The Submission - Amy Waldman [134]
“I don’t want to fight Khan anymore,” he said abruptly. He hadn’t known he was going to say that until the words came out.
Eileen jerked back, as if she’d been dozing with her eyes open, and looked at him. Deep lines marred the skin around her mouth. “It’s terrible about that woman,” she said. “Terrible. To leave a little boy. But it has nothing to do with fighting Khan. Do you think they would want a cross erected at the spot where she died? Don’t you think they would find it disrespectful?”
She resumed her needlepoint, stitching a relentless peace.
He churched his hands, balanced his nose on the steeple. “I feel like I started this,” he said.
“Mohammad Khan started this,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I guess I don’t want to be the one to finish it. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want the Garden, but I don’t want to be the one to fight against it.”
“And who’s supposed to finish what you can’t be bothered with, Sean? Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.”
“I think Claire Burwell is turning against Khan,” he said. “I helped turn her.” He felt like a fraud, to detest Claire for her weakness, then offer her up to hide his own.
“So why stop now, Sean, if you feel like it’s close to being over? You’re about to accomplish something, something important. Why stop now, why let them say we don’t know what we want?”
“Getting in the way of this memorial—I’m blocking something. But I’m not accomplishing anything. They’re not going to turn around and ask me to design the memorial instead,” he said. “I need to find some other way to be. Some other reason to be.”
“Other than God, there’s no higher reason than family, especially given what happened to us.” Her eyes gleamed watery in the low light, from sadness or age he didn’t know. He cracked his knuckles and saw her flinch at the noise.
She returned to her needlepoint, and he tugged at loose threads on his sleeve, the two of them making and unmaking each other.
“I’ve never asked much of you, Sean,” she said. Her ears shifted back slightly. “I would say we’ve asked very little of you. But I asked you for this, begged you to stop this memorial. And now you want to walk away before the job is done, just like you’ve walked away from almost everything in your life, left it half done or half broken. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. But I can be angry.” Her voice sharpened on the words.
“I don’t want to let you down, Ma. It’s the last thing I want. But my heart’s not in it, not anymore. And that means I’ll be lousy at fighting for it.”
“You think my heart was in everything I’ve had to do in this life? Where did you get the idea that you decide how to live based on how you feel when you wake up each morning? Not from me. You know, when you were born, I had a very hard time.” He looked up; this was news to him. “Five children already, a sixth seemed too much. Now the doctors probably have some special name for it, but all I knew was that I was tired and I wanted something for myself. I wanted myself back, is more like it. Truth be told, I hated your father for bringing you about. And so I went away for a few weeks after you were born.” She was looking at him, steady, unapologetic. “Maybe only Patrick was old enough to remember. Maybe it’s why Frank has always had a tender spot for you, troubles and all. I just left. Took the housekeeping money I’d saved for emergencies—your father was never good at planning for emergencies, so I had to be—and went up and down the eastern seaboard. Rehoboth. Rhode Island. It was winter. I just walked on the beach. Hadn’t spent so much time alone in years. Hadn’t spent any time alone in years. Then I came back and did my duty. Came back because it was my duty. Never asked your father a single question about how he managed in that time I was gone. Alone with six children, including a newborn!” Her laugh burst forth, breaking up her face like jackhammered cement. It was as if the mere contemplation of Frank shouldering her burdens