The Gretchen Question

by Jessica Treadway

  We’d had this discussion during his birthday dinner the year he turned fourteen. When I told him I couldn’t quite believe that so many people were that oblivious, he said, “Well, it’s not really obliviousness, so much. It’s missing details because you’re not looking for them. The whole point is not just that you didn’t notice, but that you have no idea you’re not noticing.”

  He used “you” in this case to mean “everyone,” and this I understood, but it was still hard not to feel that he was accusing me personally. I remember thinking that he was one of only two people remaining in the world with the power to hurt me. As it turns out, there are three.

  When I stood at the side of my car, the woman took a step back. “Don’t worry, I just spilled some garbage,” I told her. “I’m going to take a shower as soon as I get home.”

  “It’s not that.” She looked scared, which made me regret having stopped to help her. “Should you even be driving? I don’t really need help—listen, I changed my mind.”

  “What are you talking about? You pulled me over. I’m here, let’s do it.” When she tried to put me off again I walked past her and started toward the backyard, where I saw a ladder set up against the eave. A black cat with a white spot on its throat craned to look down at both of us with (I felt it distinctly, though I am a dog person instead of a cat one) an air of amusement.

  “My son used to say heart attach instead of heart attack,” I told the woman, as she put a foot on the first rung. Then she put the foot back down and looked at me.

  “I really think I should just wait for my husband,” she said. “I’m sorry I bothered you—I didn’t realize.”

  “Realize what?” I dared her to say it.

  “I’m not sure you understand your situation,” she told me, under her breath. “I can ask someone else. My husband should be home soon.”

  I was irritated by all of it—her speaking so low I almost couldn’t hear her, her presuming I didn’t know what was going on, her rubbing it in that she was married.

  “Go ahead,” I told her, gesturing at the ladder. “I don’t have all the time in the world, I have to get back home.”

  When she saw that I wasn’t going to give in, she started climbing reluctantly and sent down instructions from above. “If you hold it steady, I can go up to the top step. Then he knows to crawl onto on my back, and I lower us both down to the ground.”

  As she climbed, she said she’d never seen me before. She asked how long I’d lived in the neighborhood, and I told her eighteen years. Oh. Where had I lived before, then? I told her where I’d moved when I first came here, where I gave birth to Will. “Oh,” the woman said, “that’s more convenient in a lot of ways, but out here we have the peace and quiet.”

  That reminded me. Part of me wanted to ask and part of me didn’t, and the part that wanted to won. “Hey, did you hear all those sirens earlier? What were those about?”

  She had almost reached the ladder’s top, but she stopped to peer down at me with a puzzled look. “What sirens? I didn’t hear any sirens.”

  “How could you not hear them?”

  I thought she might take offense at this, but instead she paused to consider. “I don’t really pay attention unless it has something to do with me.”

  Well, when she said that, I was left to wonder whether there had been any sirens at all. Now that I thought about it, wouldn’t I have heard something about it by now, if Derek Foote had followed through on his threat to do something big, something bad? In the line behind me at the bank, every person had been looking down at a phone. They weren’t saying to each other, Hey, did you see this? And Celia Santoro, if that’s who she was, had not appeared nervous or agitated. She had not hustled her son into the house.

  It comforted me, the idea that I’d been wrong about the sirens. That I’d only thought I heard them, that it might have been just a symptom of the anxiety I felt as I drove to the therapist’s. That wouldn’t be so surprising, I realized. I’d been very anxious, after all.

  The woman’s shoulders were level with the roof now, and the cat reached its nose out to sniff her sleeve. To change the subject I said, “So this is a thing, with the roof? Does he go up there a lot?”

  “Only if something scares him—the wind, a big truck, another cat. But I didn’t hear anything this time, I don’t know what got into him.”

  The cat’s name was Jasmine, the woman told me as we performed the rescue. Even though it was a male, her son had insisted that they give the new kitten the same name as the cat they were replacing. This worked out fine because they could just call him Jazz, the woman went on, as if it mattered or as if I cared.

  She went on to say that the original Jasmine had died in a coyote attack in their backyard. “I had no idea they would be so bold as to come right onto our patio like that. But that was in winter. We figured it couldn’t find any other food.”

  I did not tell her, as I was tempted to, that I often heard the wailing of coyotes—as recently as a few nights ago—and it was on the cusp of summertime now. I did not say that I considered the neighborhood’s location near the woods, our proximity to the wild, the price we all pay for the peace and quiet we enjoy out here.

  The sound those coyotes make together is terrible—an army advancing, wolves closing in for the kill.

