by Lisa Tucker
Except scanning the poem now, she knew that he’d left something out, the most important thing. The pain was so sudden and sharp that she couldn’t help it; she let out a cry and let the poem drop out of her hand.
“I meant all that,” he said, standing up. “Ash, what’s—”
She was fighting back tears, the bitter tears of a woman so stupid it had taken her months to see what was right in front of her nose. Of course Billy Cole didn’t love her. They were so different; why would he? And no man had ever managed to love her, not even her own father. Her own father hadn’t seen or spoken to her in all the years since her mom had thrown his lying, drunken ass out.
“Why do you want this baby?” she said, swallowing hard. “If you don’t love me, why my kid?”
“It’s my kid, too, Ash.”
She put her hands on her belly. “So you love it ‘cause it’s yours?” She was shouting. “Like these books?” She moved over to the windowsill and knocked them all off. “Like your papers?” She pushed them from the desk and watched as they fluttered to the ground. “Like your precious twin.” She tore the photo from the wall and threw it on the pile.
“That’s enough.” He sounded cold and angry, but she didn’t care. It was over and she would never let him know how much this hurt. She would deny to him and everyone else that she had been dumb enough to believe this smart-guy writer could have actually loved Ashley Harris.
“I’m going to go so far away—” She was holding her belly again, which was cramping up something fierce. “So far away that you’ll never see—” All of a sudden, the cramp got so bad it doubled her over. Then she felt the gush and saw water running down her legs, splashing drops on Billy’s papers and the photograph of Lila.
If he’d gotten mad at her for ruining his things, she would have left after the baby was born. She was pretty sure about that. But instead he said, his voice full of awe, “It’s time, isn’t it?”
She was three weeks early, but he was right; now that her water had broken, the baby was coming. And she was terrified. Of labor. Of taking care of an infant. Of screwing up the child’s life. And yeah, of living without him. Maybe that most of all.
“It’s going to be fine,” he whispered. He was standing right next to her. “We don’t need to worry about all these details anymore.” He was smiling his best Billy smile, but she hoped that wasn’t why she didn’t notice he’d just described not loving her as a “detail.” He nodded at the picture of the bearded man on the wall. “Like he said, happy families are all alike. And that’s what we’re going to be, Ash. The happiest family in the world.” He paused, then said something he’d said before, which she was ashamed to admit made no sense to her: “From experience to innocence, our path to redemption.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
If Patrick had wanted to know what it was like, she would have told him that it felt as if pieces of her mind had simply disappeared. This was why she was afraid to even try to read now: without the characters and their voices, the words collided into each other, a cacophony of sound without meaning, a total void that reminded her of the nothingness Billy used to say was crouching right outside, threatening to swallow them up if they weren’t very, very careful. “Read this,” he would say, pushing another book into her hands whenever she felt the fear creeping up on her again. Then he would tell her to pretend she was Jane or Huck or Hester—whoever the main character was in the book. If she was really frightened, he would open up the book and read to her, page after page in his most expressive voice, until she was calm again, until she remembered these stories were the only truth that mattered now. “The truth with a narrative arc,” as one of her undergraduate professors would call it years later. “A truth that has been shaped and molded, indeed tortured into a story to please the short-attention-span set known as readers.”
Billy insisted that professor had to be a hack; otherwise, he would have known that writers loved stories for themselves, not only as a means to get readers. And sitting in Nancy Jamison’s office, Lila knew Billy would probably call this therapist a hack, too, because Nancy said the whole topic was merely a way for Lila to avoid looking at what was really bothering her. As if losing her ability to read couldn’t be bothering her. As if losing her life’s passion couldn’t possibly be an issue.
Lila was slumping in a big black chair across from Nancy, who was sitting upright in an identical chair. The therapist was older, late fifties, early sixties, Lila guessed. She had graying brown hair and hazel eyes, stylish glasses, and was extremely well groomed—in sharp contrast to Lila herself, who was wearing the only pants that would stay on her now, her sweats that tied at the waist, and whose hair was a raggedy mess since she’d needed a cut long before Billy had died.
Patrick had forced her to come here, despite how tired she was. She took sleeping pills every night and every morning, but no matter how much she slept, she never got over her exhaustion. Billy had always been the energetic one, and sometimes she felt like his death had taken away all her vitality, too. Or maybe she was suffering from depression, like Nancy claimed after only five minutes of their session. Another reason Billy would call her a hack, but then he’d always hated the diagnosis of depression, preferring the nineteenth-century word “melancholia.” As he said, one could be melancholy because of the world one found oneself in, but depression ignored all the circumstances, as if life was solely about the self.
“You told me that you’ve always felt that books gave you a respite from loneliness,” Nancy said. “Why do you think you were such a lonely child?”
“Every child is lonely.” Lila believed this. Ninety percent of her students considered themselves misfits as kids—and the other ten percent were probably such misfits that they couldn’t even bear to think about it or admit it.
“But you had your twin brother. Would you say you were lonely when you were with Billy?”
“No, not at all. I think that was the only time I wasn’t lonely.”
