We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

  Your embrace had rarely offered so little solace. I kept hugging you harder to get something out of it, like squeezing an empty bottle of hand lotion until it wheezes.

  She was already in surgery, you explained.While I'd driven in, you'd run Kevin home, because there was nothing to do but wait, and there was no point making this harder on her brother than it was already. But I wondered if you hadn't whisked him from the waiting r o o m to safeguard him from me.

  We sat in those same sea-green metal chairs where I had agonized over what Kevin would tell the doctors w h e n I broke his arm. Maybe, I supposed miserably, for the last eight years he'd been biding his time. I said, "I don't understand what happened." I was quiet; I didn't shout.

  You said, "I thought I told you. Over the phone."

  "But it doesn't make sense." Anything but contentious, my tone was simply baffled. " W h y would she—what would she be doing with that stuff ?"

  — 338 —

  "Kids."You shrugged. "Playing. I guess."

  "But," I said."She'll, ah—." My m i n d kept blanking out. I had to reconstruct what I'd wanted to say all over again, repeating the conversation to myself, where we were, what came next...

  Bathroom. Yes.

  "She'll go to the bathroom by herself now," I resumed. "But she doesn't like it in there. She never has. She wouldn't play in there." An incipient insistence in my voice must have sounded dangerous; we would shrink back from the ledge. Ceha was still in surgery. We wouldn't fight, and you would hold my hand.

  It seemed hours later that the doctor emerged. You'd called h o m e on your cell phone, twice, out of my earshot as if sparing me something; you'd bought me coffee from the machine along the wall, and it was n o w topped with crinkled skin.When a nurse pointed us out to the surgeon, I suddenly understood w h y some people worship their doctors, and w h y doctors are prone to feel godlike. But with one look at his face, I could see that he wasn't feeling very godlike.

  " I ' m sorry," he said. "We really tried. But there was too m u c h damage. I ' m afraid we couldn't save the eye."

  We were encouraged to go home. Ceha was heavily sedated, and she would remain so for some time. N o t long enough, I thought.

  So we stumbled from the waiting room. At least, you pointed out numbly, he says the other eye is probably okay. Just that m o r n i n g I'd taken for granted the fact that our daughter had two.

  O u t in the parking lot, it was cold; in my flight from the office, I'd left my coat. We had two cars to drive home, which made me feel colder. I sensed we were at a junction of sorts and feared that if we each launched off in separate vehicular universes we would end up in the same place only in the most banal, geographical sense.You must have felt the same need to confirm that we were, as my staff had lately taken to saying five times a day, on the same page, because you invited me into your truck for a few minutes to debrief and get warm.

  — 3 3 9 —

  I missed your old baby-blue pickup, w h i c h I associated with our courtship, powering along the turnpike with the windows d o w n and sound system pounding, like a living Bruce Springsteen lyric. A n d the pickup was more you, old-you anyway: classic, d o w n - h o m e , honest. Pure, even. Edward H o p p e r would never have painted the bulky 4x4 with which you replaced it. Reared up unnaturally above wide, oversized tires, the body had the blunted, bulging contours of an inflatable dinghy. Its bullying fenders and puffed-up posture reminded me of those p o o r little lizards whose only weapon is display, and the truck's overdrawn, cartoon manliness had prompted me to quip in better days, "If you check under the chassis, Franklin, I bet you'll find a tiny dick." At least you'd laughed.

  T h e heating worked well; too well, since once we'd idled for a few minutes the cab got stuffy. It was bigger than the Ford, but your baby-blue had never felt this claustrophobic with just the two of us.

  Finally, you knocked your head back on the padded headrest and stared at the ceiling. "I can't believe you left it out."

  Stunned, I didn't respond.

  "I thought about not saying that," you proceeded. "But if I swallowed it, I'd be not saying it, and not saying it, for weeks, and that seemed worse."

  I licked my lips. I had begun to tremble. "I didn't leave it out."

  You dropped your head, then sighed. "Eva. D o n ' t make me do this. You used that Liquid-Plumr on Saturday. I remember because you went on about h o w the kids' drain smelled weird or something, and then later that afternoon you warned us n o t to run any water in that sink for the next h o u r because you'd put drain cleaner in it."

