Before You Know Kindness

by Chris Bohjalian

  "Spencer?"

  "Catherine?"

  "This weekend will be no better than next week--at least in terms of time. My brother and his family are coming for a visit. Remember? And while you seem to have no interest in seeing them--"

  "I can't wait to see Sara and my beautiful niece."

  "Fine. My point is that Charlotte is up at the Cloisters and Fort Tryon tomorrow, and my mother is taking the girls to brunch on Sunday, and I'm sure we'll all want to do something tomorrow night. And so I don't know when you think we're going to have the time to bond with this--"

  "This weekend. We'll bond this weekend. And next week. And throughout what's left of September and October. We'll be fine. It won't happen overnight. Never does. But, as you can see"--he motioned down at their daughter and the dog--"the two of them seem to be getting along just fine."

  "Is she house-trained?"

  "She is."

  "And who's going to walk her? And feed her? Did you think for one moment about how much work an animal is? How much work it will be for me?"

  "No," he said evenly, "I don't think much about animals and their care."

  "Spencer!"

  "Lighten up, will you? Look, I can walk her--"

  "And scoop her poop? And--"

  "I can walk her, Mom. And I already feed the cats most of the time. I can feed her, too."

  "It's not a big deal, Catherine. Really. I didn't bring her home to start a fight. I brought her home because Charlotte has always wanted a dog. I don't want to make your life any harder than . . . than I've already made it. Okay?"

  She wandered over to the dog and knelt beside it, so that she and her daughter were surrounding it. The dog turned her deep eyes toward her and then licked her, too. "I just wish you had talked to me first," she murmured.

  "Then it wouldn't have been a surprise," he said.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself. She presumed she was angry because she didn't like surprises and because she was indeed fearful about the additional work the dog would demand. Perhaps she was even jealous of the way Spencer had ingratiated his way into their daughter's heart with one dramatic, unexpected gesture. But she wasn't really that worried about the cats. They'd be fine, she guessed.

  "How did you bring her home? You must have had help," she said.

  "Randy Mitchell."

  "And your hand? What did you do to your hand?"

  Charlotte looked up from Tanya and noticed the bandages and the blood on her father's pants. "Dad, what happened?"

  "I cut myself in the cab. On an open ashtray. It's not a big deal."

  "Is that how you ruined your pants?"

  "More or less."

  She looked at her husband's scruffy beard and his pot holders for ears and the way his eyebrows were raised with bemusement. "I'd get you a drink," he said to her, "but it would be warm. I still haven't mastered the ice tray." She saw that his glass had no ice cubes in it. A few days before she had watched him whacking the tray upside down against a kitchen counter, and the ice cubes had indeed slipped out . . . and then slid like lemmings off the counter and onto the floor. She climbed back to her feet and smiled down at her daughter. Then she kissed her husband and went to retrieve the groceries from the front hall. She wanted to get the perishables into the refrigerator. Once that was done, she would get herself a gin and tonic, too, and some ice for his.

  WITH PATRICK SOUND ASLEEP and Willow ensconced in Nan's bedroom, channel-surfing through the seemingly endless array of television stations they didn't have in Vermont, John and Sara took a walk. It was considerably warmer than in Vermont this time of night, and they walked down Lexington as far as Seventy-ninth Street and then back north to Nan's via Park. They needed only sweaters, and John guessed they would have been comfortable in simply their long-sleeved shirts. He hadn't yet told Sara his idea, because he was still playing out the design of it in his mind: If he did x, what would likely be y? And what would happen after that? He sensed in any event that it was all just a fantasy.

  His plan, still only half-formed, was that he would threaten to show up at the press conference on Tuesday, if FERAL went ahead with the event. He would say all of the things about conservation and the understory and the plight of the northern deer herd without a rifle season that would never be addressed in a media show orchestrated by FERAL. The reporters would be all too happy to talk to him since he was, after all, the idiot who had left a loaded rifle in the trunk of his car--a rifle that had shot Spencer McCullough. They didn't have to know that the very thought of holding a gun these days made him nauseous. As he'd told his daughter at dinner, this press conference was about propaganda.

  His goal was to convince his brother-in-law that he would be such a disruptive influence that it would not be in the organization's best interest to forge ahead. The problem, of course, was that if he told Spencer his plan beforehand, FERAL could do any number of things. They could tell him they were postponing the press conference indefinitely and then conduct it when he was back in Vermont. Or they could go ahead and hold it as planned but be prepared to refute anything he had to say. He knew they had amassed small mountains of statistics, and with enough numbers you could convince anybody of anything.

  More important, he did not want to undermine Spencer's lawsuit. The man was crippled, for God's sake: The last thing he wanted to do was decrease the likelihood of an impressive settlement package. He owed Spencer that. That alone should preclude him from going on the offensive.

  Sara took his hand and squeezed his fingers. "What's on your mind?" she asked him.

  "A lot of things, I guess. The press conference, mostly. I'm somewhat less enamored with the idea of being the sacrificial lamb in this nightmare than I was a few weeks ago."

