We Need to Talk About Kevin Read online

  Bunnikins, and 5 million drinks of water."

  I understood. These talks of ours had a gameliness, and your opening play was noncommittal. O n e of us always got lodged into the role of parental party pooper, and I had rained on the progeny parade in our previous session: A child was loud, messy, constraining, and ungrateful. This time I bid for the more daring role: "At least if I got pregnant, something would happen."

  "Obviously," you said dryly. "You'd have a baby."

  I dragged you down the walkway to the riverfront. "I like the idea of turning the page is all."

  — 19 —

  " T h a t was inscrutable."

  "I mean, we're happy? Wouldn't you say?"

  "Sure," you concurred cautiously. "I guess so." For you, our contentment didn't bear scrutiny—as if it were a skittish bird, easily startled, and the m o m e n t one of us cried out Look at that beautiful swan! it would fly away.

  "Well, maybe we're too happy."

  "Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I wish you could make me a little more miserable."

  "Stop it. I ' m talking about story. In fairy tales,'And they lived happily ever after' is the last line."

  " D o me a favor: Talk d o w n to me."

  O h , you k n e w exacdy what I meant. N o t that happiness is dull. O n l y that it doesn't tell well. A n d one of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our o w n story. I should know; I am in flight from my story every day, and it dogs me like a faithful stray. Accordingly, the one respect in which I depart from my younger self is that I n o w regard those people w h o have little or no story to tell themselves as terribly fortunate.

  We slowed by the tennis courts in the blaze of April sunlight, pausing to admire a powerful slice backhand through a gap in the green mesh windbreaks. "Everything seems so sorted out,"

  I lamented. "A W i n g and a Prayer has taken off so that the only thing that could really happen to me professionally is for the company to go belly-up. I could always make more m o n e y — b u t I ' m a thrift-shop junkie, Franklin, and I don't k n o w what to do with it. M o n e y bores me, and it's starting to change the way we live in a way I'm not totally comfortable with. Plenty of people don't have a kid because they can't afford one. For me it would a relief to find something of consequence to spend it on."

  " I ' m n o t of consequence?"

  "You don't want enough."

  " N e w j u m p rope?"

  "Ten bucks."

  — 2 0 —

  "Well," you conceded, "at least a kid would answer the Big Question."

  I could be perverse, too. " W h a t big question?"

  "You know," you said lightly, and drew out with an emcee drawl, "the old e-e-existential dilemma."

  I did not put my finger on why, but your Big Question left me unmoved. I far preferred my turn of the page. "I could always traipse off to a new c o u n t r y — "

  "Any left? You go through countries the way most folks go through socks."

  "Russia," I noted. "But I ' m not, for once, threatening to ransom my life to Aeroflot. Because lately...everywhere seems kind of the same. Countries all have different food, but they all have food, k n o w what I mean?"

  " W h a t do you call that? Right! Codswallop."

  See, you'd a habit back then of pretending to have no idea what I was talking about if what I was getting at was at all complicated or subtle. Later this playing-dumb strategy, w h i c h began as gentle teasing, warped into a darker incapacity to grasp what I was getting at not because it was abstruse but because it was all too clear and you didn't want it to be so.

  Allow me, then, to elucidate: Countries all have different weather, but they all have weather of some sort, architecture of some sort, a disposition toward burping at the dinner table that regards it as flattering or rude. Hence, I had begun to attend less to whether one was expected to leave one's sandals at the d o o r in Morocco than to the constant that, wherever I was, its culture would have a custom about shoes. It seemed a great deal of trouble to go to—checking baggage, adapting to n e w time zones—only to remain stuck on the old weather-shoes continuum; the continuum itself had come to feel like a location of sorts, thereby landing me relentlessly in the same place. Nevertheless, though I would sometimes rant about globalization—I could n o w buy your favorite chocolate-brown Stove brogans from Banana Republic in Bangkok—what had really grown m o n o t o n o u s was

  — 21 —

  the world in my head, what I thought and h o w I felt and what I said. T h e only way my head was going truly somewhere else was to travel to a different life and not to a different airport.

