Evening News

by Marly Swick

  She nodded. “He’s in bed.”

  Dan pulled out a small box of Juicy Juice and stared at it as if it were a grenade he might hurl through the window. Then he set it back in the refrigerator, grabbed a can of Old Style, and flipped the top. He rarely drank beer, and when he did, it was Corona or Dos Equis. The beer was Giselle’s, a vestige of her first marriage, her Midwestern heritage.

  “So how does he seem?” he asked, taking a swig. He grimaced. “Why do you buy this cheap shit?”

  She let that pass. “He’s — I don’t know how he is. He’s upset. He’s very upset. Naturally.”

  Dan nodded grimly. “Well, we’ve got the names of those therapists.”

  “Yeah. I guess I’ll call someone in the morning. Make an appointment or something.” Some social worker at the hospital had given her a list of names, which she had shoved into her pocket without a glance. “But mostly, I think, he just needs us.” She looked over at Dan, to see if he was picking up on what she was trying to convey, but he was looking at his watch.

  “It’s only nine-fifteen,” he announced with a bemused look on his face. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “You mean for tonight, or the rest of our lives?” she asked.

  “Watch TV? Grade some papers? Rent a video? Get out the old home movies?” He shook his head, ignoring her. His stomach rumbled.

  “You should try to eat something,” she said, even though the thought of actually swallowing anything but alcohol made her gag. She opened the refrigerator and took out the bowl of potato salad she had made that morning and grabbed a bowl from the dish drainer. It was Trina’s Beatrix Potter cereal bowl. She shoved it back — hoping he hadn’t noticed — and grabbed a plain blue bowl. She spooned out a small serving and handed it to him. He was crazy about her mother’s Swedish potato salad.

  “I don’t want any.”

  “You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.”

  He took the bowl from her and shoveled the potato salad into his mouth mechanically, like a human IV. The sour smell of the vinegar turned her stomach. She covered the bowl with tin foil and stuck it back in the fridge, scanning the shelves. Nothing appealed to her. But she felt as if she should make the gesture, a show of eating with him, taking nourishment together. Finally she took one of the kids’ fruit Popsicles from the freezer. She tore off the wrapper and walked over to the trash can. There was a note on the table she hadn’t noticed before. In her mother-in-law’s elegant, convent-trained handwriting. It said, Your mother called. Call as soon as possible. Obviously her uncommunicative brother had broken down and called them with the news. It had occurred to her that she should call them but figured it could wait until morning. Now she felt guilty. They must be going crazy. And below that: Your sister Yvonne called. Giselle wondered who had called Vonnie — Todd or her parents. The thought that they knew knocked the wind out of her. She grabbed a chair and sat down, crumpling the note in her fist. Soon everyone would know. And then there would be no way to undo it. Once people knew, that was that. It was real.

  “What is it?” He walked over and knelt down beside her. She shook her head. She couldn’t explain. She knew it didn’t make any sense. He tugged the crumpled note out of her fist and read it.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” she moaned. It came out like a whine.

  “My mother’s going to take care of the arrangements. The service and everything. So you don’t have to worry about any of that.” He set his dish in the sink and ran water on it, something Ed could never remember to do no matter how many times she complained about his dishes sitting right where he’d left them. As if she had lodged some sort of protest, Dan added, “She’ll check it all out with us beforehand. She’s just trying to help.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Really.”

  She had never been to a child’s funeral before. In fact, she had been to only one funeral in her entire life. Her aunt Loraine had died of lung cancer at age fifty-six, and at her funeral everyone had bemoaned her untimely death. Even though she’d smoked two packs of Camels since she was a teenager and already had two grandchildren. Giselle remembered her coffin — a long ivory-and-shiny-brass affair the size of a boxcar. Loraine had been a big, strapping woman before she got sick. Giselle wondered if they had special boutique mortuaries that dealt in children’s coffins: a sort of Gap for dead kids.

  “I really don’t know what to do now,” Dan said. He was standing at the window, looking out. “What do people do?”

