“Claudia wished our mother dead every day when we were kids,” Benji said, as if offering this genetic link might explain some aspect of Max’s diagnosis. Then, with his nose crinkled, he whispered, “You threw shit?”
“Jesus, Benji, don’t be so literal. I threw whatever I could get my hands on. My music stand. Plates. A ficus once, but no feces.” Max took a moment to recover from the scatological digression before picking up where he left off. “My parents bore the brunt of it. Strangers were safe. I never went off on Phillip Glass.” He laughed. “Or a fan or any of my mother’s awful, stuffy friends who she made me serve drinks to, play and serve drinks, but whatever was left when I was done with my parents got aimed at me.”
“What, like cutting?” Benji had seen a documentary.
“Except I wasn’t a cutter. I can’t stomach blood. I was a basher. I’d stand in front of the mirror and punch myself in the face until I had a black eye. I knocked a tooth loose once. Broke my ankle with a bat.”
“When you were how old?”
“Eight.”
“Your parents knew you were doing this?”
“I had excuses. I fell off my bike. I took a football in the face. But on some level they knew. I never played football in my life.”
“And they didn’t take you to a doctor?”
“Not right away. Amanda didn’t put two and two together. Or didn’t want to. Honestly, I think the tantrums thrilled her on some level. Convinced her I was the crazy genius she always wanted.”
“Like Mozart.”
Max made a gesture of concession. “My father used to say it takes a genius or a fool to pee in the punch bowl, but only the genius gets away with it. But then I started slamming my fingers in doors, and we couldn’t have that. You can get by on the cello with a busted leg, but not with a broken finger. That’s when she took me to the doctor.”
“What did he do?”
“She. Dr. Haze. Seriously. I had a psychopharmacologist called Dr. Haze. She put me on lithium, which did wonders for my vibrato.” Max simulated a severe tremor with his right hand. “I called her a few days before I flew to Dallas. Left a message that I felt like I was going to — you know.” Here, Max held an invisible noose with one hand and let his head drop. “She never called me back. Said she never got the call. Right. Do you think she was trying to tell me something?”
“Why did you do it?”
“Why did you?” Max returned. “Why does anybody? You lose sight of the reasons not to, I guess.”
They looked into the sky to see a thread of contrail unraveling in the wake of a jet, their eyes settling on the line of rooftops once it was gone.
“She’s not coming, is she?”
“Okay, my friend. Let’s put you out of your misery.” Benji rose with a show of various aches and headed into the house. “I’m going to call her.”
After he disappeared, Max opened his chat with Arnav and typed,
What if this was a mistake?
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
It was a challenge, a distraction, a hand lovingly extended.
Max typed,
You can’t unring a bell.
A watched pot never boils.
Easier said than done.
~ ~ ~
It’s Christmas Eve. I walk through the door, blinded by a pyramid of packages, and call her name. The only response is the baby’s cry. Claudia is there, not in her bassinet, but in the middle of the bed, packed round with pillows to keep her from falling. I say Jane’s name. I walk through the rooms, saying her name in every one. I pick up the baby for a second pass. She quiets at the tree, jamming a fat little fist in her mouth at the sight of the twinkling lights, the mirrory pink balls on the silver boughs. She smells like pee. I smell like snow. The kitchen sink is full of broken eggshells, nesting measuring cups caked with flour paste, dishes skimmed with suds. I look out at George’s house, thinking she’s there. She must be with Evelyn, borrowing sugar, unburdening her heart. A bowl of vanilla-sweet batter sits on the kitchen table next to a greased cake pan. The oven light, but not the oven, is on. I dip my finger in the bowl and put it in Claudia’s toothless mouth. Then I see it. Not the box, but the space where the box should be. The empty space on top of the refrigerator, between the Yellow Pages and the wall, a puzzle missing its piece. I go to the bedroom and put the baby down, making her cry all over again. The box. I storm the apartment looking for it. I dive under the bed, tear apart the closet, flip the couch cushions onto the floor before I see it, tossed in the folds of the tree skirt like a forgotten present. An army-green metal box with its latches sprung. I know before I open it. I know by the weight that the gun is gone. The gun with one round in the chamber is gone. The box of bullets, untouched. It is a joke between us: you only need one bullet, unless you plan to miss.
8
The phone woke her. Benji’s face, warped into its best imitation of Marlon Brando yelling “Stella!”, lit up the screen. It was eleven o’clock, and Claudia was late. Unaccountably late. She offered a short secular prayer of thanks that the phone call came from Benji rather than her mother, whose four-minute, thirty-five-second reaction to this titanic news Claudia couldn’t bring herself to listen to. It sat among her waiting voice mails, ready to sink her with glacial tides the second she pushed the “Play” button. But Claudia couldn’t type alive—five lousy letters! — to allay Oliver’s fears that she’d taken a deadly nap behind the wheel on the interstate. Who could expect her to open her mouth, let alone speak in sentences, let alone defend herself?
Did you get there?
Hello?
Just tried calling. Call me back.
Getting worried.
Officially worried.
???
Babe?
She tossed her phone onto the seat beside her and was about to start the car when, cued, it seemed, from on high, an enormous red SUV with windows smoky and chrome gleaming pulled up alongside. The engine idled for a moment before dying, leaving the parking lot in a quiet gray stupor under low-hanging clouds. When the driver’s door slammed shut, Claudia closed her eyes, terrified that it was him, terrified that it wasn’t, until the scuff of footsteps stopped at the rental car’s side. A rap on the glass touched her like a live wire. She jumped. Nick leaned down and offered an apologetic wave. Time, in its ineluctable way, had transformed a familiar body into a strange one, replacing her lithe young love with this rugged and sturdier counterpart, no different than an Ovidian nymph turned into a towering and formidable tree. The blue of his eyes had softened toward gray. The self-consciousness that once stiffened his smile — she never did convince him that his crooked canine made him hotter — had been massaged away by time. He was as handsome as she remembered him, perhaps even more so with the signs of age ornamenting him like a patina: he now looked like he’d earned his beauty.
In Hollywood, Claudia would have rolled the window down for a game of cat and mouse, toying with him until he recognized her and his ancient grudges dissolved in a magical, amorous reunion — but Alluvia couldn’t have been farther from Hollywood. And Claudia wasn’t in a toying mood.
As soon as she was out of the car, standing before him, Nick took a polite step back, as if she worked in a department store and stood ready to spritz him with cologne. “If this is about my wife,” he said, “you should really speak to my lawyers.”