Authors: Stewart O'Nan

The Good Wife (26 page)

BOOK: The Good Wife

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THE GUIDANCE COUNSELOR LIKES CASEY’S GRADES. SHE WISHES HE had a sport or at least some extracurricular activities to round out his application, but his academics are so strong that she’s not worried. She knows Casey’s decided on computer science as a major, but has he thought about what
kind
of a school he’s interested in? Because, really, with his SATs and a transcript like this, he can go anywhere he wants.

It’s midmorning and Patty’s in her work uniform. That might be the reason the woman goes over the financial aid form so thoroughly. At first Patty’s insulted, and then grateful, since she has no idea how they’re going to pay for this. Casey’s going to have to apply for student loans and hold down a part-time job, but even that’s not going to cover some of the places the counselor’s talking about.

One name that comes up over and over is Cal Poly. Patty jokes that it’s too far away, she’ll never see him again. At heart she’s partly serious. Why does he have to move two thousand miles away to type on a computer? Cornell’s forty minutes from their front door, and very good, according to the counselor. SUNY-Binghamton’s another possibility, or Elmira as a fallback.

After the meeting, Patty wants to talk but he has to go back to class. The bell rings, and the halls fill with teenagers, making her feel ancient, a fake, her jacket not quite disguising her uniform and white shoes, and she flees. The drive back to work gives her
too much time to think about him leaving. Even if he’s only at Binghamton, he’ll be out of the house. She can’t believe it’s really going to happen.

She’s always known he was smart, and while she’s celebrated his report cards over the years (and kept them, an envelopeful in the top drawer of Shannon’s dresser), she’s just expected good grades from him, because they both know he’s capable. Patty only realized how much she’d taken that for granted when the counselor showed her his transcript—a solid wall of A’s. She was proud, but also a little intimidated. The last couple of years she hasn’t pushed him; he’s done it all by himself. And she knows how hard it is. She’s been going to night school for her supervisor’s certificate, and even though she’s motivated and the professors are lenient, she still gets B’s. Like her father reading while the three of them battled over the TV, Casey has the ability to block out the rest of the world and focus on one thing. Her worry is that he’s
too
good at it, like her father, never letting anyone get close. She thinks he’ll be happy to get away and be out on his own, the way she was, breaking free of her mother’s house. She can see why California would seem ideal.

It’s his decision, she tells him. Wherever he chooses, somehow they’ll find a way. Patty expects him to be more excited about the whole process. Every day he gets a stack of form letters and catalogues from all kinds of colleges, but she never sees him reading them.

Tommy’s more excited than he is. When they talk on the phone, he tells Casey about a show on computer graphics he saw on the Discovery Channel. He thinks they should visit MIT, it’s supposed to be the best for that.

“Are you interested in MIT?” he asks, because Casey hasn’t said anything.

“I don’t know,” Casey says.

“Where
are
you thinking of, then?”

“I’ve got to look at my stuff first.”

After Casey’s safely off, Tommy says he doesn’t understand. “What’s his problem, is he stoned or something?”

“He’s fine,” Patty says. “I think he’s just overwhelmed by the decision. Wouldn’t you be?”

She is. She’s been off welfare since her promotion a few years ago, and doing okay, but the money some of these places charge is ridiculous. Even a state school like Binghamton is asking way too much. She wants to know what’s going on in Casey’s head. Is he really interested in going to Elmira? If he isn’t, then there’s no sense applying there. All he’ll say is “I’ve got to work on my list,” like he can’t take the time to think about it right now.

His spring break’s in late March, the only time they can do the college tour. She pulls out the calendar and sits him down to choose. Together they’ve driven the Horizon to Clinton a dozen times; it’ll get to Boston, if that’s where he wants to go.

He does.

“That should make your father happy,” she says.

And can they stop at Rensselaer in Troy? Also Amherst, halfway across Massachusetts.

When she checks the map, she sees he’s thought it all out. The only long drive is the one home.

“What about Cornell?” she asks. “We could go up that Friday, just for the day.”

He agrees, for her sake, just as, that fall, when it’s time to apply, he applies to Binghamton as one of his backups. The full list includes MIT, Cal Poly, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer, Amherst, Cornell and Syracuse. Patty doesn’t even have to look at the map: except for Cal Poly, all of them are closer than Clinton. And yet, the more she reads about Cal Poly, the more she’s convinced that it’s the best place for an independent kid like Casey. So she’s not
sure how to feel in the spring when he gets rejected. She says she’s sorry, and though he tries to shrug it off, she knows he’s hurt, and she wonders if he was depending on it, if that was his plan all along.

