The Behavior of Love

by Virginia Reeves

  Karen is hitting her head against one of the poles of the swing set, methodical and hard. She stops as soon as Ed touches her shoulder, her smile as big as the sky. She skips toward a group of her friends, so quickly redirected.

  Ed then coaxes a twelve-year-old named Gregory off the top of the swing set and breaks up a slapping match between two thirty-year-olds. He watches Penelope corral Margaret and Barbara, shepherding them back to the pack.

  An aide comes out, some new young man whose name Ed hasn’t learned yet. Ed waves him over. “You need to stay out here with these patients until they go inside, do you understand? They can’t be out here unattended.”

  “Sure thing, Doctor.”

  Ed feels Penelope’s arm slip through his, sees the aide’s eyes take it in. Lets him look.

  “No one’s left alone outside. Got it?” His voice is more forceful than necessary. He’s posturing, proving his authority. He is the superintendent. He is running the damn place. He can link arms with whomever he chooses.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They walk past the convalescent cottage, and Ed can’t help but think about Caroline in there, pregnant and motionless in her bed. He shakes his head and makes himself think of his successes: He’s moved twenty-five patients from institutional to residential living—ten to their families, eleven to group homes, four to apartments of their own. He thinks of George at Thriftway. Belinda in the halls of the Mitchell Building.

  Ed and Penelope walk on. The cottages are empty, as they should be, patients in therapy and group time. He sees one of his therapists with a group of patients sitting in a circle in the grass, practicing speech patterns. The day is warm, not too hot. The sun comes and goes between white clouds. It feels like one of Laura’s paintings.

  They head toward the river, the welcoming sound of water. They are far from the others, out of sight down the slope of a hill.

  “I’m exhausted, Pen.”

  She touches his back, low near the waist. “You’re doing great work, Dr. Ed. You’re helping so many people.” He feels her hand slide along his body as she moves in front of him, but he isn’t registering her proximity, the intimacy. His mind is with Caroline and Phillip, real people he’s failed. And then Penelope’s face is before his, her hands on his neck, and he returns, sharply, immediately, all senses alive, a great firing of information—wind and sun, river noise and grass, Penelope’s face just inches from his own, her fingers digging into his neck at the base of his jaw, her mouth coming level with his, no words, and—no—her lips against his, the softest things he’s ever felt.

  “No!” He pushes her away so forcefully she stumbles.

  She comes back, her hands grabbing for the buttons on his shirt, the belt on his pants. He pushes them away, and they return, persistent flies, and then her hand slips inside his shorts, his excitement so obvious she laughs, and her mouth is against his neck, whispering, “It’s okay. I want to.”

  He has never turned away from the touch of a woman, and he gives himself a breath, a moment to bask in the manifestation of his yearnings. They could go to their knees in the grass. He could pull her pants from her hips, slip her underwear past her feet, yank her against him, take and take, until they’re both full and healed. One breath. One imagined moment.

  And then he is removing himself from her grip, the noise he emits not human, a gut-shot elk, running for the hope of cover, trailing its intestines, death ahead—slow and painful. He is far from her—five feet, six—shoving his shirt back in his pants, fastening those, cinching his belt.

  “Ed.”

  “Not that, Pen. Never that. I’m sorry I let it get this far.”

  Penelope stands where he left her, fists at her sides, chest proud. “You love me,” she says.

  “I love my wife, Pen. I love Laura.”

  “You love me, too.”

  He did this. He’s such an idiot.

  “Not like that,” he says.

  She walks past him, and he can’t chase after her, can’t make them into that spectacle. He forces himself to count to sixty before slowly walking back toward Griffin Hall.

  A young man named Leonard squats against the building, stabbing ants with a stick. He waves. “Hi. Doc. Tor. Ed.”

  “Hi, Leonard.” Ed enters through the side door, walks down the hall to his office, closes himself inside, slides to the ground, back against the door, head in his hands.