Nancy paused for a moment and chewed on the end of a pencil. “You said you read constantly, though. Where was your brother during that time?”
Where is Billy? I have to see him!
Oh, that Shakespearean rag, it’s so elegant, so intelligent.
Quit screaming or you’ll wake them up.
“Lila?”
She blinked. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?” Lila was afraid to let anyone know that since she’d stopped reading, her mind kept vomiting up these strange sequences of words. Some she recognized from poems and novels; some were an expression of her own feelings; and others, she just had no idea what they meant. If only Billy were here. He knew how to interpret even the hardest texts.
“Where was your brother when you were reading as a kid?”
“He was there, too.”
Lila listened halfheartedly as the therapist explained that Lila was contradicting herself by claiming that she read because she was lonely, and yet Billy was there at the time. So either she read for other reasons than loneliness or she was lonely around Billy. Nancy suggested the latter was probably true and started a long speech about how people tend to mythologize the dead and forget everything bad in their relationship with a lost loved one. “Sibling relationships are never simple,” Nancy said. “I’m sure you and your brother couldn’t have gotten along well all the time. But that’s normal. If you think back about a quarrel you and he had, it doesn’t mean you didn’t love him or that you aren’t—”
“I don’t remember any quarrels.”
“Have you ever watched children playing, Lila? They all have squabbles, even the best of friends.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but as I just told you, I don’t remember quarreling or squabbling or anything like that. I’m sorry, I really don’t.”
Nancy sat quietly for a while, and Lila wished she were home, in her own bed, away from this fruitless discussion.
“Tell me about a birthday when you were a child,” Nancy said. “How about you
r twelfth birthday? Did you and Billy have a party? Get a lot of presents?”
“I don’t see why this matters, but I’m sure we didn’t have a party. My mother didn’t seem to believe in parties for children.”
For adults, her mother and stepfather had given parties constantly, though Lila didn’t remember ever attending one. Billy said the two of them had never been allowed downstairs, and they’d often been locked in their bedrooms long before anyone arrived, as if they weren’t children but savage dogs that might attack one of the guests. At least their windows were still unlocked, and most of the time Billy climbed over the roof and into Lila’s room. When they were older and Lila became a better climber herself, they escaped into the woods behind their house, where they would sit for hours, talking and watching for the headlights that meant cars had begun pulling out from their circular driveway. Lila wasn’t sure what their stepfather would have done if he’d come into their rooms and found them gone. Billy said they were always much too careful to get caught.
“How about your presents?” the therapist said. “What was your favorite gift that year?”
“I’m sorry, but I fail to see how this could possibly be important.”
“Humor me for a few minutes.”
“Probably a book. Several books.”
“But you don’t remember?”
“Not that particular birthday, no.”
“Let’s try another one. Ten is an important year for most children. What did you get then?”
“I think it was a flute. I believe that’s what Billy told me.”
“But again, you don’t remember.” Nancy paused. “All right, who was your teacher in sixth grade?”
“Mrs. Something or Other. No idea.” After a few more minutes of pointless questions like these, Lila looked into Nancy’s eyes. “I really don’t see how this is helping me.”
“I’m trying to ascertain how wide your memory gaps are.”
“Why didn’t you just ask? I would have told you that I don’t remember most of my childhood.”
Lila was prepared to hear how abnormal this was; she’d heard it many times before from friends and even colleagues. The only one who seemed fine with it was Patrick, because Patrick wasn’t really interested in her past. She’d known this right away; it was part of the reason she’d felt so safe with him: he was happy to leave all that behind and live in the present. Of course, now she didn’t feel safe anywhere, not even in her own mind.
Instead, Nancy looked at her. “So you wouldn’t know if you quarreled with your brother, would you?”
“That’s true, but I think Billy would have told me. He was a genius. He had a phenomenal memory.”
“Perhaps he neglected to mention it. He might have thought it was unimportant, which it probably was.”
“No, he said we never quarreled. Not about anything of substance, at least.”
“Really? What was the context?”
“He was talking to his wife. An argument really. And he mentioned that he and I had never seriously disagreed.”
“What was their argument about?”
Lila shrugged, but she remembered, though she hadn’t thought about this in years. She and Patrick were over at Billy’s house for a barbecue, and Ashley and Billy were talking about Pearl. Ashley claimed it was weird that six-year-old Pearl didn’t play with the other kids at school, but Billy said it wasn’t weird, it was a sign she was intelligent. Like he was. Like Lila was. Then Ashley asked if this meant Pearl had the “Cole curse.” She was clearly being sarcastic, but Billy was furious. He went on and on about how Ashley had no idea what it was like to be in a true family. He said he’d never had this kind of problem with Lila and that they’d never disagreed about anything important. At which point Ashley said, “Because Lila’s your puppet,” and Lila got up and went outside, ostensibly to see how the steaks and hamburgers were progressing, but really because she was angry with her sister-in-law. But the whole thing had blown over by the time dinner was served. Later, when Billy asked Lila if she was upset, she said no, and she hadn’t been—for herself. For him, though, she was devastated. It was Billy’s worst fear: that he had inherited some kind of curse from their family. He was confident that Lila would be all right in the long run, but he was never sure about himself.