He doesn’t make it into MIT either. Tommy doesn’t understand—he’s got straight A’s.

Everywhere else, he gets accepted. Now he has to choose. They can get state aid to go to either Rensselaer or Cornell, but she makes it clear to him that it shouldn’t influence his decision. Wherever he goes, it’s going to be expensive.

Tommy’s rooting for Cornell, since it’s good
and
close. Patty is too. When he picks Rensselaer, she congratulates him as if she’s happy with his decision. Troy’s only three hours across 1-88, she says, as if it’s convenient. She doesn’t have to say it’s right on the way to Clinton.

SWEET TOOTH

SENDING CASEY OFF THAT FALL, SHE REMEMBERS HOW DIFFERENT his first day of school was, how he cried and made himself sick so he could stay home. All summer he’s been preparing to leave, winnowing his CDs, choosing what to take from his room. He packed his car last night, pointed toward the road, so all he has to do is kiss her mother goodbye, and then her.

“Be good,” Patty says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says, but normally, like he’s going to hang out with his friends and he’ll be back for dinner.

She can only wave as he pulls out, the tailpipe of the loaded-down Tercel scraping the drive. He’s busy shifting, crossing the long flat at the end of the yard, but then his hand appears in the window, flailing in their direction. He keeps it up even after the engine complains, until he’s swallowed by the line of weed trees at the edge of the meadow.

“You should be proud,” her mother says inside, because she can see from Patty’s expression that she’s lost. The feeling stays with her all morning, pursuing her through the empty house. She has food shopping to do, so she gets her list from the fridge and pokes through the cupboards to see what they need. With just the two of them, their grocery bill should be tiny.

She feels weird at the store, not picking up the usual three gallons of 1%. No Diet Dew, no Fig Newtons, so she splurges on some mint Milanos, as if they might console her, and has them with a cup of coffee, watching some awful sci-fi movie.

Later, straightening up his closet, she finds a stash of candy bars in a shoebox. KitKats and Snickers, Mr. Goodbars. There must be twenty bucks’ worth. She can’t tell how old they are. Over the years, they tried all kinds of diets to help him slim down. She remembers the expensive shakes, the vitamin supplements that came in the mail. She caps the box, sets it back in its place.

She could find worse things, she thinks.

The house seems quieter without him, though she knows it’s not true. If he were home—which he wouldn’t be, Sunday afternoon—he’d be in his room with his headphones on. The most they’d hear from him would be footsteps, maybe the toilet flushing.

She misses him most at meals, and in the morning, the daily scramble to get out the door. Some nights she still waits for the
sound of his car in the driveway, the sign that he’s finally home from work.

He’s busy, and doesn’t call as much as she’d like. Sometimes she feels like it’s purposeful, as if he’s punishing her. He sounds okay on the phone. His classes are interesting; there’s a lot of homework. As always, she wishes he was more enthusiastic, but that wouldn’t be him. The difference between talking to him and talking to Tommy is almost funny, one so glum, the other so interested. Because she and Tommy know how to use their minutes now.

Every time she talks to Casey, she has to resist asking him to come home for the weekend, to come with her up to Clinton to visit. Instead, she writes him letters he doesn’t answer and doesn’t mention, or only when she brings them up. She doesn’t remember him taking so much of her time, except now she finds herself faced with even more empty hours. She tries to read but ends up watching TV, clicking through the channels when nothing’s on or playing his handheld Yahtzee. One night she cleans the stove and while she’s waiting for it to bake off the gunk, wipes down the miniblinds. Her mother tells her she needs a hobby.

“Like what?” Patty asks.

“I don’t care,” her mother says. “Pick something.”

The next day at work, Patty signs up for an after-hours computer class. She already uses one to make the monthly schedules, but she really ought to know more. It passes the time, and some of the stuff is actually fun. Now when Casey tells her about what he’s doing, she almost knows what he’s talking about.

Fall break, he comes home for the week. Patty has piled up comp time, and takes off work to be with him. She does his laundry, makes chocolate chip waffles. She expects him to be different somehow, changed, more mature, but except for being ten pounds heavier, he’s exactly the same. He keeps his door closed and barely
speaks. He sleeps till noon, then heads over to Adam’s, stops back home for dinner, then stays out late, cruising around town with his friends.

