We Are Not Ourselves(58)

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When his mother got home, she pulled him aside. “What was it like at Daddy’s school?” she asked. “How was he?” Her expression was strangely intense, and she was practically whispering. Connell was so unnerved that he almost said something. Then he remembered his promise.

“Dad was Dad,” he said. “I didn’t understand a word he was saying.”





19


An article in a nursing journal said that a fixed routine had a deleterious effect on the mind of a person prone to depression and that shaking up elements of a depressive’s environment could be a productive way to introduce treatment. She didn’t know for sure that Ed was technically depressed, but she knew she’d never be able to get him to a psychiatrist to find out.

What Ed needed—what they all needed—was to climb out of a rut. She started to wonder whether a move to another house might not be just the thing to jolt him out of his torpor. The timing was right: Connell was starting high school next year and could commute into the city from almost anywhere; the value of their home, given the encroaching neighborhood decay, would only go down. In a few years, they’d be trapped.

A house could make all the difference. Things improved for the Coakleys after Jack got promoted to director of cargo for SAS and they moved out to East Meadow. Jack had shown some signs of depression himself when they were still in Jackson Heights, but in East Meadow he started making furniture in his big garage and got into gardening and landscaping. He established an idyll in their backyard for all to enjoy: the echoing pool, the radio raised to drown out the rattle of distant mowers, wet footprints drying on hot concrete, the ubiquitous smell of sunblock.

It had been five years since she’d raised the rate on the already far-below-market rent she charged the Orlandos, and even then she’d raised it only a pittance. The knowledge that her son was safe had always offset in her mind the revenue she’d lost by floating the Orlando clan. Connell went up to one or the other of their apartments after school and stayed until she and Ed came home. Now that he was getting old enough to take care of himself, though, the protection they offered meant less than it once had.

“I’ve been thinking about this house,” she said. Connell was having dinner at Farshid’s, and they were alone at the dinner table. Ed didn’t respond. She’d gotten used to these one-sided exchanges. She’d learned to read different meanings into his silences. That night’s silence was auspicious; it lacked the heaviness of other varieties. It was like a sheet she could project her thoughts onto.

“I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to have a place of our own, where we don’t have renters. I’m tired of being a landlord. Aren’t you?” She filled a plate with chicken, potatoes, and steamed green beans and handed it back to him. It looked bland, but it was just the two of them, and Ed never seemed to care either way.

“This is our home,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I was just thinking we could look for a place that would be . . . more ours.”

“We’ve done a lot of work on this house.” Ed cut into his chicken. Rather than cut a small bite, he sawed it in the middle until it was in two halves.

“You’re happy here?”

“I am.” He began cutting the halves in half, his head into his work.

“You’re not happy,” she said. “You’re miserable. You won’t get off the couch.”

“I’m happy.”

“We could move to the suburbs. Get a nice house.”

“We have a nice house right here.” He looked up at her for the first time. His chicken was arranged in a neat mosaic of bite-sized pieces, but he hadn’t begun to eat.

“This neighborhood is going to hell.”

“I’m a city boy,” he said. “All those empty streets. All the space between houses.” He gestured dismissively with his fork.

Space between houses was all she wanted in the world.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to get out of here? Start somewhere else? The timing is perfect. Connell’s starting a new school next year. We’ve saved so well.”

“This place is a lot better than what I had growing up,” Ed said.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re right about that.”

She hated being made to feel churlish. She wasn’t looking for a palace, just a step up from where they were. It was for him that she was thinking of all this, but how could she talk to him about it without alerting him to her line of reasoning?

“I don’t want to have anyone walking over my head anymore,” she said.

“We’ll switch apartments with Lena. She’d jump at it. Those stairs probably kill her.”

She gave him a withering look. His green beans were all cut in half now too.

“Our life is here,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you like to get to know another neighborhood?”

“I don’t want to be isolated,” he said. “I don’t want to have to get used to a whole new way of life.”

She bit her tongue, then said it anyway. “You already have a whole new way of life.”

She watched him finally begin to move some food into his mouth and chew it slowly, as if considering the mechanics of chewing anew. It was driving her crazy. She put her knife and fork down and waited.