  "Motherhood," I condensed in the park. "Now, that is a foreign country."

  On those rare occasions w h e n it seemed as if I might really want to do it, you got nervous. "You may be self-satisfied with your success," you said. "Location scouting for Madison Avenue ad clients hasn't brought me to an orgasm of self-actualization."

  "All right." I stopped, leaned on the w a r m w o o d e n rail that fenced the Hudson, and extended my arms on either side to face you squarely. "What's going to happen, then? To you, professionally, what are we waiting and hoping for?"

  You waggled your head, searching my face. You seemed to discern that I was not trying to impugn your achievements or the importance of your work. This was about something else. "I could scout for feature films instead."

  "But you've always said that's the same j o b : You find the canvas, someone else paints the scene. And ads pay better."

  "Married to Mrs. Moneybags, that doesn't matter."

  "It does to you." Your maturity about my vastly outearning you had its limits.

  "I've considered trying something else altogether."

  "So, what, you'll get all fired up to start your own restaurant?"

  You smiled. " T h e y never make it."

  "Exactly. You're too practical. Maybe you will do something different, but it'll be pretty m u c h on the same plane. A n d I ' m talking about topography. Emotional, narrative topography. We live in Holland. And sometimes I get a hankering for Nepal."

  Since other N e w Yorkers were so driven, you could have been injured that I didn't regard you as ambitious. B u t one of the things you were practical about was yourself, and you didn't take offense. You were ambitious— for your life, what it was like w h e n you woke up in the morning, and not for some attainment.

  Like most people w h o did not answer a particular calling from an

  — 2 2 —

  early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would fill up your day but not your heart. I liked that about you. I liked it enormously.

  We started walking again, and I swung your hand. " O u r parents will die soon," I resumed. "In fact, one by one everyone we k n o w will start pitching their mortal coils in the drink. We'll get old, and at some point you're losing more friends than you make. Sure, we can go on holidays, finally giving in to suitcases with wheelies.We can eat more foods and slug more wines and have more sex. But—and don't take this w r o n g — I ' m worried that it all starts getting a little tired."

  " O n e of us could always get pancreatic cancer," you said pleasantly.

  "Yeah. Or run your pickup into a concrete mixer, and the plot thickens. But that's my point. Everything I can think of happening to us from n o w o n — n o t , you know, we get an affectionate postcard from France, but really happen-happen—is awful."

  You kissed my hair. "Pretty morbid for such a gorgeous day."

  For a few steps we walked in a half embrace, but our strides clashed; I settled for hooking your belt loop with my forefinger.

  "You k n o w that euphemism, she's expecting? It's apt.The birth of a baby, so long as it's healthy, is something to look forward to. It's a good thing, a big, good, huge event. A n d from thereon in, every good thing that happens to them happens to you, too. Of course, bad things, too," I added hurriedly, "but also, you know, first steps, first dates,
first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves—in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems," I supposed idiotically, "at least they wouldn't be our same old problems..."

  E n o u g h . R e c o u n t i n g this dialogue is breaking my heart.

  Looking back, maybe my saying that I wanted more "story" was all by way of alluding to the fact that I wanted someone else to love. We never said such things outright; we were too shy. And I was nervous of ever intimating that you weren't enough for me.

  In fact, n o w that we're parted I wish I had overcome my o w n bashfulness and had told you more often h o w falling in love with you was the most astonishing thing that ever happened to me. N o t just the falling, either, the trite and finite part, but being in love.