  "I put it away," I said. "Back in that high cabinet with the child-lock on it, which Celia couldn't even reach with a chair!"

  " T h e n how did it get out?"

  " G o o d question," I said icily.

  — 3 4 0 —

  "Look, I realize that you're usually very careful with caustic substances and lock that shit up automatically But people aren't machines—"

  "I remember putting it away, Franklin."

  " D o you remember putting your shoes on this morning, do you remember closing the door behind you w h e n you left the house? H o w many times have we been in the car, and we've had to go back inside and make sure that the stove isn't on? W h e n turning it off is presumably second nature?"

  " B u t the stove is never on, is it? It's almost a rule of life, a, what, some kind of fortune-cookie aphorism: T h e Stove Is Never O n . "

  "I'll tell you w h e n it's on, Eva: the one time that you don't bother to double-check. A n d that is w h e n the fucking house burns down."

  " W h y are we having this inane conversation? W i t h our daughter in the hospital?"

  "I want you to admit it. I ' m not saying I won't forgive you. I k n o w you must feel terrible. But part of getting through this has to be facing u p — "

  "Janis came this morning, maybe she left it out." In truth, I never thought for a m o m e n t that Janis had been so sloppy, but I was desperate to keep at bay the picture that began to f o r m in my head w h e n I entertained a more credible suspect.

  "Janis had no need for drain cleaner. All the drains were clear."

  "All right," I said, steeling myself. " T h e n ask Kevin h o w that bottle got left out."

  "I k n e w we'd get around to this. First it's oh, what a mystery, then it's the housekeeper's fault, who's left? And, what a surprise, that E v a — w h o never does anything w r o n g herself—should finger her o w n son!"

  " H e was supposed to be taking care of her. You said he was old e n o u g h — "

  "Yes, it was on his watch. But she was in the bathroom, he says

  — 341 —

  the door was closed, and we've hardly encouraged our fourteen-year-old boy to bust in on his sister in the john."

  "Franklin, this story doesn't add up. Never mind for n o w why it was out, all right? Forget that. But w h y would Celia p o u r drain cleaner in her own eye?"

  "I haven't a clue! Maybe because kids are not only d u m b but creative and the combination is death. W h y else would we keep that shit locked up? What's important is Kevin did everything he should have. He says w h e n she started to scream he came running, and w h e n he found out what it was he ran water over her face and rinsed her eye the best he could, and then he called an ambulance, even before he called me on the cell—which was just right, the order was just right, he was a star."

  " H e didn't call me," I said.

  "Well," you said. "I wonder why."

  " T h e damage—" I took a breath. "It's bad, isn't it. It had to have been very, very bad—." I had started to cry, but I made myself stop, because I had to get this out. "If she's lost the eye, and surgeons are better at this kind of thing than they used to be, then it was—. It was a mess. It takes, ah. It takes a while." I stopped again, hstening to the wah from the heat vents.The air had grown dry, my saliva sticky. "It takes a while for that stuff to work. That's w h y the label tells you t o — t o let it sit."

  Compulsively, I had pressed
my fingertips against my o w n eyes, padding the papery lids, guarding the smooth, tender roll of the balls.

  " W h a t are you saying? Because it's bad enough to accuse him of neglect—"

  " T h e doctor said there'd be scarring! That she was burned, all across that side of her face! Time, it would have taken time!

  Maybe he did wash it out, but when? W h e n he was finished?"

  You grabbed each of my arms, raised t h e m on either side of my head, and looked me in the eye. "Finished with what? His homework? His archery practice?"

  "Finished," I groaned, "with Celia."

  — 3 4 2 —

  " D o n ' t you ever say that again! N o t to anyone! N o t even to m e ! "

  " T h i n k about it!" I wrenched my arms free with a twist.

