Leaving the World

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘Or mere banter. It’s all a question of interpretation, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s a question of civility – which you lack.’

  ‘If you want to report me to the Sexual Ethics officer or whatever the hell she’s called, be my guest. And you can further your reputation as a prig.’

  ‘Then I’ll do just that.’

  ‘I apologize,’ he said as I walked off. I stopped and turned back towards him.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’

  No comment from Marty Melcher. Just the uncomfortable look of a bully who’d been caught out.

  Stephanie Peltz, meanwhile, had been researching my ‘beau’ (she’d been at a literature conference with Sara Crowe) and as she came up to me in the university café she said: ‘What wonderful news! And what an interesting man as the father . . .’

  I couldn’t wait until I was free of New England State. But one stupendous thing did happen during that spring semester: Lorrie Quastoff was accepted as a transfer student at Harvard. This came about after I took Lorrie out for lunch at the beginning of term and mooted the idea with her.

  ‘Harvard won’t want a weirdo like me,’ she said.

  ‘My feeling is that they would want you very much. The big question will be: Do you want them?’

  ‘It’s kind of brainy, Harvard.’

  ‘But so are you, Lorrie.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, I do – and so does everyone else in the department here. You’re our star and you need a more rigorous intellectual environment to—’

  ‘Harvard won’t like my autism.’

  ‘They will like you because you are super-smart and have the grades to prove it. They will like you because I will make the necessary phone calls and write the sort of recommendation that will make them realize they would be insane to turn you down. But most of all they will like you because, once they interview you, they will see just how fantastic you are.’

  ‘Fantastic rhymes with autistic,’ she said.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked.

  It took two further meetings before I could convince Lorrie to at least put in the application. When Harvard came back, inviting her for an interview, she told me: ‘I don’t want you putting in a good word for me there.’

  ‘But it’s how the world works, Lorrie.’

  ‘Not the way I work. If Harvard wants me it’s not because of my autism. I find out you’ve talked to them beforehand I’m turning them down.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I promise they won’t hear from me now.’

  The truth was, I’d already called the Harvard admissions office and the English Department chairman and raved to them about Lorrie Quastoff, saying they had to accept her. But Lorrie didn’t need to know this. And I was very willing to follow her directive and stay silent from this point on, though (when requested by the Harvard admissions office) I did write her a forcefully argued letter of recommendation.

  Her acceptance was big news at New England State, yet it was met with a muted response by the administration. Stephanie Peltz informed me that El Presidente was not pleased, stating that it would have been more prestigious for the university to have kept this gifted (read: autistic) student here. And why did that meddling damn woman Howard yet again show us up?

  Right after Lorrie was accepted we went out for a celebratory lunch at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. I couldn’t drink for obvious physiological reasons, but I convinced Lorrie to have a glass of champagne. She looked a little fearful when the waiter poured it for her, and ran her finger nervously around the stem of the glass for the better part of a minute before I finally said to her: ‘It won’t turn you into a pumpkin.’

  ‘But I might get drunk on it.’

  ‘Not unless you’re the cheapest date in history.’

  ‘That’s a joke, right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a joke – but you really still do merit a glass of champagne. You don’t get into Harvard every day. So come on, give it a try.’

  With great care she lifted the glass to her lips, closed her eyes tightly as if expecting the liquid to melt her lips, and took the smallest of sips. Her eyes opened again. She seemed surprised that death had not befallen her, so she indulged in another small sip.

  ‘It’s not bad,’ she said, ‘but I think I prefer Diet Coke. You can’t drink because of the baby, right?’

  I’d only mentioned once to her that I was pregnant. This was some weeks back – and her reaction at the time was to simply nod and move on to the next subject. She said nothing more about it until now.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘The doctors advise you not to drink during a pregnancy.’

  ‘You happy about having a baby?’

  ‘I think so, yes,’ I said.

  ‘So you’re not “over the moon” happy?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as “over the moon” happy, except in crappy women’s magazines.’

  ‘So you don’t want to be pregnant?’

  At moments like these it was hard to tell if Lorrie’s ferocious directness was a byproduct of her autism or simply her inability ever to engage in subtle discourse (except when it came to discussing literature).

  ‘I am pregnant,’ I said.

  ‘Bad answer.’

  ‘I know I will love this baby when he or she arrives.’

  ‘Everyone says your husband is a weirdo.’

  ‘He’s not my husband – and who’s been calling him names?’

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  ‘He’s not weird. In fact, you’d like him a lot.’

  ‘Is he autistic too?’

  ‘All men are a bit autistic.’

  ‘But is he really autistic?’

  Careful here.

  ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘What’s love like?’

  ‘Complicated.’

  ‘Really complicated?’

  ‘It depends, I guess . . .’

  ‘You mean, like the professor you were sleeping with at Harvard?’ Lorrie’s face remained impassive. She didn’t register the effect that comment had on me.

  ‘How did you know about that?’ I asked.

  ‘Everyone knows about that. Was that love?’

  ‘Yes, that was definitely love.’

