Thy Neighbor (32 page)

He broke off again, unable to find the word.

Mom, softly: “Image.”

Dad: “What?”

Mom, repeating pensively: “This image. She is an image, Jimmy. That's all. The image of what we have lost. You cannot possess it.”

Silence.

Dad, crying now—or I think it's crying—awkwardly, jaggedly, coughing almost. He does not know how.

“Oh, Di. Help me. I am so afraid.”

Mom, sternly again, but with a strain of softness left: “I can't help you. I can't help any of it. It's done. It's all done.”

Dad, strangled: “Is it? Is it really?”

“Yes.”

“Done?”

“Yes.”

More crying.

“Please, Di. Don't give up on me. Not now. I need you.”

“You have never needed me, except as cover.”

Dad, begging: “That's not true. You know that's not true.”

Nothing from Mom. Just the sound of Dad whimpering.

Then, at last, Mom, resolute: “You've ruined her.”

Pause.

Dad, incredulous: “What?”

Nothing.

Dad again: “What did you say?”

Mom, nastily: “I said you've ruined her.”

“What do you mean, ruined her? How can you say ruin? What a terrible word. Can you possibly mean that the way it sounds?”

“I don't know, Jimmy. How does it sound?”

“Like she's a soufflé or a pair of suede shoes. My God, Di.”

Again, nothing from Mom.

“Like used up, trashed. No longer pristine.”

Still nothing from Mom.

“Jesus, you're not even going to contradict me.”

Mom, finally, feigning control: “Jimmy, stop. Really. You're making a fool of yourself.”

Dad, on the offensive at last: “No, no. That's it, isn't it?”

A pause with Dad puffing and laughing mirthlessly.

“You know what I find incredible? Unimaginable? After all this, yes, I've just now realized it. You're not angry. You're not even shocked. You're—what is that expression on your face? Jealousy? No. That would be human . . . My God, you're disappointed.”

A loud guffaw.

“Don't be absurd, Jimmy.”

Dad, almost whining with disbelief: “‘Ripe' is not the wrong word. Or it wasn't until— Jesus, your private delicacy has been spoiled, hasn't it? And now you don't want it anymore.”

“I couldn't expect you to—”

“Yes, that's it. Your all-consuming vanity has been pricked. The prize stolen right out from underneath you. Good God. You really are a monster. Well, my withering wife and partner competitor, standing so proudly under your own sky, I've had her. I've had your little dumpling protégé. And now you don't want her.”

Dad, laughing hideously: “I've had her. How do you like that? Over and over and over and—”

Robin, screaming: “Stop it!” Sobbing. “Please stop it.”

Mom: “You absolute bastard.”

Loud shushing and scraping again. The tape recorder being moved. The sound of running footsteps and the rhythmic brush of fabric on the mic, a slamming door, sobbing, fumbling.
Click
.

There wasn't much left on that side of the tape. It was all blank—I checked. I turned it to side B, saw that it was fully rewound, and pressed play, hoping and dreading that there was more.

Click.

Door opening. She must have been in the downstairs bathroom. Nothing else is that close except the front door, and she was obviously still in the house. The brush of fabric again. The recorder is in her jacket pocket, maybe, a loose linen thing with room. Must be. The fabric brushes slowly as she moves. Back and forth with her hips. Standing, walking, sliding past.

Robin: “Let's go.”

Mom: “We don't have to do this. Not ever.”

Robin: “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Darling, I'm so sorry you've had to hear—you must disregard—people say things—this is about us. This is a very old argument.”

“And this is my life. I won't ever forget any of this. Ever.”

Nothing from Mom.

More shushing.

Robin: “I'm going back in.”

Mom: “But what for?”

“To try to understand.”

“But you can't. I can't.”

“I have to try.”

Shushing and rustling, in the background my mother's low block heels on the floor crossing the foyer, echoing flatly.

Shushing. A gasp.

Dad, stage-whispering sharply: “Forgive me.”

Footfalls stopping.

