talk. She would ask him questions about the investigation; she would apologize for getting angry earlier in the kitchen. They would get into bed and turn out the lights. Even now, everything could be all right.

“Bill,” she murmured. “Oh, Bill.”

But he was so far away at the other end of the table, explaining something to Naomi, who had asked about SEC investigative procedures. His face looked strangely small and boyish above his striped tie, his thin nose fragile and outsize, as if it belonged to someone else. If only he would look at her. But he was still talking to Naomi. She lifted a hand to wave to him, an encouraging signal, to let him know that everything would be all right—and knocked over Stan's wineglass.

“Ah!” said Hedy.

Margaret apologized repeatedly to Stan as he began mopping his shirtfront with his napkin.

“Fuck me, Dad,” snickered Matthew. “You look like you've been shot.”

“Matthew,” barked his mother.

“I'll get a sponge,” said Margaret.

“Let me.” George was already standing. “Just point me to the kitchen.”

“But everything's such a mess,” cried Margaret.

Naomi called out to George to go left, and then launched into a long description of the best way to organize kitchen drawers and get rid of clutter.

Margaret wasn't listening. Because as she offered her own napkin to Stan something occurred to her, something sharp and plain, as bright as the flat side of a blade. It was all just trouble. She might be going mad, she might be about to get divorced, she might be alone for the rest of her life, with no job and no money, but that's all it was. Just as the wine on Stan's shirt was only wine, it was only trouble. She was not the first to be in such a state, nor would she be the last. Whatever happened to her had happened to other people, who'd either survived or not, as she would survive or not, and the world would continue on, implacable and absorbing.