We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [153]
I was hopeful that her crying jag would burn itself out, but a little girl’s grief has astonishing staying power, and the strength of her selfloathing tempted me to make false promises. I assured her that Snuffles could not have got very far and that he would definitely be right back in his cozy cage by morning. Grasping at my perfidious straw, Celia shuddered and lay still.
I don’t think we gave up until about 3 A.M.—and thanks, again, for your help. You had another scouting job the next day, and we would both miss sleep. I can’t think of a cranny we didn’t check; you moved the dryer, I combed the trash. Mumbling good-naturedly, “Where is that bad boy?” you pulled all the books out of the lower shelves while I steeled myself to check for hair in the disposal.
“I don’t want to make this worse with an I-told-you-so,” you said when we both collapsed in the living room with dust balls in our hair. “And I did think it was cute. But that’s a rare, delicate animal, and she’s in first grade.”
“But she’s been so conscientious. Never out of water, careful about overfeeding. Then to just, leave the door open?”
“She is absent-minded, Eva.”
“True. I suppose I could order another one ...”
“Fugeddaboutit. One lesson in mortality is enough for the year.”
“You think maybe he got outside?”
“In which case he’s already frozen to death,” you said cheerfully.
“Thanks.”
“Better than dogs. . . . ”
That was the story I put together for Celia the next day: that Snuffles had gone to play outdoors, where he was much happier with lots of nice fresh air, and where he’d make lots of animal friends. Hey, why not turn it to my advantage? Celia would believe anything.
All things being equal, I’d expect to recollect our daughter’s ashen mope of the following week, but not ordinary housekeeping chores. But under the circumstances, I have good reason to recall that the kids’ bathroom sink backed up that weekend. Janis wouldn’t be in until Monday, and I’d never spurned a little upkeep of my own home now and again. So I smote the clog with a few glugs of Liquid-Plumr, poured in one cup of cold water, and left it to sit, according to the directions. Then I put the Liquid-Plumr away. Did you seriously imagine that after all this time I would change my story? I put it away.
Eva
MARCH 8, 2001
Dear Franklin,
My God, there’s been another one. I should have known on Monday afternoon when all my coworkers suddenly started to avoid me.
Standard issue. In a suburb outside San Diego, fifteen-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams—a scrawny, unassuming-looking white kid with thin lips and matted hair like well-trod carpet—brought a .22 to Santana High School in his backpack. He hid out in the boys’ bathroom, where he shot two, proceeding to the hallway to fire at anything that moved. Two students were killed, thirteen injured. Once he had retreated to the bathroom again, the police found him cowering on the floor with the gun to his head. He whimpered incongruously, “It’s only me”; they arrested the boy without a struggle. It almost goes without saying by now that he’d just broken up with his girlfriend—who was twelve.
Curiously, on the news Monday night, some of his fellow students characterized the shooter, as usual, as “picked on,” persecuted as a “freak, a dork, and a loser.” Yet a whole other set of kids attested that Andy had plenty of friends, wouldn’t remotely qualify as unpopular or especially ragged on, and was to the contrary “well-liked.” These latter descriptions must have confused our audience, since when Jim Lehrer revisited the story tonight for another inquiry into why, why, why, all depictions along the lines of “well-liked” had been expunged. If Andy Williams hadn’t been “bullied,” he failed to support the now fashionable revenge-of-the-nerds interpretation of these incidents, which were now meant to teach us not stricter gun control