  “I cried more for that cat than I did when my father died.” She sounded as if she hadn’t realized it before. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

  Well, there was not much I could say to this. Instead I told her that even though I’d never gone to church as a child, I always imagined getting married in a sanctuary with a stained-glass window like the one above her front door. “I pictured walking down the aisle at my wedding and seeing those beautiful colors lit up by the sun. I thought it would be the most perfect moment of my life.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we all thought,” the woman said. She laughed and waited for me to join her, and when I didn’t, she stopped as if she were ashamed, as if she’d just let out a fart or something.

  Finally the new Jasmine climbed onto her back, and the woman lowered herself and the cat slowly to the ground. After she nudged him inside the sliding glass door, we exchanged emails and phone numbers. Her email address included the word Happymom. For God’s sake, I thought. Only a few minutes later would I realize that though I now had enough information to contact her, I still did not know her name.

  To make conversation as she walked me back to my car, I asked her what she thought about Arcadia Glen. “Oh, it’s wrong what they’re doing,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

  By they, she could have meant the developer and the people who wanted to move the old cemetery, or she could have meant the people who were trying to stop them. Of course I could not answer her question without knowing which, but I didn’t ask. Instead I just made the same murmur I’ve rehearsed to perfection over the years, not committing to anything.

  In front of her house, my car started as soon as I turned the key—something to be glad for. “I wish you could stay longer,” the woman said, and I was sure I must be mistaken to think I detected grief in her eyes. But then it was in her voice, too. “I’m sorry you have to go.”

  “That was weird,” I said out loud as I pulled away. I watched her recede in my mirror as she watched after me and hugged herself, as if in spite of how hot it was, a sudden chill had seized her.

  It was probably not even five-thirty when I got home, considering that the meeting with the therapist had taken less time than a regular session; the route from his office to my house was a reverse commute at that hour; I was first in line at the bank; I’d done a mere drive-by past Celia’s; and the encounter with Happymom, though it felt longer, lasted only about fifteen minutes.

  As I was making my way up to my front door, Pascal emerged from her own. She came closer than I expected her to, closer than I would have like
d. “Oh, God, Roberta,” she said, taking one of my elbows. “Let me help you.”

  But I shook her off. “I can do it,” I told her. “I’m not dead yet!” At the laugh I gave to accompany these words, she looked stricken, but backed off and hurried into her house.

  When I got inside I went straight into the bathroom to pee, realizing only then that I’d had to do so since I woke up from my nap in the therapist’s parking lot. But nothing came out. I haven’t been drinking enough, I thought. I should have had more water today, not coffee, not Diet Coke. I went into the kitchen, filled up a big glass, and tried to drink it down all at once. But my throat wouldn’t let me, it seemed to close up. I stood at the counter and took little sips instead. I still felt thirsty, but I managed to produce a little pee.

  Before I flushed, I ripped the therapist’s check into tiny pieces and dropped them into the bowl. So what if I mucked up the plumbing—what I felt, watching those bits spin and vanish, was worth it.

  I thought about turning on the TV as I usually did, for the company of voices. Then I decided not to, thinking it would be nice to have some peace and quiet.

  Who am I kidding? Just in case Derek had done something, I didn’t want to hear the news.

  I should take a shower, I knew. I smelled, probably worse than before. I managed to twist my tee-shirt off over my head, but for a minute I couldn’t think of what was supposed to come next. I went into my bedroom and slipped into a sweatshirt from Will’s college. I love this sweatshirt, it’s soft, it makes me think of him. I might not wear anything besides this, ever again.

  Scout was waiting for me, waiting for his dinner. I poured food into his bowl, unable to keep it from spilling over the sides, then sat down at the kitchen table. Instead of going to eat right away, he came over to tilt his head up at me and put his chin on my knee.

  Oh, Scout, you’re such a good boy. It’s going to be so hard to lose you when the time comes.

  I went out to the screened porch, lay down on the chaise and pulled the comforter over my legs, then over my arms when I couldn’t get warm. I rested awhile, then picked up my novel. It opened to the part about Clarissa’s kiss from Sally. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared … And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it—a diamond, something infinitely precious… the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!

  I closed my eyes thinking I might drown in it, what flooded me as I read. I guess it overcame me, because I fell asleep. When I woke up I didn’t want to move from where I was, but I had to go to the bathroom again. Resenting my body for the power it had over me, I pushed the comforter aside and lifted myself up, then made my way from the porch to the living room, where I saw Derek Foote sitting on the couch.

  “What! You’re here?” To my surprise, I did not feel shocked or scared—just a little annoyed. Only a few hours ago he’d promised me he’d stop doing this, breaking into people’s houses. Did I mean so little to him—was my threat to call the police such an obviously empty one—that he could be so brazen in ignoring it, and me?

  He held a hand up as if to defend himself from what he knew I must be thinking. “I didn’t break in, I promise. You left the door unlocked.”

