Poison

by Galt Niederhoffer

  “In my previous position, I was expected to oversee the pickup of two children in the household and to manage the supervision of after-school logistics. I supervised and assisted with homework, kept the house clean and tidy, made healthy meals and snacks for the kids, and otherwise kept things running smoothly so that the mom and dad could be the best kind of parents and the best kind of wife and husband.”

  “Wow. Can I quote that?” Cass cannot help but acknowledge the appeal of the accent. She has come to consider the South in the same manner of most New Yorkers, as the battleground of a disquieting time in American history, the birthplace of a few estimable writers, and now, a food destination. And yet, she cannot help but see this woman through the eyes of her husband. She has come to see much of her life through his eyes, as though imagining his thoughts will lead her to anticipate his actions. Either way, it has made a drastic change in her thinking, making her into a man of sorts, trapped in a woman’s body, conscious of every curve of the women in her midst, every rise and narrow in their hips, thighs, and lips. It has made her an Olympic judge of sorts in the sport of being a woman, fixing constant unscrupulous attention to the flaws and virtues of her own gender. Her mind has become a cubist collage of the cut-up bodies, shapes, mouths, breasts, thighs, eyes, cheekbones, waists, and asses of women. And so, much to her own dismay, she now sees this woman as her husband would see her, charmed by her girlish figure, lulled by her Southern belle accent, endeared by her frequent “yes, ma’ams” and “oh, my goodnesses” while she stifles the disquieting image of Ryan, pushing her tits-first against a wall and pressing himself into her girlish round ass while she squeals like a Southern piglet.

  “I’m so glad to hear my skills are in keeping with your values.”

  Cass regards her with hope and suspicion. Is this girl for real? Could she save her home, her kids, her marriage? Or would she be the nail in the coffin?

  “How are you today?” Marley asks. She asks this with earnest interest.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “You don’t sound so sure,” she says.

  Cass exhales. “Kind of a rough morning.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Hopefully, the day’s improving.”

  “Actually, it’s my birthday today.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Happy birthday. I bet your husband has something special planned.”

  “Probably,” Cass lies. “Something low-key with the family.” And now, Cass’s expert move: deflection. “It says here you’re a nurse practitioner.” Another thought occurs to Cass. Is it possible to be too good to be true? Are there diminishing returns for goodness? Can you be so good as to be awful?

  “Yes, I completed my license two summers ago. But”—she hesitates, struggling with something—“I guess I’ll just go ahead and say it. I have leukemia.”

  “Oh, dear,” says Cass.

  “No,” says the girl. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m actually very healthy. I only wanted to share my reason for wanting to do this. The medication I take means it won’t be possible for me to have children. So I’ve decided to put my degree aside to devote my time on this earth to the thing that gives me the most fulfillment.” A pause.

  Cass waits, as though it’s a game and she is expected to provide the answer.

  “Children.”

  “Oh.” It is a word that may be the most honest reflection of human wonder. Cass stomachs a sensation that is becoming familiar. She feels and foils the distinct impression that they have deviated in some way from knowable human behavior. Her senses know the discrepancy before her conscious mind does, just as a computer detects fraud in a bank account balance long before the owner realizes she has lost her wallet.

  “Did I mention I play the guitar?”

  “You do? Alice has been wanting to learn for forever.”

  “I grew up playing violin, cello, and guitar. All things strings.”

  “Wonderful,” says Cass.

  “I’ve taught every kid I’ve worked for.”

  This girl is too good to be true, a modern Mary Poppins. Now, Cass struggles to find the words for her next question. Are you strong? Are you weak? Are you able to work normal nine-to-five hours? Are you prone to relapse? Are you healthy right now? And of course, as a mom, at the front of her mind: Is it okay for you to be around children? But because none of these questions seem appropriate or organic, she arrives instead at this awkward declaration. “I can’t begin to imagine the obstacles you’ve faced because of the illness. And I want you to know, if you work with us, you can always let me know your needs…” She trails off. “What I mean is if you work with our family, you’ll be part of our family also.”

