Out in the parking lot, it was cold; in my flight from the office, I’d left my coat. We had two cars to drive home, which made me feel colder. I sensed we were at a junction of sorts and feared that if we each launched off in separate vehicular universes we would end up in the same place only in the most banal, geographical sense. You must have felt the same need to confirm that we were, as my staff had lately taken to saying five times a day,
on the same page
, because you invited me into your truck for a few minutes to debrief and get warm.
I missed your old baby-blue pickup, which I associated with our courtship, powering along the turnpike with the windows down and sound system pounding, like a living Bruce Springsteen lyric. And the pickup was more you, old-you anyway: classic, down-home, honest. Pure, even. Edward Hopper would never have painted the bulky 4x4 with which you replaced it. Reared up unnaturally above wide, oversized tires, the body had the blunted, bulging contours of an inflatable dinghy. Its bullying fenders and puffed-up posture reminded me of those poor little lizards whose only weapon is display, and the truck’s overdrawn, cartoon manliness had prompted me to quip in better days, “If you check under the chassis, Franklin, I bet you’ll find a tiny dick.” At least you’d laughed.
The heating worked well; too well, since once we’d idled for a few minutes the cab got stuffy. It was bigger than the Ford, but your baby-blue had never felt this claustrophobic with just the two of us.
Finally, you knocked your head back on the padded headrest and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe you left it out.”
Stunned, I didn’t respond.
“I thought about not saying that,” you proceeded. “But if I swallowed it, I’d be not saying it, and not saying it, for weeks, and that seemed worse.”
I licked my lips. I had begun to tremble. “I didn’t leave it out.”
You dropped your head, then sighed. “Eva. Don’t make me do this. You used that Liquid-Plumr on Saturday. I remember because you went on about how the kids’ drain smelled weird or something, and then later that afternoon you warned us not to run any water in that sink for the next hour because you’d put drain cleaner in it.”
“I put it away,” I said. “Back in that
high
cabinet with the child-lock on it, which Celia couldn’t even reach with a chair!”
“Then
how did it get out
?”
“Good question,” I said icily.
“Look, I realize that you’re usually very careful with caustic substances and lock that shit up automatically. But people aren’t machines—”
“I
remember
putting it away, Franklin.”
“Do you
remember
putting your shoes on this morning, do you
remember
closing the door behind you when you left the house? How many times have we been in the car, and we’ve had to go back inside and make sure that the stove isn’t on? When turning it off is presumably second nature?”
“But the stove is never on, is it? It’s almost a rule of life, a, what, some kind of fortune-cookie aphorism: The Stove Is Never On.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s on, Eva: the
one time
that you don’t bother to double-check. And
that
is when the fucking house burns down.”
“Why are we having this inane conversation? With our daughter in the hospital?”
“I want you to admit it. I’m not saying I won’t forgive you. I know you must feel terrible. But part of getting through this has to be facing up—”
“Janis came this morning, maybe s
he
left it out.” In truth, I never thought for a moment that Janis had been so sloppy, but I was desperate to keep at bay the picture that began to form in my head when I entertained a more credible suspect.
“Janis had no need for drain cleaner. All the drains were clear.”
“All right,” I said, steeling myself. “Then ask
Kevin
how that bottle got left out.”
“I knew we’d get around to this. First it’s oh, what a mystery, then it’s the housekeeper’s fault, who’s left? And, what a surprise, that Eva—who never does anything wrong herself—should finger her own son!”
“He was supposed to be taking care of her.
You
said he was old enough—”
“Yes, it was on his watch. But she was in the bathroom, he says the door was closed, and we’ve hardly encouraged our fourteen-year-old boy to bust in on his sister in the john.”
“Franklin, this story doesn’t add up. Never mind for now why it was out, all right? Forget that. But why would Celia pour drain cleaner in her
own eye
?”
“I haven’t a clue! Maybe because kids are not only dumb but creative and the combination is death. Why else would we keep that shit locked up? What’s important is Kevin did everything he should have. He says when she started to scream he came running, and when he found out what it was he ran water over her face and rinsed her eye the best he could, and
then
he called an ambulance,
even
before he called me on the cell—which was
just
right, the order was
just
right, he was a
star
.”
“He didn’t call me,” I said.
“Well,” you said. “I wonder why.”
“The damage—” I took a breath. “It’s bad, isn’t it. It had to have been very, very bad—.” I had started to cry, but I made myself stop, because I had to get this out. “If she’s lost the eye, and surgeons are better at this kind of thing than they used to be, then it was—. It was a mess. It takes, ah. It takes a while.” I stopped again, listening to the
wah
from the heat vents. The air had grown dry, my saliva sticky. “It takes a while for that stuff to work. That’s why the label tells you to—to let it sit.”
Compulsively, I had pressed my fingertips against my own eyes, padding the papery lids, guarding the smooth, tender roll of the balls.
“What are you saying? Because it’s bad enough to accuse him of neglect—”
“The doctor said there’d be scarring! That she was burned, all across that side of her face! Time, it would have taken time! Maybe he did wash it out, but
when
? When he was
finished
?”
You grabbed each of my arms, raised them on either side of my head, and looked me in the eye. “Finished with what? His homework? His archery practice?”
“Finished,” I groaned, “with
Celia
.”
“Don’t you ever say that again! Not to anyone! Not even to me!”
