“Should we call the paramedics?” Robert asks.
His grandmother insists that she is staying right where she is. “I don’t know what you are trying to do to me, but I am staying here.” The paramedics, when they arrive, come storming into the house, confident broad-shouldered men bearing medical equipment. One shines a light into her eye.
“This happened once before,” Robert’s father says. “Earlier this week. They said it was salt.”
“Salt?” asks a paramedic, his blunt healthy fingers tenderly feeling Robert’s grandmother’s wrist for the pulse.
“At the hospital. They couldn’t find anything wrong with her. But they said that not enough salt—”
“I’m not leaving,” Robert’s grandmother says, to the paramedics. “I do not want you in my house.”
“We’re just making sure you’re okay, ma’am,” the paramedic says. “Your son and your grandson here were concerned about you, is all. They say you’ve been having some hallucinations.”
“I have been doing no such thing.”
The paramedic asks her name, the year, who the current president is. She hesitates a little on the last question, but eventually gets it right.
“You can’t do anything for her?” Robert’s father says.
“She’s conscious, and coherent,” the paramedic says. “If she says she doesn’t want to go, we can’t make her go.”
Robert sits with his mother and father in the living room, around the glass-topped coffee table. His grandmother has finally gone to sleep. “Your mother thinks she’s making it up,” Robert’s father says.
“I don’t think she’s making it up,” Robert’s mother says. “I just — Did you see how fast she came out of it, as soon as the paramedics got here? Just like that, and she was totally coherent.”
“Probably it was adrenaline,” Robert says. “Probably it was a shock to her system, all those strangers in her house, all at once.”
“I just think,” Robert’s mother says. “Well, all of her friends are getting sick now, and she sees how much attention they’re getting… ”
“I think it’s all the pills she’s on,” Robert’s father says. “She keeps getting them confused, recently.”
“If it was that, don’t you think they’d have found out about it at the hospital?” Robert’s mother says, in a sharp whisper.
“She’s asleep,” Robert’s father says. “You don’t have to whisper.”
“Oh, I don’t know what she is,” Robert’s mother says.
~ ~ ~
Robert volunteers to stay the night, to make sure that his grandmother is okay. He makes himself a bed on the couch in the living room, his head a few feet from the door to her room. He thinks about pits that suddenly open up in the floor. He thinks about the possibility that there could be other people, other voices, swirling in the room around him, invisible.
“Robert,” calls his grandmother softly, during the night. “Robert.” Robert walks into her room and stands beside her bed. Her small fragile hand grips his. “Robert, I was just playing,” she says. “You believe me, don’t you. Robert I don’t want you letting those men in my house anymore.”
~ ~ ~
Robert and Viola meet with Robert’s parents to discuss the question of Robert’s grandmother. Robert’s father, who is retiring as a partner from his firm this year, tells Viola that she looks lovely and asks if she’s heard the one about the talking Mexican cigar. Viola, who has always had a soft spot for Robert’s distant and surprisingly awkward father, smiles and says that she has not.
Robert, Viola, and Robert’s parents sit around Robert’s parents’ kitchen table in Geist, in the suburbs. Robert’s younger brother, who does IT for a company in Houston, is on speakerphone. “Hello?” Robert’s brother says.
“Coming in loud and clear,” Robert’s father says.
“Hello?” says Robert’s brother.
Robert’s mother says she thinks that it’s time to seriously consider the possibility of an elderly care facility. “I know we’ve been putting this off as long as we can,” she says. “And ultimately of course it isn’t up to me.”
Robert’s grandmother has come to believe that there is a tremendous emptiness underneath her house that might swallow her at any moment. “Do they still think it’s the salt?” Robert asks.
“They don’t know what it is. She’s old,” Robert’s mother says.
“She’s in perfect health,” says Robert’s father.
“Except for the hallucinations,” Robert’s mother says. “Honestly, you would think she would want to move.”
A staticky crashing sound comes through over the speakerphone. “I’m okay,” says Robert’s brother. “I was trying to replace a light bulb, but I’m okay.”
“Did you fall? Are you hurt?” Robert’s mother wants to know.
“You okay, champ?”
“Hello?” says Robert’s brother.
“I feel like if she doesn’t want to go she shouldn’t go,” Viola says.
“How do you clean up these compact fluorescents?” Robert’s brother asks. “You just like sweep it up? Is that safe?”
“I’m looking it up on my phone right now baby,” Robert’s mother says.
“Hello?”
Robert’s parents wave to Robert and Viola as they pull out of the driveway, the cellphone containing Robert’s brother’s voice held aloft in the air to indicate that he, too, is saying goodbye. “Are they happy?” Viola asks. “Your parents.”
Robert gives this some thought. “I think maybe you put too much emphasis on being happy,” he says. “People don’t always have to be happy.”
“I don’t see why it’s such a big thing to ask.”
They stop at a drug store on the way home to pick up headache medicine for the headaches Robert has been getting recently. “There are things more important in life than happiness sometimes,” Robert says, scanning the aisle.
“Like what?”
“Like family. Or ethical convictions. Or helping others.”
“Don’t those things make you happy? Isn’t that the point?”
At home that night, Viola looks through old photo albums of Robert in college, his almost uniformly blond friends, well-tanned, girls bikini’d and with lovely teeth, some of them of course Robert’s exes, not all of them, some percentage that Viola has not taken the time to calculate. What beach is this, Viola thinks, that they seem always to be on, somehow, in Indiana? Who wouldn’t be happy with this life, Viola thinks, this blond, well-formed husband?
~ ~ ~
Viola writes back to the FBI agent: “The first time I masturbated I was eleven. I don’t think I understood what I was doing, then. As far as I can remember I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, but I remember feeling slightly ashamed because I was touching myself.”
The FBI agent writes to Viola: “Please answer the questions exactly as they are asked. If I require additional information I will tell you.”
Viola writes to the FBI agent: “When I fantasize, I fantasize about faceless men, or men I don’t recognize. Like, I specifically don’t recognize them in the fantasies. Sometimes their faces are covered in shadows, or are grotesque in such a way that I am unsure, in the fantasy, whether or not they are wearing a mask. These fantasies often involve some degree of violence or coercion, though of course I find violence in real life repugnant.”
~ ~ ~
Viola goes out with her friend Bethany to a bar with a small dance floor near the back. Viola is acting as “wingman” for her friend Bethany. Whenever any men come up to her to ask if she’d like a drink, Viola says, “I am the wingman. This is my friend Bethany.”