  ‘And because he was married it was complicated?’

  ‘Yes, that made it complicated.’

  ‘He died, right?’

  ‘Yes, he died.’

  ‘And you were sad?’

  ‘Sadder than I’ve ever been.’

  Again this comment didn’t register on Lorrie’s face. She simply nodded a lot.

  ‘So Emily Dickinson is right. Love is the “hour of lead”.’

  ‘I think she was really talking about loss.’

  ‘But love is loss, right?’

  ‘In many cases, yes, love is just that.’

  ‘So this new guy, the weirdo – you’re going to end up losing him too, right?’

  ‘That’s not the plan. But you never know . . .’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you love him the way you loved the professor.’

  ‘It’s . . . different, that’s all.’

  ‘“Different” isn’t love.’

  My mom did a variation on a similar theme when I brought Theo down to meet her a few weeks later. I had paved the way – correction: I had tried to pave the way – by calling her two weeks earlier and breaking the news that I was pregnant. As anticipated she took this badly – not just because I was ‘with child, out of wedlock’, but also because I was only telling her three months after I knew that I was to become a mother.

  ‘You had to wait until now to tell me?’ she asked, her hurt so evident.

  ‘I wanted to be sure that the pregnancy would take.’

  ‘No – you just didn’t want to share this with me.’

  Silence.

  ‘And the father . . . ?’ she finally asked.

  I told her a bit about Theo.

  ‘He sounds . . .
different.’

  Different. That word again.

  ‘He is very original.’

  ‘Now you have me even more worried.’

  ‘So do you want to meet the guy?’

  ‘Of course I want to meet Theo.’

  Two weeks later, when Theo and I got into my Miata (my ever-expanding midsection let it be known that this little sports car would soon be traded in for something that could haul a baby around) I vowed to myself that I would do everything possible to make this weekend chez Mom work. But when we arrived at the family home on Pleasant Street in Old Greenwich, I could see Mom’s visible shock when she first laid eyes on the man who had fathered her future grandchild. Just as I could see Theo take in the charmless decor, the peeling wallpaper, the furniture that hadn’t been recovered in thirty years. Then there was the state of my mother, looking ever more withdrawn and battered by the world’s indifference to her. I felt a desperate stab of guilt when I saw how shrunken and sad she seemed – and I did put my arms around her and tell her how wonderful it was to see her. But her reaction was one of detached bemusement. She actually tensed as I held her, then pushed me away with a slight but noticeable tap on the chest, her scolding eyes informing me: ‘Don’t you dare think that, for the benefit of this guy, you can act like we’re close.’ The fissure between us was so deeply established that our relationship had become nothing more than a mass of defensiveness and barely concealed hurt.

  ‘So you’re the fella,’ my mom said, looking Theo over in a deliberate manner.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Theo said, all smiles. ‘I’m the fella.’

  ‘Well, lucky you.’

  Theo proved very adept at handling such comments and keeping the atmosphere light and free of potential conflict.

  ‘You know, Jane once told her father and me that she would never get married and never have children,’ Mom said over the meatloaf dinner she had made us.

  I knew that Mom would bring up this damn story again, waiting for the opportune moment to salt the wound. But I had already prepared Theo by telling him all about it in advance of our arrival. He dealt with it wonderfully. After hearing her out he said: ‘That is a sad story, Mrs Howard. But guess what? I told the same thing to my parents – and they didn’t break up. So I guess it really comes down to how good or bad the marriage is in the first place. Or how much guilt you want to apportion to someone else for your own problems.’

  He said all this with a smile on his face. I could see that Mom was immediately disarmed by the tough talk behind the affable tone. When he excused himself to use the bathroom she leaned over and whispered: ‘You briefed him before he came here, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mom.’

  ‘You let him know I was bound to tell that story.’

  ‘You don’t think that what he said had more than a grain of truth to it?’

  ‘He doesn’t understand the entire ramifications—’

  ‘Of something that happened sixteen years ago and about which you’ve made me feel horrible ever since? And nothing, nothing, I have ever done for you will ever change your need to continually return to that damn evening and blame me for something that was between you and Dad.’

  ‘We were doing just fine until—’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, will you ever stop? I am so sick of being treated like the greatest mistake in your life.’

  ‘You dare accuse me of hating you.’

  ‘Well, you sure as hell don’t—’

  Suddenly I saw Theo standing in the doorway.

  ‘Am I interrupting something?’ he asked.

  There was an embarrassed silence which my mother broke.

  ‘I was just informing Jane that I have so many pressing things to do tomorrow that it’s best if you leave in the morning.’

  There was another embarrassed silence.

  ‘No problem, ma’am,’ Theo said, all smiles.

  ‘Yes, there is a damn problem,’ I said. ‘We drove all the way down here so I could introduce you to—’

  ‘Jane . . .’ Theo said calmly. ‘Let it be.’

  ‘You are a very sensible young man,’ my mother said, standing up. ‘I wish you well.’

  And she went upstairs.

