by Marly Swick
He opened the screen door and stepped out onto the front stoop as she was thanking Lois for the ride. Eric asked if Teddy could come inside, he wanted to show him some new toy. Giselle hesitated and then shrugged. What did it matter anyway? “Half an hour,” she said, trying to sound in control. She glanced at her watch. “Be home by eight-thirty.”
“I’ll make sure he is,” Lois said, glancing nervously in Dan’s direction. He was wearing black pants and a black V-necked sweater over a white T-shirt. From a distance he looked like a priest.
As Giselle cut across the weedy, neglected lawn to her own front door, Dan retreated inside, letting the door bang shut behind him. She paused on the front stoop for a moment to concentrate again on her anger, the pure outrage, a moment of clarity before it all got twisted and muddled. Sometimes she almost missed Ed’s stubborn silence, his refusal to get into it with her when she was mad. He would just sit there, his face turning red, until he blew his stack and stomped off, muttering curses, grinding the gears of his old motorcycle as he peeled away from the curb. In high school Dan had been a star debater. The instant she stepped inside the house, he confronted her. “What were you doing with her?”
“The best defense is a good offense,” she snapped, brushing past him to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and just managed to swallow two aspirin before he appeared in the doorway, glaring at her. Immediately, she felt herself in the wrong and had to remind herself that she was the one who had a legitimate right to be angry.
“Where’s Teddy?” he said, although he knew perfectly well where he was. He had seen him get out of the Jeep and go inside the Beemers’ house with Eric.
“What do you care?” She slammed her glass down on the counter and looked him in the eye, forcing herself to stare him down. “You want to interview him for your book?”
“I was going to tell you about it,” he said, looking away. “Nothing’s definite yet. I figured there was no use bringing it up until I had something solid to show you. To see what you thought.”
“Right,” she snorted. She could feel the dry aspirin burning the back of her throat. Her pulse raced. She took another sip of water to calm herself. “Since when do you require my editorial input?”
He shrugged. “You’re not rational. I knew you wouldn’t be able to talk about this rationally.”
“Fuck you, you self-righteous asshole!” It felt good to shout even if he only chalked it up as further proof of her irrationality. Score one point for his side.
“I’m not doing this to hurt anyone, believe me.” He lowered his voice and took a step closer to her. “God knows, we’ve all been hurt enough.” There were tears glinting in his dark eyes. He held out his arms, and part of her wanted to fall into them. Receive his priestly absolution. She could feel her body weakening, like rigor mortis in reverse, her jaw and fists unclenching. And then he said, “I honestly think it will be good for Teddy. To get it all out in the open.”
She shoved him back against the counter. “You make me sick,” she hissed. “You don’t know the first thing about being a parent, you arrogant bastard.”
“Yeah, well maybe I would’ve learned if your son hadn’t killed my daughter.”
“It’s not something you learn. That’s your problem.” She bulldozed her way past him as he tried to block her, to put her in her proper place with some brilliant comeback. Like a child, she clapped her hands over both ears and ran. She ran right smack into Teddy, who was standing in the hallway. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, startled.
“I used to live here,” he replied in this eerie grown-up voice. “When I was a kid.”
It is the middle of the night. A nightmare, or maybe just hunger, has jolted him wide awake. It feels like a small animal is gnawing away inside his stomach, maybe hollowing out a spot to nest. He thinks about tiptoeing to the kitchen for a snack — a handful of mint Oreos or a couple of slices of prewrapped American cheese — but he doesn’t want to risk waking up Dan, who is sleeping on the sofa after the big fight. Chances are, he isn’t asleep either. Teddy imagines that all three of them are lying in the darkness all alone and wide awake, hating each other. He knows how Dan feels about him. And he’s pretty sure his mother hates him, too, but isn’t allowed to say so, because she’s his mother. If he were his mother, he’d hate him. He wouldn’t have any choice. It would be confusing probably, because he knew you weren’t supposed to hate your own kid. But the other day on Oprah he’d heard some parents talking about how they wanted to divorce their kids because the kids were so bad. One of the ladies in the audience asked one of the mothers on the stage if she still loved her son, and the mother on the stage just shook her head and started crying. And then there was that mother on the news who drowned her two little boys, pushed the car into the lake with them inside. Then she lied to the police and said someone had stolen them. She was crying into the microphone as if she really missed them, pretending that she really loved them, just like his own mom was pretending that she still loved him.
