by Sarah S.
When Scott was about seven, he took piano lessons from the same woman Charles did: Rose, an African-American woman who taught out of her home. It didn’t take long for Rose to become smitten with Scott and Scott to become smitten with her. While she assigned Charles Chopin and Beethoven pieces, she taught Scott jazz standards, The Entertainer. “I can tell he’ll be a tough one, and I want to make it fun for him,” Rose explained to Sylvie. “I want to make sure he keeps coming to lessons.” Once, Sylvie arrived to pick Scott up from his lesson a little early and heard the two of them talking in the piano room, giggling and pressing keys. Her heart felt sore; she resented Rose for her easy rapport with Scott. Why couldn’t Scott be this way at home with her, his own mother? A year later, Rose announced that she was moving to Georgia to be with her mother, who’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Sylvie taught the boys piano herself for a while, drawing from her ten years of lessons, but Scott immediately lost interest.
And now, standing over his bed, she wished she could look inside his head. Because that was the thing—if Sylvie thought she didn’t understand him when he was a toddler or a seven-year-old or even a teenager, he was thick, cinder-block wall to her now. She hadn’t realized how good she’d had it, how much he used to let her in. But as she gazed down at him, one side of her wished she could know, truly, what had happened with the wrestlers. But at the same time, knowing for sure scared her. What if he had done something? Could she bear to have him under this same roof? Could she ever look at him in the same way again?
She sat outside his room one night, her head pressed up against the door to James’s office, wondering if there really was a mythical document inside the filing cabinet that bore the woman’s name. She really had nothing to go by except for instinct. That and the fact that James had always locked his office, meaning he may have hidden more in there than just the bracelet. Really, she had no idea what James kept in those cabinets—documents about the boys, copies of their car insurance and titles, copies upon copies of things they also kept in a safe deposit box. She wondered which outcome would be worse: going in there and finding some evidence of who the woman might have been, or going in there and finding nothing but old credit card statements, pay stubs, the titles to their homes and cars. What was better, knowing or not knowing? What would make her suffer less?
On Friday afternoon, Michael Tayson had called Sylvie and told her that Scott would be meeting with the teachers on Monday. “Just so you know,” he said. She asked whom the meeting would be with, but he wouldn’t tell her. “Have they gotten the autopsy back?” she asked, but Tayson didn’t know that either. “Sometimes autopsies take a long time,” was his answer.
But with a suicide, an autopsy wouldn’t. The coroner would find drugs in the boy’s system. They would look at his neck and windpipe and know he’d hung himself. They’d pull up his shirt and find an exit wound. Sylvie thought about Warren Givens hunched over his thighs on that bench. She thought of him going through life’s simple motions. Buying milk at the store. Turning on the taps to take a shower. Stopping to have his car washed by students raising money for their school’s sports team.
Friday was also the day she’d received a follow-up call from Geoff, asking if she was coming to the party he was throwing for his wife’s birthday on Monday, the same party he’d mentioned at the board meeting. “It’s just a casual thing,” he said. “Melinda certainly isn’t expecting a gift. And no need to dress up.”
Sylvie felt put on the spot. She hadn’t been to a party since the very last one she and James had attended together, the day before his aneurysm. Coincidentally that party had been at Geoff’s house, too. James hadn’t wanted to go, but Sylvie had been annoyed with him and demanded that he did. It was at that party that she’d brought up the nameless woman again, even though Sylvie had promised James she was strong enough to let her go.
If Sylvie went to Geoff’s party, she would have to stand in the very same rooms where she and James fought, among many of the same people. And yet she didn’t know how to say no, so she told Geoff she’d be delighted. Geoff sounded pleased and surprised, as if he’d expected her to decline.
The longer Scott stayed on her side of the house, the less Sylvie wanted to bring up the task of cleaning out his suite and fixing the leak. For they were making strides; the latticework of their relationship was getting stronger and stronger with every hello they exchanged, every detail she learned about him. If she said something and the leak was fixed, Scott might retreat back to his side of the house and all they’d accomplished would be undone. Who knew what they’d eventually talk about, what they’d eventually admit to one another.
But then Scott walked into the kitchen on Sunday morning and said, “I called a guy to pump out the water. He’s coming Monday. Maybe I should show you where it all is in case I’m not here.”
Sylvie stood up straighter, shocked. Monday was his meeting. Was that what he was referring to when he said in case I’m not here?
The mildewed smell swept around them like a cloak as soon as they opened the door. Some of the water had spilled over the side of the plastic bucket Scott had placed by his bed, leaving a warped puddle on the parquet floor. There was a big yellow stain on the ceiling where all the water had seeped through. Scott had had the sense to pull the mattress off his bed.
They both didn’t say anything for a while, looking glumly at the mess. Scott crossed the room and opened his closet. “Oh.”
