The Condition

by Jennifer Haigh

  And it helped. When Billy worried—about his patients, his tricky IT bands that acted up a week before a race, an impending visit with his neurotic family—Sri’s face was a silent reminder: stop, stop.

  Billy made a quick tour of the apartment—cleaning, straightening—and headed into the kitchen. He scrubbed down and began chopping—carrots, celery, scallions, ginger. Sri would be home in two hours, and Billy intended to surprise him with dinner, something he rarely did. He wasn’t a bad cook—you didn’t live alone for ten years without learning to flip an omelet—but most of his old repertoire was now off-limits. His arteries were nearing forty, and he couldn’t spike his blood with sat fat the way he once had. He had learned to love the freshness of Sri’s cooking, the way you could detect the delicate flavors of foods you didn’t think had any: rice, lettuce, milk. This would be delicious the old way, Sri sometimes said wistfully as he sampled a dish. His grandmother had cooked with ghee, a notion Billy found appalling.

  It’s better this way, he told Sri. We’ll live forever.

  What he meant, but didn’t say: I want to grow old with you.

  Even thinking the words had unleashed a tide of feeling in him; he didn’t trust himself to speak. His love for Sri ambushed him at odd moments. Last week, when their clean laundry was delivered, he’d spent a long moment placing Sri’s things in his bureau, profoundly moved by the neat stacks of folded jeans and T-shirts, the soft piles of his lover’s clothes.

  He’d recalled that feeling as he watched Sri packing, the rough, angry way he’d stuffed clothes into his overnight bag, oblivious to the care that had gone into folding them, the young Chinese girl creasing them with delicate hands.

  It’s just for a couple of days, Billy had said. And then, disingenuously: I’m worried about her. I have to make sure she’s okay.

  Sri had silenced him with a look. They both knew this wasn’t the point. By all means, take care of your sister, the look said. But why must you kick me to the curb?

  They’d parted without kissing good-bye. “I’ll call you,” Sri said over his shoulder.

  But he hadn’t called.

  For two days Billy had distracted himself with Gwen’s problems. Now his anxiety returned in a wave. Nursing his sister through heartbreak was taxing enough, strange and awkward and worrying enough. Would she confide in him? Expect wise counsel? Dear God, was she going to cry? The presence of his boyfriend would have heaped on more strangeness. Yet Gwen had seemed surprised by his absence. “Where’s Sri?” she’d asked the moment she walked through the door.

  It was true, what Sri often said: he was terrified of change.

  He was thinking such thoughts when the telephone rang.

  “Hey,” he said breathlessly.

  “Billy?” His mother sounded puzzled. “Dear, I can’t believe you answer the phone that way.”

  “Sorry,” he said, flustered. “I was in the middle of something.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. How did it go with your sister? I’ve been so concerned about her.”

  Here we go, Billy thought. His own fault: he had told Paulette that Gwen would be visiting. He had brought this on himself.

  He settled into the sofa. “She seemed a little—stunned, I guess.”

  “Did she tell you anything? Of course I’m delighted to have her back, but I’d love to know what happened. What changed her mind?”

  Rico wasn’t the person I thought he was, Gwen had explained.

  “She didn’t say much. They had a fight, I guess.”

  “How did she look?”

  “Different,” he said thoughtfully. Walking to the diner Saturday morning, they had passed a hip hair salon, and for a moment he’d considered dragging Gwen inside—her hair was long enough, finally, that a stylist would have something to work with. But he had stopped himself. The gesture would have been far too gay.

  “Darling, that’s not very helpful. Can you at least tell me what she was wearing?”

  Typical Paulette.

  “The usual,” Billy said.

  “Oh, dear.” She paused. “And what about work? Can she get her job back?”

  “She doesn’t want to.” She’d sooner work the drive-through window at a burger joint, she told Billy, than go back to the Stott. Maybe I’ll finish my dissertation, she said without enthusiasm. I haven’t figured it out yet.

  Billy heard a strange whirring at the other end of the line. “What is that noise?”

