Blame: A Novel

by Huneven, Michelle

  One night she came home from Audrey’s to find a painting leaning against her door—the luminous grouper and his cave. Ian had worked on it for months. She brushed at small smudges, saw that the paint was gouged.

  I’d started to scrape it down to paint over it, Ian said when she called to thank him. Then I remembered that you liked it, so I thought I’d give it to you and start from scratch on something else.

  Thank you, she said. I guess.

  •

  Gilles had a series of lung infections, a long bout with hives, and other reactions to medication. He was always nauseous, and lost a shocking amount of weight in October. He had to go to the hospital the day after Halloween for a week. His friends took turns sitting with him, making sure he was never alone. Brice bought him a wide cashmere throw, six-ply, hand-knit, a deep, saturated brownish purple that obviously cost hundreds of dollars. Gilles immediately took to calling it the old rag. I’m chilly, he’d say. Where is that old rag? Or, When I die, I want to be wrapped in the old rag and buried under the fig tree. Or, You’re so good to me, Patsy, I’m thinking of leaving you a life interest in the old rag.

  That’s a nice shawl, Binx said when she saw it.

  This? It’s some old rag.

  Some afternoons Patsy sat grading papers or going through her lectures while he dozed. He was quiet for long stretches, sometimes thinking so hard that his brow furrowed, his chapped lips moved, his fingers pinched the throw.

  It’s like sitting next to a beehive, Patsy told him.

  You know, Patsy, he said after one long stretch of thought. At least now I don’t have to take that stupid GED test.

  Another time he said, Catering is really hard. I had fun cooking for your party. But I’m glad I didn’t actually have to do Gilles’s Meals. It’s way too much work, and for not nearly enough pay.

  •

  By Thanksgiving, Gilles was too sick to leave the house and Cal began bringing an AA meeting to him on Thursday nights. Rajid, Derek, Caroline, and Binx came, and Patsy too, although then she had to race home so as not to miss Ian. Once, when a meeting ran late, Ian had come and gone.

  I can leave a key out for you, she told him.

  That’s okay, he said.

  I’ll put one under the runner, on the far side from my door.

  He said, That’s okay, Patsy, don’t worry about it.

  She put the key there and told him. The next Thursday, she stayed after the meeting to clean up, and when she got home, he wasn’t there. Yes, he said later, he had stopped by. No, he hadn’t looked for the key.

  I don’t want to start with that, he said.

  It’s like he’s committing adultery and feeling guilty, she said to Sarah.

  I’m sorry, Sarah said. I kind of knew it wouldn’t go well. I should never have given him your number.

  So why did you?

  I thought you two could have fun. I mean, you’re both single, and neither one of you is in any position to start something serious.

  What makes you say that?

  Well, god, Patsy. Ian’s fresh out of a twelve-year relationship and you’re getting reacclimated. That’s all. You’re not even in your own home yet.

  And for that, I don’t get to have a real relationship with a decent person?

  That’s not what I’m saying. You didn’t have to go out with Ian. Nobody made you. You can stop seeing him anytime you want.

  Maybe I envy Sarah, Patsy told Silver. She’s got the husband, the ballroom. And then she says I can’t have it, like I’m not entitled.

  •

  I wish you had wine, Ian said. He had shown up late. His painting clothes were now reeking on the floor by her bed.

  I don’t have any wine, Patsy said. I don’t drink wine.

  I know, I know.

  So why bring it up?

  Shhh, shhh, he whispered, tapping the sheets with his fingers, his eyes closed. This is so nice, right now. Can’t we enjoy it?

  Not without wine, apparently, she said. Plus, I figure I have a minute before you shut down completely, and there are some things I want to say.

  Ian closed his eyes, pretended to sleep, willing her to silence. She hadn’t planned any announcement, but now that she’d started, she was curious to see what she might say.

  It’s not going to get any better between us, is it? she said.

  Better in what way? he said. This is pretty nice.

  You know. Doing other stuff. Talking on the phone. Going out—

  I can’t, Patsy. I can’t do that right now.