Sylvie walked over, too. All his clothes were damp. There was still a considerable puddle on the closet floor, pooled around Scott’s piles and piles of sneakers. When she looked up, there was a second yellowed Rorschach-blot over the metal hanging rod. The leak had turned the plaster soft and rippled.
“Shit,” Scott said. He touched an oversize sweatshirt, then another. He kicked the sneakers with his foot.
“The shoes will dry out,” Sylvie told him. “And we can wash the clothes.”
She lingered on his jeans and T-shirts. Nothing of Scott’s looked remotely appropriate to wear, say, to a meeting with teachers. Not that she meant to think about it; it had just crept in there.
She tried not to sweep her eyes around the rest of the apartment, for fear Scott would accuse her of prying into his private space. The television and various stereo components, a network of boxes and devices and consoles below it, most with little green LED windows, seemed unharmed. Scott’s speakers did, too; they were arranged around the space, two in the front corners, one in the front middle, and two in the back corners—James had helped him set them up that way for theaterlike surround sound. Sylvie noticed a postcard pinned up to his refrigerator of an African-American girl in a short, tight argyle sweater-vest, her breasts spilling out at the vest’s V-neck. The girl wore a miniscule pleated skirt with her kneesocks pulled all the way up, and had one hand at her ultrared lips. Shhh.
“She’s very pretty,” Sylvie mused, pointing.
Scott followed her gaze and winced.
“Well, I mean, her face,” Sylvie tried again.
The girl had a soft, round face and maple-colored eyes. Sylvie had always tried to be diplomatic about the girls Scott gravitated toward, pretending not to notice the obvious thing about them, pretending— and often succeeding—that their race didn’t matter. She was curious about a lot of things she didn’t dare bring up—the science behind the girls he preferred, the mechanics of attraction. Did it come down to rebellion—did he choose girls who were the furthest from her as humanly possible? Or was there some genetic proclivity about all of it that Sylvie would never understand?
“She’s got a pretty face,” Sylvie repeated. “Though she’d go much further in life if she didn’t dress like that.”
“Mom,” Scott said, squeezing his eyes shut. And Sylvie laughed like it was a joke, though it kind of wasn’t. There was more implicit in it than she’d intended.
People make assumptions about everything, she wished she could say. Would this situation with the de
ad boy—the hazing rumors, the coach’s supposed role—would it be different if, say, Scott didn’t have that tattoo on his calf? If he didn’t have that smirking, subversive look on his face whenever he dealt with authority, if he didn’t wear street clothes with brightly-colored sneakers? If he looked like all the other teachers at Swithin—say, if he looked like Charles—would this be anything?
The world wasn’t fair, she wanted to say. All it wants to do is pigeonhole you. It reminded her of what James had said about the miniature birdhouse, which she could see outside Scott’s window, high on its post next to James’s office. One day not long after they were married and settled, James finished feeding the birds from the window, walked into the upstairs hall and said, “Did you ever notice that all the jays go to one hole, all the starlings go to a different hole, and same with the cardinals and the woodpeckers and the towhees?”
“That’s silly,” she answered. “Birds don’t do that. They go to any spot on the feeder that’s open.”
He shook his head. “Not this birdfeeder, I’ve watched them. They never diverge from their spots. It’s like they know their place in life and that’s that.” Then he added, “Seems like an appropriate metaphor for all you Bateses, I should think.” When he glanced at her, his eyes felt like knives.
Water dripped into the bucket drawing her back to reality. Sylvie had to be oversimplifying things. People didn’t make accusations purely on how someone looked. But as Scott turned and poured the water that had collected in the bucket into the sink, just as she’d asked, she felt wary. Why wasn’t he arguing with her? Did it mean he thought she was right? That he’d thought about the accusations, too, and had maybe even wondered the same things? Was all this getting to him, even though he tried so hard to be cavalier?
Scott turned back to her when he finished. “Come on,” he said. “It smells disgusting in here.”
They turned and left Scott’s apartment, going back into the main house. Sylvie quickly busied herself with the breakfast dishes, wanting a moment away from him to collect her thoughts. Was it possible that she could just ask him what had happened with the wrestlers? If she put it in just the right gentle and unbiased way, would Scott tell her the truth?
When she walked into her bedroom a half hour later, Scott was standing at the mirror in her walk-in closet, dressed in a pair of James’s pinstripe pants, a white button-down shirt, a gray sweater-vest. He’d even put on a pair of James’s shoes, brown and white wing tips.
She ducked behind the door, covering her mouth with her hand. He hadn’t seen her. She clenched inside, watching as he pivoted and lowered his chin, examining himself from all angles. Right here, right in this moment, she could ask him. It was possible.
Then Scott caught her reflection in the mirror and jumped. His face tightened. He folded in his shoulders and pulled off the shirt. “I was just fucking around.” He kicked off the shoes and socks.
“It’s all right,” she said earnestly. “Take it. Wear whatever you want.” She leaned on the console table to get her balance. “It all looks nice on you.”
Scott snorted. “Right.”