  "Meaning?"

  "No one told our niece to start shooting my rifle into the night. In fact, our own daughter specifically told her not to."

  She released his hand, and he turned to her. She was staring straight up the avenue as they walked, her arms folded across her chest, nodding ever so slightly. It was, he could see in profile, her therapist's nod, and he couldn't help smiling to himself. "And what are you proposing to do with these feelings?" she asked. "Anything?"

  "I'm torn."

  "Go ahead."

  "I was wondering if I should go to the press conference. Or, to be specific, I was wondering what would happen if I told Spencer this weekend that I would show up at the press conference if he goes ahead with it."

  "And the point would be?"

  "Talk him out of having it. Convince him that I would cause such chaos with my presence that it wouldn't be worth it to FERAL or to his lawsuit."

  "And you would do this . . . why? So you're not humiliated?"

  "So Charlotte and I both are not humiliated. I've spent the last few weeks worrying about this. I've worried about how I will look to Willow. To you. To our friends. I've worried about how Charlotte will deal with the notoriety that will surround her. At dinner tonight it dawned on me that perhaps I don't have to take this lying down. I thought I had to because I owed it to Spencer. But I'm less sure of that now."

  "And you believe you could scare Spencer out of having the press conference by telling him you'll show up?"

  Her voice was thoughtful and soft: questioning his idea, certainly, but offering at least the courtesy that she thought his plan had a small kernel of potential. Hearing it verbalized by someone else, however, made it clear to him how completely absurd the notion was. Spencer wasn't going to cancel the press conference simply because his brother-in-law had announced he was going to be present. And Spencer's associates would actually revel in the reality that he was there. They could make the public pillory that was about to become his life even more uncomfortable, even more unpleasant.

  "Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense when the idea is spoken aloud, does it?" he said, putting his arm around her shoulder and pulling her to him as they walked.

  She shrugged lightly. She'd made her point.

>   Nevertheless, he vowed that he would talk to Spencer this weekend. Face to face. And though he didn't believe he could persuade his brother-in-law to abandon the idea of the press conference, perhaps he could convince him to be kind. Perhaps he could remind him that once, not all that long ago, they had been friends.

  CATHERINE PHONED her mother and told her about the dog, and then John got on the phone and she told him. When John asked to speak with Spencer, she pleaded his case to her husband, but he refused to pick up the receiver.

  And so an hour and a half later, having avoided her husband since hanging up the telephone, after kissing her daughter good night and petting her daughter's dog--the animal was on the carpet in Charlotte's room as the girl tapped away on her computer, sending instant messages to the Dudesters and Dreamdates and Lexicon-Domos who were her friends--she climbed into bed beside Spencer. She was still as miffed as she'd been when she'd informed her brother that her husband had no intention of removing even a single brick from the Berlin Wall he had built between them. He was thumbing through color layouts of the pages from the upcoming FERAL holiday catalog, pressing blank Post-it notes onto some of the corners with his left hand. Both of their cats were curled on the chaise lounge by the window, but Emma's eyes were open and they were wary: She was watching the door for any sign of the dog.

  "You're mad at me because I won't talk to John," he said when she was settled in on her side of the bed.

  She considered ignoring him, but then decided against it. She'd ignored him for the last ninety minutes and it hadn't proven particularly satisfying. "Yes," she said. "I am."

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I can't. I simply can't."

  "That's apparent."

  "Would you like to discuss it?"

  "What's there to discuss? We've been over this ground so many times . . ." Her voice broke, and she was surprised.

  He put the pages down on his nightstand and turned to her, contemplating her for a long moment. He knew she wanted to say something, but he didn't know what. "Where's Tanya?" he asked finally.

  "With Charlotte."

  "We had a nice walk tonight," he said.

  "I'm happy for you."

  "But you're not happy for yourself? Are you really that angry with me for getting our daughter a pet?"

  "I'm angry . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm angry at you for a lot of reasons."

  "I know."

  "And . . ." She paused, wondering whether to continue. Finally: "I just don't know how I can go on this way. How we can go on this way."

  "I know that, too."

  "Do you care?"

  "Of course I care. And I'm trying, Catherine, really I am. Haven't I seemed less cranky? Less a pain in the ass? Tell me honestly."

  "Oh, you have. But . . ."

  "Talk to me. Please."

  She thought of the different sources of her annoyance, the springs that were feeding her resentment--including, she had to admit, his sudden placidity and tolerance when it came to her eating meat, behavior that seemed more punishing and hurtful on some level than if he had chastised her, because it was as if he'd simply concluded that she (like her mother and her brother) was beyond redemption. She decided as well that she could rail at him for not talking to her brother, for getting a dog without consulting her, even for the last year of neglect. Hadn't he himself just alluded to this issue? But when she considered what really was troubling her most at the moment, she concluded it was the sheer inconsistency--the utter irrationality--of his behavior toward their daughter these days. On the one hand, he had become Jim Anderson from Father Knows Best; on the other, he was going ahead with that hateful press conference next week. That was the issue, and it had been driven home to her this evening by his unwillingness, once again, to speak with John. "Okay," she said, trying to remain as calm as he was, "one minute you're getting Charlotte this sweet dog and the next you're planning to embarrass her at the press conference. I just don't see how you can do that."

