Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(27)
“I’m going to die!”
“Many, many years from now.”
“Does that really make a difference?” Max asked.
“It could be worse,” Irv said. “You could be Argus.”
“Why would it be worse to be Argus?”
“You know, one paw in the oven.”
Benjy let out a plaintive wail, and then, as if carried on a light beam from wherever she’d been, Julia opened the door and rushed in.
“What happened?”
“What are you doing back?” Jacob asked, hating everything about the moment.
“Dad says I’m gonna die.”
“In fact,” Jacob said with a forced laugh, “what I said was, you’re going to live a very, very, very long life.”
Julia brought Benjy onto her lap and said, “Of course you aren’t going to die.”
“Then make that two frozen burritos,” Irv said.
“Hi, darling,” Deborah said to Julia. “It was beginning to feel a bit estrogen-starved in here.”
“Why did I get a boo-boo, Mama?”
“You don’t have a boo-boo,” Jacob said.
“On my knee,” Benjy said, pointing at nothing. “There.”
“You must have fallen,” Julia said.
“Why?”
“There is literally no boo-boo.”
“Because falling is part of life,” Julia said.
“It’s the epitome of life,” Max said.
“Nice vocab, Max.”
“Epitome?” Benjy asked.
“Essence of,” Deborah said.
“Why is falling the epitome of life?”
“It isn’t,” Jacob said.
“The earth is always falling toward the sun,” Max said.
“Why?” Benjy asked.
“Because of gravity,” Max said.
“No,” Benjy said, addressing his question to Jacob. “Why isn’t falling the epitome of life?”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure I understand your question.”
“Why?”
“Why am I not sure that I understand your question?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Because this conversation has become confusing, and because I’m just a human with severely limited intelligence.”
“Jacob.”
“I’m dying!”
“You’re overreacting.”
“No I amn’t!”
“No you aren’t.”
“I amn’t.”
“Aren’t, Benjy.”
Deborah: “Kiss it, Jacob.”
Jacob kissed Benjy’s nonexistent boo-boo.
“I can carry our refrigerator,” Benjy said, not quite sure if he was ready to be done with his crying.
“That’s wonderful,” Deborah said.
“Of course you can’t,” Max said.
“Max said of course I can’t.”
“Give the kid a break,” Jacob whispered to Max at conversational volume. “If he says he can lift the fridge, he can lift the fridge.”
“I can carry it far away.”
“I’ve got it from here,” Julia said.
“I can control the microwave with my mind,” Max said.
“No way,” Jacob said to Julia, too casually to be believable. “We’re doing great. We’ve been having a great time. You walked in at a bad moment. Unrepresentative. But everything is cool, and this is your day.”
“Off from what?” Benjy asked his mother.
“What?” Julia asked.
“What do you need a day off from?”
“Who said I needed a day off?”
“Dad just did.”
“I said we were giving you a day off.”
“Off from what?” Benjy asked.
“Exactly,” Irv said.
“Us, obviously,” Max said.
So much sublimation: domestic closeness had become intimate distance, intimate distance had become shame, shame had become resignation, resignation had become fear, fear had become resentment, resentment had become self-protection. Julia often thought that if they could just trace the string back to the source of their withholding, they might actually find their openness. Was it Sam’s injury? The never-asked question of how it happened? She’d always assumed they were protecting each other with that silence, but what if they were trying to injure, to transfer the wound from Sam to themselves? Or was it older? Did the withholding from each other predate meeting each other? Believing that would change everything.
The resentment that was fear, that was resignation, that was shame, that was distance, that was closeness, was too heavy to carry all day, every day. So where to put it down? On the kids, of course. Jacob and Julia were both guilty, but Jacob was guiltier. He’d become increasingly snippy with them, because he knew they would take it. He pushed, because they wouldn’t push back. He was afraid of Julia, but he wasn’t afraid of them, so he gave them what was hers.
“Enough!” he said to Max, his voice rising to a growl. “Enough.”
“Enough yourself,” Max said.