Poison

by Galt Niederhoffer

  Ryan is like a man who has undergone a religious conversion. It is as though he is trying to set the record for world’s most devoted stepdad. His energy is palpable, almost manic. He’s got big plans for brunch—and, if everyone behaves, a crowd-pleasing dessert later. Today is the beginning of better times for the Connors. They are going to start cooking again—grilling, juicing, smiling. They are going to make up for lost time, make good on all their promises. They are going to do everything on their list—finish the house, hike more, bike more, cook more, read more, laugh more. They are going to attain the quality of life they came for. It is hard to resist the message, the hypnotic force of the rhetoric. And like all great missionaries, he’s converting while he’s talking. Like all great chefs, he’s talking while he’s cooking.

  Cass sits down at the dining room table.

  Ryan places a glass in front of her, a frothy pink mixture. “I made you a smoothie.”

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “Almond milk,” he says. “Supposed to be healthier than dairy.”

  An apple is chopped with a large knife. Bacon crackles in a pan. Scalding water is poured over ground coffee. Ryan walks to the table, setting a plate in front of Cass—eggs, bacon, golden toast, and a fresh cup of coffee.

  “Fresh start,” he says. “Deal?”

  Cass smiles. They are back here now.

  “I love you, babe,” he says.

  “I love you too, Ryan.”

  “You need to take better care of yourself. I need to take better care of you also.”

  She palms the cup on the table, surveys the milky liquid. The heat of the mug burns her hand but she smiles anyway, eager to affirm Ryan’s kind gesture. She takes a hearty sip and makes a show of how much she loves it. In fact, she doesn’t like it at all. Cass drinks her coffee black, if she drinks it. She prefers tea any day—Ryan knows this. But perhaps it is a failing of hers that she can’t appreciate the gesture. Or some sort of test designed to see if she is grateful.

  “That’s how they drink it in Jamaica,” he says. “With lots of cream and sugar.”

  She smiles and takes another sip while Ryan is watching. It is sweet and warm from all the cream, lacking the potent kick of heat she looks for in her first sip of the morning. This time, the sweetness is too much and she spits it out on the table.

  “What’s wrong?” he says.

  “So sweet,” she says, wiping the spill with her sweater. “You know I don’t take sugar.”

  “So pour it out. Geez,” he says. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  The kids have moved to the living room to begin their own project. Pete is building a replica of the White House with LEGOs. Alice is making sure the portico has the right number of pillars. Sam is toppling pillars as soon as Alice plants them. Cass balances three distinct tasks, none of which complement the other: ensuring each child has eaten breakfast, quashing bickering before it erupts into sibling warfare, and furthering the investigation that has become her compulsion.

  But before she can devote further thought to this subject, the baby is grabbing her phone, and there is a new, more pressing demand on her attention.

  “Tef,” he says.

  Cass snatches the phone out of his hands.

  “Tef,” says Sam.

  He is pointing at the image from Stephanie’s Instagram feed: bikini training shots of her ass from the side and behind, splayed out like a dead bug on a windshield. And a flurry of inspirational quotes—today’s pain is tomorrow’s power—and, even better, her handy food blog—did you know that chicken and oatmeal make a power-packed pre-workout breakfast?!!

  In her rush to reclaim the phone, Cass loses hold of her cup of coffee, spilling the contents onto Pete’s structure. Brown liquid pools on the unfinished White House to form a chocolate river. Like climate change, fifty years in the future after all the rivers have flooded over.

  “Tef,” the baby says again.

  Cass has reclaimed the phone and shoves it into her pocket. She rushes back to the counter, grabs a wad of paper towels, and struggles to sop up the mess before Ryan and the kids notice the chaos.

  “Tef,” the baby says again.

  Cass looks to Ryan. “What did he just say?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Yes, you do,” she says. “The baby just ID’d your girlfriend.”

  Ryan shakes his head now very slowly, as though normal bodily movements have been slowed by his revulsion. “I thought we were done with this,” he says. “You’re not going to ruin another morning.” He turns to Alice and Pete, transforming his face. And then, like a camp counselor, rousing the troops, “Okay,” he says. “Who’s hungry?”

