We Are Not Ourselves(105)

“I was a horrible student in high school,” Frank said. “If it had mattered then the way it does now, I wouldn’t have had a prayer.”

“Me too,” Ed said.

“It’s a different world,” Ruth agreed.

“He’s in his second year already,” Ed said. “He’s got to settle down soon.”

Eileen flinched.

“I thought he was a freshman,” Ruth said. This was the danger of having friends like Ruth and Frank who paid attention when you talked about your kid.

“Yes, freshman,” Ed said. “That’s what I said.”

“He likes English,” Eileen said quickly.

“That’s great,” Frank said. “I love literature. I’m going to take a Shakespeare course next semester.”

“Ed’s disappointed,” she said. “He wants him to love science. He wants him to go to medical school.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ed said. “I want him to follow his bliss.”

“Maybe he’ll come around,” Frank said. “Listen, we were thinking of having him up for a weekend. Do you think he’d like that? Or would it be more of a drag for him?”

“He’d love it,” Eileen said.

“Maybe while he’s here you can talk some sense into him,” Ed said. “He’s having a hard time with biology, if you can believe that. He’s not applying himself, is all.”

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” Frank said. “I failed bio the first time I took it.”

“That sounds like Connell, I’m afraid. His biology grades aren’t the greatest. He’s focused on literature.”

“Is there an echo in here?” Frank asked, laughing. “I might have to cut you off.”

“Please do.” Eileen tried to sound authentically relieved. “For all our sakes.”

“Or maybe what he needs is not less but more.” Frank stood up and took her glass, then Ed’s, which was still full. He looked at it for a moment.

“Let me freshen this for you,” he said.

The business of getting drinks occupied a few minutes, and Ruth refilled the cheese and cracker plates.

“So tell Connell to think about what weekend he wants to come up,” Frank said.

“You’re having Connell over?” Ed asked.

“If he wants.”

“Do me a favor and talk to him about giving more of his time to science,” Ed said.

“Before I forget,” Ruth said abruptly, “I have to tell you the funniest story.” She embarked on a narrative about having had her car towed the last time she went into the city. It wasn’t funny at all, and it wound up being far shorter than Eileen had hoped, but she felt her eyes well up in gratitude.

Soon it was pumpkin bundt cake and coffee. The rituals of meals had never been more of a comfort. Ed ate his cake without trouble and they sat in the pleasant ease of digestion. She could see the distance to departure beginning to narrow. They might very well escape without further incident.

Ruth gathered the coats, and they said their good-byes in the hallway.

“Remember,” Frank said. “Ask Connell when would be good for him to come up.”

“I will,” Eileen said.

“Maybe you can talk some sense into him,” Ed said. “He’s slacking in science.”

Frank’s eyes widened. He broke into an awkward grin that looked more like a grimace. “Don’t let this guy drive,” he said.

Although she had had more to drink than Ed, she got behind the wheel. She felt exhausted, and more than once she had to blink away sleep. Ed snored the whole trip, like a child, oblivious of the danger he was in every time she let her mind wander.





40


The floors in the living room and dining room were still a mess. Not only hadn’t he begun to lay down wood, he hadn’t even bought any, and it was now the second week of December. He had put the floor job on hold to focus on the basement. It drove her crazy to have the most important rooms in the house be off-limits. She had given up on the dream of entertaining the first Christmas in the new house (when the Coakleys agreed to host, she was afraid she might have lost dibs on Christmas Eve to Cindy forever), but she wanted to be able to finally sit in her living room. He was kidding himself if he thought he was going to be able to handle it alone.

The noises of destruction and toil emanating from below made it sound as if he was overseeing a torture chamber. She never approached him when he was down there, and when he came up covered in plaster dust and dried concrete, he sat and ate in remorseless silence. When he was asleep she went down to check on his labor. The space was coming together somehow. A do-it-yourself home improvement book sat perpetually splayed on the floor, its dog-ears attesting to the concentration that had gone into making things flush and square.

? ? ?

She found a disposable razor on the coffee table in the den, sitting in a streak of shaving cream. She told herself that Ed had come downstairs to answer the phone while shaving and gotten distracted. When she picked the razor up, though, and saw that the book under it was his beloved fifth-edition copy of The Origin of Species, she let out a shriek. No one but Ed ever touched that precious volume, and it never left his study. The fact that it was on the coffee table at all was amazing enough, but for its front cover to be stained by a filmy dollop of Barbasol was simply unfathomable. Her first thought, her only thought, was to leave the razor alone so he could see he had ruined the book himself.