Before he fell asleep, he’d heard her crying in her bedroom. She used to cry that way sometimes in their old apartment before Dan. Because she was just lonely, she said, when Teddy would ask her what was wrong. A lot of nights she would crawl into bed with him. If he woke up, they would fall asleep together. She smelled good, like flowers. When Dan started staying overnight, Teddy missed his mother’s crawling into bed with him. Even on the nights Dan wasn’t there, she didn’t do it anymore. But he was glad she didn’t cry at night anymore, even though he wanted to move back to Nebraska. Sometimes his dad sounded sad on the phone. The happier his mom was, the sadder his dad sounded.
Before they moved to California, his mother had slept on the sofa in the living room for a long time. In the morning she would fold up the sheets and blankets and shove them into a straw hamper in the corner so that he could sit on the sofa and watch cartoons while he ate his cereal. Most mornings his dad was already gone by the time Teddy woke up. Now probably Dan would move out. His mother would get lonely again and cry herself to sleep. Only this time it will be worse. Teddy knows that this time she won’t want to crawl into bed with him.
He remembers his mother talking with Eric’s mother about how the lady who pushed her kids into the lake had done it because of her boyfriend. The boyfriend didn’t like the kids, and she wanted to be with the boyfriend. Teddy knows for sure that Dan doesn’t like him anymore. He heard what Dan said about his killing Trina. And probably his mother thinks that if Teddy weren’t around, if he were dead or something, Dan wouldn’t have to sleep on the sofa. He would still love her. She has to know that it is all Teddy’s fault, even if she is his mother. He can see it in her eyes when she looks at him when she doesn’t think he is looking at her. He wishes he were dead. Like Trina.
He wishes the Beemers still had that gun. If they did, he would sneak over there and shoot himself with it. He’d wait until Eric was at school and Mrs. Beemer was at the store or something. Then he would sneak out of the playground at recess and run back here. He knows where the Beemers hide their spare key, under a flowerpot on the back deck. When they found his dead body, his mother would probably cry and feel bad for a while, but then Dan would put his arms around her to make her feel better. He would stop sleeping on the sofa. And they would start thinking about how brave poor Teddy was to shoot himself like that, and they wouldn’t be mad at him anymore.
He could run away — he has some money saved up — but how? He doesn’t think they would sell a bus ticket or a plane ticket to a nine-year-old boy. And he is afraid to hitchhike. His mother has told him over and over how cruel, sick people pick up little kids and do terrible things to them before dumping their bodies in the woods. Even though Teddy doesn’t mind the idea of being dead, he doesn’t want to be tortured and mutilated first.
His stomach grumbles underneath the covers. He feels trapped. He can’t go back to sleep and he can’t go to the kitchen. He feels he is going to spend the rest
of his life lying there wide awake in the dark, starving. Which, he knows from watching the Discovery Channel, is a very painful way to die, unlike freezing to death, which is not supposed to hurt. You just get numb and sort of float away. But it is impossible to freeze to death in California. He could freeze to death in Nebraska if he could figure out how to get there and if it were winter. He would walk out into a deserted field and lie down in a soft white bed of snow and drift off to sleep and never wake up. But it is the beginning of June. There won’t be any snow for another five or six months. And he can’t wait that long.
He thinks of other ways to kill yourself. He knows there is some way where you sit in the car in the garage, but he isn’t exactly sure how it works, and Dan would be sure to hear him anyway. Then he remembers that his mother has a bottle of Nytol in the medicine cabinet. She got it just recently; he’d heard her complaining to Dan that it didn’t work nearly as well as the pills she used to get from Lois. He knows that some really famous blond movie star killed herself that way, because he remembers his mother watching a movie on TV not so long ago. The movie star was lying on her bed in her pajamas, trying to call the president.
