When We Were Animals(26)

I thought, It is happening. This is happening, thinking, All our days add up to one day, and then they become something else. The point on the number line where negative becomes positive. The future the mirror image of your past—everything contingent on this moment here, the great, holy zero. My zero to his one. My nothing to his something.

It was happening. I was waiting for it to happen. I could feel his movements, rough, even angry, against the skin of my thighs. There was a certain pleasure in not having to do anything—in having everything done for you while you just waited. He struggled away, and I waited and felt the warm, stinging chafe of his efforts.

I waited. I knew to expect the pressure of him between my legs, but there was no pressure. Then everything stopped.

For a moment there was an expression on his face of physical industry—vulgar, beautiful things flitting through a heated boy-mind. But then his eyes met mine, and that strange violent desire drained out of his gaze. Instead of falling on top of me, he stood back up.

“Never mind,” he said.

I sat up, suddenly embarrassed by my nakedness.

“What happened?” I said. The sky now seemed very far away, measureless compared to how small I felt.

“Nothing happened,” he said. “Never mind. You said no.”

He was shifting nervously.

“You couldn’t do it,” I said. It wasn’t an accusation. It was something I was realizing aloud.

“I could have,” he said. “I didn’t. You said no.”

I reached for my pants, which were all balled up in the weeds. I put them on, and neither of us said anything.

We drove in silence back to where my bike was stashed. He stopped and waited for me to get out. But I didn’t get out.

“You couldn’t do it,” I said. I didn’t want to cry in front of him again, but I could hear the tremor in my voice. “You couldn’t even if you tried. I’m a nun.”

“You’re not a nun.”

“Yes, I am. I’m a nun, and nobody wants a nun. Nobody dreams about nuns.”

“You’re not,” he said, but his voice was tired, unconvincing. He just wanted to be away from me.

It was too late. In the woods, for a moment, he had been an animal, he had functioned by beast logic. Now, again, he was just a boy. Was it just that he wasn’t able to be the bad man, no matter how hard he tried? Or was I the one responsible for his transformation? Was I the antidote for breaching?

Did I ensnare what the breaching set free?

*



When I take my son to preschool, Miss Lily, his teacher, takes me aside and tells me that he has been having discipline issues and that the day before it was necessary to separate him from the other children for a while.

As she speaks, I watch my boy run forward to greet his friends. He seems happy enough. Though I know that signifies nothing. I know how love and hate grow from the same seed.

“I mean,” Miss Lily goes on, “I’m sure it’s not something to worry about. Usually it’s only a form of expression. We just need to work on redirecting it. But, again, I don’t see it as a reason for real concern, Mrs. Borden.”

She knows me as Ann Borden. I used to be Lumen Ann Fowler. Then I left the town where I grew up and I became Ann Fowler to signify that I was a different person. Then I married Jack Borden and became Ann Borden. A life of vestiges.

“Mrs. Borden?” she says again.

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

When I leave, I drive across town to the high school where my husband works. I am a good driver. I obey all the traffic signs. I am always respectful to pedestrians, with their breakable bodies.

I do not use the school parking lot when I arrive. Instead I park around the corner and walk to the side of the main building, where Jack’s office has a window that looks out on a large grassy expanse with trees and benches and fiberglass picnic tables. I sit at one of the benches, where I can see into his window. His back is facing me, and I can see that he is hunched over his desk, scribbling away industriously. The hair on the back of his neck is closely cropped. Sometimes he has me do touch-ups with a pair of clippers after he comes home from the barbershop. The skin of his neck is burned slightly from standing in the hot weekend sun, watering the front lawn.

I sit on the bench cross-legged. The advantage of my spot is that it is behind the large trunk of an oak tree, so if he should ever turn to look out the window, I can simply lean back and be completely hidden.

When people enter his office, Jack stands and greets them. Then he waits for them to sit before he does. His adult colleagues smile a lot when they are in his office—he must be a charming man. When his At-Risk students come in, they sometimes fidget, and their heads swivel twitchily. Jack leans back in his chair in these situations.

I pick at the bark of the oak tree while I watch. Underneath is smooth, supple pulp.

When the students begin to talk, I notice that he nods a lot and listens with his head a little sideways—as though his brain were weighed down with the careful consideration of their words. The students seem to respond well to it.

I try it, there on my bench. I angle my head on the pivot of my neck as though carrying the weight of big thought.

A sparrow whistles overhead.

A little later the tough girl, Nat, comes into his office. She sits with her arms crossed and glares at him. Once I think she sees me watching, but she doesn’t say anything about it. I know the look on her face. She wants to rip away at things. I know the tips of her fingers tremble like eager claws.