by Wally Lamb
The downstairs lights were off, the dogs wandering around outside like orphans. I figured she must have forgotten they were still out when she went to bed. The downstairs TV was on, and so was one of the burners on the stove—a blue ring of flame heating nothing. The message machine was blinking.
Beep. “Hello? Mr. Quirk? This is Ulysses Pappinikou calling. I got your number from the guy at the bakery. I just wanted to tell ya that if you can find it in your heart to—”
I hit “skip.” Didn’t have the strength.
Beep. “Hi, there! This is Cyndi Pixley from Century Twenty-One returning Maureen Quirk’s call? Sure, I’d love to come out there and do a walk-through and an appraisal. You just call me tomorrow, and we’ll set up a time. And thanks! Can’t wait to meet you!” I recognized the name—Cyndi Pixley’s perky face showed up every week in the real estate circular. Mo had called her?
Beep. “Hi, Ma. It’s Velvet. Just thought I’d call and see how you were doin’. I’m in Louisiana. This town called Slidell. It’s near New Orleans. I got a job cleaning rooms at this skeezy motel. It’s—what? Wait a second, Mom, okay?…KEITH, PEACE OUT! I’M ON THE FUCKIN’ PHONE!…What?…Okay. Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Keith. Hey, Ma? I gotta go.”
Beep.
Well, whoever Keith was, he sounded like a creep. I went upstairs. She was in the bathroom, in her pajamas. She was studying her face in the mirror—opening and closing her mouth like a fish.
“Hey,” I said.
The prescription vial she’d been holding went flying. Pills rolled everywhere. “Jesus Christ! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“My nerves aren’t bad enough, Caelum? Is that it? You have to—”
“Mo, come on. I—”
“Asshole!” She was on her knees, snatching up the pills she’d spilled. I bent to help her. “No!” she said. “I’ll get them! Just get out!”
But I was already holding a Xanax between my thumb and index finger. “You’re not supposed to be taking these anymore,” I said. I grabbed her wrist and pried her fingers apart. When the vial dropped from her hand, I snatched it before she could. Read the label. “Who’s Dr. Radwill?” I said.
THE NEXT MORNING, SHE WAS sullen—and pissed as hell that I’d flushed her new supply down the toilet.
“You have no idea what this is like for me,” she said.
“No, Maureen, I guess I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand aside and let you develop a drug addiction.”
She told me I could go to hell.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “And what’s this Cyndi Pixley stuff?”
She said she’d called Cyndi Pixley after Sergeant Cox and Detective Chin’s latest drop-by. Even after that letter from Dr. Cid, they were still putting pressure on her about that interview. Maybe if we moved away, she’d feel safer, less assaulted by it, day after day after day. She was pretty sure she would. The farmhouse was just sitting there, right? What was keeping us here?
“Our jobs,” I said. “Our house. Our friends.”
“What friends?”
I ignored the whack. “How about your family, then?” I said. “We moved back here so you could be nearer to your family.”
“My father,” she said. “And he doesn’t give a shit about me.”
She played Velvet Hoon’s message over and over. “Why Louisiana?” she said. “And who’s Keith? She sounds afraid of him.”
“Velvet’s not your responsibility,” I reminded her. “You’re your responsibility.”
“You know what I wish? That they had spared one of those kids’ lives and killed me instead.”
I grabbed my car keys. “I can’t listen to this,” I said.
“Why not? Because that’s what you wish, too?”
A better man would have stayed and comforted her. Instead, I slammed the door. Revved the engine to drown out the sound of her sobbing in there. If I didn’t get the fuck away, my head was going to explode.
I drove around for a couple of hours, burning up half a tank of gas and thinking about the irony of it: me arguing in favor of staying put, and her arguing that we should move back to Connecticut. But that farm without Lolly was…what? A bunch of bad memories and a house full of junk. One headache after another, starting with that goddamned apple house.
Filling up at the Mobil station, I watched a cabbage butterfly flutter above a pot of yellow marigolds, then light on one of the flowers and flap its wings. Looked innocent enough, but maybe it was starting a domino effect—triggering a disaster in some other part of the world…. Maybe I’d sell the farm. Be rid of the burden of it.
A big-ass Jeep pulled up to the pump next to mine, blasting rap. Guy cut the engine, climbed out. One of those twenty-something guys with the requisite shaved head and earring, the tattooed forearms. I was trying to remember where I knew him from when he caught me looking. “What’s up?” he said.
“What’s up?” I said. Then I remembered. He’d stood and spoken at Pastor Pete’s grief counseling session. The substitute—the guy whose girlfriend had gotten pregnant. When the shooting started, he’d hidden in a stall in the staff bathroom. They’d banged open the door, rapped on the stall. “Yoo hoo! We know you’re in there!” At the grief meeting, he said he’d been unhappy about the baby at first, but then glad about it. Said he was going to be the best father he could be.