He pushes back the covers and climbs out of bed. At his doorway he pauses, making sure that no one is up. He doesn’t hear anything except a low mumble from the TV set, which is on in the living room. Then he creeps into the bathroom, shuts the door, and turns on the light. He stands on his old footstool, which he doesn’t need anymore — he used to have to stand on it to brush his teeth — and opens the medicine chest. He freezes up as the mirrored door squeaks open. His reflection, so big and close, startles him. He waits a moment, avoiding his face in the mirror. If he looks into his own eyes, he might chicken out. When he doesn’t hear any noise from the hallway, he snatches the small bottle of Maximum Strength Nytol, which is half hidden behind the calamine lotion. Then he slips the bottle into the pocket of his jeans — he hasn’t bothered to change into his pajamas — and makes his way quietly back to his room.
She was cold in the skimpy top she wore to bed, one of Dan’s old white undershirts. She got up and turned off the air-conditioner. It went into a noisy convulsion, rattling and shuddering to a halt. It was not really hot enough to need air-conditioning, but she had turned it on to screen out sound from the rest of the house, to create a cocoon of white noise.
After the argument they had gone to their separate corners of the house like two boxers waiting for the next round. Only it was worse than that. The gloves were off now. She could feel it. Whatever civility they had been clinging to, by some silent mutual agreement, had been knocked out cold. They were free to hit below the belt. She was scared but at the same time exhilarated. She could feel the adrenaline pumping. Alert, wary. On her toes.
In the sudden quiet she pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear the mumble of the television from the living room. The house felt too quiet. Some tension had lifted. She could feel it. A tug-of-war gone slack. She slipped on a robe, for greater dignity, and tiptoed down the hall.
The living room was empty, the television screen blank. The comforter was neatly folded on top of the pillow at the end of the sofa. She looked at her watch. Where could he have gone at 12:15? The kitchen light was on. She found a note stuck to the refrigerator with a banana magnet. Couldn’t sleep. Gone to the office. Want to go out for breakfast? Give me a call. D. She let out her breath. She realized she had stopped breathing the instant she spied the note. She had been expecting something more along the lines of Good-bye and good luck, you’ll need it.
She poured herself a shot glass of bourbon, a nightcap, and deconstructed the note. It was curt, but the invitation to breakfast encoded a whole lot of their past. Before Dan had begun spending the night at her apartment, he used to get up and leave before Teddy woke up. Then, after Teddy was off to school, she would meet Dan for breakfast at the Buttercup, a shabby, classic coffee shop not far from campus. The waitress was a dead ringer for Ethel Merman with dyed red hair in a hairnet. She called them “kids,” as in “You kids want the usual?” “The usual” — Giselle loved the phrase — it made them sound like an old married couple. Maybe by California standards six months was a golden anniversary. They would sit in a booth and talk and laugh and hold hands. She would be floating on air for the rest of the day. Not long after Trina was born, the Buttercup went out of business. One day she drove past it and it was closed. The next time she drove by, the place had a face-lift and a new sign: SAMURAI SUSHI GRAND OPENING!!!
On her way back to the bedroom she pushed open Teddy’s door to check on him, to see if the covers needed straightening or the window needed to be shut. She was gratified to see that he was sleeping peacefully. As she walked over to pull up the covers, she stepped on something hard in her bare feet. She was used to stepping on Legos all over Teddy’s floor, tired of nagging him to sweep all the stuff into the toy box when he was done playing. Later, she would remember how she was about to toss the thing into the toy box without looking at it when something — she remembered it clearly — some maternal something made her walk out into the lit hall and look at it. And then she saw what it was. The bottle of Nytol from the medicine chest.