  Why not? We did it for a while.

  Look, he said. What’s the point? Neither one of us is in any position to get serious, settle down with someone.

  Says who? Sarah? I don’t think either of you should speak for me.

  He slung an arm over her. You should have everything you want, Patsy. Dates, phone conversations. But I can’t give them to you. I’m not the one.

  He kissed her then with such warmth and affection, she felt flung airward, woozy, as if she’d inhaled gas.

  Oh god, she said, and breathed several times. Ian moved to kiss her again. She turned her face away, fury rising in her chest. What are you doing? she said. You’re being too weird.

  Something like shame crossed his face, the briefest crumpling.

  You know what? she said. I think you better leave now.

  In an instant he swung out of bed and started gathering his clothes.

  I mean for good, she said, and stood.

  She went into the bathroom and closed the door. In the mirror, her hair was snarled. A feral glitter lit up her eyes.

  Showering, she thought she heard doors closing. She leaned against the old rectangular tiles, which were still cool in all the water and steam.

  It had to be done, but she hadn’t meant to do it tonight.

  He was gone when she got out.

  Never mind. Never mind, she whispered to the upsurge of regrets, regrets gathering like beggar children.

  She pulled off the sheets, scrubbed at the small oval of sperm that had seeped into the mattress pad. She stuffed the sheets into the laundry basket, took clean, crisp ones from the linen closet, and opened them with a great flapping over the bed. A vanquishing.

  But she could not sleep.

  At the morning AA meeting, Patsy raised her hand to share. Why is it, she said, when you actually do the right thing for once, it doesn’t feel good? In fact, it feels so awful you think you’re going to die?

  The question was rhetorical, and no cross talk was allowed; she did not expect an answer, except maybe of the indirect variety, when people countered with stories of similar experiences. Today, nobody addressed Patsy’s question, even obliquely. They all had their own crises and complaints. Child custody battles. Chronic insomnia. Letters from the IRS.

  Cal Sharp came up beside her as she left the meeting hall. He was dressed for some boardroom in a graphite gray suit, white shirt, silver and black striped tie. His face had been steamed, shaved, and slapped to a high polish.

  You feel like you’re going to die, Patsy—he leaned in so close she inhaled his green-smelling cologne—because some part of you is dying. Some entrenched old tyrant of the soul, and sweetheart, she’s not going easy.

  20

  Patsy spent Christmas at Burt’s, and when she got back, a hospital bed had replaced the fainting couch in Audrey’s living room. In the late afternoons she’d find Gilles napping there, sometimes with Brice reading beside him. Patsy read too, for her lectures.

  She looked up once to see Gilles watching her. You know what, Patsy? he said. When I lived in Paris on rue Jacob, I used to walk to the Luxembourg Gardens at this time of day. All those green chairs clustered around statues would be filled with middle-aged women reading novels. The chestnut trees, that Parisian sky. That’s the main reason I ever wanted a sex change, to guarantee my happiness in middle age. I’m sorry I’ll never be one of those ladies. But at least I didn’t have to have surgery. Brice! he said sharply. />
  What’d I do?

  Gilles pushed him. You’re on the old rag, he said.

  The cashmere was freed. Really, Patsy, you shouldn’t look at me like that. Don’t feel bad for me. I’ve had a wonderful life.

  Patsy couldn’t read through the tears trembling in her eyes.

  She’s upset I called her middle-aged, Gilles stage-whispered to Brice.

  •

  Cal arrived at dusk and laid a fire. His kids were away at school again, and he could stay to eat. Patsy and Audrey set out a small roast and green beans. They ate on trays, with Gilles presiding from his bed like a young, ailing king. Cal and Audrey were in chintz chairs by the fire, while Patsy sat on the brick hearth itself, close to Cal’s knee. He wore old charcoal corduroys, a sweater the same marine blue of his eyes. Through French doors, Patsy saw shapely trees and high hedges illuminated as if by moonlight, though in fact Audrey’d had them lit.

  Cal was flying up to San Jose the next day for meetings with the redevelopment agency. The family land company had holdings there.