  “I am!” says Pete.

  “I am!” says the baby.

  “Who wants to get some real breakfast?”

  “I call pancakes!” Pete says.

  “Pancakes,” says the baby. Sam has no trouble saying this word, no issue with concept or enunciation.

  “Go get your shoes and jackets.”

  The kids evacuate the room. Ryan lingers. Cass can see herself as he sees her, from his perspective, still in pajamas, sitting on the floor, undignified, like a beggar. Why would anyone want to be with her? When did she become this person?

  “First one dressed gets to pick the place,” Ryan calls out. He is really hamming it up now, playing the fearless leader, as though he knows every unit of joy enacts another unit of pain in Cass’s psyche. He gives her one last withering look before following the ruckus.

  “You coming or what?” he says as he leaves.

  Cass is nodding. Right now, she will follow, but there is no more room for denial.

  They set off as a family with Ryan leading the group. Alice and Pete duke it out over the destination, debating the merits of doughnuts versus pancakes. Pete is an able negotiator and Alice is very persuasive, instinctively offering or withholding the few possessions he controls that his sister covets—an invitation to his birthday party in seven months, a month of riding shotgun. By the time they have reached consensus, Ryan has chosen the destination, stopping at a hardware store on the way to buy supplies for his latest renovation. Today, the contents of his bags include the usual sundry items: paint thinner, joint compound, chalk paint, and a box cutter. This weekend, he proudly tells the clerk, he has grand ambitions: to paint a chalk wall for the kids so that they can draw on the wall and Cass can keep a master family schedule. He needs joint compound to fix the wall before painting. The box cutter is anyone’s guess. She marvels at how easy it is to procure such a sharp weapon.

  The next stop is Tucker’s, a small but well-stocked market at the town landing with table and counter seating. It is renowned for its quarter-pound lobster roll, and its generous size-to-cost ratio, as well as its friendly staff and assortment of necessities from ice to aspirin. The lobster roll, that pinnacle of Maine delicacies, can here be enjoyed in a quintessential seaside setting with views of the glittering bay and the craggy islands. There is no pretense at variety: the rolls are served cold in cardboard boats, on buttered buns, lightly tossed with mayo. The only garnish is a wisp of wax paper and the occasional stray chop of tarragon. For the kids, there are apple-cider donuts and Coca-Cola in glass bottles. A lobster roll at Tucker’s, and its frugal ten-dollar price, is a fail-proof family pleaser, all the more enjoyable when eaten on the dock—buoys and napkins included. From September to May, after the busy tourist season, the clientele at Tucker’s is all locals, and it is once again the ideal spot to enjoy the particular palette of Maine: blue water, green trees, gray cloud cover.

  Cass sits with the kids, placing their orders. Ryan excuses himself to go to the bathroom—and stays there for several minutes. She could have sworn he just went at home. He must be texting Stephanie, planning their next meeting.

  But when he returns, he’s sweet again, and he’s got a present. He slides a lobster roll across the table. “Your mother loves these,” he tells the kids.

  “Yuck,” says P
ete.

  “I know,” says Ryan. “It’s the old salty dog in her.”

  “Mom, you’re an old salty dog,” says Pete.

  “Don’t be mean to Mom,” says Alice.

  Cass looks from Pete to Ryan. Does this call for a reprimand? Is she supposed to laugh now? She has lost her social compass. She is drifting, floating, drowning, watching from a distant planet. Why is he being playful again? Is this a sincere gesture? Did she imagine the morning’s affront? And the lingering question: Is she, not he, the problem? Smiling, she accepts the gift and asks the waiter for a to-go container.

  An hour later, the Connor household has regained equilibrium—Ryan is on a ladder, pounding the wall with a hammer, and the kids are taking turns rolling across the living room on a skateboard. Childhood is a chilling oxymoron. The threat of danger lurks behind every corner. Joy sometimes seems a clever cover for the constant threat of violence.