  She stood up and circled her arms around him from the back. He turned and rested his cheek against the top of her head. She brushed a strand of hair away from his eyes. A warm breeze ruffled the kitchen curtains that they kept meaning to replace with miniblinds when they had the time. With two kids, one still in diapers, there was never any time. Maybe now there would be more time. It was a nice night after the rain. Any other night she would have gone out onto the back porch, but she knew that Trina’s wading pool was still sitting out there. Like a black hole.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she suggested. “Even if we don’t sleep. We can hold each other.”

  He nodded and let her lead him back to their bedroom, as if he’d lost all will of his own. She sat him down on the edge of the bed and undressed him like a sick, tired child. His socks, tennis shorts, polo shirt, jockey shorts. They were damp and sweaty. They didn’t smell like him. Usually she liked the smell of his sweat, but this was an unfamiliar, unpleasant odor. She threw the clothes in the hamper.

  “Maybe I should take a shower,” he said, not moving. It touched her to see him like this, so bewildered and listless. Usually he was energetic and decisive to a fault. He hated to shop with her because she took so long to make up her mind.

  “I’ll run the water for you,” she said.

  He followed her into the bathroom and waited with uncharacteristic patience while she adjusted the faucets to the proper temperature, somewhere between soothing and scalding. She liked the water hotter than he did. In fact, she had read somewhere that women could withstand hotter water than men could. When she turned around, he was staring at himself in the mirror.

  “I was just getting used to myself as a father,” he said. “I mean, it was kind of unreal at first. Having a daughter. And now this is just as unreal.” He drew a question mark in the film of steam on the mirror. “It’s hard to know what’s really unreal.”

  She slid back the curtain, clear plastic with bright pink flamingos, and steered him into the shower.

  The bed was still unmade from this morning. This morning. Sunday. Babies made no distinction between weekend mornings and weekday mornings. Trina’s cries had woken them at six-thirty. They had a deal: Saturday mornings Dan had kid duty, and Sunday mornings were her watch. Yesterday Dan had fed the kids, then driven Teddy and Eric to soccer practice while Giselle had slept in (until eight o’clock) and then gone to the university library to do some research on Hawthorne for an upcoming term paper. But this morning Dan had slept in while she made pancakes — a special treat — and then dragged the kids to the grocery store (Teddy pouting the whole way, as if she were forcing him to undergo an unnecessary root canal) and then to the playground, where she turned him loose to work off some of his manic energy. She had sat on the edge of the sandbox reading The Scarlet Letter, trying to concentrate on Hawthorne’s dry, long-winded introduction while Trina played with a little black girl, who immediately grabbed Trina’s pink plastic shovel, whereupon Trina whacked the little girl on the side of the head with her pail. After both mothers had intervened and the girls had stopped crying, they settled into playing side by side companionably enough. Parallel play, the books called it. Meanwhile, Teddy was off on some climbing device, doing his best to break his neck. After an hour or so at the park, Teddy declared that he was bored and hungry. They had stopped for lunch at McDonald’s and then returned home, where Dan was busy mowing the lawn. It was only twelve-thirty, and she was exhausted.

  Against Trina’s tired, fe
eble protests, Giselle put her down for a nap. She wound up the musical mobile hanging over the crib, and by the time it had tinkled out the final lilting notes of “Scarborough Fair,” Trina was out cold. Teddy ran next door to play with Eric. Dan took off to play tennis. The house looked as if it had been ransacked by cops looking for illegal drugs, but she tried to ignore the discarded shoes, toys, books, and trails of cookie crumbs. The house would have to wait until the kids were in bed. She went into the kitchen and made the potato salad and marinated the chicken for supper. On Sunday evenings Dan barbecued. While she was making supper, her parents called, as they did every week. Her mother launched into a familiar diatribe against the condo management board, and Giselle tuned out, wishing she could get back to studying before Trina woke up. And then Trina did wake up and Giselle said she had to go, the baby was crying, and hurried into the baby’s room, where she changed Trina’s diaper and gave her a box of apple juice. Then she had dragged the wading pool out into the sun and run the hose into it and dumped in a pile of Trina’s water toys, including the new Go Fish game. She had meticulously slathered suntan lotion over every inch of her daughter’s warm, sleep-flushed flesh. Trina rubbed some in her eye and started to cry and then stopped when Giselle dangled the bright new fishing rod in front of her and showed her how to hook a yellow fish and then a purple one. She clapped her hands and grabbed for the rod, whipping it around wildly, laughing as she splashed herself. “Careful. Don’t poke your eye out,” Giselle had cautioned her as if she could understand. Giselle had thought about running inside for the camera but didn’t have the energy. She had collapsed into the ratty lounge chair and opened her book.

