by Anita Shreve
Arthur left you shortly after Rob was expelled from Avery. It was and wasn’t a surprise. You had known it was coming, or you had felt that it might come. What surprised you was the speed with which he did it. As if he blamed you for the scandal itself. You knew that it might be impossible for Arthur and Rob to share the same living space; what you didn’t know was that Arthur might not be able to share it with you. The house you had all lived in was sold in the divorce, and you found this apartment in a different town near Boston, a town in which most of the people do not know that you and Rob are in any way connected to the Avery events of two years ago. You have a new job now, in the shoe department of Macy’s. Apart from the artificial light, it is not a terrible job, though the commute by public transportation, mainly subway, is arduous and time-consuming. You try to read on the trains, but if the air is stuffy, the jerky movement brings on a mild case of motion sickness. On those days, you just close your eyes and rest.
Arthur has moved to a condo in the South End of Boston. You have never been there, but you gather from Rob, who visits on a regular schedule suggested by the court, that it is fairly spiffy, with exposed brick walls and a balcony. You wonder how it is, if all the moneys were equally divided, that Arthur could afford a condo after the divorce. You thought about having your lawyer look into that, but since you count on Arthur to send child-support payments monthly, which he doesn’t really have to do since Rob is twenty now, you thought it best to let things be. You can manage; you can even save a bit each week. You chose to live in this particular town because it is not far from your sisters, who live in adjacent towns, and they have been a help to you. They have adored Rob all his life, and you think, despite the scandal, they still do. They have put the scandal away somewhere, compartmentalized it. The Rob they see when they visit — if they happen to visit when Rob is at home — is the Rob they always knew, though less ambitious. They worry about that, they say. He had so much promise, they add.
You walk over to the fridge, trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight, taking inventory of what is there so that you will know what to shop for, if anything. Sometimes you leave a note on the table for Rob, and he will do the shopping, and maybe today you will do that. You feel more tired than usual, but perhaps it is just the time of year. It is dark out now and will be when you get home from work. You close the fridge and stand over the pile of mail that has been accumulating. You may as well tackle it now, or the pile will simply grow taller and taller, eventually falling over onto the floor.
You separate the envelopes into three piles: junk, bills, and personal. There is always more of the first than the second, much more of the second than the third. Personal letters are rare, though you suppose that is true for everybody. You come to an envelope from the University of Vermont that has been addressed, in ink, to you. For a moment you are confused, thinking that Rob has applied to the university and has neglected to tell you, and they are already asking for money, which would be absolutely fine with you, you would be so happy if he was returning to school, though you are enormously surprised that he would pick a school in the state of Vermont.
You tear open the letter and read it. A researcher wishes to interview you about the events of January 2006. The letter is respectful and assures confidentiality. The interview is for a study of alcohol and male behaviors in secondary schools. The letter is signed Jacqueline Barnard. You read the letter a second time to make sure you have not missed anything. When you have finished, you methodically tear the letter up into small pieces and carry the mess to the wastebasket. You will not speak about the scandal. You will not answer anyone’s questions. You wonder if your son has received his own letter. You go through the rest of the envelopes and can find nothing addressed to your son from the University of Vermont.
For nearly a year after Rob left Avery, it was a torment to find, in the mail, forwarded brochures from colleges and universities trying to capture Rob’s interest. You imagined that his SATs had put him on a list of high-school students to receive such literature. You further imagined that no one had ever looked closely at these lists. If they had, you wonder, would they have sent a brochure to a student who had been expelled from high school, who had pleaded guilty to lewd behavior, and who was nearing the end of the two years of probation he had to serve?
And that is another worry you have. That when Rob is through with his probation and with the necessity to live in the same place and to report regularly to his probation officer, he will leave you and go off. He has never mentioned such a thing, but you worry about it nevertheless. On good days, you imagine he will go to school somewhere. Arthur would pay for it, you are sure of this. On bad days, you are simply afraid you might never see him again.
You walk to the window and look out over the street. Your car is parked in the driveway in its usual spot. You think about your lifelong fantasy to get into the car and drive. You have been thinking about this a lot lately, and you know precisely in what direction northwest is from the window at which you are standing. You have even gone so far as to imagine the journey in detail. You would write Rob a letter, explaining that this is something you have wanted to do for years, that it has nothing to do with him, and that you will be in touch soon. You will withdraw your savings from the bank, pack a small bag, and put it in the backseat of the car. It seems important that you bring as little as possible from your current life with you, though there are mementos that are important to you that might have to go into another suitcase. Or perhaps you will leave these behind to be collected later. You will back the car out of the driveway and turn left and you will take back roads until you are in Upstate New York or Canada. You might, if the urge has not been satisfied, keep on driving. And it is then that your fantasy begins to lose its momentum. You cannot picture the place where you will stop, the motel in which you will stay, the diner at which you will eat. You cannot go so far in this fantasy as to wish upon yourself another job, other commitments. But the urge to get into the car and drive is very great. It is sometimes amazing to you that you have not done this yet.