  Cass wanders into the kitchen to make the baby a snack. She opens the fridge and takes out the lobster roll. She takes a bite to acknowledge his thoughtful gesture, as though the first step in her rehabilitation is learning how to accept what he says at face value. Reflexively, she spits it out. The taste is sharp and shocking. The outside of her mouth goes numb, and her tongue is burning. It is a wholly unfamiliar feeling, as shocking as touching a hot stove or being drenched in ice water, an assault on the senses.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Alice says.

  “Must have gone bad,” she mutters.

  Alice, still sitting on the skateboard, watches her mother.

  “Alice, does this smell weird to you?”

  Alice walks over and sniffs the lobster, wrinkles her nose in revulsion. “Yeah,” she says. “But that stuff always smells disgusting.”

  Cass confronts a new but unmistakable feeling. The effort it takes to thrust doubt from her mind is met with a doubly powerful force, the buzz of intuition.

  “What’s up with the food you bought me?” she calls out. Ryan is upstairs now. She can hear his footsteps in the hallway above her.

  The footsteps stop. “What did you say?”

  “What’s wrong with this food?” Cass says.

  “Beats me,” says Ryan. The acoustics of the house are such that sound carries up and down the stairs with only the slightest muffle. “Must’ve gone bad. Throw it away.”

  Cass reseals the plastic container. She walks to the trash to dispose—obeying on automatic—but she is stopped by her gut again. She turns and walks back to the fridge and places it on the top shelf, where none of the kids can reach it.

  TEN

  Cass stands in her bedroom, staring into her closet. She steadies herself on the door, trying to piece together a costume. Strife has made her weak. Discord has made her nauseous. Jean has corralled the kids upstairs in their queue for the bath, and pajamas are laid out for bedtime. Ryan and Cass are going to the party for Nora’s fortieth birthday. “Grown-ups in costume,” the invitation said. “Abstainers are not welcome.” Everyone is supposed to dress up as an “eighties icon.” No sexy witches or naughty nurses. Extra points for rock stars and political figures. Lots of self-congratulation. Ryan is not amused by the theme or the prospect. He’s been grumbling about it since Cass mentioned the commitment.

  “We should leave in half an hour,” says Cass. She hears herself talking, but she does not recognize herself anymore, this timid, scared person.

  “Playing dress-up with a bunch of aging yuppies?” he says. “Thanks, but I think I’d rather stay home and play dress-up with the children.”

  His mood does not shift as they drive. The city is gray always. The party is raging when they arrive. Drunk yuppies in full regalia. Waiters carry trays that contain an assortment of ghoulish pleasures: plastic flutes dripping with orange champagne, tarts with wriggling mushrooms, pigs in blankets tinted black, stabbed by toothpicks with black fringe like witches on broom-back.

  For Cass, the effect is hallucinogenic—smiles stretch a little too far, volume pitches and recedes. The costumes and chaos add to the feeling that now follows her, that she and her husband are in the special purgatory for spouses on the verge of breakup, and that this isolation will follow her wherever she goes until she fixes her perception or elicits a confession.

  Ryan returns from the bar with champagne tinted orange. He hands a glass to Cass and takes up residence in a corner, a perfect position for watching the guests and mocking the whole idea of public recreation. A guest walks by dressed as Kurt Cobain. Shaggy hair, plaid flannel, tweaked disorientation.

  “Wrong decade,” says Ryan.

  “Technically, the band formed in the eighties,” says Cass.

  “Poor guy,” says Ryan. “You know what happened to him.”

  “What?” says Cass.

  “Wife drove him to it.”

  “I wish you would socialize,” she says, “instead of glaring in the corner.”

  “I wish you would leave me alone,” he says, “instead of trying to control me.”

  “Did you take your meds this morning?” she says. She already knows the answer.

  “That’s none of your business,” Ryan says.

  “It is when you behave like this.”

  “Get out of my head, Cass.” He says this at a whisper, but it has the intensity of a scream. And then, at a regular volume, he adds, “I don’t see any reason for us to stay together.”

