“She’s under her maiden name. Ramsey. I remembered it.”
“You remembered it?” He seemed disturbed that I knew his mother’s family name. I had once again put my fingerprints on his past. “OK,” he said, as much to himself as to me, “so you remembered it. And you wrote her. And you told her how sorry you were, and how lonely, and how it wasn’t fair what happened to you—”
“I never said it wasn’t fair, Keith. What happened to me, I mean to all of us, can’t be touched by words like fair.”
He dismissed what I was saying with a wave. “So you wrote her and said how sorry you were and she wrote you back. What did she say in her letters? That she knew you were sorry and it was time to let bygones be bygones?”
I felt, and was, trapped. It wasn’t a question of whether I should lie to Keith in order to protect Ann, but whether she had already confessed to answering my letters.
“She answered my letters. But she never said she was sorry for me, and you know Ann would never say it was time to let bygones be bygones.”
Keith’s face creased in that sort of smile one makes when the triumph is proving you’ve been betrayed. I knew I’d lost the maneuver, but it was hard to care.
“I thought so,” he said.
I made no reply; there was no point in inviting him to illustrate the deceit he’d uncovered. I’d taken a chance and it flopped: I knew now that Ann had told him she’d never answered my letters.
“I don’t want to argue with you, Keith,” I said. “None of this is important today.”
“Bygones?” He was lifting his spirits. His life was more than a little berserk and it gave him a feeling of control to poke butterfly pins through whatever I said.
“No. I’m not talking about forgetting anything. I don’t believe in forgetting any more than you do.”
“That’s funny,” he said. “I think if I were you there’d be a lot I would want to forget.”
We were standing in the center of Ann’s bedroom. Her bed, covered by an Indian print spread, was on one side of us and a painted dresser and an upholstered chair were on the other. I took a step back so that if Keith tried to hit me, I wouldn’t catch it full force.
“You obviously don’t want me here,” I said. “What did you say when Ann said she wanted to ask me to come?”
Keith stepped forward and I readied myself for defense, but he was moving past me now, toward Ann’s bed. He gazed at it and then softly, as if it were a living thing, set his open hand down upon it. He turned around and sat on the edge of the bed and then, with an abrupt, clumsy motion, he lay down, propped against the simple wooden headboard, with his sandals on the colorful spread. He kept his hands beside him and drummed his fingers slowly, one at a time, as if he were counting down. Then he reached behind him and pulled a pillow from under the bedspread and placed it on his belly.
“You came here to see my sister?”
“Your mother asked me to come.”
Keith was silent, his face flushed momentarily and his eyes seemed to recede. He took a slow, deep breath.
“She doesn’t want to see you. She hates you. She knows what you are. You’re using my mother. You’re just using her to get to Jade, but Jade would rather still be trapped in that burning house than see you.”
“Keith, if—”
“And Jade has a lover, you know. She’s had plenty. Terrific appetite on that girl. She has a female lover. Did you know that?”
He waited for me to answer and finally I shook my head.
“Oh? So it’s news? Good. I’m glad I’m the one to tell you. Her name is Susan Henry, Jade’s girlfriend. They sometimes stay at my house in Bellows Falls.” He unfolded his hands and squeezed the pillow he’d lain over his belly. He was flexing his long, perfectly articulated toes against the bottoms of his sandals, in and out like the beating of a heart.
“You don’t have to prove how much you hate me,” I said.
“The reason we couldn’t find Jade is she’s with Susan right now. Camping trip. They love camping trips. They like doing it outside. They do all that woodsy stuff—camping, canoeing, twenty-mile hikes.” Keith smiled, a disassociated grin, deliberately unreal.
I was standing over him now. I reached down, grabbed his shoulders, and with one motion literally lifted him out of bed.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, holding him, with my face an inch from his. “You really don’t. If you hate me so much you shouldn’t have let your mother ask me over.”
Keith shook loose of my grip and pushed me back with his hard, blunt fingertips. “I said it was all right,” he said, showing his small, squared teeth, “only because Mom wants you. Mom needs to believe in some kind of life outside of the family, even though she knows there isn’t any.” His face flushed red again and he closed his eyes for a moment. If he had lost his composure, broken down and wept, then I would have put my arms around him…
“Keith,” I said. My mouth was dry and filled with a strong, arid taste. “I like you,” I said. “I don’t suppose it’s what you want to hear, but I liked you from the start, when we met, and whenever I think about you, which is a lot, I think…I just like you and respect…And I feel horrible about your father, about Hugh.” I stopped; I was starting to tremble. I could feel my emotions toppling out of me.
“It was me you wanted to kill, wasn’t it?” he said, softly. “When you set the fire, it was me. And I know why.”
“That’s not true. You know—”
“Because I knew you for what you were.” He drew himself up. “I don’t want to talk about it. What you did. Ruined everything. I don’t…My father is dead.”
“Keith—”
“Don’t say my name!” he said, his voice rising. “None of this would be happening if it wasn’t…” He closed his eyes, tightly, and swung out. My arm went up to deflect his blow. He swung again and missed, but scratched the side of my face. He tried to hit me again but I caught his wrist and held it.
“Don’t touch me. Keep your hands off me, you fucking dirty creep.” He pulled away from me, but in fear I held on to him. “Let me go.” He swung at me with his free arm and I let him go. He put his hand on my shoulder and moved me aside. Then he walked by me, brushing into me with his shoulder, and headed back into the front of the apartment.
I waited in Ann’s room for a minute or so, not knowing what to do. Finally, I decided there were really no more decisions to be made: for good or for ill, I belonged with the others.
Ann sat next to Sammy on the sofa, her legs curled, holding him with both arms and resting her head on his shoulder. Ingrid was standing above them, trembling so terribly that the ice chattered in her glass and the carbonated water worked itself into a foam. She was glaring at Ann, and Ann was doing her best to pay no attention; it was Sammy who looked back at Ingrid, fastening his eyes on her with a kind of piercing incredulity.
“All right, all right,” Robert was saying, holding up his huge hands with ceremonial patience. “This is no way to carry on. For Hugh’s sake. Hugh, my God, he was a peaceful man. He’d be scandalized to hear us snarling at each other.” He glanced at his son and then gathered him in, draping his arm around him and holding him close. When Robert kissed his son’s hair, they both momentarily closed their eyes.
“It’s five o’clock,” Keith said, holding up his watch. “Pap’s ashes now. It’s all done.”
“Thank you very much,” said Ingrid’s sister. “We would have perished without the information.” She sensed sides were being drawn up and she wanted to assure Ingrid of her support.
Robert unbuttoned his green and white seersucker jacket. His chest was massive and there were ellipses of sweat on his jacket. He took a folded sheet of air-mail paper out of his inside pocket. He handed his drink to his son and Hugh strode over to the table to place it down, clearly pleased to be serving his father.