  Every day we spent apart, I would conjure that wide w a r m chest of yours, its pectoral hillocks firm and mounded from your daily 100

  pushups, the clavicle valley into which I could nesde the crown of my head on those glorious mornings that I did not have to catch a plane. Sometimes I would hear you call my name from around a corner—"Ee-VA!"—often irascible, curt, demanding, calling me to heel because I was yours, like a dog, Franklin! But I was yours and I didn't resent it and I wanted you to make that claim:

  "Eeeeeee-VAH!" always the emphasis on the second syllable, and there were some evenings I could hardly answer because my throat had closed with a rising lump. I would have to stop slicing apples for a crumble at the counter because a film had formed over my eyes and the kitchen had gone all liquid and wobbly and if I kept on slicing I would cut myself. You always shouted at me w h e n I cut myself, it made you furious, and the irrationality of that anger would almost beguile me into doing it again.

  I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past without you was too stark and insistent for me to find the miracle of companionship ordinary. But after I'd survived for so long on the scraps from my own emotional table, you spoiled me with a daily banquet of complicitous what-an-asshole looks at parties, surprise bouquets for no occasion, and fridge-magnet notes that always signed off

  " X X X X , Franklin.'You made me greedy. Like any addict w o r t h his salt, I wanted more. And I was curious. I wondered h o w it felt w h e n it was a piping voice calling, " M o m m - M E E E ? " from around that same corner.You started it—like someone w h o gives you a gift of a single carved ebony elephant, and suddenly you get this idea that it might be f u n to start a collection.

  — 24 —

  P.S. (3:40 A.M.)

  I've been trying to go cold turkey on sleeping pills, if only because I k n o w you'd disapprove of my using them. But without the pills I keep tossing. I'll be worthless at Travel R Us tomorrow, but I wanted to get d o w n another m e m o r y from that period.

  R e m e m b e r having soft-shell crabs with Eileen and Belmont at the loft? That evening was wanton. Even you threw caution to the winds and lurched up for the raspberry brandy at 2 A.M. W i t h no interruptions to admire dolly outfits, no t o m o r r o w is a school day, we gorged on fruit and sorbet and splashed immoderate second shots of clear, heady framboise, w h o o p i n g at each others'

  top-this tales in the orgy of eternal adolescence characteristic of the childless in middle age.

  We all talked about our parents—rather to their collective detriment, I ' m afraid. We staged an unofficial contest of sorts: whose parents were the most bonkers.You were at a disadvantage; your parents' uninflected N e w England stoicism was difficult to parody. By contrast, my mother's ingenious contrivances for avoiding leaving the house made for great hilarity, and I even managed to explain the private j o k e b e t w e e n me and my brother Giles about "It's very convenient"—the catchphrase in our family for " T h e y deliver." In those days (before he was reluctant to let his children anywhere near me), I had only to say "It's very convenient" to Giles, and he guffawed. By the w e e -

  smalls I could say "It's very convenient" to Eileen and B e l m o n t and they cracked up, too.

  Neither of us could compete with that interracial vaudeville team of been-around-the-block bohemians. Eileen's mother was schizophrenic, her father a professional cardsharp; Belmont's mother was a former prostitute w h o still dressed like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and his father was a semifamous jazz d r u m m e r w h o had played with Dizzy Gillespie.

  I sensed that they'd told these stories before, but as a consequence they told t h e m very well, and after so m u c h chardonnay to wash d o w n a feast of crabs I laughed until I wept. O n c e I considered

  — 25 —

  bending the conversation toward this monstrous decision you and I were trying to make, but Eileen and Belmont were at least ten years older, and I wasn't sure childless by choice; raising the matter might have been unkind.

  They didn't leave until almost 4 A.M. And make no mistake: On this occasion I'd had a wonderful time. It was one of those rare evenings that had proved worth the bustle of rushing to the fish market and chopping all that fruit, and that should even have been worth cleaning up the kitchen, dusty with dredging flour and sticky with mango peel. I could see being a little let down that the night was over, or a little heavy with too much booze, whose giddy effects had peaked, leaving only an unsteadiness on my feet and a difficulty in focusing w h e n I needed to concentrate on not dropping the wine glasses. But that wasn't why I felt dolorous.

  "So quiet," you noticed, stacking plates. "Beat?"