Mom, booming: “Jesus, Jimmy. What are you doing? Have you utterly lost your mind?”

Nothing from Dad.

Robin, her composure lost, crying again.

Mom, tremblingly: “Jimmy. Let's just—”

Dad, firmly: “No. You were right. It's done. There is no going back.”

Mom: “Not this way. Not with the chil—”

“Yes. This way. With. We always said this, Di. With. This was always the choice. The choice, not the resignation, remember?”

“Not like this, Jimmy. Not like this. The child. Think of the child.”

“Yes. We knew it would come. We knew it would come when we didn't want it, and we always said we would choose it then, when it was hardest. That was how we would know, you said—when it was hardest—and we would make no excuses, because there would always be excuses to be made, always last appeals that would seem so sweet in the terror of finishing. But resist, you said. And I agreed. Resist the temptation to run when the temptation is strongest.”

“I was wrong.”

“The gun within reach, you said. Live life to the fullest with a loaded gun within reach. Do you remember how often we said that? How many times we clinked glasses over those words and laughed and shouted that our life was recklessly complete because the way out was right there, lying on the table, and we chose not to take it. Until we did. Well, we are there now, my wife. We are at the point of picking up the weapon that has always been in full view. We put this here for that.”

“We were kids, Jimmy. Stupid, arrogant kids full of high ideas we didn't understand. We were drunk. We were alone in the world.”

“We weren't kids when we put this here.”

“
We
didn't put it there. How long have you had that?”

“Oh, Di. Don't back away now. You have always been my courage.”

“Jimmy, stop this. Now. Stop it.”

“I will stop it. It will all . . . just . . . stop.”

“Jimmy, listen to me. Listen, will you? Just take a few minutes and let me tell you—”

“Tell me what? What can you possibly tell me now? That's an escape. We have to take what we have chosen.”

“We will. All right? We will. But let me tell you—”

“What?”

“About—”

Dad screaming: “About what?”

Mom, chillingly calm: “About Robin.”

Long pause. She has hit the mark.

Mom, slowly: “I want to tell you about Robin. And I want you to tell me about her, too. And I will listen. And she will listen. Here. Right here. Between us there is everything to say.”

The pause then was so long I could hardly bear it. I thought several times of turning off the tape. Turning it off and burning it so I would never be tempted to listen to this again. What you hear once now, said the voice in my head, you will hear for the rest of your life. And I knew that it was true. Pieces of this would be with me forever, thrown language splattering the walls of my mind indelibly. But I could not stop. I would not. I had heard too much already. And too little.

Finally, Robin's tiny frightened voice broke the silence, and when I heard what it said and remembered that I had seen those same words on a computer screen just days before, it was like the last heavy bolt of a combination lock sliding out of grasp and the strongbox opening.

“Talk to me,” she said.

And then more softly, “Please?”

All we want is an explanation. Some way to understand. Still and always that. After we have pulled the trigger, somehow, or let it be pulled for us, maybe a little on our behalf, after we have witnessed something unspeakable, we want to understand what we have seen and known, because seeing and knowing are never enough when the shock is so strong. It cannot penetrate, and it cannot dissipate, either. It does not even seem real. It is only pain—illiterate, dumb pain that we are desperate to disintegrate with words.

Mom, terrified, trying to be strong: “Robin, sweetheart. Look at me.”

A pause.

“Please, darling. Look at me.”

A longer pause and the slightest break in my mother's voice as she begins:

“You have been my precious gift. Always . . . Talking with you has been like talking to a better vision of myself . . . like seeing and walking beside and sharing perfect language with someone I would have hoped to be . . . I have never been your teacher. You have been mine—my example, and my admired friend. Yours is the most expansive and supple, quick and capacious mind I have ever known. Feed it. Promise me, darling. Feed it every day and cherish it. It belongs to you, and nothing—not I . . . not Jimmy, nothing bad that has ever happened or will happen to you—can ever take that away. It is all just more experience . . .
Nothing is either bad or good
. Remember?”

Robin, mechanically: “
But thinking makes it so
.”