After a couple days of this, Patty can’t hold back. She ambushes him at dinner, hoping he’ll see how selfish he’s being. “Look,” she says, “I know you want to see your friends, but I took time off to be with you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“You don’t have to ask people you love to do things for you. They just do them.”

“I’ll stay home tomorrow, okay?” He makes it sound like he’s been wronged, but she doesn’t want to argue. Later, when he comes home that night, she gets him to sit with her in the kitchen and they both say they’re sorry.

It’s the best conversation they have. Sunday he leaves, saying he probably won’t be back till Thanksgiving.

It’s okay, she says, to him and to herself. It’s only six weeks. That’s not so long.

MEDIUM SECURITY

JUST BEFORE HALLOWEEN SHE GETS A LETTER THAT SAYS TOMMY’S being transferred to a medium security facility. It’s standard procedure with long-term prisoners. He’ll be reassigned in late November, five years in advance of his first parole date. She’s tried
not to look that far ahead. Getting excited will only make the time go slower.

They’re hoping for somewhere close, like Cayuga, at the bottom of Owasco Lake, just south of Auburn. There are dozens of mediums all over the state, half of them built since Tommy went in, part of the War on Drugs. There’s Gowanda and Wyoming over by Buffalo, and Oneida and Mohawk up near Syracuse. Even Wallkill or Otisville down in the Catskills wouldn’t be too bad. Almost anywhere would be closer than Clinton.

DOCS won’t tell her anything—for security purposes. She relies on Prison Families to fill the gaps. Like maxes, not all mediums have an FRP, and mediums are actually more dangerous. With so many inmates doing short bids, their populations aren’t as stable.

They have a last visit the Friday after Thanksgiving, all three of them, Casey driving most of the way up. The weather’s warm and there are tons of buses, but it’s not as bad as it will be Saturday. It amazes Patty how little changes. After twenty years, there’s still the fear, going in, that they’ll be turned away on some technicality, that he’s been transferred early and no one’s told her, that the whole place will go on lockdown, but no, they’re on the list, Casey’s college ID works, everything’s cool.

Tommy’s been there so long they’ve graduated to the honors visiting room, with regular tables like at Auburn. They can hold hands and play footsie as long as they’re discreet. Casey sits quietly to the side as she tells Tommy everything Prison Families told her. Tommy reassures her; wherever he goes, he’ll be fine. He’s made it this far.

“So how’s it going?” he asks Casey, touching his arm. “I hardly ever get to talk to you anymore.”

“It’s going good,” Casey says, nodding, and tells him about
his classes, ignoring the second half of the question. There’s a phone in his suite but he’s got two roommates who wouldn’t understand why he’s getting collect calls from his father. He couldn’t pay for them anyway. As much as Patty’s worked to make sure Tommy’s a part of his life, she can’t force Casey to give him the number.

It’s hard to leave, not knowing when and where she’ll see him again. She takes Casey’s hand as they move between the checkpoints, and he suffers it. Their stamps glow a toxic lemon-lime under the ultraviolet lights. As they cross the lot, the main entrance at her back, she has an attack of nostalgia. This is the last time she’ll ever be here. She won’t miss the giant white fortress or its dumpy gray town. She won’t miss the six-hour drive or the claustrophobic bus ride through the pines. So why, driving away, does this sadness grab at her?

The long weekend ends. Casey goes back to school; she goes back to work. Riverview’s growing so fast they’re having serious understaffing problems, and she’s been given the job of recruiting new employees on top of her usual duties. She likes being a supervisor. The beeper is annoying sometimes, going off while she’s driving or in the middle of dinner, but it also makes her feel appreciated. With no distractions at home, she’s able to concentrate, and has gone from just trying to keep busy to actually being good at her job. Sometimes, like the week after Thanksgiving, she accuses herself of hiding in her work. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Like the waiting, the uncertainty never gets any easier.

It’s Friday when he finally calls from Bare Hill.

The name of the place hits her like a verdict. Ever since she found out he was being moved, she’s been studying the different mediums. Bare Hill is forty miles northwest of Clinton, even farther in the middle of nowhere, and like a lot of the mediums, doesn’t have an FRP.

“Fuck,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says. “What you said.”

BOOK: The Good Wife

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