  Just this morning.

  The shower clunked off and Dan emerged, still half wet, from the bathroom, a blue towel wrapped around his waist, and threw himself facedown onto the bed. She could see his shoulders shuddering; the pillow helped muffle his sobs. She didn’t know whether she should go or stay. She felt guilty and helpless. When his father died, he had turned to her for comfort, and she had been glad to give it, secretly thrilled that he had turned to her. This was before they were married. But now she had her own grief. There was no comfort to give.

  She put her hand on his back. “Honey,” she said. He groaned. “Please, honey, turn over.” She tugged at his shoulder. He rolled over but kept one arm flung over his eyes, which were shut. She sighed.

  “I was going to take a picture of her,” she mumbled. “Today, in the swimming pool. I actually thought about going inside for the camera — she looked so cute — but I didn’t.” Her voice broke. “I was afraid to leave her alone in the water. Afraid she might drown,” she lied. She didn’t want to admit she’d been too preoccupied with her studying. She wondered suddenly how much history she would have to rewrite now. “It would only have taken a second. Why didn’t I get the camera?”

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “Stop.” He reached out and put his fingers against her lips. She grabbed hold of his hand. He still had his eyelids clenched against the harsh overhead light. Or maybe he just didn’t want to look at her, to see her. The bedside lamp was still broken, and she didn’t know whether they were ready for darkness just yet, but she got up and flicked off the overhead light. The light from the bathroom was still on, and that helped. He seemed to relax some.

  “I think I have a couple of Valium if you want one,” she told him. She didn’t say they were from Lois, who had a perpetual stash of sedatives and sleeping pills. Every once in a while, when the kids and school got to be too much, Giselle would pop one, like a little vacation.

  He shook his head. The towel had slipped down below his slim hips, and his arms were flung out, crucifix-fashion. With his dark beard and longish hair, he was a dead ringer for Jesus. She traced the thick scar just above his groin. An emergency appendectomy. His mother loved to tell the story. How when he was only three months old, she had seen blood in his diaper and rushed him to the hospital. The doctor had checked him over and found nothing. So he sent them home. But then when she walked in the door, the phone was ringing; it was the doctor telling her to bring the baby back to the hospital. The doctor said that as he was driving home, the baby’s face had appeared to him, like a vision, in the rearview mirror. And he’d thought to himself, That baby doesn’t look healthy. Something’s not right. It turned out that the baby’s appendix had burst. “It was a miracle,” her mother-in-law always said at the end of the story, and made the sign of the cross. “If they hadn’t operated immediately, he would have died.”

  He would not have lived to father a baby who died.

  “I’m not going to sleep,” he murmured. “How can I sleep?”

  She got a blanket from the linen closet and spread it over him. He was sinking under from sheer exhaustion. His breathing deepened, but it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. She could see his eyelids twitching, his lips moving. She walked around to her side of the bed, but suddenly she didn’t feel like lying there next to him, thinking God knows what in the darkness.