Mom: “Yes, darling. Yes. That's it. Keep that. Keep it close always and it will comfort you and free you from all of this. I promise.”

Robin, crying: “But I don't want you to go.”

“I know, darling. I know. But this is your freedom.”

Robin, crying harder: “I don't understand.”

“I know. But you will. You will. And you will thrive in the only possession you will ever need. Your home is in your mind, your gorgeous mind. You will need nothing else. Anything else would be a hindrance. We—we are in your way, just as everyone else will be in your way . . . Every weak loser clawing for a piece of you . . . every adoring lover and friend and teacher and pupil . . . all of your inferiors . . . You must shut out all of them—shut it all out with sentimentality. It has no place in you.”

Dad, gruffly: “That's enough, Di. You've said enough.”

Mom: “Then let her go, Jimmy.”

Dad: “I will. I am.”

Mom: “No. Let her go now, and you and I will finish this alone. That is how we said it would be.”

A long pause.

Dad, barely audible: “Okay.”

Mom, confirming: “Okay?”

“Yes, okay.”

“No good-byes, Jimmy.”

Dad, sobbing: “I'm sorry. God, I'm so, so very sorry, dear girl.”

Robin sobbing.

Dad, plaintively: “I only wanted to be near you, to believe that you could—”

Mom: “Jimmy, stop. Leave her be now.”

Dad: “Okay, okay. I'm sorry.”

Mom: “Shhhhh.”

Dad and Robin whimpering.

Then Mom again, so tenderly: “Time to go now, my love.”

Robin: “I can't. I'm afraid.”

Mom: “I know, my lovely girl. I know you're frightened, but don't be. You can do this. Do this for me. Go on with words . . . Go on with everything we started . . . You can.”

More whimpering, shushing, her small body moving. The tape in her pocket, circling.

Robin, muffled: “Good-bye.”

Mom, very close, kissing, an embrace: “Good-bye, darling.”

Robin: “I love you.”

A rustling separation, then Robin again, aside: “I don't . . . forgive you.”

A pause. Nothing from Mom or Dad.

Shuffling, slow, light footsteps in the hall, the heavy, sucking front door opening,
swish
, closing, pause,
tat
. Closed.

Rhythmic walking, pocket fabric, breathing, soft shoes, and outside air.

Panic, moaning, deep croaking, throat-drying cry.

Fingers coursing, searching, finding, pressing.

Click
.

I am startled by the click, still fogged in their good-byes, still listening. It cannot be over. It cannot. It will go on again. It will, I think, I plead. It must. Please, go on. Please.

I try her words.

Talk to me.

But it does not.

I feel abandoned. Absurdly, childishly, and—again, exactly as before in this house—impotently enraged. I think there must be, there has to be more. Not moving, I listen to the rest of the tape. I listen until it clicks, physically clicks itself off.

Nothing. There is nothing more.

Just a flood of my own questions trying to grab hold.

How much longer did it go on? How long did they wait? Did they watch her walk down the sidewalk and the drive and into her grandparents' house, just to make sure she was gone? And did she, lying in bed in the room above the garage where the nightlight goes on, did she stop her ears and wait? Or did she listen for the first shot, expecting it, knowing it would come, yet startled still when it did?

Or is that when she left, and why? That night, right from this room, left at their behest, and kept on going? Running as far as she could go, running so as not to hear the shots she knew were coming, not to see the bodies carried out under covers, not to hear the cries and see the gaping faces of her neighbors looking on in horror at what she—or so she thought—had done.

What had she done?

This morning, did she run across the street not
for
Iris, but
to
Gruber, hoping for the bullet, the bullet that she thought she deserved? It's what I did, she said.
What I did
. And what was it that she did? Telling? Was that the beginning of their deaths to her? Deaths, she thought, that should have been three and not two? Why? Because she told? Because she said something?

The loop of time coming back to the same place. Mrs. B. had said it. Running and running away until you are running back again and into the bullet. At last into the bullet that has been here all the time, waiting for you.