  Is San Jose going to put in an Aswn dam too? asked Gilles. That was what he called the monumental, doorless regional mall recently constructed near Pasadena’s City Hall.

  Something akin, said Cal. But anything will improve downtown San Jose. It’s literally a big dirt pit right now.

  Gilles said, Another thing I’m glad I won’t live to see.

  Patsy washed dishes with Audrey while Brice and Cal got Gilles to bed. Tired from sadness, she pulled on her camel hair coat, kissed Audrey.

  She met Cal in the hallway. Are you leaving? he said.

  She stepped aside, against closet doors, so he could pass. He touched her shoulder, and because solace seemed natural, she moved into his arms. He was tall and broad, and made her feel childishly small, a feat. Far too shy to embrace him fully, she held her hands over his shoulder blades, poised as if to subdue any rustle of wings. How soft his sweater was on her cheek. He murmured into her hair, Patsy, Patsy. Then, god almighty. He kissed the side of her head. Cupped against his shoulder, she began to worry that she was the one prolonging, and dropped her arms. He murmured something she didn’t hear and let her go.

  In the dim hall light, his fine face shone with suffering and kindness. Her departure was clumsy, a bumpering off a wall, a goodbye called too loudly.

  Stars spattered the cold black sky. Patsy drove home in confusion. In the calm gray shadows of her bedroom, confusion churned into hope.

  •

  I’m not positive, but I might start seeing someone new, she told Silver. And I know what you’re thinking: she no sooner gets out of one mess than she’s into another. But this isn’t like that. It’s not sui generis. I’ve known Cal the whole time I’ve been back, I see him every day, he didn’t pop out of nowhere. The man I was thinking of asking to be my sponsor. Who takes me riding.

  Whose daughter was unkind to you.

  Patsy gave a short laugh. Her worst fears may be coming true.

  She sensed something before you did, said Silver. Her father’s interest.

  I thought he just wanted me to ride his dead wife’s horse. Though I’m not positive he really is interested in something more.

  Are you interested in something more?

  With him? God, I hardly dare think of it. I mean, sure, but so is every woman in AA, every matron in La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena. He’s immensely attractive, and charismatic. He could have his pick.

  And he picked you.

  Oh, but I’m not sure yet. I have no idea what he sees in me. What would he want with a cultural historian fresh out of prison?

  What would you want with him?

  Oh, but he’s beautiful. And unbelievably kind.

  She left out rich, lest she sound crass.

  •

  Cal was out of town all week. Patsy would see him again on Thursday evening, at the meeting he brought to Gilles. She went about her routines with a fullness of heart and elegiac calm. Her morning candle, her spiritual reading, the hours still dark and clear. Teaching. Audrey’s.

  Gilles eyed her with suspicion. The Grouper is back, isn’t he?

  He meant Ian. No, Gilles, she said.

  She did seem calm, even to herself. Calm and stately.

  And if she were mistaken, or if Cal thought better of it himself, what would be lost but a vaguely imagined future involving a house in Flintridge, stepkids, horses, and dogs that were not hers. To relinquish such a big life—even before she had it—was in itself a relief. Her own future was so much smaller and simpler: move home to Pomelo Street in March, Hallen ad infinitum.

  A committee meeting Thursday afternoon made her late. The AA meeting had started without her. The announcements and book passages that were read aloud were finished, and Vaughn was talking about his job. Only two table lamps were on in Audrey’s living room, and there was a lively, snapping fire. Cal glanced up as she came in, and she knew then, or thought she did. She sat behind Gilles’s bed, almost in darkness. Derek, Caroline, and Binx shared; they were going around the room. Rajid talked about his girlfriend drinking too much. Cal spoke of his trip north, and how he’d run into an old business associate at an AA meeting there. The last time I saw him, we killed two bottles of Scotch and possibly the bartender, he said.

  Gilles reported feeling stronger; his T cells were up, his appetite was back. I may be faced with the prospect of living, he said.

  When it was her turn, Patsy said, I’m very happy to be here tonight.