  “I need to brush my teeth,” she whispered, just in case he was still conscious. “Be right back.” She gave his hand a squeeze. It felt like a dead fish. She set it down gently on the blanket. She turned off the bright light in the bathroom. Moonlight was shining through the miniblinds from the backyard. She fumbled for the wand and shut them, then tiptoed across the hall and checked on Teddy, opening his door stealthily. He seemed to be asleep, his bedclothes tortured into a twisted knot with his feet sticking out. She shut the door. Then, as if some invisible leash were tugging on her, she walked next door to Trina’s room, which she had been avoiding all afternoon and evening. Giselle turned on the carousel lamp that played “London Bridge” when you wound it up, and sat down in the rocking chair next to the crib. Koko’s Kitten was lying facedown on the changing table where Dan had left it, as if he’d just jumped up — her adoring slave — to fetch her a cup of water and was planning to pick up where he left off. She could hear his expressive voice reading aloud the second paragraph: “Koko knows what birthdays are. When asked what she does on her birthday, Koko answered, ‘Eat, drink, (get) old.’” Giselle shut the book and closed her eyes. With her eyes shut, inhaling the mixed bouquet of powder, urine, baby shampoo, and Ivory Snow, Trina’s ghost turned to sweet, solid flesh.

  ***

  She must have fallen asleep in the rocking chair. In the middle of the night she woke up stiff and startled. Teddy was standing next to her.

  “I thought I heard her crying,” he said.

  In the master bedroom Dan let out a piercing yelp. Teddy flinched. Giselle assumed it was a nightmare until she heard him mutter, “Shit, I’m bleeding!”

  She hurried to the bedroom and flicked on the overhead light. Dan was sitting on the side of the bed, trying to get a look at the sole of one foot. She could see blood on the sheet and floor.

  “What happened?” She went into the master bathroom for the hydrogen peroxide and a towel.

  “I stepped on a goddamned piece of the lamp.”

  Giselle felt a stab of guilt. She should have swept it up. She had meant to but forgot. “Let me see.” She blotted the blood, appalled by how much there was. “It’s deep,” she said. “Maybe you need stitches.”

  “No fucking way I’m going back to that hospital,” Dan said. She knew there was no use arguing with him and, anyway, she didn’t blame him. She tried to pour some hydrogen peroxide on the gash. He waved her away. “Just get some gauze and adhesive tape,” he snapped at her. “I can take care of it myself.”

  The first-aid kit was in the other bathroom. She turned and saw Teddy hovering in the hallway looking pale and scared. “He’s going to be okay,” she said. “It’s just a cut.” He seemed not to hear her. “Go get me the broom and dustpan from the kitchen, okay?”

  He turned and ran down the hall. She heard him rummaging in the broom closet. He returned with the dustpan and brush. Without being asked to, he knelt on the floor and swept up the china shards, even crawling under the
bed to retrieve a couple of bigger pieces. Dan was watching him as if Teddy were a bug he might suddenly crush underfoot. The expression on his face made her turn away.

  “That was a really stupid thing you did,” he said to Teddy, who was still kneeling at his feet, sweeping.

  “I know,” Teddy said. He dumped the swept-up shards into the wicker wastebasket. “I know that.” He sounded calm and mature.

  “You’re lucky you’re not my son.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Giselle shot him a murderous look.

  Dan ignored her. He leaned closer to Teddy, practically in his face, and said, “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  “What can I say?” Teddy looked almost dignified as he walked back to his room and shut the door quietly. For the first time all day she felt almost proud of him.

  Dan looked at her and hung his head. “I don’t know where that came from. I’m sorry.”

  She stood there in the doorway, speechless and motionless. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know where to go. She could hear Teddy crying in his room.

  It is in the newspaper the next morning. As soon as the paperboy tosses the L.A. Times onto their front stoop, his mother opens the door and snatches it. She skims through the paper, finds the article, and then hides the paper in her desk. As if it’s the only one, as if there aren’t a million copies. He waits until she heads into the bathroom to take a shower, then finds the newspaper where she buried it under a pile of old compositions that Dan had graded, all marked A or A+ in green ink. The headline reads

  Boy kills baby sister in accidental shooting. Two nine-year-old boys were playing with a .38-caliber pistol when the gun fired, fatally wounding a twenty-three-month-old girl.