Martin wasn’t done. Jonah seemed fascinated, his eyes wide as his father ranted.
“Even if you said that you hated Jews, too, and that Jews were evil and caused all the suffering in the world, they would look at you and know for sure that you were Jewish, for sure! Buddy, champ, mister”—just spitting these names at his son—“because only a Jew, they would say, only a Jew would betray his own people like that.”
Jonah looked at him. “I understand,” he said. He didn’t seem shaken. He didn’t seem disturbed. Had he heard? How could he really understand?
The boy picked up the book and thumbed through it.
“This is just a different point of view. You always say that I should have an open mind, that I should think for myself. You say that to me all the time.”
“Yes, I do. You’re right.” Martin was trembling.
“Then do I have your permission to keep reading it?”
“No, you absolutely don’t. Not this time. Permission denied.”
Rachel was shaking her head.
“Do you see what he’s reading? Do you see it?” he shouted.
He waved the book at her, and she just looked at him with no expression at all.
After the kids were in bed, and the house had been quietly put back together, Rachel said they needed to talk.
Yes, we do, he thought, and about time.
“Honestly,” she said. “It’s upsetting that he had that book, but the way you spoke to him? I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not for you to say. You’re his mom, not mine. You want to file papers? You want to seek custody? Good luck, Mrs. Freeze. I’m his father. And you didn’t hear it. You didn’t hear it all. You have no fucking idea.”
“I heard it, and I heard you. Martin, you need help. You’re, I don’t know, depressed. You’re self-pitying. You think everything is some concerted attack on you. For the record, I am worried about Jonah. Really worried. Something is seriously wrong. There is no debate there. But you’re just the worst possible partner in that worry—the fucking worst—because you make everything harder, and we can’t discuss it without analyzing your feelings. You act wounded and hurt, and we’re all supposed to feel sorry for you. For you! This isn’t about you. So shut down the pity party already.”
When this kind of talk came on, Martin knew to listen. This was the scold she’d been winding up for, and if he could endure it, and cop to it, there might be some release and clarity at the other end. A part of him found these outbursts from Rachel thrilling, and in some ways it was possible that he co-engineered them, without really thinking about it. Performed the sullen and narcissistic dance moves that, over time, would yield this kind of eruption from her. His wife was alive. She cared. Even if it seemed that she might sort of hate him.
He circled the house for a while, cooling off, letting the attack—no, no, the truth—settle. Any argument or even discussion to the contrary would just feed her point and read as the defensive bleating of a cornered man. Any speech, that is, except admission, contrition, and apology, the three horsemen.
Which was who he brought back into the room with him.
Rachel was in bed reading, eyes locked onto the page. She didn’t seem even remotely ready to surrender her anger.
“Hey, listen,” Martin said. “So I know you’re mad, but I just want to say that I agree with everything you said. I’m scared and I’m worried and I’m sorry.”
He let this settle. It needed to spread, to sink in. She needed to realize that he was agreeing with her.
It was hard to tell, but it seemed that some of her anger, with nothing to meet it, was draining out.
“And,” he continued. He waited for her to look up, which she finally did. “You’ll think I’m kidding, and I know you don’t even want to hear this right now, but it’s true, and I have to say it. It made me a little bit horny to hear all that.”
She shook her head at the bad joke, which at least meant there was room to move here.
“Shut up,” she said.
This was the way in. He took it.
“You shut up.”
“Sorry to yell, Martin. I am. I just—this is so hard. I’m sorry.”
She probably wasn’t. This was simply the script back in, to the two of them united, and they both knew it. One day, one of them would choose not to play. It would be so easy not to say their lines.
“No, it’s okay,” he said to her, climbing onto the bed. “I get it. Listen, let’s take the little man to the shop. Get him fixed. I’ll call some doctors in the morning.”
They hugged. An actual hug, between two consenting people. A novelty in this house.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m terrified. I don’t know what’s happening. I look at him and want so much to just grab him, but he’s not there anymore. What has he done to himself?”
“Maybe he just needs minor surgery. Does that work on 9/11 truthers?”
“Oh, look,” she said to him softly. “You’re back. The real you. We missed you.”
They talked a little and snuggled closer to each other in bed. For a moment, their good feeling came on them—a version of it, anyway. It felt mild and transitory, but he would take it. It was nice. He was in bed with his wife, and they would figure this out.
“Listen,” he said to her. “Do you want to just shag a pony right now, get back on track?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel gross. I feel depressed.”
“I feel gross, too. Let’s do it. Two gross people licking each other’s buttons.”
She went to the bathroom and got the jar of enabler. They took their positions on the bed.
He hoped he could. He hoped he could. He hoped he could.
He was cold and insecure, so he left his shirt on. And his socks.
They used a cream. They used their hands. They used an object or two. During the brief strain of actual fornication they persisted with casual conversation about the next day’s errands. In the early days of their marriage, this had seemed wicked and sexy, some ironic ballast against the animal greed. Now it just seemed efficient, and the animal greed no longer appeared. Minus the wet spot at the end, and the minor glow one occasionally felt, their sex wasn’t so different from riding the subway.
It turned out that there was a deep arsenal of medical professionals who would be delighted to consult on the problem of a disturbed child. Angry, depressed, anxious, remote, bizarre. Even a Jew-hating Jewish child who might very well be dead inside. Only when his parents looked at him, though. Only when his parents spoke to him. Important parameter for the differential.
They zeroed in on recommendations with the help of a high-level participant in this world, a friend named Maureen, whose three exquisitely exceptional children had consumed, and spat back out, various kinds of psych services ever since they could walk. Each of the kids seemed to romance a different diagnosis every month, so Maureen had a pretty good idea of who fixed what and for how much goddam moolah.
When they told her, in pale terms, about Jonah, she, as a connoisseur of alienating behavior from the young, got excited.
“This is so The Fifth Child,” she said. “Did you guys read that? I mean, you probably shouldn’t read that. But did you? It’s like a fiction novel. I don’t think it really happened. But it’s still fascinating.”
Rachel had read it. Happy couple with four children and perfect life have fifth child, leading to less-perfect life. Much, much, much, much less perfect. Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, grief, and sorrow. Not really life at all.