When I asked him how the pregnancy was going, he looked a little taken aback. “The grief counseling session at the church,” I explained.
“Oh. Right. She’s starting to show.” My pump clicked off. I hung up the nozzle, screwed my gas cap back on. “You have kids?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I’m scared,” he said.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you usually confessed to someone at the gas station, but what happened at Columbine had changed all of the rules. Turned everything upside down. I mean, look at me, telling Maureen we should stay in Colorado.
“Scared of what?” I said.
“Being a dad.”
“Not that I’m an expert,” I said. “But I think most prospective parents—”
He cut me off. “From what I read, they came from good homes. Had decent parents, enough money. Paper said the Klebolds had a swimming pool, a tennis court, a basketball court.” I nodded. Watched that cabbage butterfly float above his head, then land on his shoulder. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s cool to think about having a son. Taking him fishing, taking him to his first Nuggets game. But what if it’s born with all its fingers and toes, and her and I give him a good life, and, in spite of all that, he turns out to be…”
“A monster?”
He nodded. Noticed the butterfly and shooed it away.
“I guess you just do your best,” I said. “And realize that the rest is a crap shoot. But for what it’s worth, I’ve been teaching high school for a long time. Worked with a lot of untroubled kids and a lot of troubled ones. Those two were the only two monsters I ever came across. So the odds are with you.”
He nodded pensively.
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “When you went in that day? Who were you subbing for?”
He shrugged. “Some English teacher. He had a death in the family. Name began with a Q, I think.”
CYNDI PIXLEY LISTED OUR HOUSE at one eighty-nine, nine, but warned us we’d most likely have to come down. People with kids weren’t exactly champing at the bit to buy property in Littleton. She advertised it as “a charming cottage with warmth and flair—ideal for empty-nesters!”
The Paisleys—empty-nesters, sure enough—offered us one eighty-five, with two stipulations: that we leave behind our “window treatments” and postpone the closing until they could sell their home in Arkansas. We agreed. And they agreed to our only stipulation—Maureen’s, actually. For a year after they took occupancy, they were to post at both the front and back doors our new address and phone number. In the unlikely event Velvet r
eturned to Littleton and came looking for us, Maureen wanted her to know where we could be found.
We quit our jobs, gave our plants to the Kirbys, and brought three carloads over to Goodwill. Dr. Cid called some East Coast colleagues, who called colleagues of theirs. At their fourth and final session, Maureen was given the names and numbers of doctors in Connecticut who could help her with her recovery. “Moving away won’t be enough,” Dr. Cid warned Mo. “The fear and the anger will travel right along with you. You have to keep working hard.” Maureen had been taking Zoloft for about a month by then—with little to no effect, she claimed. The Xanax had made her feel much better.
Three nights before we departed, Maureen’s father insisted on hosting a farewell dinner for his “little girl” at his and Evelyn’s favorite steak house in Denver. Cheryl, her husband Barry, and their daughter Amber were to have joined us, but they begged off at the last minute. Arthur was put out that Maureen ordered only salad and a cup of tea. “Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you,” he sang, somewhere between his second and third Macallan. The Barracuda said it was “just plain silly” of us not to have consulted her before listing our house; she did business with Denver-area realtors all the time and, as a professional courtesy, could have most likely saved us the realtor’s commission. “Which would be a bigger deal for you than it is for us,” I told her, more to knock her off her high horse than anything else. She whacked me right back, though—said she didn’t realize schoolteachers had so much money to burn. Arthur reminded us three different times that his travel agent, Misty, was standing by to hear from us about the Disney cruise. When we got up to leave, he took Mo’s hand in his and kissed it, as if he were some genteel country gentleman instead of the scumbag he really was.
“Well, that’s over with,” I said, in the car on the way home.
“Thank God,” she said, her voice full of tears. “I wish we’d never moved back here.”
Our vet gave Sophie and Chet treats, good-bye kisses, and dog-chew tranquilizers for the long ride home. We put the Rockies to our backs and left Littleton in the predawn darkness on a Monday morning during the third week of July. Drove across the flat green belly of Kansas and into Missouri, listening to country music, books on tape, evangelists’ warnings of coming doom. We stayed that first night in St. Louis, at a motel that allowed dogs. (If you’re ever at a restaurant there and see crab cakes on the menu? Take my advice: order something else, unless you want to get up close and personal with your Holiday Inn toilet bowl.) We got off to a later-than-expected start on the second day—made it as far as Cleveland. Mo and the dogs flopped back on the motel beds, and I hightailed it over to the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. Got in an hour or so before they closed for the day. Next day, we drove horizonally across Pennsylvania and into upstate New York. We hit Springfield, Massachusetts, during the five o’clock rush hour. Stopped for supper at a Friendly’s in Hartford. It was a little before nine p.m. by the time I drove through downtown Three Rivers, crossed the viaduct, passed the casino, and took the right onto Ice House, the left onto Bride Lake. Great-Grandma’s prison was in silhouette, a blood orange sunset behind it. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, I heard Aunt Lolly say. Heard my mother, singing in church. Praise the Holy Trinity, undivided unity…Heard my father, in love or in ridicule: Rosemary Kathleen Sullivan, my wild Irish rose. I heard the smash of Great-Grandma’s soup tureen out in the kitchen and saw, again, from my post at the parlor window, my father storming away from us, Grandpa’s liquor bottle in hand. Why was it that I had loved him, the parent who’d cut me loose, more than her, the parent who’d stayed? It was a question I’d carried into middle age. Maybe now that I was back home again, I’d finally figure that one out. Or maybe I’d finally just let it go and get on with it.