  "Celia, douse herself with acid? Celia's afraid of everything! A n d she's six, she's n o t two. I k n o w you don't think she's very smart, but she's not retarded! She knows not to touch the stove, and she doesn't eat bleach. Meanwhde, Kevin can reach that cabinet, and Kevin can work chdd-locks in his sleep. He's n o t her savior. He did it! O h , Franklin, he did i t — "

  " I ' m ashamed of you, ashamed," you said at my back as I curled against the door. "Demonizing your o w n kid just because you can't admit to your o w n carelessness. It's worse than craven. It's sick.

  Here you're flailing around making outrageous accusations, and as usual you have no proof.That doctor—-did he say anything about Kevin's story not squaring with her injuries? N o . N o , he didn't.

  Only his m o t h e r can detect a cover-up of some unspeakable evd because she's such a medical expert, such an expert on corrosive chemicals because she's occasionally cleaned house."

  As ever, you couldn't keep shouting at me w h d e I was crying.

  "Look," you implored. "You don't k n o w what you're saying because you're upset. You're not yourself. This is hard, and it's going to keep being hard, because you're going to have to look at it. She's going to be in pain, and it's going to look nasty for a while. T h e only thing that's going to make it easier is if you confront your part in this. Celia—even Celia, with that elephant shrew—admits it's her fault. She left the cage open! A n d that's part of it, what hurts, that not only did something sad happen but if she'd done something differently it wouldn't have happened.

  She takes responsibdity, and she's only six! Why can't you?"

  "I wish I could take responsibility," I whispered, fogging the side window. "I'd say, ' O h , I could kill myself for leaving that drain cleaner w h e r e she could find it!' D o n ' t you see h o w m u c h easier that w o u l d be? Why would I be so upset? If it were my fault, only my fault? In that case, it wouldn't be frightening.

  Franklin, this is serious, it's not just a litde girl scratching her

  — 343 —

  eczema anymore. I don't h o w he got this way but he's a horror, and he hates her—"

  "That's enough! "Your announcement had a liturgical finality, deep and b o o m i n g hke the ringing Amen in a benedictory prayer.

  "I don't often lay d o w n the law. But Kevin's been through an incredible trauma. His sister will never be the same. He kept his head in a crisis, and I want him to be proud of that. Still, he was the one baby-sitting, and he's inevitably going to w o r r y that it was all his fault. So you are going to promise me, right now, that you'll do everything in your power to assure him that it wasn't."

  I pulled the handle of the door and opened it a few inches. I thought, I have to get out of here, I have to get away.

  " D o n ' t go, not yet," you said, holding my arm. "I want you to promise."

  "Promise to keep my m o u t h shut or to believe his feeble story? I might add, another one."

  "I can't make you believe in your o w n s o n . T h o u g h I've sure as fuck tried."

  On one point you were right: I didn't have any proof. O n l y Celia's face. Hadn't I been right. She'd never be beautiful, w o u l d she.

  I climbed from the truck and faced you through the open door. T h e chill w i n d whipping my hair, I stood at attention, reminded of brittle military truces struck between mistrustful generals in the middle of barren battlefields.

  "All right," I said. "We'll call it an accident.You can even tell him, ' I ' m afraid your mother forgot to put the Liquid-Plumr away on Saturday.' After all, he knew I unclogged that drain. But in return you promise me: that we will never again leave Kevin alone with Ceha. N o t for five minutes."

  "Fine. I bet Kevin's none too keen for more baby-sitting jobs right n o w anyway."

  I said I'd see you at home; a civil farewell was an effort.

  "Eva!" you called at my back, and I turned. "You k n o w I ' m not usually big on shrinks. But maybe you should talk to

  — 3 4 4 —

  somebody. I think you need help. That's not an accusation. It's just—you're right on one score.This is getting serious. I ' m afraid it's beyond me."

  Indeed it was.

  T h e following couple of weeks were eerdy quiet around the house, with Celia still recovering in the hospital.You and I spoke little. I'd ask what you'd like for dinner; you'd say you didn't care.