  “A saw, I believe. Your brother is in the backyard cutting some wood.”

  “Scott?”

  “Yes, dear. He’s been here all weekend, working. I can’t tell you what a relief it is, to have something done about the porch.”

  “Scott?” Billy repeated.

  “He’s doing a magnificent job. I didn’t realize how complicated it was to do an authentic period restoration. Your brother has done quite a lot of research.”

  Billy frowned. His brother doing anything constructive—hell, anything not patently destructive—was hard to imagine.

  “That’s great, Mom,” he said, eyeing the clock. “Tell him I said hi.”

  More whirring, followed by a shrieking.

  “Tell him yourself, if you like. He’s eager to talk with you.”

  Oh, Jesus, Billy thought. He waited.

  “Hey, Bill,” Scott huffed, sniffling. “Mom said you saw Gwen.”

  “She was here for the weekend.” He was struck by the oddness of the situation: his brother was in Concord with their mother, and Billy himself was not. Except for his grudging holiday visits, wife and rug rats in tow, Scott hadn’t visited in Concord in years.

  “What happened, man?” Scott demanded. “That dirtbag kicked her out?”

  “Um, no,” Billy said, a little confused. “She left him, apparently.”

  “She did.” Scott’s tone was skeptical, as though he knew otherwise. As though Billy had gotten it all wrong. “O-Kay. Why would she do that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Billy hesitated. “I got the impression that he was up to something—illegal, maybe. And Gwen caught wind of it.”

  “No shit,” said Scott. “What exactly did she say?”

  “‘He wasn’t the person I thought he was.’ Something like that.” Billy paused. “You met the guy. Could he have been some kind of criminal? A drug dealer maybe?”

  “That’s an interesting question,” Scott said expansively, as though warming up for an oration on the subject. There was something oddly familiar in his tone—a self-importance, a leisurely appreciation of the sound of his own voice. For a moment he sounded just like their father. “He was definitely nervous. You should have seen the look on his face when I showed up out of the blue. He was shitting his pants. Of course he was on good behavior with me. The brother from the States. But there was something slippery about him. A little too smooth, if you know what I mean. A drug dealer?” He paused as if weighing the matter. “Yeah, it’s possible. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”

  Thank you for your expert opinion, Billy thought.

  “Anyway, all’s well that ends well,” said Scott.

  Billy thought of Gwen as she’d looked when she’d appeared on his doorstep, her eyes swollen, as though she’d spent the whole flight from Pittsburgh crying like a child. No, not a child: the sorrow had remodeled her face in ways that seemed permanent. As though, like a war widow, she’d been crying for months or years.

  “What are you doing there, anyway?” Billy asked. “Fixing Mom’s porch?”

  Scott laughed, a low, hearty chuckle. “I wish it were so simple. The porch is beyond repair. I’m starting from scratch here, Bill, and given the historical value of the house, I want to get it exactly right. It matters, you know? I mean, for the National Register of Historic Places—”

  “The house is on the register?”

  “No, but it should be. Josiah Hobhouse and all. I’m looking into nominating it. But one thing at a time, you know? Anyway, long story short—”

  Too l
ate for that, Billy thought.

  “I met this carpenter the other day—he knows Mom, actually—and he does nothing but historic restorations, on the Vineyard mostly. He’s walking me through the whole process, which materials to use—”

  “That’s great, Scotty. Listen, I have to run. I have something on the stove.”

  “You’re cooking?” Scott whistled. “Say no more. She must be something.”

  “Must be,” Billy agreed. “Good luck with everything, and give Mother a kiss from me.”

  He hung up the phone, aware that he hadn’t said a proper good-bye to his mother, a delicate extrication that usually took ten minutes or more. He felt a little relieved, a little lost.

