Part 73: Susan

The real gift wasn’t the computer, it was the idea of the computer. The thought that counts, that was the cliched phrase. But there was some truth to it, or there had been once at least. Today’s cliches, yesterday’s insights. So Susan would tell James about the computer tonight and then they would research it - together, she imagined, but that was probably fanciful, they would each do their own separate research and then compare notes, like collaborators joined together with and instead of & - and go back to the store with a specific target in mind. 

Not quite the impulsive display of solidarity she had imagined, but that was life, wasn’t it? Instead of dramatic proposals on Jumbotrons that shocked you, moved you to tears, and the thunderous applause of the crowd, in real life you got an awkward dinner at a fancy restaurant (each playing dumb for the sake of the other) and a mail-order catalog of rings to flip through together some idle Sunday afternoon. Still love, still marriage, but not the way the movies painted it, that was all.

She found James just where she had left him, at the dining room table, book open. Hopefully he had moved. It was a decent book, but it wasn’t that good, it wasn’t can’t-put-it-down, enthralling, block out everything else good. It was the sort of book you developed a sober, considered appreciation for after you finished it - maybe years after, when you thought back, when you ranked it against all the other books they had made you read in school, the whole canon. Then it stood out; then it shone.

Becca went straight for the TV, with her fast-food chicken nuggets - she’d already eaten all her fries on the way home. David was home, or his vehicle was at least. Not the basement, not the yard - shower, maybe? Yes, it was 5:45, the timing fit. So that left her alone with James, who was surely, at least since they got home, only pretending to read about Tom Robinson’s troubles.

“James. Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but can I talk to you about something?” she said, sitting down at the other side of the table.

Which James would she get, she wondered in the moment he put down the book, keeping his finger in there to mark the page (and keep their conversation brief): the sarcastic, acerbic one who would retort “you already are” or the one she had shared that moment with earlier, her ally?

“Hannah isn’t dead, she’s in Pittsburgh,” he said, sounding annoyed at having to repeat himself.

“No, I know that,” Susan said, though she had begun to nurse some doubts. (What kind of mother, so on and so forth.) But even if it wasn’t literally true, it was true in the context of their relationship. It was where they had left things, and to go down that path now would keep them from their actual destination. “I’d like to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh God. Are you dying?”

“What? No? I mean, not any more than -- no, of course not. What gave you that idea?”

“I don’t know,” James said. “Usually when people say ‘we need to talk’ a bunch of times instead of just, you know, talking, it means something bad. And it would explain why you’re so obsessed with death lately.”

“Obsessed with death?” The phrase didn’t fit her; she hardly ever thought about death.

“Yeah, you thought I was going to kill myself, you thought Hannah killed herself . . .”

“I was just concerned about you,” Susan said. “But anyway. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. What I wanted to talk to you about is . . .”

“Can we get on with it please? I’m trying to read here.”

He was so rude. This had to be more than just being-fourteen rudeness, this had to be his personality. Susan was tempted to say never mind, why reward such behavior - that was her impulse - but it wasn’t meant to be a reward. It wasn’t supposed to be conditional (what Ashlee’s parents would do), it was supposed to be a gift, freely given, undeserved, like the mercy of God; or it was supposed to be a mark of their being on the same team (but wasn’t that the team of irrational passion? and so wouldn’t throwing her hands up right now be a better show of that?); or it was a strategy to prevent future conflicts? It was all of them at once, contradictions be damned. It was her decision, no matter what, not his.

But David was out of the shower, had gotten dressed - a whole new set of clothes, just for the few hours between now and bed - and was now plodding around the first floor, opening and shutting cabinets and drawers, and that changed things.

“Well, we’ve decided,” she said - you had to say we, had to present a united front, even though the real battle lines were different - “we think it’s time that we buy you your own computer.”

James considered, made facial contortions. He didn’t jump for joy like Becca would have, but he must be happy, deep down, to have gotten what he had been fighting for.

“That’s alright,” he said finally.

“Alright?” she repeated. Just alright?

“Yeah, no, it’s okay, I don’t need one.”

“Need one what?” came David’s voice from the kitchen.

“My own computer,” James called back, folding his father into the conversation, redrawing the lines on the basis of gender. Now they were together, she was alone. (Becca was no help, under the spell of the TV.)

“Of course you don’t.” David came into the room, measuring tape in his hands (of course, but what for? what stupid idea had come to him in the shower?) “I’m glad you finally understand that. It shows that you’re really maturing, son.”

Son? Susan cringed.

“I’m kind of burnt out on the computer anyway,” James continued. “Everyone on there is just so fake, you know?”

It clicked into place: it was because Hannah wasn’t on there anymore. How stupid she had been, to not make that connection earlier! (Or had she, and that was the real reason she had walked out of the electronics department, her unconscious mind - you didn’t say subconscious, Freud never said subconscious - smarter than the part she was aware of, that tip of the iceberg?) Whether Hannah was really in Pittsburgh or not, James thought she was, and without her he had no use for the computer. Everyone on there - not Hannah. 

David took James’s words at face value, as usual. “You’re right. People aren’t themselves when they’re on there. They say things they would never say in real life.”

How would you know? You can’t even turn on the computer, Susan thought at him, blaming him for everything. And James didn’t mean people became fake when they went online; he meant everyone on there right now was a fake person, computer or no computer. He used language precisely, like her; sometimes pedantically, sometimes obnoxiously, but still - he thought before he spoke, that was why they were on the same team.

But right now, for once, he didn’t protest. “Yeah. You’re right. Hey, do we have any paper?”

He was asking David, not her, Susan realized. She had been shut out of the conversation she initiated. She knew exactly where the paper was, but let David try, let’s see if he knows, let him founder and flair under the constant minutiae of parenting . . . 

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m sure we do,” he said, looking around the room uncertainly. His gaze settled on Susan. “Honey, where do we keep the paper?”

Honey? That was worse than son. “Lined paper? Or unlined?” Susan said, directing it at James. There was more than just paper: there were kinds of paper (the world was complex, multifaceted.) “What’s it for?” (Things were defined by their uses; yes, good.)

“Nevermind.” Telling her was too high a price. He shut his book, left it on the table, page unmarked. “I just remembered, I’ve got some in my room. Thanks, though.”