“Think about it!” I wrenched my arms free with a twist. “Celia, douse herself with acid? Celia’s afraid of everything! And she’s six, she’s not
two
. I know you don’t think she’s very smart, but she’s not retarded! She knows not to touch the stove, and she doesn’t eat bleach. Meanwhile, Kevin can reach that cabinet, and Kevin can work child-locks in his sleep. He’s not her
savior
. He did it! Oh, Franklin, he did it—”
“I’m ashamed of you,
ashamed
,” you said at my back as I curled against the door. “Demonizing your own kid just because you can’t admit to your own carelessness. It’s worse than craven. It’s sick. Here you’re flailing around making
outrageous
accusations, and as usual you have no proof. That doctor—did he say anything about Kevin’s story not squaring with her injuries? No. No, he didn’t. Only his mother can detect a cover-up of some unspeakable evil because she’s such a medical expert, such an expert on corrosive chemicals because she’s occasionally cleaned house.”
As ever, you couldn’t keep shouting at me while I was crying. “Look,” you implored. “You don’t know what you’re saying because you’re upset. You’re not yourself. This is hard, and it’s going to keep being hard, because you’re going to have to look at it. She’s going to be in pain, and it’s going to look nasty for a while. The only thing that’s going to make it easier is if you confront your part in this. Celia—even
Celia
, with that elephant shrew—admits it’s her fault. She left the cage open! And that’s part of it, what hurts, that not only did something sad happen but if she’d done something differently it wouldn’t have happened. She takes responsibility, and she’s only six!
Why can’t you
?”
“I wish I could take responsibility,” I whispered, fogging the side window. “I’d say, ‘Oh, I could kill myself for leaving that drain cleaner where she could find it!’ Don’t you see how much easier that would be?
Why
would I be so upset? If it were my fault,
only
my fault? In that case, it wouldn’t be frightening. Franklin, this is serious, it’s not just a little girl scratching her eczema anymore. I don’t how he got this way but he’s a horror, and he
hates her
—”
“That’s enough!” Your announcement had a liturgical finality, deep and booming like the ringing
Amen
in a benedictory prayer. “I don’t often lay down the law. But Kevin’s been through an incredible trauma. His sister will never be the same. He kept his head in a crisis, and I want him to be proud of that. Still, he was the one baby-sitting, and he’s inevitably going to worry that it was all his fault. So you are going to promise me, right now, that you’ll do everything in your power to assure him that it
wasn’t
.”
I pulled the handle of the door and opened it a few inches. I thought, I have to get out of here, I have to get away.
“Don’t go, not yet,” you said, holding my arm. “I want you to promise.”
“Promise to keep my mouth shut or to believe his feeble story? I might add, another one.”
“I can’t make you believe in your own son. Though I’ve sure as fuck tried.”
On one point you were right: I didn’t have any proof. Only Celia’s face. Hadn’t I been right. She’d never be beautiful, would she.
I climbed from the truck and faced you through the open door. The chill wind whipping my hair, I stood at attention, reminded of brittle military truces struck between mistrustful generals in the middle of barren battlefields.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll call it an accident. You can even tell him, ‘I’m afraid your mother forgot to put the Liquid-Plumr away on Saturday.’ After all, he knew I unclogged that drain. But in return you promise me: that we will never again leave Kevin alone with Celia. Not for five minutes.”
“Fine. I bet Kevin’s none too keen for more baby-sitting jobs right now anyway.”
I said I’d see you at home; a civil farewell was an effort.
“Eva!” you called at my back, and I turned. “You know I’m not usually big on shrinks. But maybe you should talk to somebody. I think you need help. That’s not an accusation. It’s just—you’re right on one score. This is getting serious. I’m afraid it’s beyond me.”
Indeed it was.
The following couple of weeks were eerily quiet around the house, with Celia still recovering in the hospital. You and I spoke little. I’d ask what you’d like for dinner; you’d say you didn’t care. In relation to Celia, we largely addressed logistics—when each of us would visit. Although it seemed sensible for us to go separately so that she’d have companionship for more of the day, the truth was that neither of us was anxious to share your overheated 4x4 once more. Back home, we could discuss the particulars of her condition, and though the particulars were distressing—an infection subsequent to her
enucleation
, a vocabulary lesson I could have skipped, had further damaged the optic nerve and ruled out a transplant— facts fed the conversational maw. Shopping for an oculist for her follow-up, I seized on a doctor named Krikor Sahatjian on the Upper East Side. Armenians look out for each other, I assured you. He’ll give us special attention. “So would Dr. Kevorkian,” you grunted, well aware that the godfather of assisted suicide was one Armenian my conservative community was reluctant to claim. Still, I was grateful for an exchange that almost qualified as banter, in conspicuous short supply.
I remember being on my best behavior, never raising my voice, never objecting when you barely touched a meal that I’d have gone to great trouble to fix. Cooking, I tried not to make too much noise, muffling the clang of a knocked pot. In respect to Celia’s uncannily sunny disposition in Nyack Hospital, I swallowed many an admiring remark for seeming somehow indecorous, as if her improbable good nature were an affront to lesser mortals who quite reasonably wail from pain and grow irascible during convalescence. In our household, my praise of our daughter always seemed to get confused with bragging on my own account. Throughout, I made a concerted effort to
act normal,
which, along with
trying
to have fun and
trying
to be a good mother, we can now add to our list of projects that are inherently doomed.
That remark you made about my “needing help” proved disquieting. I had replayed the memory of putting that Liquid-Plumr away so many times that the tape was worn and I couldn’t quite trust it. I would review my suspicions and sometimes they didn’t ... well, nothing would seem clear-cut.
Did
I put that bottle away?
Was
the injury too severe for the story the way Kevin told it? Could I point to a single shred of solid evidence that would hold up in court? I didn’t want to “talk to somebody,” but I’d have given my eye teeth to be able to talk to you.