You turn and glance back at the kitchen. You decide that you will shift into high gear and whip the kitchen into shape before you have to leave for work. You have your shower and dressing timed to the minute and know how long you can remain in the kitchen in order to make it to the subway stop. You take hold of the sponge and turn on the hot water, waiting for it to actually get hot. You stare at the cabinet in front of you, the one that holds the cereal boxes and the salt and pepper and the toothpicks and the can of Pam and the bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, and wonder how it is that the events of one single night, which might have been lewd or shameful or simply bacchanalian, can change the lives of so many people forever. You can’t say for sure about Arthur, but you are pretty certain that you and Rob will never be the same, even if everything works out for him and he does go to school. A single action can cause a life to veer off in a direction it was never meant to go. Falling in love can do that, you think. And so can a wild party. You marvel at the way each has the power to forever alter an individual’s compass. And it is the knowing that such a thing can so easily happen, as you did not know before, not really, that has fundamentally changed you and your son.
The water is hot and is scalding your fingers. You pour dish soap onto the sponge and try to get the black stuff off.
Mike
He stood with his coat over his arm and his suitcase at his feet, and surveyed the glass box in which he had been living. It was snowing just beyond the windows, the views illuminated by street lanterns, the front lamp of the church across the way, and small squares of interior light shed from the windows of adjacent houses. It looked a bucolic scene, about as close to perfection as Mother Nature and human beings could combine to make. He might have stayed simply for that — to be able to sit and look out and imagine the lives of the people who passed in and out of those cones of light — but he had returned from his truncated walk determined to leave. He had stop
ped by the front desk to ask if they would make up his bill, and the concierge had been surprised; Mike had booked ahead for another ten days. But Mike knew he had to leave the place where he had come to write: he would no longer be writing anything having to do with the events of January 2006. He had wanted to shed his meager manuscript as soon as he had reentered his room, but then he had worried that one of the staff might take it out and read it, and so he had it in his suitcase, its weight seemingly greater than the suitcase and the rest of its contents.
What was it that he had hoped to find in this room? A letter from a researcher at the University of Vermont had triggered a desire to write about the scandal. Was it possible Mike had sought redemption, simply by writing out a chronology of events? Or had he wished, in some small way, to reconnect with the story, to discover its meaning? Large and terrible things had happened to many people as a result of Mike’s affair with Anna. Had it not been for that affair (or had Silas not caught them at it, though Mike thought it unrealistic to imagine it could have gone on without someone catching them), Silas would not have been drinking that Saturday morning, he would not have thrown the ball at Mike during the game, nor would he have gone to J. Dot’s that evening. Instead, Silas would have been with Noelle.
Mike had once calculated the carnage. One boy dead. Two boys expelled. Two college opportunities missed. One girl brokenhearted. One girl gone to ground, reinventing herself (or trying to, he had heard). Two divorces. One marriage hollowed out, empty. Two mothers devastated. Another mother numb. A father who had lost both his son and his wife. A school saddled with a bad reputation. A school in its death throes. A town ripped apart. Families not speaking. Townspeople moving away. Had any good come of this? Any at all? And how about the many other students who had been turned down from prestigious schools that year simply because they had come from Avery Academy? There was no way to tell, but Mike guessed the Avery name to be a factor in some of those decisions. He thought, too, of all the students who had been enrolled at the time of the scandal and all the questions they would have had to answer, both to parents and to friends. Their diplomas were foxed at the corners. One couldn’t calculate the carnage; it might be endless.
Mike shut the door to his room, checked out at the front desk. He tipped the relevant staff and made his way to his car, parked in the lot around back. Despite diligent shoveling by the hotel staff and plowing by the town, the snow was coming down faster than they could get rid of it. It occurred to Mike that this might not be the best time to drive to New York City. He would give it a go, he decided. If worst came to worst, he could find another hotel or motel in which to stay until the roads had been cleared. But right now, he had to leave this tourist town.
He made his way through the village and came to an intersection. To the right was New York City. To the left was a road that would take him north, farther into Vermont. He lingered at the intersection until a truck driver behind him honked his horn. Not having consciously planned to do this, Mike quickly made a left turn.
The roads immediately grew worse, less diligently plowed, less traveled upon. Mike knew how to drive in snow; he’d had decades of experience with it, and he’d had his snow tires put on precisely for this journey. If he traveled slowly and didn’t brake fast, he would be OK. With any luck, he might find a sander and remain some distance behind that truck. It would take considerably longer to reach his destination, but he had time. His only obligation was to show up for Christmas dinner, nearly two weeks away. Paul, his ex-brother-in-law, who had shown himself to be an unusually decent man, had hinted at a job. He had need of a fund-raiser. Paul was aware of Mike’s excellent reputation in that capacity and had suggested they might talk after the Christmas meal. Mike wondered if he would have the courage then to ask about Meg. Despite the half-dozen conversations he and Paul had had, neither had ever mentioned Meg. Mike guessed that Paul had not wanted to open up that hurt for Mike, but Mike thought that perhaps it was time to discuss his ex-wife. He would like to hear that she was settled, even with another man, even with a child. To know that she was happy and had a child would in some way mitigate his guilt. For he had wronged her nearly as badly as he had wronged Anna and her family. Oddly, Meg had never learned of Mike’s affair with Anna. At least he thought she hadn’t.
