“It’s worse than sad, Mom! Though Eileen told me her mom said those kids deserved what they got. Can you believe that? She’s a terrible Nixon-supporter. Eileen might disinherit herself.”
Andy didn’t know who Eileen was, either. She said, “Unarmed people who get shot never deserve it.” However, Andy thought, if they had any sense, they would expect it.
“Will you let me stay in jail if they arrest me?”
“Well, of course. But try not to get arrested.”
“I don’t know what to try,” said Janet. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in Frankfurt.” That, she made up.
There was a pause, and Andy began, “Are you—” But Janet had hung up. She’d meant to ask what Janet intended to do for the summer.
She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and plugged in the coffeemaker. She came upon Nedra’s doughnut stash, and she looked at the doughnuts — pink, chocolate, maple — for three or four moments before putting them back where she found them. She looked out the back door at the lawn, which needed cutting. On the hall table, the paper was folded together. She carried it into the kitchen. There was the boy, flat on his stomach, his head turned away, his feet flopped to one side, his arm folded under his chest. It could be any boy, any boy at all. Andy put her hand over the picture and then took it away. There was the girl, her arms out, kneeling over the boy, her mouth open in a scream. Andy put her hand over the picture again. There was no reason in the world for this picture to affect her, Andy. It was not her business, and anyway, she was inured to death, was she not? Dr. Smith said she was the least in touch with her feelings of anyone he had ever met; just look at the way she kept coming back to the murder of the woman she had never met, but skated over Tim’s death, the death of the darling boy, as if she didn’t care. Perhaps she had no feelings beyond nerve endings. Was that possible? But this picture…She took her hand away again, and stared. Moments before, that boy had been alive. Now he was dead. Someone his own age had shot him. Andy stared at the picture. She did not read the article — no need for that.
—
THE FIRST TIME, Claire was at Hy-Vee, beginning her Saturday’s shopping. She ran into Dr. Sadler in cereal (he was buying Frosted Flakes, which Paul wouldn’t allow in the house). Yes, he had been lightly flirting with her for years by now, but maybe he had never expected to get beyond that. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, which, by turning her head, she transformed into a kiss on the lips, and a passionate one. They left their carts in cereal and went straight to his house, four blocks away. She was home two hours later with her groceries and the news that she hadn’t been able to find any lamps to match the new couch — she’d looked everywhere. Paul related all the things he had done with Gray and Brad in her absence, not a flicker of suspicion, and it went like that for seven weeks, as if a slot had opened up in the normal progression of time that was dedicated to the advancement of their affair.
Claire had no shame, no remorse, no fear. Dr. Sadler was in charge of those emotions. Week by week, date by date, he got more tormented and more handsome. The first time seemed like a game they were both playing — hide and seek, don’t let the grown-ups know. They laughed most of the time — that he climaxed within a minute was hilarious, that they did it again and the corner of the contour sheet popped off with the violence of their lovemaking was wonderful. He admired Claire, her patience and her good nature, and her eyes, especially since she’d gotten the contacts — they were beautiful, riveting, such a strange color, not exactly brown, a cat’s eyes; he wanted her to keep them open while they were making love. He was wonderful to look at also — the sunlight flickering over his triceps, the shadows of his ribs, the indentation along the side of his gluteal muscles. When they were finished making love, he gave her treats in bed — leftover mu-shu pork, Popsicles, once a mai tai, which she’d never had before (Paul didn’t allow food out of the kitchen, he was suspicious of leftovers, and he would not go to a Chinese restaurant). What did Claire want to do? Dr. Sadler did it. Just kiss? He would kiss her a thousand times. Just let her touch it and look at it? He smiled while she explored. He had no inhibitions — he thought getting rid of those was what medical school was for — but, more than that, he was curious, curious about her. In her dating life, she had never met a man who was curious about her, and over the seven years of their marriage, Paul had grown suspicious of her inner life, not curious about it. If she said what she wanted for breakfast, for example, he met every response with an objection: if she wanted pancakes, eggs were more nutritious; if she wanted eggs, waffles would be a change.
After a couple of weeks, he said how could this go on, but of course it had to, he was only joking. He began to embrace her very tightly, as if they were about to part, but they did not part. Each lovemaking after that was more frantic. He never said, “I love you,” but he did say, “You’re adorable,” “I’ve never met anyone like you,” “I can’t stay away from you,” “I had no idea just looking at you,” “You’re killing me.” Claire floated along, every desire satisfied before she imagined it. Week six, he told Paul he was leaving in a month — going into practice with his younger brother in Kansas City. Dr. William Sadler specialized in podiatry, had served his internship at the University of Texas. Paul sat his partner down and told him frankly that ENT and podiatry made no sense together, and that starting from nothing in a place they didn’t know was insane — what in the world was he thinking? A week after that, he was gone from his house, from the office, from Hy-Vee, his telephone disconnected, his front step piled with newspapers and grocery-store flyers. She knew this because she drove by no matter where she was intending to go. She even parked and went into the house — the door was unlocked. A week later, a “For Sale” sign appeared on the lawn, and then she kept her eye out for the listing—“Two bedroom bungalow, single story, 1½ baths, very good condition, $36,000.”
He didn’t have to write or call. There was no mystery: he had informed her of every shift in his state of mind, every new level of anxiety, every conviction that he had committed an impossible betrayal that could not go on. Claire was not unhappy; he was so present in her mind that he hardly seemed gone at all. Another two weeks passed; she was not pregnant. And so that was that.
—
RICHIE FIGURED they were looking for him by now. He had maybe one day, and so he was going to make the best of it by joining the army. Once you were in the army, they couldn’t get you back. He was seventeen. He had been to military school for years now. Whatever that thing was about parental consent, well, he would deal with that if they realized the letter he’d given them was a forgery.
And he looked eighteen. Michael was still bigger than he was, but not much: six three, 170 versus six three and a half, 175. If he caught Michael unawares, he could still knock him down, but he hadn’t done that in a year. Now they mostly ignored each other. Michael liked the Kinks; Richie liked Black Sabbath. That was all a person needed to know. Anyway, now he was in Boston, and here was the bus that was taking him to where he would go through the physical and the tests, whatever they were. He was the first to get on, and he walked to the back and sat down.
It was a nice July day, sunny but damp, a Boston day, not like that armpit in the Midwest where they sweated all day and night. It was a week since he’d walked out of the job that his dad got him, painting at a “Country Club,” though it didn’t look very exclusive to Richie. They painted green some days, and they painted white other days, and the painters talked about whorehouses and tattoos. Now Richie stared out the window at guys in uniforms telling the recruits to move it, get going. Finally, the sergeant followed the last guy onto the bus, and the door started to close. One of the draftees jumped out of his seat and said, “We need to vote on that.”