“That’s a matter of half a day. That’s not all the way to Virginia.”
“So, we’ll take it slow. Three or four half days of driving. We’ll stop in some nice motels and get room service.” He put the knife down, then put a slice of the cheese in his mouth, and stood there chewing. There was almost a breeziness about his demeanor. He held another slice of the cheese, leaning against the counter. “For that matter, we have the money to fly.”
She felt curiously sullen, and she strove to keep her voice even and strong. “Look, why’re you so anxious to go to Virginia?”
“Why’re you so anxious to go to New Orleans?” His eyes widened the smallest increment, but he smiled. “Oh, of course.”
“No, that is not it,” Lily said. “No one has to say anything.”
“Well, but somebody would, wouldn’t she?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I’m not trying to be fair. I’m trying to protect my family.”
She watched him take another slice of the cheese.
“I’d like, dear wifey, to go to Virginia,” he said. “I’d like to move away from this part of the country. I don’t like it with him living so close. If I join the army, maybe we’ll wind up in Germany or somewhere far away. I’d like that.”
Lily stared at him.
“In the meantime, why don’t we fly to Virginia? Take an airplane, the three of us.”
“You don’t want Dominic to find out,” she said. “Ever.”
“The way I look at it,” he said without looking up, “I paid for the baby, and I’m supporting her and you. I’m doing the job of the father and in all respects other than biology I am the father. I should’ve told you what the situation was with me before we were married and you should’ve told me what—what had gone on with you. But we want a family and we are a family and Dominic, forgive me, is gay and has no desire to have a family and never wanted children and is at peace with it, and I think we are perfectly within our rights—”
She started to interrupt him: “I can’t believe—”
But he spoke over her, raising his voice. “All right, it’s perfectly within my rights, okay? Perfectly within my rights to require that what we know about this child is never revealed to anyone. Not to anyone, Lily. Not ever.”
She turned from him and walked into the living room, where the baby was asleep in the bassinet. He followed her to the entrance of the room and stood there, watching her take Mary from her place and sit down to begin nursing her.
“Do we understand each other at last?” he said.
She did not respond.
“I require an answer,” he said.
“Fuck off,” she told him.
He went back into the kitchen, and was silent for a long time. Once or twice she heard him shift his weight. At last he went into the bedroom and closed the door. When the baby had finished nursing, Lily put her down, went into the kitchen, and opened a can of tuna fish. She mixed it with mayonnaise and put it on toast, and carried her plate into the living room. She ate quietly, sitting on the couch, rocking the bassinet now and again. The little protests the baby made were the only sounds.
In the bedroom, he had gotten under the blanket and was asleep. She got in, too, and lay there waiting for him to say something. But he was evidently asleep, and in a little while she was, too. She woke in the night from one of her fright dreams and saw that he was up, pacing in the hallway. By his shadow it was apparent that he was agitated, his fists clenching and unclenching; it was as if he were having an argument with himself. She thought of getting up and going to him, but then she remembered how the evening had gone, and she stayed where she was.
Everything, in those hard minutes, felt like a desolation.
In a while he came back to the bed and got in, and settled himself. For a long time she was certain that each was aware of the other’s wakefulness. Neither of them uttered a sound.
4
HE WAS GONE before the baby stirred, at first light. Lily walked with Mary on her arm through the house, and she looked out the picture window at the silver-limned lawn and trees, the Olds in the driveway, the shadowy hulk of the partially built apartment house. It rather amazed her to see it all so unchanged. Then she reflected that finally nothing had really changed. This was merely the bad feeling of the night.
She called his office at the dealership, but there wasn’t any answer.
Later in the morning, she got the baby dressed warmly, put her in the car seat, and drove into the city. It was a gray, breezy day with a hint of the coming spring in it. The wind had a balmy fragrance, though it still carried the chill of winter rain.
She spent an hour in the library, and then drove back to the little house. No one called; no one came by. She fed Mary and put her down, and then tried to write a little. It was almost impossible to concentrate. Across the way, construction on the apartment building was in full swing with the warmer weather, and there was the incessant roaring of a gas generator, the rhythmic, metallic clank of a pile driver. In the kitchen, fixing herself some crackers and cheese, she saw that he had taken some ground beef out of the freezer, so she knew he would be home in the early evening. She put music on, The Police, and tried to clean a little. The only thing to do was to observe the usual motions, get through the day. Finally she sat on the sofa in the light of the big window and read in Mary Kingsley’s book about West Africa.
Tyler came home just before dark. He walked up to the door and in, and past her to the kitchen, where he started to prepare dinner, cutting celery and tomatoes, breaking up a head of lettuce. She went to the entrance of the kitchen and watched him for a time, but said nothing. He took the ground beef out of the refrigerator and began making patties. He made three.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
He put one of the patties away, slapped it into the unformed mass in the package, wrapped it, and put it back.
“Tyler,” she said.
He made no answer. He set a fire under the skillet and started grilling the burgers, standing with his back to her.