She panicked and dropped the bottle and ran back to the bed and shook Teddy by the shoulders, calling his name. “Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Wake up, Teddy!” He moaned and flopped like a rag doll. But he was breathing, thank God. She ran back out and picked up the bottle and read the fine print on the label. IN CASE OF ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSE, SEEK PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE OR CONTACT A POISON CONTROL CENTER IMMEDIATELY. She was torn between calling the Poison Control Center — the number was on a list of emergency numbers stuck to the refrigerator — or just dialing 911. Or just throwing him in the car and driving to the emergency room. Immediately — she stood there paralyzed by indecision, thinking she had to act immediately. She thought about Ed, about the time that Teddy swallowed the backgammon piece and couldn’t breathe. While she was on the phone calling the ambulance, Ed had performed the Heimlich maneuver. The checker popped right out. She wished Ed were here now. But he wasn’t. She grabbed the phone off the hook and dialed the number for Poison Control. A woman answered on the first ring. “My son took a bottle of Nytol pills!” Giselle screamed into the phone. “I can’t wake him up!”
“How old is he?” The woman’s voice was calm and businesslike.
“Nine. Almost ten.”
The woman asked how long ago he had taken the pills and how many. Giselle glanced at the kitchen clock. “Sometime after ten o’clock,” she said. She looked at the bottle again. “There were sixteen pills, but I took some myself” — she tried to remember how many. “Maybe four, maybe six, I don’t know. Not that many. Oh, God —”
The woman’s voice interrupted her. “The over-the-counter sedatives contain diphenhydramine hydrochloride, which generally isn’t that harmful.” A car sped by outside, windows down, blaring loud rap music. Giselle held the phone to her ear more tightly, concentrating on the woman’s instructions. “But you should take him to the emergency room. Since it has been less than four hours, they can still pump his stomach. After four hours, the pills are absorbed and it’s too late for that. But if you think it has been only about two hours —”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Giselle cut in. “He went to bed at ten. I’ll take him to the hospital. It’s close, just a few blocks.” She slammed down the phone as the woman was requesting her name and address, grabbed her purse and key ring, then ran back to the bedroom and half carried, half dragged Teddy to the garage door. She still had her robe on, but she didn’t care. Teddy was limp, a dead weight in her arms. When she opened the garage door, she was shocked for a moment to find it empty. Then she remembered the tow truck. Christ! She couldn’t believe it. Of all the times to be without a car. As she dragged Teddy into the living room and propped him up on the sofa with some pillows, she cursed Dan for not being there. Then she ran into the kitchen and dialed 911.
After throwing on a pair of jeans a
nd a sweatshirt, she paced around waiting for the paramedics, wishing she had asked the Poison Control woman if she should put him in the shower — run cold water over him. Or force some coffee down his throat. Or Coke. Caffeine. In the movies they always made the person walk. She put her arms around Teddy and dragged him up onto her own feet and sort of walked him around the room. She remembered this life-size rag doll she’d had when she was about his age. It had stirrups on its feet that you could slip your own feet into so you could dance together. The doll had yellow yarn pigtails and a red-and-white polka-dot dress. She had forgotten all about her until now. Suddenly it occurred to her that she hadn’t called Dan. Or Ed, of course. But Ed was too far away to do anything. She didn’t want to worry him until it was all over. She would call him from the hospital or when the paramedics assured her that Teddy would be fine. She was still thinking about calling Dan, wondering why she should even have to think twice about it, when she heard the siren’s wail screaming in the distance, homing in on them. It was déjà vu. She felt faint, short of breath. She covered her ears with her hands. A sickening thought hit her. What if they were the same paramedics who had come for Trina? What kind of mother will they think I am? Involuntarily she looked out the glass doors toward the backyard. The Beemers’ dog was howling and barking at the commotion as the ambulance wailed into the driveway. In the darkness the glass doors reflected her own image back at her.
***
At the hospital they pumped his stomach and assured her that Teddy would be fine. Different doctors, a different floor, but the same smell, the same fear like a boa constrictor wrapped around her vital organs. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The doctor said a couple of hours of rest and observation. He seemed sympathetic. And young, with a ponytail and tiny octagonal glasses so small that she wondered how he could see through them. It worried her. You would think a doctor would want the best possible vision. Then that small, niggling worry was interrupted by a bigger worry when he told her that a psychiatrist would want to talk with her shortly. She must have looked blank. “It’s routine procedure,” he added, “in cases like these.”