I put my blinker on. Drove up the gravel driveway to the house and all its ghosts. The Rocky Mountains were far, far away now, and Columbine High School was part of our past. For better or worse, I had come back home, with my barking dogs in the backseat and my sleeping, stricken wife beside me.
PART TWO
Mantis
chapter fourteen
BIOGRAPHY QUESTIONNAIRE—SECTION A
Instructions: The following questions concern background information prior to your traumatic event. Please read each question carefully and answer as accurately as you can remember. Do not skip any questions.
Name: Maureen Quirk
Present age: 41
Date of birth: March 26, 1959
Place of birth: Syracuse, N.Y.
City and State or Country
When did the traumatic event occur?
_____ Less than two weeks ago
_____ Two weeks to one month ago
_____ One to three months ago
_____ Three to six months ago
_____ Six months to one year ago
One year to eighteen months ago
_____ Eighteen months to two years ago
_____ Longer than two years ago
Race or ethnicity
_____ American Indian or Alaskan Native
_____ Asian or Pacific-Island American
_____ Mexican-American
_____ Black
White
How many brothers and sisters do you have?
_____ Brothers
1 Sisters (half sister)
_____ None
Were you the oldest child, youngest child, or in between?
Oldest (Never lived with my half sister—pretty much an only child)
The _____ oldest of_______
_____ Youngest
What was the size of the city or town in which you lived?
_____ Under 5,000
_____ 5,000–25,000
25,000–100,000 We lived in several places while I was growing up, mostly suburbs of larger cities (father in business)
_____ 249,999–One Million+
How much schooling have you had?
_____ Completed grade school or less
____ Some high school
_____ Completed high school
_____ Some college
_____ Completed college
_____ Some post-graduate work
Completed postgraduate work (Nursing administration)
_____ Completed Ph.D.
Through high school, how many different towns or cities did you live in? 6 or 7
What is your present employment status?
_____ Employed full-time
_____ Employed part-time (and want it this way)
_____ Employed part-time (but don’t like it this way)
_____ Unemployed (but actively looking for a job)
Unemployed (and not looking for a job) Not yet—want to work when I feel more in control and I’m not in so much physical pain
_____ Laid off
What is your approximate annual income before taxes?
_____ $0–$10,000
$10,000–$25,000 (was)
_____ $25,000–$50,000
_____ $50,000–$100,000
_____ More than $100,000
Were you married at the time of the traumatic event?
Yes
_____ No
If yes to the above, how long had you been married? 12 years
Did you have any children at the time the traumatic event occurred?
_____ Yes
No
What is your present marital status?
_____ Single
_____ Married (never divorced)
Married (previously divorced)
_____ Married (previously widowed)
_____ Separated
_____ Divorced and still single
_____ Divorced, living with partner
_____ Living with partner
_____ Common law marriage
Present number of children: 0
BIOGRAPHY QUESTIONNAIRE—SECTION B
Instructions: Check those problems (if any) which happened to you prior to your having experienced t
he traumatic event.
_____ Sexual abuse
Physical abuse (first husband—only twice)
Verbal abuse first husband—when he was drinking
Truancy (“cut” school more than 5 days a year) Ran away with boyfriend
_____ Expulsion or suspension from school (senior yr. h.s. gone for 1 week)
_____ Delinquency (arrested or appeared in Juvenile Court)
_____ Running away from home on more than one occasion (just that one time)
_____ Persistent lying
Frequent sexual intercourse in casual relationships (In high school, college)
Getting drunk or using drugs regularly in h.s.—much less in college
Thefts (stealing for fun) freshman year of h.s. (shoplifting)
_____ Vandalism (for fun)
_____ Poor grades in school
_____ Frequent violation of rules at home, school, or work
_____ Initiation of fights
_____ Walking off jobs because you got angry
_____ Being negligent as a parent
_____ Engaging in illegal occupations
Being reckless and getting into trouble because of it (somewhat in h.s.)
_____ Moving frequently without prior planning
_____ Persistent conning, manipulating, or exploiting others for personal gain
_____ Experiencing conflicts with authority figures (e.g., boss, teacher, police)
_____ Expectation of trickery or harm from others
_____ Continually being on the lookout for signs of threat
A need to be guarded or secretive in your affairs (somewhat)