  The fear comes then. A young woman in his care put her hand in his pants, and he allowed it, if only for a moment. A good case could be made that he asked for it. His career is over, his marriage, his would-be family. He wants that life, the one he’s imagined for himself and Laura on Third Street, the smell of Laura’s paints, the chaos of children. He’s been imagining that life since he first saw her face. He leaped over a table for her, and when she ignored him, he leaped onto the stage of the bar to sing “Girl from the North Country.” She’d turned around and shouted, “How did you know?”

  It was her favorite song.

  He can’t lose her.

  But he is so afraid, and the fear conjures his babcia, that shriveled scarf-covered kernel of a woman with all her proverbs. There was a severity to her touch that established itself permanently as Ed’s first fear, her fingers like the dead frog he once found in the park—on its way toward tanned leather but still meaty and bony underneath. As a boy, Ed had become convinced that his babcia was indeed dead, forcing them all to share in her slow disintegration. Death seemed gradual, a sloughing off, a tapering out, its start hard to determine. The frog in the park was certainly dead—no longer breathing, its heart no longer pumping its cold amphibian blood through its desiccated body—but its death, Ed thought, had likely started long before he found it. It may have been swimming through the park’s pond, its webbed feet pushing against algae and weeds. It may have been sitting on the bank, catching bugs. It may have been ballooning its inflatable chest to attract a mate. The important thing, Ed insisted in his child’s mind, was that death was not diagnosable at its onset. The frog was dead, even while it had appeared alive. Babcia was dead, but no one cared. Edmund Malinowski is dead, but he is still sitting on the floor of his office, breathing.

  He stays there until the day goes away. He ignores Martha’s calls and knocks. He declines Pete’s shouts through the door for a beer. The institution hunkers around him, settling into its form of sleep.

  — —

  A week later, Ed calls Penelope’s parents.

  “Mr. Gatson?”

  “Speaking.” The man is skilled in the art of the ungreeting.

  “This is Dr. Malinowski, Penelope’s doctor out in Boulder. I was hoping you and Mrs. Gatson could come out for a visit. Penelope would love to see you, and I would love to sit down with you in person to discuss her discharge.” He won’t let the man refuse. “I insist we do this in person. I’m patching you through to my secretary to schedule the meeting.” Ed buzzes Martha and places Mr. Gatson on hold. Done.

  Next he has Martha retrieve Penelope.

  She sits down opposite him, the safety of the desk between them. She won’t look at him. They haven’t had an individual session since the incident by the river.

  But he’s figured out how to fix it—an outcome that will be good for them both, one he should’ve pursued months ago.

  “It’s time for you to go home,” he says.

  “You’re afraid what happened between us will happen again.”

  He was hoping she’d go the route he was—one of silence and forgetting. But he prepared himself for this response, too.

  “What happened was a mistake, Pen. On both our parts. I shouldn’t have let us get so close—”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Would you listen, please?”

  She scowls at him, and he’s scared of her anger. He believes Penelope cares about him, that she doesn’t want to harm him, but the devastation of jilted love—was it really love?—can overpower the strongest intentions. He doesn’t know
what she might do in retaliation.

  He doesn’t want to push her there.

  But she has to go.

  “You’re well enough to live outside this institution, Pen. You’ve been well enough for a while now. It’s been selfish and stupid of me to keep you here this long.”

  “See? You kept me. You.”

  “I should’ve insisted you leave sooner.”

  “But you kept me because you wanted to.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s out of my hands now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As part of the deinstitutionalization process we’re starting, all high-functioning patients are being returned to their communities. And even more—the state is no longer recognizing epilepsy as an indicator for institutionalization. Which is good. You and I both know you’re not among peers here.”

  He doesn’t tell her that he authored these changes himself just last week. The most recent draft of his proposal takes extra care to describe patient indicators for deinstitutionalization, and Penelope possesses every one of them. She is high-functioning and high-achieving. She is capable and able-bodied. And epilepsy should’ve been removed from the list long ago.

