Brian’s eyes dart5 from Anna, who is picking at a scab on her thumb, to me. He watches me like a mousewatches a hawk6. There is something about this that makes me ache; is this really what he thinks of me?
Does everyone?
I wish there was not a courtroom between us. I wish I could walk up to him. Listen, I would say, this is nothow I thought our lives would go; and maybe we cannot find our way out of this alley7. But there is no one I’drather be lost with.
Listen, I’d say, maybe I was wrong.
“Mrs. Fitzgerald,” Judge DeSalvo asks, “do you have any questions for the witness?”
It is, I realize, a good term for a spouse8. What else does a husband or a wife do, but attest9 to each other’serrors in judgment10?
I get up slowly from my seat. “Hello, Brian,” I say, and my voice is not nearly as steady as I would havehoped.
“Sara,” he answers.
Following that exchange, I have no idea what to say.
A memory washes over me. We had wanted to get away, but couldn’t decide where to go. So we got into thecar and drove, and every half hour we’d let one of the kids pick an exit, or tell us to turn right or left. Wewound up in Seal Cove11, Maine, and then stopped, because Jesse’s next direction would have landed us in theAtlantic. We rented a cabin with no heat, no electricity—and our three kids afraid of the dark.
I do not realize I have been speaking out loud until Brian answers. “I know,” he says. “We put so manycandles on that floor I thought for sure we’d burn the place down. It rained for five days.”
“And on the sixth day, when the weather cleared, the green-heads were so bad we couldn’t even stand to beoutside.”
“And then Jesse got poison ivy12 and his eyes swelled13 shut…”
“Excuse me,” Campbell Alexander interrupts.
“Sustained,” Judge DeSalvo says. “Where is this going, Counselor14?”
We hadn’t been going anywhere, and the place we wound up was awful, and still I wouldn’t have traded thatweek for the world. When you don’t know where you’re headed, you find places no one else would everthink to explore. “When Kate wasn’t sick,” Brian says slowly, carefully, “we’ve had some great times.”
“Don’t you think Anna would miss those, if Kate were gone?”
Campbell is out of his seat, just as I’d expect. “Objection!”
The judge holds up his hand, and nods to Brian for his answer.
“We all will,” he says.
And in that moment, the strangest thing happens. Brian and I, facing each other and poles apart, flip15 likemagnets sometimes can; and instead of pushing each other away we suddenly seem to be on the same side.
We are young and pulse-to-pulse for the first time; we are old and wondering how we have walked thisenormous distance in so short a period of time. We are watching fireworks on television on a dozen NewYear’s Eves, three sleeping children wedged between us in our bed, pressed so tight that I can feel Brian’spride even though we two are not touching16.
Suddenly it does not matter that he has moved out with Anna, that he has questioned some of the decisionsabout Kate. He did what he thought was right, just the same as me, and I can’t fault him for it. Lifesometimes gets so bogged17 down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always anotherappointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to benotched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized18 our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes,and completely forgotten to step back and see what we’ve accomplished19.
If we lose Kate today, we will have had her for sixteen years, and no one can take that away. And ages fromnow, when it is hard to bring back the picture of her face when she laughed or the feel of her hand insidemine or the perfect pitch of her voice, I will have Brian to say, Don’t you remember? It was like this.
The judge’s voice breaks into my reverie. “Mrs. Fitzgerald, are you finished?”
There has never been a need for me to cross-examine Brian; I have always known his answers. What I’veforgotten are the questions.
“Almost.” I turn to my husband. “Brian?” I ask. “When are you coming home?”
In the bowels20 of the court building are a sturdy row of vending21 machines, none of which have anything you’dwant to eat. After Judge DeSalvo calls a recess22, I wander down there, and stare at the Starbursts and thePringles and the Cheetos trapped in their corkscrew cells.
“The Oreos are your best shot,” Brian says from behind me. I turn around in time to see him feed themachine seventy-five cents. “Simple. Classic.” He pushes two buttons and the cookies begin their suicideplunge to the bottom of the machine.
He leads me to the table, scarred and stained by people who have carved their eternal initials and graffitiedtheir inner thoughts across the top. “I didn’t know what to say to you on the stand,” I admit, and then hesitate.
“Brian? Do you think we’ve been good parents?” I am thinking of Jesse, who I gave up on so long ago. OfKate, who I could not fix. Of Anna.
“I don’t know,” Brian says. “Does anyone?”
He hands me the package of Oreos. When I open my mouth to tell him I’m not hungry, Brian pushes a cookieinside. It is rich and rough against my tongue; suddenly I am famished23. Brian brushes the crumbs24 from mylips as if I am made of fine china. I let him. I think maybe I have never tasted anything this sweet.
Brian and Anna move back home that night. We both tuck her in; we both kiss her. Brian goes to take ashower. In a little while, I will go to the hospital, but right now I sit down across from Anna, on Kate’s bed.
“Are you going to lecture me?” she asks.
“Not the way you think.” I finger the edge of one of Kate’s pillows. “You’re not a bad person because youwant to be yourself.”
“I never—”
I hold up a hand. “What I mean is that those thoughts, they’re human. And just because you turn outdifferently than everyone’s imagined you would doesn’t mean that you’ve failed in some way. A kid who getsteased in one school might move to a different one, and be the most popular girl there, just because no onehas any other expectations of her. Or a person who goes to med school because his entire family is full ofdoctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead.” I take a deep breath, and shake myhead. “Am I making any sense?”
“Not really.”
That makes me smile. “I guess I’m saying that you remind me of someone.”
Anna comes up on an elbow. “Who?”
“Me,” I say.
When you have been with your partner for so many years, they become the glove compartment25 map thatyou’ve worn dog-eared and white-creased, the trail you recognize so well you could draw it by heart and forthis very reason keep it with you on journeys at all times. And yet, when you least expect it, one day youopen your eyes and there is an unfamiliar26 turnoff, a vantage point that wasn’t there before, and you have tostop and wonder if maybe this landmark27 isn’t new at all, but rather something you have missed all along.
Brian lies beside me on the bed. He doesn’t say anything, just puts his hand on the valley made by the curveof my neck. Then he kisses me, long and bittersweet. This I expect, but not the next—he bites down on mylip so hard that I taste blood. “Ow,” I say, trying to laugh a little, make light of this. But he doesn’t laugh, orapologize. He leans forward, licks it off.
It makes me jump inside. This is Brian, and this is not Brian, and both of these things are remarkable28. I runmy own tongue over the blood, copper29 and slick. I open like an orchid30, make my body a cradle, and feel hisbreath travel down my throat, over my breasts. He rests his head for a moment on my belly31, and just as muchas that bite was unexpected, there is now a pang32 of the familiar—this is what he would do each night, a ritual,when I was pregnant.
Then he moves again. He rises over me, a second sun, and fills me with light and heat. We are a study ofcontrasts—hard to soft, fair to dark, frantic33 to smooth—and yet there is something about the fit of us thatmakes me realize neither of us would be quite right without the other. We are a M.bius strip, two continuousbodies, an impossible tangle34.
“We’re going to lose her,” I whisper, and even I don’t know if I’m talking about Kate or about Anna.
Brian kisses me. “Stop,” he says.
After that we don’t talk anymore. That’s safest.
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1
calcification
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| n.钙化 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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13
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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counselor
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| n.顾问，法律顾问 | |
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15
flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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16
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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17
bogged
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| adj.陷于泥沼的v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的过去式和过去分词 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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synchronized
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| 同步的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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vending
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| v.出售（尤指土地等财产）( vend的现在分词 )；（尤指在公共场所）贩卖；发表（意见，言论）；声明 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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33
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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34
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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