“All right,” she said, and went back into the living room. She put the television on. She was sitting there staring at it when he came in with a book under his arm, the plate of burgers, a bag of potato chips, and a beer. He sat on the couch at the other end, put the book down, and the plate, then tore open the bag of potato chips. Some of the chips fell to the floor. He picked them up and set them on the table. Then he reached over and turned the television off, flipped the book open to its marked place, and began to eat one of the burgers while he read. The book was an anthology of philosophers: From Socrates to Sartre. She had put it in the bookshelf in the hallway that afternoon, having picked it up from the floor on his side of the bed.
He turned a page, and took another big bite of the burger.
“Tyler, this is childish,” she said. “It won’t solve anything.”
Silence.
She stood and moved to the television, then changed her mind and sat in the chair opposite him. “Tyler.”
“You talking to me?” he said.
Now she was quiet.
He took a bite of the burger, and stared at the open book, chewing. She could hear the little breathing through his nose as he chewed, and he kept jamming the big sandwich into his face, taking it down greedily and with a kind of inattention, as if this were simply to remove a pang, and not for the slightest pleasure.
“Tyler, listen—” she began.
He looked up at her with an expression so fierce that it stopped her. “I’m eating right now. I have to feel relaxed to eat. I don’t want any upset when I eat. If you’ve got something to say, say it later. Or better yet, write it. Yeah,” he went on, plainly happy with himself for thinking of this, talking loud and openmouthed, so that she saw the half-chewed food on his tongue. “I like that idea. That’s fuck’n perfect. Write it down. I’ll read it when I get a chance. When in my busy workday I have some opportunity to stop and think, or spend five godd
amn minutes.”
She said, “Since when is my writing an area of irritation to you?”
“Did I say that?” he fairly shouted at her. “I don’t—you know, actually, I don’t remember saying that. I think I didn’t say it. But then, what the hell do I know? Maybe I did. And if I did, well, Jesus Christ in a wheelbarrow, please forgive me, because if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s express any irritation with you about anything, anything at all.”
“The baby,” Lily said. “Will you please—the baby.”
“Oh, right. The baby. Jesus Christ, I forgot the baby. How could I—me, the father of record—how could I forget the baby.” This was said at the level of a scream.
And the baby began to cry, a startled, frightened sound. Lily stood, crying herself, and reached into the bassinet. “Are you proud now?” she said.
He was quiet for a moment. But then he picked up the book and threw it across the room. It slammed against the wall and brought down a picture in its frame—a print Lily had bought of Monet’s blue cathedrals. He got up and stalked into the kitchen. She heard water running, and dishes clattering in the sink. Mary cried and trembled in her arms, looking in the direction of the entrance to the kitchen. Lily went back to the bedroom and got into bed, cradling the infant, who still howled and complained and shook, the smallest quaking, deep down. Lily was weeping, too.
Finally, the tumult in the other room stopped. The television was on, another kind of ruckus. Lily fell asleep to the sound of it, while Mary nursed.
She woke to the motion of his hands under her arm, moving her aside so he could lift the baby. She screamed, “Don’t you touch her!” And the baby started crying again.
He stood there, a dark, looming shape with the light of the hallway behind him. She pulled Mary toward her, and waited for him to do whatever he had it in him to do.
He remained still a few moments, and then he moved through the house, an almost casual striding, to the front door and out. He did not slam it. She got up in time to see him drive away in the demo. He went fast, tires squealing, the taillights disappearing down the road, and he was gone in the darkness.
She nursed Mary, and then watched her sleep. It was too late to call anyone. Too late to go anywhere. She listened to the small breathing, the little stirrings and moans, and was afraid. The night seemed borderless; she couldn’t imagine that the sun shone anywhere. Finally she drifted off to a gray, edgy slumber, filled with dread and foreboding. She woke to the sound of him moving unsteadily through the rooms. He came to the entrance of the bedroom. She heard his breathing, there, and she lay perfectly still and quiet. He stood for a long time, then lurched away and went into the living room and turned the television on. She listened to it for an hour or so before falling off to sleep again.
Mary woke her toward dawn, trying to work up a cry. She sat up and held the baby, nursing her, and when she had finished with that, she changed her and lay back down. But Mary didn’t want to sleep now. In the other room, the television played. Lily got out of the bed and walked in there. Tyler was sitting on the couch with his head back, mouth open, deeply asleep. There were two bottles of beer on the coffee table in front of him. She turned the television off, and started out of the room.
“I was watching that.”
She went back and turned it on.
“Thank you.”
In the bedroom, she got dressed, and changed Mary again. There was no sound from the living room. For a time she sat on the bed, fully dressed, holding the baby, who gazed up at her with eyes that seemed to contain all the fathomless knowledge of the universe.
Tyler was up and moving around now, coughing, clearing his throat, sighing. She stood, took a deep breath, gathered all her courage, and walked into the living room. He was by the open window, disheveled, running his hands through his hair. She lay the baby down on the couch, brought her suitcase out of the closet, and began putting things into it: clothes from her bedroom bureau, some of the things Millicent and Doris and others had bought for the baby.