Nancy was still trying to get her to admit that she must have quarreled with her twin at some point, but she wasn’t listening. She was imagining how isolated her brother must have felt during all those years, married to a woman who was capable of being sarcastic about the very thing that scared him most. If only Lila had paid more attention, she would have known something terrible was happening to him in Harrisburg. She would never forgive herself for neglecting her brother, leaving him so alone that he could see no way out.
“What are you feeling right now?” Nancy said.
Lila reached for a tissue from the box conveniently placed on the table in front of her. After a moment, she looked up. “I think you’re right: I am suffering from depression. I appreciate your offer to call your colleague to prescribe medication for me. If that doesn’t work we can talk more, but in the meantime, I don’t think this is helping.”
“Crying doesn’t mean it isn’t helping, Lila. You need to cry.”
Nancy’s tone was so gentle, it lulled Lila into admitting what she was thinking. “I don’t think so. I spent a year crying once and it did nothing for me.”
“When was that?”
“When I was fifteen.” She sniffed. “A long time ago.”
“Do you remember why you were so sad that year?”
“Because I couldn’t be with Billy.”
“Really? Where was he?”
“At home. But I was away at Kingston.” She shrugged. “A small prep school.”
“What happened? Why didn’t you finish?”
“I did finish.”
“In a year?”
“I think I came into the school with more than half the credits I needed.”
“Still, you finished high school in two years?”
Lila nodded. She’d never spent much time thinking about it; honestly, it wasn’t much of an accomplishment. She knew a woman in grad school who had finished college in two years. And Billy had finished high school in one year. This was why he didn’t have to go to prep school, because he was already done.
“Did you start college at sixteen?”
“No.” Lila hesitated, but she knew she couldn’t tell the therapist the truth. Years before, Billy had made her promise to tell no one. Also, if she told Nancy Jamison, she’d have to tell Patrick, too, and she couldn’t stand to do that to him, especially right now, with the end of the semester and finals looming and him having to handle everything, from driving her here this morning to their bills and the dishes and even answering all their phone calls. “My parents died that summer. A car accident. I waited a year to start college.”
“And where did you and Billy stay during that year?”
“In our home,” she said, forcing a shrug. “It was being sold and we didn’t have any living relatives. But our neighbors popped in to make sure we were all right.”
Be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.
My life is ruined! Don’t you hear me?
Lila forced herself to speak, hoping to quiet the rattling in her brain. “It was fine, really.”
Nancy went on for a while asking questions about the year Lila and Billy had spent with no parents, and Lila gave vague answers. Again, Lila wasn’t sure what the therapist was getting at until Nancy said, “Do you think you’re more worried about your nieces and nephews because you already know the pain of losing a parent?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s really very different.”
“In the way your brother died, yes, but isn’t the experience of grief over losing your mother or father fairly universal?”
Lila knew she should say yes, but she couldn’t make the word come out of her m
outh. So Nancy asked the question three more times, rephrasing it only slightly each time, until finally Lila blurted out, “It’s completely different because my brother never called any of his children ‘a little shit.’ “
“Are you saying your father called Billy that?”
“It was our stepfather.” She looked down at her hands. “And no, it wasn’t my brother, it was me.”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy said. She sounded genuinely sorry. “Was he cruel to you in ways other than name calling?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t even remember her stepfather’s voice, much less the names she knew he’d used for her: “little shit,” “smart-ass,” “crybaby.” Billy remembered them all, including the worst one, the name her stepfather had called her on a night that was buried so far in her brain that no matter how many times Billy told her about it, nothing came to her. Not the room, not the smells, not the image of her stepfather sitting on the side of her bed and arguing with her until she sobbed agreement that she really was an “evil” girl.
“Did he hit you?”
“I think so.”
“And you do remember this?”
“Some of it.” The truth was, she only remembered fragments, and nothing about the worst beating her stepfather ever gave her. That happened on that same night she never could remember that turned out to be the beginning of the end.
“Where was your mother during this?”
“In the background, crying.”
Nancy asked another question, but Lila didn’t hear it. Her mind had wandered to something she hadn’t thought about for a long time. She and Billy were in their woods, in the tree house their real father had built, so they must have been young, seven or eight? Before they got so heavy the thin board wouldn’t hold them. Lila had brought her tea set and a bottle of water with her. She had poured them “tea” and they were reading a children’s book; Lila didn’t remember the name. But she remembered sitting close to her brother, their shoulders touching, the book spread open across their laps, and trying to read fast so she could keep up with him. After they turned the last page, Lila said she liked it. The children got saved from a bully, and afterward, they got to eat lots of ice cream. Billy said he liked it, too. Then they pretended the water in the teacups was ice cream and scooped it up with their hands, giggling as it dribbled down their chins and all over their shirts. The sun was shining through the trees into the perfectly square tree house window, making shadows dance on the tree house wall. It was a happy day, one of her very own memories. Even when Billy admitted he didn’t remember it, she knew it had happened just like she said.
