We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [56]
“When you’re with him during the day, does he laugh? Gurgle contentedly? Sleep?” I realized that I had refrained from asking her as much for all these months, and that in so doing I’d been taking advantage of her ungrudging nature.
“He pulls my hair,” she said quietly.
“But all babies—they don’t know—”
“He pulls it very hard indeed. He’s old enough now and I think he knows it hurts. And Eva, that lovely silk muffler from Bangkok. It’s in shreds.”
Ch-plang! Ch-plang! Kevin was awake. He was banging a rattle onto that metal xylophone you came home with (alas), and was not showing musical promise.
“When he’s alone with me,” I said over the racket. “Franklin calls it cranky—”
“He throws all his toys out of the playpen, and then he screams, and he will not stop screaming until they are all back, and then he throws them out again. Flings them.”
P-p-plang-k-chang-CHANG! PLANK! P-P-P-plankpankplankplank! There was a violent clatter, from which I construed that Kevin had kicked the instrument from between the slats of his crib.
“It’s desperate!” Siobhan despaired. “He does the same thing in his highchair, with Cheerios, porridge, cream crackers . . . With all his food on the floor like, I haven’t a baldy where he gets the energy!”
“You mean,” I touched her hand, “you don’t know where you get the energy.”
Mwah . . . Mmwah . . . Mmmmwhawhah . . . He started like a lawnmower. Siobhan and I looked each other in the eye. Mwah-eee! EEEeee! EEEEEEEE! EEahEEEEEEEE! Neither of us arose from our chair.
“Of course,” said Siobhan hopefully, “I guess it’s different when it’s yours.”
“Yup,” I said. “Totally different.”
EEahEEEEEahEEEE! EEahEEEEEahEEEE! EEahEEEEEahEEEE!
“I used to want a big family,” she said, turning away. “Now I’m not so sure.”
“If I were you,” I said, “I’d think twice.”
Kevin filled the silence between us as I fought a rising panic. I had to say something to forestall what was coming next, but I couldn’t think of any comment to pass that wouldn’t further justify what I wished fervidly to prevent.
“Eva,” she began. “I’m knackered. I don’t think Kevin likes me. I’ve prayed until I’m blue—for patience, for love, for strength. I thought God was testing me—”
“When Jesus said Suffer the little children,” I said dryly, “I don’t think nannying is what he had in mind.”
“I hate to think I’ve failed Him! Or you, Eva! Still, do you think there’s any chance—do you think you could use me at Wing and a Prayer? Those guidebooks, you said loads of them’s researched by university students and that. Could you—could you please, please send me to Europe, or Asia? I’d do a brilliant job, I promise!”
I sagged. “You mean you want to quit.”
“You and Franklin been dead decent, you must think me terrible ungrateful. Still, when you lot move to the suburbs you’d have to find someone else anyway, right? ’Cause I came over here bound and determined to live in New York City.”
“I am, too! Who says we’re moving to the burbs?”
“Franklin, of course.”
“We’re not moving to any suburbs,” I said firmly.
She shrugged. She had already withdrawn so from our little unit that she regarded this miscommunication as none of her affair.
“Would you like more money?” I offered pathetically; my full-time residence in this country was beginning to take its toll.
“The pay’s great, Eva. I can’t do it anymore, just. Every morning I wake up . . . .”
I knew exactly how she woke feeling. And I couldn’t do it to her any longer. I think I’m a bad mother, and you always thought so, too. But deep inside me lurks the rare maternal bone. Siobhan was at her limit. Though it ran wildly counter to our interests, her earthly salvation was within my power to grant.
“We’re updating NETHERWAP,” I said morosely; I had an awful premonition that Siobhan’s resignation would be effective right away. “Would you like that? Rating hostels in Amsterdam? The rijsttafels are delicious.”
Siobhan forgot herself and threw her arms around me. “Would you like for me to try and quiet him?” she offered. “Maybe his nappy—”
“I doubt that; it