  I sat at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands. Theo came over and put his arm around me and said: ‘Let’s vote with our feet and get out of here now.’

  Half an hour later we were checked into a Hilton hotel on the outskirts of Stamford. It was modern and sterile, but the bed was huge and the bathtub deep and I sat immersed in very hot water for half an hour, trying to digest what had just happened. At one point Theo came in and sat on the edge of the bath and said: ‘Look at it this way: you’ll never need to feel guilty about not seeing her again. Being cast out does have its fringe benefits.’

  ‘She didn’t even come downstairs and say anything when we were leaving.’

  ‘Because she wanted you to run upstairs and beg her forgiveness and tell her you’d try to be a good little girl again and all that other guilt-trip shit she has probably been pulling on you since the year dot. But you let it be known that you were no longer playing that game – for which I congratulate you. It’s long overdue.’

  ‘You’re wonderful,’ I said, taking his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’

  When we returned to Cambridge the next day I slipped into a serious funk. We all want to fix things. Just as we all believe that so much in life can be rectified. Mend fences, build bridges, reach out, engage in mutual healing. The modern American lexicon is brimming with the language of reconciliation – because, damn it, we are the ‘can do’ nation. Surely we can sidestep tragedy and the insoluble gulfs between people, as there always has to be some solution to life’s interpersonal conundrums. The problem with this viewpoint is that it refuses to acknowledge that there are things we simply cannot solve – that, like it or not, we can never make better that which has gone so terribly wrong.

  I stayed in that funk for days. It lifted when I received an advance finished copy of my book. I held it in my hand and opened it up and heard the quiet but noticeable crackle of newly bound pages being turned for the first time. As I glanced through the hundred thousand words contained within I thought to myself: I’ve actually done all this, and wondered what it all meant in the great scheme of things.

  Theo was even more excited than I was at the sight of the published tome.

  ‘You should be jumping up and down, swigging champagne from the bottle,’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly the best thing for a woman in my state.’

  ‘At least be thrilled by the achievement.’

  ‘I am,’ I said.

  ‘That’s why you sound so damn melancholic right now.’

  ‘It’s just . . .’

  ‘Jane, there’s nothing you can do to make the woman like you.’

  Theo read the book in one sitting and told me it was brilliant.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said.

  ‘Because you can’t handle the idea that anything you’ve done is in any way good.’

  ‘That’s me, Ms Self-Doubt.’

  ‘Well, stop doubting. It’s a fantastic piece of scholarship.’

  ‘It’s just an academic book.’

  ‘Where did you learn to be so hard on yourself?’

  ‘Where did you learn how to be so nice?’

  ‘I’ve always been nice.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. For all his quirks and oddities, Theo remained, fundamentally, a very good guy – and one who, I had come to recognize, could cope with my quirks, my permanent sense of doubt. Perhaps one of the greatest surprises in temporal existence is actually finding yourself outside of the uncertainty and struggle that so characterizes most of our time here. It’s a rare interlude – and at least I recognized it as such, and was able, for a while, to keep that nagging voice of inner uncertainty well and truly muzzled.

  Even the birth of my daughter didn’t turn
into the ‘Götterdämmerung’ that I had always feared. On the contrary, there was something rather textbook about the whole process. On the morning of July 24th I got up to make tea and suddenly felt a telltale stream of liquid cascading down my leg. I didn’t panic or fall into a state of advanced fear. I simply walked back into the bedroom and told Theo: ‘Time to get up – my waters have just broken.’

  Though he’d only fallen into bed two hours earlier after an all-night Fritz Lang marathon, he was wide awake and dressed in about sixty seconds. He grabbed a bathrobe for me and the bag that (true to his hyper-organizational needs) he had packed for me a week earlier. We made it across town to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in less than a half-hour. Within sixty minutes I was checked in and wired up and being given an epidural. Four hours later, Emily arrived in the world.

  It’s strange being told to push and heave when the entire lower half of your body is numb. It’s strange to glance upwards at the mirror that has been strategically placed in front of your otherwise covered legs and watch as this blooded thing is slowly yanked out of you. But the strangest of all sensations is the moment after you have been freed of the baby – and the baby of you – and you are handed this tiny shriveled creature to hold for the first time . . . and you feel a mixture of unbelievable instant love and desperate fear. The love is overwhelming – because, simply put, this is your child. But the fear is also immense, vast. Fear of not being up to the task. Fear of not being able to make her happy. Fear of letting her down. Fear – quite simply – of not getting it right.

  But then the baby starts to cry and you clutch her to you. Amidst the elation and exhaustion of just having been delivered of a child and having entered that brave new world of being a mother, another thought takes hold: I will try to do my very best for you.

  Happily, Theo didn’t video the birth as he had threatened to do. As I held Emily (we’d chosen this name long before her birth) close to me he crouched down beside us and stroked her head and clutched my hand and whispered to his new daughter: ‘Welcome to life.’

  Then he told me again just how much he loved me. And I said how much I loved him.

  Only much later did I realize that this was the last time we ever said those words to each other.