  Marley smiles, apparently moved. A thread of compassion connects the two women.

  Cass struggles to word one final practical question. “You okay with light housework?”

  “I’m a total laundry Nazi.” Marley smiles. “Never shrunk a shirt to date.”

  Cass smiles. “When can you start?”

  Game and round to Little Miss Sunshine, but a victory all around.

  * * *

  Cass returns to find the house in a state of chaos. The move a year ago has not aided the family’s sense of stasis. Boxes still line most walls, creating an internal warren. Books and frames are piled nearby like roots sprouting from the center. And still, despite the implicit flux of the environment, there is charm to the endeavor, a palpable creative energy that makes the house feel like a place with endless, if potentially hazardous, possibility for adventure. At the moment, the kids have fashioned an airplane from a cardboard box and unused copper pipes, and they’re pushing themselves across the room looking like a very large and lethal insect. It’s hard to tell today’s energy from the usual buzz at the Connors’, but something is decidedly afoot. Long gone is the doom and gloom of the morning. Everyone’s grinning, keeping a secret.

  “Oh, good, you’re home,” Ryan says as Cass enters. She hangs her coat on the hook and heads inside for the usual survey, the rapid-fire assessment of her kids’ level of hunger, energy, and excitement. But Ryan stops her where she stands, placing both hands on her shoulders. He kisses her firmly on the lips and smiles in a decisive way, apparently a changed person.

  Cass stares at Ryan, mystified by the transformation.

  Ryan meets her skepticism with renewed conviction. “Take a shower. Put on a dress. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  “But who will watch the kids?” Cass asks.

  Alice and Pete grin in their usually failed attempt to keep a secret. The act of keeping a secret is as much fun as the knowledge in their possession.

  A delighted squeal from the baby serves as one last tipoff.

  Cass’s student, Jean, appears from her hiding place in the hall. “Surprise!” she says.

  “Oh, hi!” says Cass. “Where’d you come from?” She is too surprised to compliment Jean’s out-of-school attire, black combat boots offset by an abundance of black eyeliner.

  “Ryan arranged it.”

  Cass looks to her smiling husband, his beaming co-conspirators.

  “Happy birthday, Mom,” says Pete.

  Cass grins back at them. “How exciting,” she says. Then to Ryan, “Could’ve sworn you’d forgotten.”

  Another kiss is exchanged, this one more passionate, lust mixed with suppressed rage and buried affection.

  “Happy birthday, Cass.”

  All is forgiven.

  * * *

  Cass and Ryan sit in a restaurant in downtown Portland. An old church has been converted into the latest food cathedral with soaring exposed beams and reclaimed crosses, competing with hulking Jonah crab and dewy local produce. He’s made a massive effort in tonight’s festivities, eclipsing a heartfelt apology with an elaborate celebration. Wine, delicious food, a small black box with a blue ribbon. And if things go as planned: amnesia followed by absolution.

  They’re in the Old Port section of the city on the north side of Portland Harbor, the A
tlantic Northeast’s answer to Brooklyn. But it’s somehow better here because of the local bounty of fish, farm, and fowl, more eccentric fashion, and of course, the city’s burgeoning music scene and opioid epidemic. It all feels more heartfelt, less contrived for effect than back in Brooklyn. Cass has cleaned up well, dressing quickly for the occasion. She is wearing a slim black dress that cinches at the waist, sleeveless with leather piping on the collar, and buttons that unfold mischievously just below her collarbone. Ryan looks handsome, as he always does to her, in a crisp oxford shirt with a lavender check that offsets his mossy eyes, her favorite tweedy gray jacket, and his dark brown hair slicked back like a matinee idol.

  “Happy birthday, babe. It’s been a long road,” Ryan says. He lifts his glass and gazes at Cass in a way that makes her feel at once loved, understood, and desired.

  “Yes, it has.” She smiles back at Ryan, returns his desire with her own. Whoever says marriage gets boring doesn’t know her husband. Four years into the relationship, she is more attracted to him than when she first met him, when he devoured her in an alley—and then a stairwell, a bathroom, and standing at the door of her bedroom. He sucked the pain right out of her, put something new inside her, an addiction that needed feeding, a new wound that needed healing.