  In the kitchen he resumed chopping. His whole life his brother had seemed so much younger—a toddler in diapers when Billy started Little League, a pot-smoking delinquent when Billy was busting his ass in med school. Then Scott came back from California with a wife and kids, and suddenly Billy had felt old. For the first time in years, he found himself imagining the life he might have had with Lauren McGregor, or someone like her. It was nothing he pined for. Family life, that grimy jumble: tiring and chaotic on a good day; on a bad one, a nerve-shearing slice of hell. Watching his kid brother wrangle two children of his own, Billy had suffered a series of realizations. That his own choices—like Scotty’s, like Gwen’s—were binding. That like a grave illness, adulthood had befallen all three of them. That fortuitously or not, their courses in life had been set, the only lives they were going to get.

  SRI ARRIVED at seven, ever prompt. “What’s all this?” he said, peering into the kitchen.

  “Dinner.” Billy leaned in to kiss him. “I thought I’d feed you, for once.”

  “I can’t stay.”

  Billy noticed, then, that he wasn’t carrying his overnight bag.

  “Why not?” he asked, though he already knew. Had known it, in some way, all weekend: his stomach, his nerves, the jangle and hum.

  “It’s better this way,” said Sri.

  “How?” Billy’s voice cracked, surprising him. “How is it better?”

  Sri sat on the edge of the couch, but did not settle in. He moved differently in the apartment, as though he were a visitor. As though he had already gone.

  “I made a mistake,” Billy began haltingly. “Asking you to leave. I missed you constantly. Gwen would have loved to see you.”

  “So it’s not Gwen,” Sri said softly. “It’s you.”

  “It’s complicated with Gwen. It always has been.” How to explain his weird protectiveness, the fact that, until a car accident knocked him unconscious, his sister had never met a single one of his friends? His impulse, always, was to hide her, to shield her from embarrassing questions. He hadn’t spoken to his cousin Mimi in years; she’d taken up permanent residence on his shit list for inquiring about Gwen’s health. At fifteen he’d started the only fist fight of his life, over a stupid joke: Warren Marsh, the twerp next door, calling Gwen his leetle seester in a Peter Sellers accent, a high squeaky voice.

  “I’ve been doing it forever,” Billy said. “Keeping things separate. My parents separate from my friends. Gwen separate from everything. It’s just the way my family is.”

  “So you’re not ashamed of me,” said Sri.

  “Of course not,” Billy lied, knowing that he was, in fact, ashamed of everything: of Sri, of Gwen, and of himself. That he was globally ashamed.

  “It’s hard to explain,” he said slowly. “If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t tell my mother that either. And she would never ask. She wouldn’t lean across the dinner table and ask, Billy, are you dating someone? The whole subject is off-limits. Because if she asked me that question, she would have to ask Gwen.”

  “So your whole family is in the closet,” said Sri.

  “So to speak.” Billy agreed.

  “How is Gwen?”

  “Heartbroken.” Like me, Billy thought. We are both heartbroken.

  He would realize later that he should have said it. The latest on a long list of things he should have said.

  I love you. Don’t leave me.

  Mother, I’m

  Dad, I’m

  Lauren, I’m

  Yes, I am.

  “Your family is not simple,” Sri said. “Mine isn’t either, I suppose—what’s left of it. But they’re very far away. And I’ve been gone so long that I no longer care what they think.”

  “I don’t care either,” Billy said, too quickly. “My family. I don’t care what they think.” As he said it he heard how absurd it was. The biggest lie—among many—he’d told in his life.

  “I’m tired of being temporary,” said Sri. “We’ve been a temporary couple for four years. If it were up to you, we’d be one for the rest of our lives.” He frowned. “It’s as if you’re waiting for something to change. You like to believe you can still change your mind.”

  “But I hate change. You say that all the time.”

  “Yes. But you like the illusion that change is possible. That’s the thing you can’t give up.”

  “Listen to me,” Billy said. “It can be different. I can—”

  “—change.” Sri smiled broadly, as though Billy had said something extraordinarily funny. He pressed a fist to his eye. He seemed delighted and furious and ready to weep.

  chapter 8

  Scott had become an early riser. His whole life he had cursed the alarm clock, but now something inside him had shifted. He made a game of creeping silently out of bed, careful not to wake Penny. There was a plush satisfaction in landing at Ruxton at sunrise, a full hour before Rick O’Kane. Unlocking the door to his office, eyeing the plastic toys decorating Jordan’s desk, he felt a calm mastery of his time and surroundings. Dashiell Blodgett: Conquer your environment before it conquers you.

