Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin

“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 She had already withdrawn so from our little unit that she regarded this miscommunication as none of her affair.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’s too rational. No, you’ve put in a full day. And take the rest of the week off. You’re shattered.” I was already sweetening her up, to get her to stick around until we found a replacement. Fat chance.

“One last thing,” said Siobhan, tucking my note with the name of NETHERWAP’s editor into her pack. “Wee’uns vary, of course. But Kevin should really be talking by now. A few words anyway. Maybe you should ask your doctor. Or talk to him more.”

I promised, then saw her to the elevator, shooting a rueful glance at the crib. “You know, it is different when it’s yours. You can’t go home.” Indeed, my yearning to go home had grown recurrent, but was most intense when I was already there.

We exchanged wan smiles, and she waved behind the gate. I watched from the front window as she ran down Hudson Street, away from our loft and wee Kevin as fast as her unshapely legs could carry her.

I returned to our son’s marathon and looked down at his writhing dudgeon. I was not going to pick him up. No one was there to make me and I didn’t want to. I would not, as Siobhan had suggested, check his diaper, nor would I warm a bottle of milk. I would let him cry and cry. Resting both elbows on the crib rail, I cradled my chin on intertwined fingers. Kevin was crouched on all fours in one of the positions that the New School commended for birthing: primed for exertion. Most tots cry with their eyes shut, but Kevin’s were slit open. When our gazes locked, I felt we were finally communicating. His pupils were still almost black, and I could see them flintily register that for once Mother was not going to get in a flap about whatever might be the matter.

“Siobhan thinks I should talk to you,” I said archly over the din. “Who else is going to, since you drove her off? That’s right, you screamed and puked her out the door. What’s your problem, you little shit? Proud of yourself, for ruining Mummy’s life?” I was careful to use the insipid falsetto the experts commend. “You’ve got Daddy snowed, but Mummy’s got your number. You’re a little shit, aren’t you?”

Kevin hoisted to a stand without missing a yowl. Clutching the bars, he screamed at me from just a few inches away, and my ears hurt. So scrunched up, his face looked like an old man’s, and it was screwed into the I’m-gonna-get-you expression of a convict who’s already started digging a tunnel with a nail file. On a purely zoo-keeping level, my proximity was hazardous; Siobhan hadn’t been kidding about the hair.

“Mummy was happy before widdle Kevin came awong, you know that, don’t you? And now Mummy wakes up every day and wishes she were in France. Mummy’s life sucks now, doesn’t Mummy’s life suck? Do you know there are some days that Mummy would rather be dead? Rather than listen to you screech for one more minute there are some days that Mummy would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge—”

I turned, and blanched. I may never have seen quite that stony look on your face.

“They understand speech long before they learn to talk,” you said, pushing past me to pick him up. “I don’t understand how you can stand there and watch him cry.”

“Franklin, ease up, I was only kidding around!” I shot a parting private glare at Kevin. It was thanks to his caterwauling that I hadn’t heard the elevator gate. “I’m blowing off a little steam, okay? Siobhan quit. Hear that? Siobhan quit.”

“Yeah, I heard you. Too bad. We’ll get someone else.”

“It turns out that all along she’s regarded this job as a modern rewrite of the Book of Job—Look, I’ll change him.”

You wrenched him away. “You can steer clear until you get your mind right. Or jump off a bridge. Whichever comes first.”

I trailed after you. “Say, what’s this about moving to the suburbs ? Since when?”

“Since—I quote— the little shit is getting mobile. That elevator is a death trap.”

“We can gate off the elevator!”

“He needs a yard .” Sanctimoniously, you balled the wet diaper in the pail. “Where we can toss a baseball, fill a pool.”

The awful revelation dawned that we were dealing with your childhood—an idealization of your childhood—that could prove, like your fantasy United States, an awesome cudgel. There’s no more doomed a struggle than a battle with the imaginary.

“But I love New York!” I sounded like a bumper sticker.

“It’s dirty and swimming in diseases, and a kid’s immune system isn’t fully developed until he’s seven years old. And we could stand to move into a good school district.”