Vox(21)

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t raise his own hand, doesn’t react at all, except to say, “Nice, Mom. Real nice. One day, that’s gonna be a crime.”

“You little shit.”

He’s smug now, which makes everything worse. “I’ll tell you how I earned the pin. I got recruited. Recruited, Mom. They needed volunteers from the boys’ school to make the rounds to the girls’ schools and explain a few things. I accepted. And for the past three days, I’ve been going out in the field and demonstrating how the bracelets work. Look.” He pushes up one sleeve and brandishes the burn mark around his wrist. “We go in pairs, and we take turns. All so girls like Sonia know what will happen.” As if to defy me once more, he drains his glass of milk and licks his lips. “By the way, I wouldn’t encourage her to pick the sign language back up.”

“Why the hell not?” I’m still trying to absorb the fact that my son has purposefully shocked himself “so girls like Sonia know what will happen.”

“Mom. Honestly. You of all people should get it.” His voice has taken on the timbre of someone much older, someone tired of explaining how things are. “Signing defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do here.”

Of course it does.

“Look, I can’t tell you the details, but there are people researching the new—you know—devices. They’ll be more like gloves. Really, that’s all I should say.” He straightens, smiling. “Except that I’ve volunteered to beta test them.”

“You what?”

“It’s called leadership, Mom. And it’s what Pure Men do.”

I don’t know what to say, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. “You goddamned bastard.”

Steven shrugs. “Whatevs.” Then he stalks out of the kitchen, leaving the glass on the counter next to a note saying Buy milk.

Sam and Leo are in the kitchen doorway, staring at me, so I don’t dare cry.





SIXTEEN




After I read Sonia her bedtime story and lie next to her, waiting for the steady breathing that tells me she’s asleep, I go to my bedroom. Our bedroom. Tonight, I have it all to myself because Patrick is still in his study, even though it’s approaching midnight. Rarely does he stay up so late.

Tonight, I think about men.

When I put the twins to bed, Steven was in the TV room, eating ice cream and watching part of a series of talks by Reverend Carl, who I now believe might be my son’s hero. The two of them make a pair, both so steadfast in their ideas of reversion to a former time, an age when men were men and women were women and glory glory fucking hallelujah, things were so much easier back when we all knew our places. I can’t hate Steven because he believes in something so wrong, even if I hate what he believes.

Other men, though, are different.

Not long after Sonia’s fifth birthday, after we were fitted with the counters, I phoned my doctor at home, ready with a precisely worded set of questions, a pidgin of sorts. I pared the phrases down, eliminating copulas and modifiers, getting to the meat as quickly as possible. The recorder would pick up every word, even a whisper.

Who knows what I expected from her, what my doctor of more than ten years could tell me? Maybe I wanted a partner in silence. Maybe I only wanted to hear how pissed off she was.

Dr. Claudia answered, listened; and a low moan escaped before her husband came on the line.

“Whose fault do you think it was?” he said.

I stood in my kitchen, wanting to explain, careful not to, while he told me we’d marched one too many times, written one too many letters, screamed one too many words.

“You women. You need to be taught a lesson,” he said, and hung up.

I didn’t call her again to ask how they had silenced her, whether they had stormed into her practice or whether they had invaded her kitchen, if they had loaded her into a van along with her daughters and spelled out the future inside a dim gray room before fixing shiny wristbands on each of them and sending them home to cook and clean and be supportive Pure Women. To learn our lesson.

Dr. Claudia would never have put on that collar pin, not without a fight, but I know she’s still wearing it. Probably, her daughters are, too, like Julia King next door. I knew Julia when she wore cutoff jeans and halter tops, when she raced her bike down the street with an MP3 player on full volume, singing along to the Dixie Chicks, when she caught me in the garden and told me another story about how weird her mother was acting, rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of all that Pure crap. When her father caught her talking to me—I guess it was about a year and a half ago, now—he took Julia by the arm and shuttled her through the screen back door.

I still remember what her crying sounded like when Evan beat her.

Patrick’s study door squeaks open, and his footsteps move down the hall, away from our bedroom, toward the kitchen. I could go to him, pour us a stiff drink, and tell him what happened with Steven after dinner. I should go; I know it.

But I won’t.

Patrick is the third type of man. He’s not a believer and he’s not a woman-hating asshole; he’s just weak. And I’d rather think about men who aren’t.

So tonight, when Patrick finally comes to bed, even after he apologizes, I decide to dream of Lorenzo again.

I never know what brings it on, what makes me imagine it’s his arm, and not my husband’s, curled around my waist during the night. I haven’t spoken to Lorenzo since my last day at the university. Well, and that one other time, afterward, which didn’t involve an abundance of vocalization.