  He didn’t waste these precious early hours grading papers. Mornings were for his own projects. He had borrowed from the library a half dozen books on building and architecture: Residences of Olde New England, Maintaining Your Historic Home. Fueled by coffee—he picked up a Styrofoam bucket each morning at Dunkin’ Donuts—he pored over them tirelessly. The porch completed, he’d identified several other projects at his mother’s house that needed his attention. The west-facing windows should have been replaced years ago; no wonder the house was drafty. A bedroom ceiling showed water damage. The roof had been replaced a few years back, but apparently not soon enough.

  He committed his plans to a small grubby notebook: sketches, notes, shopping lists for Builder’s Depot. Often, as he planned, he called the mobile phone of Gil Pyle, a carpenter his mother knew. On his way to an early job in Newton or Wellesley or Newport, Pyle would greet him curtly—“Hey, shithead”—as though they were the oldest of friends. This, Scott realized, was half the reason he called. Pyle would listen to the details of Scott’s plan and offer a few curt suggestions: use number twelve, not ten; give the stuff a full day to dry; check out the salvage yard in Dorchester, they got windows coming out the ass. Things the books didn’t tell you, tricks that only builders knew. Pyle shared this information freely, expecting nothing in return. Your mother’s been good to me, he said. I owe her big time. Anything you need, man. Just ask.

  That his mother knew such a person continued to amaze him. Battle Road, dear, she said when Scott asked where they’d met. As a kid Scott had found the battle reenactment hilarious, grown men dressing up in costumes to charge and salute and fire muskets. Now that he knew Gil Pyle, he saw it differently. He wished, secretly, that he could do it himself.

  He was surprised to discover that Pyle knew quite a bit about him. I hear you spent some time in Cali, he said once when they were unloading his truck. I rode my bike out there when I was a kid. Landed myself in the hospital with heat exhaustion. Pyle knew that Billy was a cardiologist in New York; he knew how Scott’s parents had met and even, he implied, why they’d divorced. Most improbably, Pyle knew—and this was so astonishing that Scott nearly dropped a hundred pounds of lumber on
his foot—everything about Gwen.

  Even within the family, his sister’s condition had always been top secret. Don’t tell Mamie your sister is at the doctor’s. Without ever having asked why, he’d understood the importance of keeping quiet. That his mother had discussed Gwen with a stranger, a man who banged nails for a living and dressed up once a year in breeches, was stupefying. Gil Pyle had spent whole summers on the Cape and islands; he’d done clapboards for a Kennedy, floors for a Kennedy ex-wife. He’d built a gazebo for an aged actress in Edgartown, an open-air theater for a rock-star couple who liked to perform in their own backyard. If pressed, Pyle would serve up details—both rock stars kept a stable of beautiful lovers; the old actress answered her door each morning in full starlet makeup, each day a different wig. The stories ended always with the same refrain: She’s a nice lady when you get to know her. He’s a decent guy. About his own life Pyle was equally forthcoming. He had a daughter in college, an ex-wife in Maine, and an old girlfriend in Florida, the mother of his two young sons. He had spent six years in the army; there were stories about German girls and others, Belgian and French, he’d met on leave. Scott thought of his father’s threat, years ago, when he was flunking out of Stirling: Another semester like that, and the army can have you. I wish them luck. It seemed, now, that Frank’s idea had been a good one. It might have been the making of him. Scott could have, like Gil Pyle, seen the world. He might have become a man. Instead he’d wasted his parents’ money in one school after another and was no better for it, an indentured servant who’d even sold his own likeness. Day after day he drove past the billboard on Route 11, unconsciously averting his eyes. Ruxton was his Siberia, a prison of humiliations. Only now, empty at sunrise, smelling of floor cleaner and the janitor’s weary ministrations, did the place offer him any peace.