  Cass pauses when he says this, but not because of the content. There’s something theatrical about the statement, something distinctly scripted, outside of the realm of normal speech and human behavior. It is as though he is a director on a set and Cass is his actor; he is giving her motivation, trying to influence her next move, to spur her to report this comment to a friend, to run to the bathroom in tears, to escalate the fight from a couple’s quarrel into a public spectacle or otherwise react in a way that will be witnessed and recorded.

  But Cass is determined to make the most of this occasion. She leaves Ryan on his own, scowling at the table, and makes her way through the crowd to locate Nora. She finds her standing in the center of several icons: two Madonnas, a Mr. T, and Ronald and Nancy. Nora wears a white lace bow tied around her head, looped large like the ears of a bunny.

  “Virgin Tour?” Cass asks.

  “Radio City Music Hall, 1984.”

  “Nice,” says Cass. “I was there too. Black lace, black midriff tee, black rubber bangles.”

  “What’s your costume?” Nora asks.

  “Battered housewife,” says Cass.

  “Nicole Simpson is so nineties.” Nora leans in close now, eyes widened for emphasis. “Did you call him?”

  “Yes,” Cass whispers. “I felt like I was in a spy caper.”

  “I know!” says Nora. “Isn’t he amazing? When will you have it?”

  “Shh,” says Cass. She checks her back, ensures their conversation is private. “Soon,” she says. “He said he would be in touch. It was all very cloak and dagger.”

  “He’s incredible. Every woman should have him on speed dial.”

  Suddenly, Cass’s smile flattens.

  “What’s wrong?” says Nora.

  “I just got this wave of…” Cass trails off. A swirling sensation snakes from her throat to her stomach, followed by the tingly feeling she gets in her legs when an elevator is descending very slowly.

  “You’re drunk already?” Nora says.

  “No,” says Cass. “I only had one drink. Just feeling kind of queasy.”

  “Then you need another!” says Ryan. He has emerged from hiding. He holds two more glasses of champagne, lifted from a nearby tray.

  Cass accepts the glass. Perhaps they can start the night anew and enjoy the party together.

  “To playing dress-up!” Ryan says.

  “To acting like our children!” says Nora. “When we’re not with them!”

  “To pretending,” says Cass. She takes a hearty gulp of champagne and smiles, carried by the moment.

  * * *


  The party is over, and Cass and Ryan are walking, heading to their parked car through the streets of downtown Portland. The city is in a perennial state of rainfall. It is always either about to rain or about to stop raining. The cobblestones in the old part of town are slick, and the brick on the buildings looks mossy. Ryan walks with the halting steps of a broken robot. The car is several blocks farther, on a small side street called Cherry. The walk is challenging for Ryan given the number of drinks he has had, the wet cobblestones, and the manic energy of oncoming trick-or-treaters.

  They reach the curb as the light turns red, and just as cars rush toward them, Ryan touches Cass’s back, pushing her ever so slightly into the path of oncoming traffic.

  “I’m gonna have to do it this way,” he says, “because you clued into the lobster so fast.”

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Cass regains balance and stumbles back to the curb. She is more shocked than scared, more confused than outraged. The push was a gentle shove, as opposed to a forceful thrust, but it was a surprise nonetheless—as was the rush of headlights speeding toward her. “What the fuck, Ryan. Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Oh, Cass, you’ve always got a theory.” He says this in the usual way, his demeaning demeanor, with all the usual implication. He says this as though there are two distinct ways to push someone into traffic—one humorous and one homicidal—and that she has jumped to the wrong conclusion, disappointing him once again with her shitty sense of humor.

  “Are you trying to kill me?” she says. “You’re trying to kill me.”

  “Yup,” he says. “And I know exactly how I’m going to do it. I’m gonna make it look like a suicide, and everyone’s gonna believe it.” He is smiling like a mischievous child who has successfully stolen a cookie.

  “Fuck you, Ryan,” Cass says. “Fuck you. That’s not funny.” Cars are rushing past them now, making the threat of the act all the more potent. Cass hurries to the car, opens the door, starts the engine. She is pulling out of their parking spot as Ryan gallops toward her, fumbles to open the passenger door, and collapses into his seat in a fit of laughter.