  Ed tells himself he’s simply writing good policy. If the policy aids this troublesome situation he’s gotten into, so be it.

  He watches Penelope sit with the news.

  “I could talk, you know,” she says.

  He prepared for this, too, though he’d hoped she wouldn’t play this card. He doesn’t want to have to play his.

  “Pen.”

  “I could tell everyone what happened between us. I could expose you.”

  Ed looks at Laura’s paintings on the wall, then at the framed photo of Laura he recently put on his desk. He lays his hands flat on the leather blotter before him. “And what would you say? That you stuck your hand in my pants and I pushed you away? You’d look like a lovesick fool, and I’d look like a doctor who was the unfortunate recipient of a patient’s misguided emotions.” He hates what he’s saying. Hates the way Penelope’s face is changing, the anger turning to disgust turning to sadness. But he has to do it. “If you said it was anything more than that, no one would believe you.”

  She looks away, and her voice is quiet again when she speaks. “This isn’t you, Ed. Pretend all you want, but I know better.” She’s standing now, her body growing with her voice, loud and tall. “I am better because of our time together. And you are, too.” She comes toward him, her hand catching his before he can get away.

  Just one more moment, he thinks, and then she’ll go. What’s one more moment going to hurt? He can see it clearly—his hands on her face and then her shirt, stripping her quickly, that perfect body exposed for him to cover and consume. Laura, a piece of his brain says. Laura and the baby and the house. Your career, another part whispers. Another: Prison. He hears his grandmother murmur, Co cialo lubi, to dusze zgubi. “Remember, Eddy, what likes the body will lose the soul.”

  You are in control, he tells himself. Take your hand away. Step back.

  He does these things and tells her, “Your parents are coming next week.”

  Penelope steps past him, swift steps to the door.

  Chapter 13

  — Laura —

  The baby rounds out of my belly like a giant stone. His limbs are sharp, and I picture him like one of Ed’s arrowheads, the point pressing into my stomach.

  Miranda loves it. “Customers always buy things from pregnant women. Just wait. Your sales are going to go way up.”

  And she is right. Everyone buys something, even the browsers who usually touch everything but leave empty-handed. Still, the day shifts are naturally slow, and I spend more time steaming and tagging clothes than I do selling them.

  I am in the back when the bell chimes. “Hello!” I call. “I’ll be right out!”

  A familiar male voice returns, “Hello!”

  It’s Tim with the dead mother. I have his thank-you card in my studio, and I have memorized the words inside. My mother always believed in the kindness of strangers. People were always doing things for her. But I never experienced any meaningful stranger moments before our meeting the other day. And now I know what she meant. Thank you. And then, at the bottom, in even smaller print: I hope I can buy you a drink sometime.

  I reread the card daily now. His handwriting is small and blocky, where Ed’s is loose and illegible.

  Tim is the tidy version of himself again. This version matches his handwriting, but I might prefer the disheveled one I first met.

  “You’re working,” he says.

  “I am.”

  It’s been at least a year since his mother’s death, and I have been working here longer than two.

  Ed still has no idea.

  “I walk by all the time, but I can never see you through the window, and I can’t get the nerve to come in.”

  I have an armful of dresses to hang. “Are you in need of women’s clothing?”

  He laughs. “No.”

  I haven’t been able to recognize flirtation since Ed brazenly wooed me away from Danny, but this must be it. The card. Walking by all the time. Steeling his nerve to come inside.

  I’m flattered.

  And then I turn to him, the dresses all hung, and he sees my belly.

  “Oh!” he shouts, and I can’t help but smile.

  “Not what you expected?”

  “No. I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything. I mean, I was hoping—” His discomfort is consuming him, poor man, but then he swallows and stares at me. “I was hoping I could buy you that drink. But that’s probably not appropriate given your—situation.”