  The circle was formed, the prayer spoken, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. She gathered the coffee mugs, took them into the kitchen, and waited.

  •

  I was struck, Cal told her, by how beautifully tall you were. How you looked so dazed and amazed to be free in the world again.

  He said, You were so shy and intelligent, so well-spoken. I wanted to carry you off and listen to you talk all day.

  •

  She saw him every night. They went to Monty’s Steakhouse and the Trestle. She introduced him to Pie ’N Burger.

  He wanted to buy her a horse of her own. If she wanted one. And if she didn’t like the Flintridge house, he had two others she could choose from. He could dislodge the tenants. Or buy her a new house altogether.

  All this, even before they were lovers.

  He had to go to a board meeting in Switzerland in July. How did that sound—a week in the Alps next summer?

  •

  Well, it turns out that he does like me.

  You didn’t know that?

  No, I mean, he likes me seriously.

  Silver was quiet.

  I guess he did have love in mind. He admitted to daydreaming about me.

  Silver sat, her lips pursed.

  Aren’t you going to say anything?

  No, said Silver.

  Why not? Patsy said.

  I don’t have anything to say.

  Her coldness frightened Patsy. Oh, I’m sure you’re thinking a lot of things, she said. I can feel the thoughts seething in that head of yours.

  And what are those thoughts?

  You’re thinking, Oh, god, here we go again. She’s like a teenager. Some guy looks twice at her, and off she goes like a firecracker. But at least this isn’t like it was with Ian, where I was a goner from the get-go. This is much calmer, no beeline to the bedroom. I don’t feel like I’m being swept away.

  Is that good?

  Didn’t you say it’s better not to hit the hay first thing?

  Ideally, there’s some erotic charge.

  Who said there isn’t? I’m saying we’re not being impulsive.

  When Silver didn’t answer, Patsy said, You’re awfully hard to please.

  But Silver was only taking her time. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and low, in the way Patsy loved. All possibility bloomed in that voice.

  The reason I suggest going slow, Silver said, is not to delay sex for the sake of delaying sex. It’s so you don’t burden a new, fragile acquai
ntanceship with all the expectations and emotions sex stirs up. Going slow allows you to stay current with yourself, and with each other, so you can face your emotions as they arise and not in one undifferentiated swirl. So you know what you feel and what you need each step of the way.

  That’s what I’m trying to do. Move at a manageable pace. Though I do think, deep down, all this taking it slow stuff is a myth. I know that once I kiss a guy, I’m going to sleep with him, and if that goes okay, I’ll move in with him. Unless he bails out on me first, this means that eventually I’ll have to break up with him because I never liked him that much in the first place. You’d think that knowing all this would keep me from kissing anybody ever again, at least anybody I didn’t completely adore. But you know what I mean.

  Not really, said Silver. I think you’re saying you’ve already kissed this man.

  Well, yes.

  And then, you’re planning to break up with him.

  Not necessarily. I’m trying to say that getting involved isn’t as incremental as you suggest. Once juices get stirred up, it’s specious to pretend that some step-by-step decision-making process is in motion. It’s more like two people agree to leap off a cliff.

  I disagree, Silver said quietly. What you describe is a proscription, a set pattern, not intimacy. It is possible for people to remain conscious as they get to know each other. That way, commitment comes from affection and self-knowledge.

  Self-knowledge is overrated, at least for us alcoholics, said Patsy. There’s even a saying in AA: Self-knowledge avails us nothing! I know that once I fall in love, I’m as blindered and impelled as a racehorse. I only hope that the next guy is kinder than the last.

  But isn’t there a higher, truer self, a self that’s free of addiction and obsession, that knows what’s best for you? said Silver. And isn’t that why you come here? To find and nourish that authentic, unenslaved self?

  No, Patsy said with wonder. Not at all. That never even occurred to me.

  So tell me, Patsy, why do you come here?

  Guilt, she said. How to live with guilt.

  •

  Cal did seem to be taking his sweet time.

  He seemed oddly satisfied with a few minutes of kissing on her sofa.