The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [95]
He waits to talk to her until he has showered and dressed, picking a collared shirt, one he knows she likes on him. She is in the family room, sewing something. Vivian is seldom at rest and she expects Sean and Duncan to follow suit. To be productive, almost every waking hour, is her goal. But Sean has earned his beer, the right to have the television on mute, baseball scores scrolling by. He still thinks of the Orioles as his team. They still break his heart on a regular basis.
“Duncan says he’s planning to go to New Orleans over school break.”
“Yes,” she says, biting a piece of thread. “With a group from church. I think it’s a great idea.”
“The thing is, my mom is pretty fragile right now and I think it’s important for all of us to go see her.”
“Certainly you should go. I understand.”
This is how she does it, he thinks. She doesn’t even acknowledge there’s another side to the issue. She’s seizing the high ground, being magnanimous for allowing him to go see his mother.
“She loves Duncan, dotes on him. It would be great if he were there, too.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand when you explain how important this is to his college applications.”
“But how do I explain you not being there?”
“Oh, honey—it’s New Orleans. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I wasn’t one of the chaperones. It’s a very dangerous city. I’ll make you miserable, worrying about Duncan, so I might as well go.”
He wants to argue on principle, then thinks Fuck it. He’ll go back to Baltimore, stay with his mom, something Vivian abhors, although she never admits it. But when forced to spend even a night in his boyhood home, she goes through the day murmuring, murmuring, murmuring, keeping up a running litany of disapproval that pretends to be disinterested commentary, as she ticks off everything that bothers her about the house, about Dickeyville, about Baltimore. It’s been years since they’ve stayed under his mother’s roof as a family.
Sean will go home, spend the long Easter weekend, look up some old friends. Maybe even check in with McKey, if only to assure himself that what didn’t happen between them definitely didn’t happen between them. And if it did—if he’s already cheated—then doesn’t he deserve to remember it?
Chapter Twenty-eight
Doris sits in the chair where her husband died, reading a mystery novel. She goes through two or three a week. As she tried to tell Tim Junior when he bought her that ridiculous plasma thing, she has little use for television these days. It makes her jumpy, and the more channels and control she allegedly has over it, the more she feels in its control. She was happy with the five local channels and rabbit ears.
But she can read when and wherever she wants. Her favorites are the modern American versions of the old-fashioned English mysteries, with a dash of humor. She likes series because she likes the details that repeat—the beloved restaurants, the irascible but adorable landlords, the kooky families, the on-again, gone-again boyfriends.
She reads in Tim’s old chair because it has the best light and is also the most comfortable. It has been reupholstered, but only because Arlene insisted. It’s not as if it were stained or marred in any way. Thoughtful girl that she is, Arlene wrapped the chair project inside the larger job of redoing the living room, but Doris knew that she thought the chair bothered her. It’s funny about Arlene—as much time as they spend analyzing other people, it never seems to occur to her that Doris parses her motives as well. Luckily, Arlene is unfailingly well intentioned. The fact is, if the chair harbored bad memories, no mere slipcover could redeem it.
But Doris no longer imbues objects with any kind of significance or meaning. She did that for a long time, too long. In a house of rowdy boys, it was hard to have nice things, so she cherished the ones she managed to protect