  “Often rocky,” he goes on. He is giving one of his speeches, one of the rhetorical tours that makes Ryan so addictive, in which he tiptoes above propriety, teetering masterfully between dignified and disreputable comments. It creates the same effect on Cass as a brilliant comic, and so she stays braced for shock, pain, or something devilishly inappropriate, so unsure of where his next words will turn that she is primed for tears or laughter.

  “Always an adventure,” she says. She is making an effort at coyness. She is trying to make him work for this, but it isn’t easy. It feels too good to slide back into these feelings. Despite the way he torments her, she is addicted to Ryan, hooked on how he makes her feel—known, tested, challenged—and therefore somehow worth it.

  “We’re getting to the scenic part,” he says.

  “With you, it’s always a pleasure.”

  “Cass, I don’t deserve you, but I’m determined to be better.” His tone is serious now, drained of coyness.

  She smiles. Contrition is too good a gift, a bonus on top of the pleasure of his attention. This is the honeymoon period, sweeter because of the recent fight, pleasure made more potent by the pain prior.

  Ryan reaches for her hand across the table like a drowning swimmer. “I’m such a fuckup, Cass. People like me aren’t good at relationships. My parents didn’t teach me.”

  “We have some time to figure it out. Copy the normal people.”

  “Everyone thinks the way out of a fight is a compromise. Everyone’s right and everyone’s sorry. But you’ve been right, and I’ve been wrong. You’ve been perfect, and I’ve been a moron.”

  The waiter stops and offers wine.

  “More for him,” says Cass.

  “Cass, I’m serious. It’s not the wine. It’s me. I finally get it.”

  “We should come to this restaurant more often.”

  Now he’s holding both of her hands. His grasp is tight, desperate. “This family is my life, Cass. I love your kids so much, and I would”—his eyes widen—“I would kill for that baby. If I lose him…” He trails off. “If I lose him, I’d have nothing. I promise I’ll get it right. It won’t take long. All I need is…” He pauses. “All I need is forever.”

  She’s smiling now in spite of herself. Her face is warm. Ryan’s love feels like sunshine. And remorse feels even hotter. She returns his grasp with the same force, ignoring the age-old adage about drowning swimmers. The rescuer should save herself or else run the risk of being pulled to the bottom.

  “Please give me a chance to deserve you. Give me a chance to be better.”

  He’s grinning now mischievously. She can’t resist his seduction. Before the second course is served, he’s got his hand up her dress under the table.

  She loves the way he makes her feel, like she’s sixteen and she just snuck out of her parents’ house in the suburbs and she’s in a car, going eighty down dark, slick streets with the boy in her high school class who is rumored to be, depending on the witness, a pyromaniac or a poet. They leave the restaurant, laughing, drunk, high on food and laughter, basking in the full-body warmth of someone you know and love, the high of reconciliation. And things continue in this way—sexy, sweet, and playful—as they walk from the restaurant to the car, tripping in the shadows. He takes advantage of a peal of laughter to push her up against a building, hiking her skirt up to her thighs, hoisting her up against the wall and descending on her with all the force of a demonic angel.

  Back at home, they make love, this time without the drama. Now it is the quiet and adoring sex of two best friends, two members of the same family, two people committed to the same goal, who have weathered yet another storm, friends who have remembered and renewed a promise.

  “Just love. Just love,” Ryan says. “That’s all we have to do. It’s that simple.”

  Cass nods as she comes. The full weight of Ryan eclipses her doubts until all she feels is pleasure. What price would she pay to love this man forever? What amount would she give to spend her life with Ryan? If pressed, if forced to decide right now, she would give anything. They fall asleep just like this, his body crushing her body, his body inside her body, touching her heart, her soul, her organs. She has made a devil’s deal again. Will this time be forever?

