Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [37]
In fact, he wished she would call the police. He wished it were something he could go to prison for.
But if he told his mother she would learn it was a suicide, and everyone assumed it was an accident. Driving under the influence. Too much stag party. That was the trouble with confessing: it would make him feel better, all right, but it would make the others feel worse. And if his mother felt any worse than she did already, he thought it would kill her. His father too, probably. This whole summer, all his father had done was sit in his recliner chair.
Once his mother asked, “Ian, you don’t suppose Danny was depressed or anything, do you?”
“Depressed?”
“Oh, but what am I saying? He had a new baby! And a lovely new wife, and a whole new ready-made family!”
“Right,” Ian said.
“Of course, there could have been little problems. Some minor snag at work, maybe, or a rocky patch in his marriage. But nothing out of the ordinary, don’t you agree?”
“Well, sure,” Ian told her.
Was that all it had been? A rocky patch? Had Ian overreacted?
He saw how young he was, how inexperienced, what a shallow, ignorant boy he was. He really had no idea what would be considered out of the ordinary in a marriage.
On Sundays when the family gathered, he sent Lucy sidelong glances. He noticed she was growing steadily paler, like one of his father’s old Polaroid photos. He wanted to believe Danny’s death hadn’t touched her, but there she sat with something still and stricken in her face. Her children quarreled shrilly with Claudia’s children, but Lucy just sat straight-backed, not appearing to hear, and smoothed her skirt over and over across her lap.
Privately Bee told the others, “I wish she had someone to go to. Relatives, I mean. Of course we’d miss her but … if she had someone to tend the children so she could get a job, for instance! I know I ought to offer—”
Doug said, “Don’t even consider it.”
“Well, I’m their grandma! Or one of them’s grandma. But lately I’ve been so tired and my knees are acting up and I don’t see how I could handle it. I know I ought to, though.”
“Don’t give it a moment’s consideration.”
Did Lucy ever think, If only I hadn’t gone out with Dot that night? Did she think, If only Dot’s car hadn’t broken down?
For it was Dot she’d gone out with. And the car had broken down, someplace on Ritchie Highway. That much emerged at the funeral, which Dot had attended all weepy and disbelieving.
Did Lucy ever think, If only I had been a faithful wife?
No, probably not, for Ian couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was the one she blamed. (At the very least, he’d made Danny drive him home that night.) He was almost positive that she slid her eyes reproachfully in his direction as she smoothed her skirt across her lap. But Ian looked elsewhere. He made a point of looking elsewhere.
Only Cicely knew the whole story. He had told her after the first time they ever made love. Lying next to her in her bed (her parents had gone to a Memorial Day picnic, taking her little brother with them), he had thought, Danny will never know I’ve finally slept with a girl. His eyes had blurred with tears and he had turned abruptly and pressed his hot, wet face into Cicely’s neck. “I’m the one who caused Danny’s accident,” he blurted out. But the thing was, she wouldn’t accept it. It was like some physical object that she kept batting away. “Oh, no,” she kept saying. “No, that’s silly. You didn’t do anything. Lucy didn’t do anything. Lucy was a perfect wife. Danny knew you didn’t mean it.”
He should have said, “Listen. You have to believe this.” But her skin was so soft, and her neck smelled of baby powder, and instead of speaking he had started making love again. He had felt ashamed even then at how easily he was diverted.
Or here was something more shameful than that: In the emergency room that awful night, when the doctors said there was no hope, Ian had thought, At least now Cicely can’t stay mad at me for missing our dinner date.
Despicable. Despicable. He ground his teeth