We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [66]
“Ms. Khatchadourian,” I will hear Harvey begin stentoriously on his re-direct. “The prosecution has made much of the fact that you ran a company in Manhattan while leaving your son to the care of strangers, and that when he turned four you were away in Africa.”
“At the time I was unaware that having a life was illegal.”
“But after your return from this trip you hired someone else to oversee the day-to-day business of your firm, in order to be a better mother to your child?”
“That’s right.”
“Didn’t you take over as his primary caregiver? In fact, aside from occasional baby-sitters, didn’t you cease to bring in outside help altogether?”
“Frankly, we gave up on hiring a nanny because we couldn’t find anyone to put up with Kevin for more than a few weeks.”
Harvey looked sour. His client was self-destructive. I imagined that this quality made me special, but my lawyer’s fatigued expression suggested that I was a set type.
“But you were concerned that he needed continuity, and that’s why you terminated this revolving door of young girls. You no longer went into the office nine-to-five.”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Khatchadourian, you loved your work, correct? It gave you great personal satisfaction. So this decision was a considerable sacrifice, all for the sake of your child?”
“The sacrifice was enormous,” I said. “It was also futile.”
“No further questions, your honor.” We had rehearsed enormous, period; he shot me a glare.
Was I, back in 1987, already planning my defense? Though my openended leave from AWAP was on a grand, over-compensatory scale, it was cosmetic. I thought it looked good. I’d never conceived of myself as someone who dwelled upon what other people thought, but hoarders of guilty secrets are inevitably consumed with appearances.
Hence, when you two met my plane at Kennedy I stooped to hug Kevin first. He was still in that disconcerting rag-doll phase, “floppy”; he didn’t hug back. But the strength and duration of my own embrace paraded my born-again conversion in Harare. “I’ve missed you so much!” I said. “Mommy’s got two surprises, sweetheart! I brought you a present. But I’m also going to promise that Mommy’s never, ever going away for this long again!”
Kevin just got floppier. I stood up and arranged his willful shocks of hair, embarrassed. I was playing my part, but onlookers might have deduced from my child’s unnatural lassitude that I kept him handcuffed to the water heater in the basement.
I kissed you. Although I’d thought children liked to see their parents be affectionate with one another, Kevin stamped impatiently and mooed, dragging at your hand. Maybe I was mistaken. I never saw my mother kiss my father. I wish I had.
You cut the kiss short and mumbled, “It may take a while, Eva. For kids this age, three months is a lifetime. They get mad. They think you’re never coming back.”
I was about to josh that Kevin seemed more put out that I had come back, but I caught myself; one of our first sacrifices to family life was lightness of heart. “What’s this uherr, uherr! thing?” I asked as Kevin continued to tug at you and moo.
“Cheese doodles,” you said brightly. “The latest must-have. Okay, buster! Let’s go find you a bag of glow-in-the-dark petrochemicals, kiddo!” And you tottered off down the terminal in tow, leaving me to wheel my luggage.
In the pickup, I had to remove several viscous doodles from the passenger seat, in various stages of dissolve. Kevin’s dietary enthusiasm did not extend to eating the snacks; he sucked them, leeching off their neon coating and imbuing them with enough saliva to melt.
“Most kids like sugar?” you explained zestfully. “Ours likes salt.” Apparently a sodium fetish was superior to a sweet tooth in every way.
“The Japanese think they’re opposites,” I said, slipping my gooey collection out the window. Though there was a shallow back seat, Kevin’s child seat was fastened between us, and I was sorry that I couldn’t, as I used to, place a hand on your thigh.
“Mommer farted,” said Kevin, now halving the difference between Mommy and