Meg, hearing that Mike had been asked to leave the school because of his alleged complicity in what may have been a cover-up of the scandal, was both appalled and furious. She had been shamed, she said. (Had he remembered to add that particular shame into his calculations of the carnage?) She had left the headmaster’s house within hours, not saying good-bye and not informing him of her future whereabouts. Mike had had the distinct impression that she was more than ready to bolt, that she’d been waiting for the right moment, which had handed itself to her and which had provided her with a delicious view from the moral high ground. Mike had not been able to ask Meg not to go. If anything, it spared him from having to tell her about Anna, which would have produced the same result in the end but would have left Meg wounded (he doubted that Meg would have been heartbroken) and further shamed. And what would have been the good of that?
In due time, Mike had left the headmaster’s house as well. He, too, was ready to go. What he hadn’t liked was the way Coggeshall and his wife had been in the driveway with a car full of clothes and household items. Couldn’t the man have waited a decent interval after Mike left to claim the headmaster’s house as his own?
So Mike would go to New York City, where he rented a modest studio apartment on the West Side (its anonymity near perfect), have his Christmas meal with Paul, who now remained his only friend, and perhaps be offered a job, settling the matter of the immediate future. Since the scandal, Mike had been living on his savings, half of which had gone almost immediately to Meg. He still had enough remaining that he might have stayed at that expensive hotel for another month. But then he would have been penniless.
As to the Robleses’ civil suit, the accusations had been made against the school as an institution (prudent on the Robleses’ part, since the school, despite its troubles, still had deeper pockets than Mike did) and not Mike personally. Still, Mike had been forced to hire a lawyer to protect his own interests. There was that expense to think about, a bill that would come due soon enough. If Paul had a job to offer, Mike would take it.
As Mike neared the village of Avery, his grip on the wheel tightened. The roads were worse, but the real cause of his anxiety was his increasing proximity to a town that had expelled him. He was glad for the snow, for its cover, though some might wonder about the idiot who was out there in the treacherous weather. Others might recognize the maroon Volvo. Mike inched slowly by Peet’s grocery store, by Greason’s real estate agency, and by the old mill housing, all of which were decorated with Christmas lights, bulbs that would have been strung since Halloween. He passed the courthouse, deliberately avoiding looking at Avery Academy as he went by. He drove past the Mobil station, not wanting to stop there, either.
He made his way along a dark road, the snow a thickening wall before him. When he got to the small farmhouse, he pulled to the opposite side of the street and turned off his lights. He guessed he was sufficiently off the road so as not to scare any car coming at him. He thought of his fateful skid across the black ice. There was no black ice this night, but the unplowed snow could cause a decent skid, albeit a softer and slower one. Rattling just the same. Through the passenger-side window, Mike could just make out a light on in the kitchen, another in an upstairs bedroom. Was anyplace on earth as desolate, as empty, as this wooden shell? Mike felt queasy in his stomach but forced himself once again to take it in. He had made this happen. Silas had contributed, but it was Mike who was to blame. But for him, husband and wife might have tried to make a life together after Silas, even with their terrible loss. But for him, there might not have been that terrible loss at all.
Mike saw a shape in the upstairs window, impossible to make out in the snow. A man? A woman? Mike couldn
’t tell. Could he or she see the Volvo? There were no streetlights this far from town, nothing to illuminate the car. He studied the shape as one studies a star, trying to identify it. The more he focused, the harder it was to see whoever it was in the window. Once, he blinked, and the shape no longer seemed to be there. He peered but could see nothing. Snow was mounting on the base of the Volvo’s side window, making a mountain landscape all its own. In a minute, two minutes, Mike might not be able to see the house at all. In three minutes, he would have to get out and brush the snow off or lower the window to clear it.
I’ve come to make reparations, Mike wanted to call out.
But who could make reparations for a lost son?
Four times, Mike had wronged Owen. First, by skidding upside down across his land, demolishing his mailbox and fence. Second, by drawing Silas toward Avery, where the behavior on the tape had been made possible. Third, by stealing his wife. And finally, worst of all, by causing a chain of events that took Owen’s son from him.
Many times since that fatal moment when Silas had run up the stairs, Mike had wanted to speak to Anna. He hadn’t formulated exactly what he would say, but he had wanted, in some way, to express his sorrow, his confusion, his certainty that he had loved her more during those short visits than he had ever loved anyone. He guessed that she might spit at him or claw his eyes out. In his mind, her sorrow had made her powerful. He imagined her wrath more easily than he could remember her face as they moved toward the bed. And it seemed a kind of sin to think about those visits now. He should not be allowed to remember them with any fondness. All visions, all pictures, should have been expelled from his mind.