“Where’re you going,” he said. There was no inflection in it at all.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “Out of here.”
“I’m going. There’s no reason for you to go.”
She looked at him.
“I have to go to work,” he said. “Remember?” He stared. There wasn’t anything in his face. His eyes, though red and irritated, looked dead—the flat gaze of a doll. “I can see how you mean it.”
She went on working: stacking blouses and dresses she hadn’t worn since she had begun to show; gathering all her work on the play, all her letters, and some books, it was all going in.
“You gonna carry that, and the baby?”
“I’ll manage.”
Taking a step toward her, he grasped her elbow. It wasn’t rough, but she pulled away as if he had attempted to strike her. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Lily. I let my temper get the best of me. It won’t happen again.”
“Do you think it’s just this one instance?” she said.
His face seemed to go soft. He looked down, and then off, out the window, and she saw that tears had come from his eyes and made their way down his cheek. “I’m sorry for everything.” He sniffled. “Could you give me a chance, here. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before.”
“It’s new to me, too,” she said.
“Look, we—we had this—this one fight. I wasn’t there—all right—I wasn’t there when you had the baby. I chickened out. I’m sorry for it.”
She sat down on the couch and put her hands to her face. For an instant, he wasn’t even there, and it was just Lily, the baby, and her sorrow.
“I’ve been so low,” he went on. “I’ve let it get to me.”
“Please, go on to work,” she managed. “You’ll be late to work.”
He came to where she sat and knelt in front of her. “Tell me you won’t leave while I’m gone. Please don’t leave, Lily. I love you. I love Mary. I’m—I was just trying to protect that—my—what I’m—what I’ve been working for. My family. None of it—nothing of anything makes the slightest bit of sense to me but this, Lily. I swear. You—you got to talking about New Orleans and I felt threatened. My mother left when I was five fucking years old. Can you imagine what that does to a person? I got scared it was going to happen to me again. I don’t—I can’t have it happen to me again. I couldn’t help myself, Lily, please.” He put his head down in her lap and wept. She touched his hair, a caressing motion, trying to soothe him. It came to her that in a way he was still that little boy who had been abandoned by his mother, and he was faced now with something for which he could find no action or answer, no solution but more anguish—a tribulation yielding nothing but continual increase of itself, compounding and broadening even as he wrestled with it. She realized that she was feeling sorry for him, and very gently she pushed him away, took his shoulders, pushing, so that he straightened, with his tear-streaked boy’s face, that ruggedly fine-looking face, and regarded her.
“You have to get to work,” she said. “You’ll be late for work.”
“Promise you won’t leave me.”
“I promise, Tyler. Please.”
He got to his feet. “I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t think of anything to tell him.
“I love you,” he said.
Gazing up at him, she murmured, “I love you, too.” She stood and put her arms around him.
“I’ll do better,” he said into her ear. “I mean it. You’ll see.”
5
SPRING CAME with heavy rains and gloomy gray days and winds. There was flooding on the delta, and the construction on the apartment house had come to a standstill. In the last week of March, Sheri told everyone that she thought she might be pregnant. Millicent planned a party, which was to be outside, around the pool. But it rained all that day, and everyone congregated inside. Millicent had hired three musicians from New Orleans, a guitarist,
a fiddler, and a bass player, to entertain. The fiddle player was a young, bronze-colored man, quite beautiful to look at. While he played the fiddle, the baby, suspended in her carrier, facing front over Lily’s abdomen, made wonderful delighted screeching sounds, fascinated and wide-eyed. Lily watched the top of the small bobbing head with its new silky black hair, and she saw the others as they laughed and murmured together about the enchantment in her child’s face. Millicent said the baby could claim responsibility for the party’s success.
It was at the end of this party that Millicent announced her intention of marrying Roger Gault. The wedding would take place in the fall. The next day, Sheri called Lily, crying, to say that she was not pregnant after all.
“I’ll tell you, honey, I was happy, and then I was scared, and it all seemed so wide and pretty, like a good dream, and now it’s just—it turns out it was just—nothing. Nothing.”
“It’ll happen,” Lily told her.
“I don’t think Nick’s been near me more than twice since January.”
“He’s just so sad.”
“So am I.” Sheri sobbed. “I miss my father. I wish none of it happened. I miss the way Nick used to be.”
“I know,” Lily told her. “He’s trying to find his way. It must be so awful for him.”
“I saw David last week.”
Lily held the receiver against the side of her face and gazed at the sleeping form of her baby.
“It was just to talk to somebody who isn’t weighted down with this—this suffering.”
She kept silent, listening to the small sobbing on the other end.
“I’m sorry,” Sheri said.
“Don’t,” she said. “Really, Sheri—please. The baby’s awake.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’m only human. I don’t know what Nick expects.”
“Sheri, the baby—”
“I know, I know. The baby.”
“I’m sure it’ll be all right.” As she spoke these words, Lily felt a sinking at heart, for the empty sound they made.
Hello to the Cannibals Page 54