  In relation to Celia, we largely addressed logistics—when each of us would visit. Although it seemed sensible for us to go separately so that she'd have companionship for m o r e of the day, the truth was that neither of us was anxious to share your overheated 4x4

  once more. Back home, we could discuss the particulars of her condition, and though the particulars were distressing—an infection subsequent to her enucleation, a vocabulary lesson I could have skipped, had further damaged the optic nerve and ruled out a transplant— facts fed the conversational maw. Shopping for an oculist for her follow-up, I seized on a doctor named Krikor Sahatjian on the U p p e r East Side. Armenians look out for each other, I assured you. He'll give us special attention. "So would Dr.

  Kevorkian," you grunted, well aware that the godfather of assisted suicide was one Armenian my conservative community was reluctant to claim. Still, I was grateful for an exchange that almost qualified as banter, in conspicuous short supply.

  I remember being on my best behavior, never raising my voice, never objecting w h e n you barely touched a meal that I'd have gone to great trouble to fix. Cooking, I tried not to make too m u c h noise, muffling the clang of a knocked pot. In respect to Ceha's uncanndy sunny disposition in Nyack Hospital, I swallowed many an admiring remark for seeming somehow indecorous, as if her improbable good nature were an affront to lesser mortals w h o quite reasonably wad from pain and grow irascible during convalescence. In our household, my praise of our daughter always seemed to get confused with bragging on my o w n account. Throughout, I made a concerted effort to act

  — 345 —

  normal, which, along with trying to have f u n and trying to be a good mother, we can n o w add to our list of projects that are inherently doomed.

  That remark you made about my "needing help" proved disquieting. I had replayed the m e m o r y of putting that Liquid-Plumr away so many times that the tape was w o r n and I couldn't quite trust it. I would review my suspicions and sometimes they didn't...well, nothing would seem clear-cut. Did I put that bottle away? Was the injury too severe for the story the way Kevin told it? Could I point to a single shred of solid evidence that would hold up in court? I didn't want to "talk to somebody," but I'd have given my eye teeth to be able to talk to you.

  It was only a couple of days after the accident w h e n you convened our roundtable of three. We'd just had dinner, loosely speaking; Kevin had shoveled his food directly from the stove.

  H u m o r i n g you, he assumed his rueful, sideways slouch at the dining table. Having been unwillingly s u m m o n e d to this convocation as well, I felt hke a kid myself, once m o r e forced at age nine to formally apologize to M r . W i n t e r g r e e n for pilfering drops from the walnut tree in his front yard. Sneaking a glance at Kevin, I wanted to say, Wipe that smirk off your face, this isn't a joke; your sister's in th
e hospital. I wanted to say, Go put on a T-shirt that isn't five sizes too small for you, just being in the same room with that getup makes me itch. B u t I couldn't. In the culture of o u r family, such commonplace parental admonitions, from me anyway, were impermissible.

  "In case you're nervous, Kev," you began (though he didn't look nervous to me),"this isn't an inquisition.We mostly want to tell you h o w much you impressed us with your quick thinking.

  W h o knows, if you hadn't called those medics in right away, it could have been even worse." (How? I t h o u g h t . T h o u g h I suppose she could've taken a bath in it.) "And your m o t h e r has something she wants to tell you."

  "I wanted to thank you," I began, avoiding Kevin's eye, "for getting your sister to the hospital."

  "Tell him what you told me," you prompted. " R e m e m b e r , you said you were concerned, that he might feel, you k n o w .

  This part was easy. I looked at h i m straight on. "I thought you probably felt responsible."

  Unflinching, he squinted back, and I confronted my o w n wide-bridged nose, my narrow jaw, my shelved brow and dusky complexion. I was looking in the mirror, yet I had no idea what my o w n reflection was thinking. "Why's that?"

  "Because you were supposed to be taking care of her!"

  "But you wanted to remind him," you said, "that we'd never expected him to watch her every single minute, and accidents happen, and so it wasn't his fault. W h a t you told me. You know.

  In the truck."

  It was exactly like apologizing to Mr. Wintergreen. W h e n I was nine, I'd wanted to blurt, Most of those stupid walnuts were wormy or rotten, you old coot, but instead I'd promised to harvest a full peck of his c r u m m y nuts and return t h e m fully shelled.

  "We don't want you to blame yourself." My tone duplicated Kevin's own, w h e n he'd spoken to the police— sir this, sir that.