As he put his hands in the pants pockets, he hitched them up a little, revealing his socks. She pointed. “You put on a brown one and a black one.”
Scott leaned over to look. “Huh.”
“Your father used to do that, too. Especially when we were first dating. He said it was because he was distracted. Because he was in love.”
The words hung in the air for a moment; more personal than anything she’d ever told him. Scott whipped the sweater off his head fast and sniffed. “In love,” he muttered under his breath, like it was a joke.
Sylvie’s skin prickled. “Why did you say it like that?”
Scott eyed her. He chewed on his top lip, considering. “Forget it.”
The room seemed to drop a few degrees. Sylvie placed her hands on her throat. An alarm in her head went off. Scott knew. He knew something about her. Something about James. What James had done.
Maybe she’d known all along. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to direct her anger at him in the hospital the day of James’s collapse. How long had Scott known? Months? Years? The moment it happened? Was this why Scott had seemingly stopped speaking to James in high school? Only why would he side against his father? They were so much more alike, after all. He sided with James in everything else.
Scott was still watching her. Rage bubbled up in Sylvie again. She thought about him sitting in the hospital waiting room, bored. She thought about what Charles had said to him at the Swithin banquet all those years ago, the incident he’d referenced on the phone the other day after the headmaster had called. She’d only caught the tail end of it, hearing a few awful words and then seeing both boys on the ground. When she ran inside, horrified that her children were fighting in front of guests, James was already pulling Scott away.
“Did you hear what Charles said?” James said later. “He deserved what he got.” Sylvie turned away, saying she didn’t want to talk about it. “Oh sure, you don’t want to talk about Charles doing something wrong,” James hissed. “But if Scott had said these things, it would be entirely different.”
Sylvie tried to push what she’d heard Charles say to Scott out of her mind as best she could, not wanting to believe that he’d held on to those feelings for that long, not wanting to admit that perhaps she had perpetuated it. But now as she looked at Scott—who knew—she felt such shame. He’d kept what James had done from her on purpose. He was laughing at her behind her back. He probably thought she deserved it.
“Your father was a good man,” she said to Scott now. He was down to his bare chest and boxer shorts now, all those tattoos staring at her. “You shouldn’t laugh at him. And … and how dare you put me in this position?”
Scott widened his eyes. “What position would that be?”
“Didn’t we give you a good life?” she cried. “Didn’t we take care of you?”
Scott’s forehead wrinkled with contempt. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
She was going mad. It hurt everything inside her, all this ruin. She wanted him to hate her; she wanted him to love her. She wanted him not to know this and hated that he did. And suddenly, the veil over her eyes lifted, and she saw what could have happened in that wrestling locker room. She saw her son capable, culpable. Everything that had been said about him could be true. She felt the slow dam of anger burst free. She gaped at Scott, a stranger, an interloper, a heartbreaker, and then turned away, so overcome with dizziness she could barely stand.
“Please leave,” she then said. She stepped out of the doorway so he could pass.
“But—”
“Go,” she screamed. “I can’t have you in this room right now.”
Scott gathered his own clothes in his arms. “I don’t even need to be in this house right now.”
“All right, then.”
He pressed his clothes to his chest. His eyes burned coal-black. “This house has always been a fucking prison. A big stone jail.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry we made things so difficult for you.”
And then he turned and stomped past her into his old bedroom. He dropped one of his socks on the way out without noticing. Sylvie didn’t call him back to tell him.
………………………………………………………… twelve
Monday morning Joanna felt Charles’s lips on her forehead. She listened as he shuffled around the house, pulling the shower curtain back, flushing the toilet, brushing his
teeth. She heard him slam the front door, walk down the driveway to get the paper. He climbed back upstairs before he left and loomed in the doorway. “I hope everything goes well in Maryland,” he said. “I’ll come with you next time, I promise.”
She sat up in bed and wished him good luck with his interview tomorrow. When he walked back down the stairs, she flopped back down on the mattress and pulled the co
vers over her head. She remained in bed until eight, well after he left. When Charles kissed her good-bye, he’d had such a strange look on his face. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe she was imagining it.
She got out of bed, walked to the kitchen, sat down at the island, and dialed his cell. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message saying she wanted him to call. She thought about all the things they’d gone through on Friday night. Looking back on it, she’d acted like a crazy person. Whining because his friends weren’t—what? Kissing her ass? Picking a fight with him about Bronwyn. Nearly telling him about her crush on his younger brother.
What was she trying to do? What were her actions trying to achieve?
The coffee she made was bitter—she couldn’t remember if she rinsed out Charles’s grounds or re-filtered them through. She tried Charles’s cell again. Voice mail. Same with his work phone. It had caller ID, certainly, and he saw her number coming up every time. I’m sorry, she started to text him. She was sorry she was like this, utterly and unchangeably herself, sorry that she was maybe sabotaging this relationship because of a silly fantasy of how reality was supposed to be.