  “The doctor says drinking is just fine, so long as I keep it under a six-pack a day.” I am being ridiculous and unkind. He probably wants to turn and run, and here I am flirting back. I put my hands on my belly and say, “Listen, Tim. It’s sweet of you to follow through on your offer, but I’m sure you weren’t expecting to find me six months pregnant, so you’re off the hook, all right?”

  He looks relieved, but then he shakes his head and takes a couple steps toward me. “It’s not a date,” he says. “It’s a belated thank-you for your help.”

  I’m confused. Is he really that nice a guy to buy a woman a drink with no hope of getting laid? And am I that woman?

  I’m quiet too long, and he starts into nervous rambling again. “I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was just so taken with your kindness, and I just wanted to thank you—really. Just a thank-you. But I completely understand if it’s a bad idea. I’ll just leave you alone and—”

  “I’d love to have a drink with you, Tim. I’m done here at five.”

  “Great!” he shouts, clearly terrified.

  — —

  We talk for hours, like old friends. My belly is gone, my marriage. I am only a woman at a bar with a man. We talk about our dead parents, his brokenhearted father, childhood, high school, work. He’s an architect and a builder.

  “I did construction in college and realized how much I missed it once I started spending my days at a desk. So now I do the designs and the building both.”

  I tell him about painting. I tell him how much I love working at the store. I don’t tell him about my art classes in Boulder because I don’t want to talk about Ed. My ring is obvious enough on my finger.

  It’s eight-thirty when I leave the bar, assuring Tim I’m fine to drive. I only had three glasses of wine. I drive myself home in the stupid car Ed bought me, “practically brand-new and yellow—your favorite color. And it’s an automatic. I know clutches make you nervous.” He was so proud of the gift that he nearly convinced me his motivations were noble—a present for his wife, nothing more. But I know he bought the car to free himself of me, to regain his Tuesday drives to and from Boulder. “You like it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I lied. “It’s lovely.”

  The whole house is lit when I get home, and I’m not even out of the car before Ed is there shouting. “Je
sus, Laura! Are you all right? Where the hell have you been? I’ve been knocking on the neighbors’ doors. Pete and Bonnie are out looking for you. I was just about to call the police.”

  I laugh. It’s all I can do in the face of such irony. I laugh and laugh until it turns into a bitter finger pointed at Ed’s chest. “You were just about to call the police? Because I’m home at eight-thirty? Because I missed dinner? Oh, God! Clearly, something must be horribly, terribly wrong for me to stay away from home so late. There must have been an accident. Or a tragedy. Maybe my parents were killed. Oh, but they’re already dead. Maybe I was murdered! Kidnapped. The possibilities are endless. Right, Ed? I mean, why would someone stay away so late if not for an emergency?”

  He is trying to talk over me, trying to calm me. “Okay, Laura. I see what you’re doing. But I have responsibilities outside the house, and you—”

  “Responsibilities that require you to go to the bar nearly every day with the boys? Well, maybe I have those responsibilities now, too.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  We are shouting too loudly for the street. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back at the bar with Tim, talking about the life I thought I’d have. Some critic picking my work out of the undergraduate showcase, hanging it in her New York gallery, spreading my name across the globe. Fame and maybe a little fortune. A marriage full of laughter and food and drink. Travel. Children with the expectation that I keep working.

  “Doesn’t sound so impossible,” Tim said.

  “Yeah, but the critic didn’t pick me. She picked Tabitha Howser, who was nothing but a Georgia O’Keeffe knockoff, all vagina flowers. Tabitha’s doing well, just had another opening in New York, and here I am in Helena, Montana.”

  “I know I haven’t seen your work, but I guarantee it’s better than vagina flowers.” He raised his glass.

  “What are we toasting?”

  “Your career.”

  I can’t remember the last time I talked about my career with Ed.

  “Are you at least going to tell me where you’ve been?” he asks.