  “No. I wouldn’t have done that.” Yet now that I said it, did I actually remember securing the latch with my key after rushing home to change clothes between the dump and the therapist’s office? I did not. But then, I’ve been forgetting a lot of things lately.

  “You did, though.” Derek’s tone was not mocking, not accusatory, but gentle. “I was relieved, to be honest. I would have felt bad about breaking into your house. I don’t know if I could have brought myself to do it. But I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Well, I could have said what we all say, in this kind of conversation. It would have been easy to utter the words—I’m fine—but I understood that we were beyond the point at which either of us would believe it, now. I also understood that Derek had not actually been asking the question, or deluding himself that he might find me in better shape than when he’d seen me last. What he was really saying was I like you, I’m sorry this is happening, I came here to be with you. I felt grateful to him for it, but for some reason I couldn’t manage to tell him so.

  “I also wanted to make sure you heard what I said today.” He sat calmly, eating from a bag of pretzels I’d bought a long time ago for when Will came home, but never opened. Was Derek calm? I couldn’t really tell, but if not, he fooled me. He hadn’t turned on the TV, as he did in other people’s houses—in deference, I supposed, to the fact that he’d found me sleeping when he came in. “I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t forget what I told you, that I wished you were my mother instead of her.” He pointed a pretzel in the direction of Grettie’s neighborhood and his own house, where his mother was no doubt still hoping to get him into a program that would redirect him and teach him a half-smile.

  “I didn’t forget it,” I told him. “I thought it was very nice. I was glad you said that—it meant a lot to me.”

  “It’s true,” he said, crunching. “Anybody who doesn’t get how lucky he is to have you for a mother is completely insane.”

  Well, now he was talking about Will, and I couldn’t let him get away with that. But neither could I think of exactly how to respond. I sat down on the couch, leaving a cushion between us. Scout was lying at my feet, making little whimpers. Some watchdog! But we hadn’t gotten him to be a watchdog. We got him for the love.

  “Something else I wanted to say.” Derek hung his head, looking guilty. “I let you believe something that isn’t true. I know what you were thinking earlier, when you caught me in the house. It wasn’t Will who called in that bomb threat at graduation. It was me.”

  God bless him! “Thank you for telling me that,” I said. I hoped he knew how much I appreciated it, even though I couldn’t muster what it would take to believe him.

  Having listened to all that came before this, you can imagine how I felt—what my heart did—when the front door opened and I heard my son step inside to look for me, calling out, “Mom? I’m home.” For a moment I felt confused, thinking that it was not Will as he is now, but the Will he’d been as a little boy. Instinctively I pushed my sleeve up, knowing as he approached that when he bent down to greet me he would give me a kiss on the forehead and then reach out to rub my arm. Heart maze. Heart attach. Look what I can do!

  “You came,” I said, though this was obvious, it was a waste of breath I could have saved myself. “Why?”

  “Grettie called me. She’ll be here soon.” He gave a bitter laugh, but no, that’s not what it was. It was a blast of something else—panic. What had she told him? And where was she?

  “But how did you get here so fast?”

  “Oh, please, don’t worry about that,” Will said, trying to wave my question away. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” When I told him that Yes, it did matter to me, he sighed and I watched him struggle to figure out how to respond. “I wasn’t as far away as I told you. I’m sorry about that, Mom. I was still mad at you. We’ve been closer than you thought.”

  We. Had he brought Sosi with him? I didn’t see her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. I was about to ask when he pointed at Derek and said, “Why the fuck are you here?”

  Derek raised a hand, the one not holding the pretzels, against what sounded like an accusation from his old friend. “Extenuating circumstances,” he said quietly. I was impressed by that—it was a good way to put it, I thought, a good way to describe what was happening now. I took over the best I could, clarifying for Will about Derek and the break-ins. How they were harmless. How Derek was just looking for a place to get away from his mother and have a nonapproved snack. How this time, in our house, he hadn’t actually broken in.

  Will seemed to accept both our explanations. But then he said,
“I still don’t see why he needs to be here. Considering—” but he didn’t need to finish the sentence, we all knew what he was talking about.

  “Your mom saved me,” Derek told him. His voice contained a measure of wonder. “There was something big I was going to do, something bad, that she talked me out of.” The expression on his face suggested that he felt startled by this turn of events, as if he himself had not been responsible for the better decision he’d ended up making.

  “Oh, I’m so glad!” I hoped he heard the exclamation point I was trying to convey. It relieved me more than I would have expected, to know he hadn’t gone through with his crazy plan. I told him, “I’m proud of you.”

  Will dropped to his knees between me and Derek, next to where I half-sat, half-lay on the sofa. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick again?” I don’t think I’d ever heard his voice as anguished as he sounded then, even during the worst of his emetophobia. It cracked something awful, like when he was thirteen.