  I noshed on a lone crab claw that had fallen off in the skillet.

  "We must have spent what, four, five hours, talking about our parents."

  "So? If you feel guilty about bad-mouthing your mother, you're looking at penance until 2025. It's one of your favorite sports."

  "I know it is.That's what bothers me."

  "She couldn't hear you. And no one around that table assumed that because you think she's funny you don't also think she's tragic. Or that you don't love her."You added, "In your way."

  "But when she dies, we won't, I won't be able to carry on like that. It won't be possible to be so scathing, not without feeling traitorous."

  "Pillory the poor woman while you can, then."

  "But should we be talking about our parents, for hours, at this age?"

  "What's the problem? You were laughing so hard you must have wet yourself."

  "I had this image, after they left—the four of us, all in our

  — 2 6 —

  eighties with liver spots, still boozing it up, still telling the same stories. Maybe tinged with affection or regret since they'd be dead, but still talking about weird M o m and Dad. Isn't it a little pathetic?"

  "You'd rather anguish over El Salvador."

  "It's not t h a t — "

  " — O r dole out cultural after-dinner mints: Belgians are rude, Thais disapprove of groping in public, and Germans are obsessed with shit."

  T h e tinge of bitterness in such jibes had been on the increase.

  My hard-won anthropological nuggets apparendy served as reminders that I'd gone on an adventure abroad while you were searching suburban N e w Jersey for a tumbledown garage for Black and Decker. I might have snapped that I was sorry my travel stories bored you, but you were mostly teasing, it was late, and I wasn't in the m o o d to scrap.

  " D o n ' t be silly," I said. " I ' m like everyone else: I love to talk about other people. N o t peoples. People I know, people close to m e — p e o p l e w h o drive me crazy. B u t I feel as if I ' m using my family up. My father was killed before I was b o r n ; one brother and o n e m o m make for pretty slim pickings. Honestly, Franklin, maybe we should have a kid just to have something else to talk about."

  " N o w that," you clanged the spinach pan in the sink, "is frivolous."

  I stayed your hand. "It's not. W h a t we talk about is what we think about, is what our lives are about. I ' m not sure I want to spend mine looking over my shoulder at a generation whose li
neage I ' m personally helping to truncate. There's something nihilistic about not having children, Franklin. As if you don't believe in the w h o l e h u m a n thing. If everyone followed our lead, the species would disappear in a hundred years."

  " G e t out," you jeered. " N o b o d y has kids to perpetuate the species."

  "Maybe not consciously. But it's only been since about 1960 that we've been able to decide without joining a nunnery.

  Besides, after nights like this, there might be poetic justice in having grown kids talking for hours to their friends about me!'

  H o w we shelter ourselves! For the prospect of such scrutiny clearly appealed to me. Wasn't Mom pretty? Wasn't Mom brave?

  Gosh, she went to all those scary countries all by herself! These flashes of my children's late-night meditations on their mother were gauzy with the very adoration so signally absent from my savage dissection of my o w n mother. Try, Isn't Mom pretentious? Isn't her nose huge? And those travel guides she grinds out are sooooo boooooring.

  Worse, the deadly accuracy of filial faultfinding is facilitated by access, by trust, by willing disclosure, and so constitutes a double betrayal.

  Yet even in retrospect this craving for "something else to talk about" seems far from frivolous. Indeed, I may have first been enticed into the notion of giving pregnancy a go by these tempting little imaginative packages like movie previews: of opening the front door to the boy on w h o m my daughter (I confess I always imagined a daughter) has her first crush, soothing his awkwardness with easy banter, and assessing h i m endlessly—playfully, ruthlessly—once he is gone. My yearning to stay up late with Eileen and Belmont for once ruminating about young people whose lives lay before t h e m — w h o made new stories, about which I would have new opinions, and whose fabric was not threadbare from retelling—was real enough, it wasn't flip.

  O h , but it never entered my head what, once I was finally provided my coveted fresh subject matter, I would have to say.