Part 65: Susan

For one wild moment, it seemed to Susan that she and her son were going to hop in the car and drive all the way, through the night if they had to, to Pittsburgh. James would go; he was just waiting for her to suggest it. There was a look. And it would be a culmination of all of the threads that had been dangling around her lately: her fractured relationship with James, her strange infatuation with Xander Cross, her desire to do something reckless. And perhaps they would have, would have made it to the car at least, or the highway, if Becca hadn’t come bounding downstairs at just that moment.

“Mom can I go to Ashley’s for a little while,” she said in a singsong voice, still holding the phone up to her ear.

Susan looked at James instinctively, apologetically. He half-nodded, half-shrugged as if she was asking his permission. “Of course, honey,” she said to Becca.

Becca, in turn, said “she-said-yes” into the phone and ran back upstairs. No thank you.

Of course, what a fitting phrase, she thought, thinking of it literally. Of course she would drive Becca to Ashley’s and that would be it for the afternoon, because to do anything else would mean explaining it to Ashley’s parents, which was impossible, or to David, which was even more impossible (why not use irrational language), or to Becca herself, a task so impossible even she wouldn’t be crazy enough to attempt it.

But it was clear to her now where the lines were drawn. She and James were on one side, the romantics; David and Becca on the other, the realistic, the practical, the normal.

Maybe you needed both, maybe the world needed both, but why did that mean she had to be both? Why did she have to go put on her shoes, not in a flurry of excitement but soberly, one at a time; why did James have to shut down the computer and pick up To Kill A Mockingbird, of all things, when there were never any concessions made in the other direction? The most they ever got were stories, but then even the stories were picked up, corrupted, poisoned by the establishment. Dissected, sucked dry of anything that made them any good. Poor Harper Lee; poor Napoleon, turned into shorthand for shortness and inadequacy.

“So how’s Ashley doing?” she said when Becca came back down, because she had to.

“I dunno,” she replied. She hadn’t specifically asked “how are you doing?” and Ashley hadn’t said “I’m good,” so Becca couldn’t supply an answer. (James could, but wouldn’t.)

“What are you guys gonna do?” Susan tried again, as they walked out to the car.

“I dunno,” Becca repeated.

“Well, what do you think you’re gonna do? You didn’t talk about it? What do you usually do when you go over there?”

“I dunno.” But this time it wasn’t the end of her answer, thank God. That would have made the drive intolerable. (At least when James was taciturn, he was thinking about something.) “Watch TV, I guess. Or call the boys.”

The boys. Dylan and Jake had become the boys. She remembered when “the boys” meant James and Sean and the rest of their friends, as in, “the boys are playing in the backyard right now, can you stay in the front” or “the boys have a baseball game tonight so I won’t be making dinner.”

“Ah, the boys,” she said out loud, as if she were reflecting on - what she should be reflecting on - how Becca was growing up, becoming - if not sexual, then at least heterosexual. The child in front of her rather than the one back home. But she couldn't stop comparing them, and preferring James.

“Yeah. Or just, like. Talk?” Becca said, as if unsure that was the right word for what her and Ashley did.

All James wanted to do was talk to Hannah in peace. In privacy. And she had violated that privacy. That was why he had shut off the computer. Well, that settled it - to make up for it, and to solidify their partnership, she would buy him his own computer as soon as possible. How was that for impulsive, how was that for romantic? Capitalist, of course, but that was the world they lived in.

She started the car, turned the radio to something Top 40, drove. Becca sang along in her nonsense syllables from the backseat.

When had the betrayal started? No moment was an island. Yesterday, when she had fished through his backpack? (Sure, the paper had fallen out, but she was in the mood to chastise herself; "fished" was evocative.) Or when she had gone into his bedroom? Or earlier, the night she had first typed “Xander Cross” into the search engine, and pried into one tiny corner of his life, the only scrap he had given her (why not mix metaphors, be redundant) - and used his property to do it. Private property was a social construct, but then so was family, and the computer had clearly, indisputably been his turf.

And once she had used it once, it became so much easier to think of it as hers, to be sucked in by its flashing lights and dings - like a casino, like a nightclub - to lose sight of James, gone for only a moment, his mind fixed on retaking his seat . . . 

“Seatbelt!” she reminded Becca sharply, her voice cutting over the music.

“Why don’t you have to wear one?” Becca grumbled.

“I do,” Susan replied, clicking hers into place. “Everybody does.”

“Why?” Becca asked. One of those childish questions where she obviously knew the answer but just wanted to hear it confirmed.

“It keeps us safe,” Susan stated. So safe, too safe. In another world, she would have been flying down the highway by now, weaving in and out of traffic, no seatbelt, windows down, radio blasting, on her way to - what? Well, they wouldn’t know exactly until they got there, that was part of the point. No plan, just a spark; a lit fire; an avalanche. Just one thing leading to another to another to another . . .