  "Charlotte won't be embarrassed. And I hope John won't be--at least not too dramatically. Paige doesn't think much of him, but eventually she'll need him as an ally against Adirondack. She'll be careful. And even if John is a little uncomfortable, well, the fact is he was the one who left a loaded rifle sitting around in the trunk of his car."

  "Charlotte will be embarrassed. How can she not be? I know she was crying with Dr. Warwick today."

  "Really?"

  "Yes!"

  He brought his left fingers to his mouth in a tight fist and blew onto them. These days they sometimes grew cold. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised," he said softly. "For the rest of her life she does have to deal with this. And though I know it's not her fault, we both know she feels guilty."

  "And the press conference will make her feel even worse!"

  "See, that's where we disagree. I won't let that happen. I know what I'm going to say. I know what Paige and Dominique are going to say."

  "Her name will be splattered all over the newspapers and on the TV news for shooting her father! How can that not make her feel horrible?"

  "Her name won't ever be mentioned at the--"

  "You're kidding yourself! You're being ridiculous! You should have heard Paige warning her about the media at breakfast last week."

  He gazed at his fingers and then did something he hadn't done in a very long time. Slowly, as if the digits extending out from the gauze and the tape were breakable twigs of glass, he moved them toward the side of her neck, and then--as if her neck, too, were a fragile wisp of porcelain sculpture--he stroked her. He petted her. He ran his hand gently along the skin as if he were touching it for the first time, his eyes focused on her neck and then on her face. Her eyes.

  "It'll be fine," he whispered, his voice so soft she barely heard him. "It'll be fine."

  "How?" she asked. She felt the pulse in her neck beneath his fingers. She considered pulling away: She was almost too angry to be touched. But it had been a very long time since he had touched her like this, and she couldn't bring herself to move.

  "I just know it will be. I am trying . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "I am trying to treat people like animals. I am trying not to be angry."

  "I've noticed. Sometimes, I have, anyway."

  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Tanya. I thought you'd like the surprise, too."

  She nodded, and she felt the soft skin of his thumb on the side of her jaw.

  "And I am sorry about . . . oh, there's lots I am sorry about, Catherine. Lots. There is so much I wish I could do over. And so these days I'm trying. Really, I am. I'm trying."

  Now she did reach for his hand, and she pulled it before her face and stared at the dots of blood that had soaked through the bandages there. He was trying, she had to agree; she didn't know quite what that meant, but she guessed that trying was better than not trying . . .

  "Please, then," she said, "for me and for Charlotte, will you talk to John? You don't want the next time you see him to be in court, if it comes to that, or at my mother's funeral."

  She heard the thump of one of the cats bounding onto the foot of the bed, and she looked up and saw that Emma had leapt from the chaise to the mattress and was walking now across the bedspread. The animal waited by Spencer's legs, and then hopped over them and into her lap, where she started to knead at the cotton of her nightgown.

  "I guess I'm not all that popular," he said.

  She realized that because she had been holding Spencer's left hand, he'd been unable to pet or massage or hold Emma--to show the animal that her presence was welcome.

  "Emma just wants a little physical reassurance," she told him. "It's what we all want, I guess."

  "Could you help me change into my pajamas? Is now a good time?"

  "Of course. It's fine."

  "Thank you."

  "And will you talk to John? Will you at least consider the idea?"

  He exhaled a long breath and sounded tired. "Yeah, I will," he said finally.<
br />
  "Yeah, you'll consider it?"

  "Yeah, I'll talk to him. I'll . . ."

  She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing, and she was afraid that she might have misunderstood him. She brought his fingers to her mouth and kissed them. She kissed each one, and when she was through she heard him murmuring something about how he might join them all at the Cloisters in the morning, and maybe he and John would go for a walk. He didn't know, he'd play it by ear. But he would definitely go with them to the Cloisters.

  Chapter Thirty.

  When the two girls had been younger, they would run into each other's arms when they were reunited in New York or New Hampshire and hug each other like lovers, their bodies colliding in a minor ecstasy. They would wrap their arms around each other's backs and there had even been a time--he guessed it had been when Charlotte was seven or eight--when his niece would actually lift his daughter into the air and spin her beloved younger cousin around as if they were in a perfume commercial. Even now, however, one girl thirteen and the other on the cusp of eleven, ages when they could be self-conscious about everything, they still scampered playfully toward each other like baby colts. Charlotte no longer lifted Willow off her feet and their embraces weren't as long as in years past, but whatever the ties were--blood, history, friendship--they still were solid. The girls held each other, and Charlotte patted her shorter cousin on the back.