  SEVEN

  It’s Saturday, and the Connors are in the early stages of a beloved family ritual, packing up the car for the weekend and lighting out for freedom. The constellation of islands north of Portland provide all manner of adventure, all accessible by ferry, all within an hour or two of every Portland doorstep. When Cass first discovered this, it felt like her secret, like so many things that became possible after meeting Ryan. The islands were like nothing she had seen before: forests of fir, compact peaks rising out of navy-blue water, a hidden world of exploration for those lucky enough to cross these enclosed harbors—that is, until she realized the secret was known to every resident of Portland. But right now, she is back in the zone where all of life feels precious, every little thing feels like a dose of good fortune. Ryan and Cass are back in the best version of their relationship, when even the simplest action, the most familiar pastime—waking up in her husband’s arms, drinking a cup of coffee he makes her, driving as a family to the beach—feels new and special.

  “I think I met a good person,” Cass says as they near the ferry.

  “For what?” says Ryan.

  “A new sitter.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “She’s so perfect it’s almost weird. She’s either a real-life Mary Poppins or a professional con.”

  “You and your theories,” Ryan says. “Time to call the doctor.” But his tone is back to the playful version.

  “Mrs. Doubtfire…” Cass says.

  “Promise me you’ll hire her,” he says. “Anyone would be better.”

  The whole family is peaceful as they set out on their journey. The kids read and draw in the back seat, enjoying the breeze through the window, fielding minor squabbles during the twenty-minute wait to drive their car onto the ferry. Finally the ferry whistle blows, and the boat sets out for the island. Wind sets their hair aloft and spirits even higher as they forge across Penobscot Bay, turning toward the northern islands. The children spend the morning gazing into the water, taking turns at the front of the boat, competing to be the first to see the island. They occasionally take breaks from their post to play with the pets of the other passengers and decide which of the dogs on the boat they would most like to take home with them. Two hours later, they file out of the boat and traipse onto the windy dock, transformed in mind and body.

  Pete and the baby toddle out, rush to score a wagon. Cheeks flushed, the kids sprint down the dock to the beach and stay like this for hour
s. They play and run and laugh and shriek from afternoon to evening, until the blue sky turns to gray, the gray clouds turn silver, until the last minutes of winter light, when shadows and darkness blur the same way as the surf and the ocean. Reluctantly they gather their scattered belongings, socks and jackets soaked by seaweed and water, and slowly make their way to the house, lit by the Atlantic. Violet and silver light give way to the chill of evening.

  * * *

  The Connor family unspools into a simple A-frame cabin. It is bleached by salt water and loving use, if not perfect upkeep. The house was inherited by Ryan from his mother, if inherited is a word that applies to something given from one living person to another. Ryan and his mother have not spoken in over a decade. The mere mention of her name causes him to stop speaking altogether. Like so many things about Ryan, even the transfer of the house is shrouded in darkness, a story with gaps or at least many parts that have been stricken from the record.

  Ryan’s mother left his father when Ryan was a baby. She packed up a wood-paneled station wagon and an oblivious toddler and moved to a Portland suburb to raise her child with the help of neighbors and cousins. A struggling, hardworking woman frayed into a frazzled single parent with a penchant for married men and too many drinks before dinner. A quiet, antisocial child grew into a gifted but angry teenager, and the relationship between mother and child—you can see where this is going—grew increasingly fractured. Concern over the wrong kind of friends and the regular kind of trouble rose tension in the house to a boil from a simmer. By the time Ryan was sixteen, his mother was calling his father on a weekly basis, explaining that Ryan had become an untenable situation and demanding that he resurface as a parent or at least pitch in with a monthly payment.

  A trial stay at his father’s was an even bigger failure. And sixteen-year-old Ryan returned home before the month was over, angrier and more indignant, with new daddy issues to add to the growing maternal disaster. Ryan and his mother would spend only one more month together. A fight whose subject he now forgot or preferred never to mention marked their last conversation. Harsh words were exchanged on the topic—a party and rumors of drug use—and soon it blossomed into the stuff of after-school specials. In the heat of this argument, Ryan’s mother threw him out of the house. It was the last night he would spend under the roof of either parent. He stayed in his car for the next month and then at the home of a girlfriend, another child of divorce with a more lenient parent.