You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [84]
“Gilad,” she whispered.
From the fireplace he reached for the standing lamp just to my left and flicked the switch so the room filled with a harsh light.
“The thing I want to forget, Gilad, is how whiny you are.” He looked down at me. I looked back at him.
“Michael,” my mother said.
“What?” he asked, looking at her angrily.
“Turn off the light, please.”
“I want to look at our son,” he said. “Come on Gilad, kiss and make up? Make your mother happy?”
He kept his fingers on the switch. There beneath that white light, I studied his hand. In spite of his manicured fingers, his skin had begun to wrinkle and break in hundreds of lines around his knuckles.
I smiled.
“Good,” he said. “Finally.”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
I stood up.
We were close there, tucked in between the couch and the fading fire, his back nearly touching the mantle. I looked him full in the face. He was an old man. His eyes were tired. His skin had begun to fall from his jaw. There were deepening lines across his forehead. When was the last time I’d been this close to him? When had his hair gone so gray?
“You look old,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“You’ve gotten old.” I looked straight at him.
He shook his head as if I were crazy.
“It isn’t complicated. You look old. You’re an old man.”
He straightened. “Watch your mouth.”
“I hadn’t noticed before, but with the light, it’s incredible. You’re an old man now.” My voice was steady.
Like that. It was gone. I could see my father, standing there, dying. As if I were watching the end of a life. I imagined him aging to death in front of me. His skin wrinkling, his spine curving forward, his rotten teeth falling from his mouth.
“Another word you little fuck,” he whispered.
“And what? You’re going to hit your wife again?”
He moved toward me but I pressed my hands against his chest, pushed him back hard against the mantelpiece and held him there. Neither of us moved. I could feel his heart beating through his clean, pressed shirt, his skin warm. We looked at each other until I pulled my hands away.
I reached beneath the lampshade, turned off the light, touched her shoulder and went to my room.
That night in bed I could still feel his chest warm against my hands.
MARIE
For weeks he took care of me. Every possible moment I could spend with him, I did. He cooked for me. He put me in the bath and washed my back. He brought me flowers. You’ve never seen a more attentive man. But he barely spoke and the feeling that he was fading away, that he might not even fully exist, was stronger than ever.
Then he was gone.
It was Ariel who told me.
I was sitting alone at a table in the library at the end of the day.
She came in and said, I’m so sorry, Marie. I looked at her and didn’t know what she meant. She crouched down next to me, put her hand on my knee and said, her face full of false compassion: Mr. Silver. They fired him. I just stared at her. I didn’t say a thing. She touched my hand. Are you O.K., Marie? I didn’t tell anyone, she said. I swear to God, Marie.
I stood up and left.
Mr. Spencer stopped me in the hall.
He said we needed to talk. He took me to his office and asked me if it was true. And I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said, You don’t have to lie. You don’t have to protect him. And then the head of the school came in. I’d never talked to her before. I can’t remember her name. She sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulder and said, You’re the victim here, Marie, and we’re going to do everything we can to take care of you. She said, You’re never going to have to worry about him again. He’ll never touch you again. He’ll never be back here. Never.
I pulled my chair away so that she couldn’t touch me. Mr. Spencer said they needed to talk to my parents. He picked up the phone and called my mother and asked her to come to school. There was a pause and then he said, It’s about your daughter.
Then he said, Well, I’d prefer to