Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin

“You tell your kid it’s not funny!” Roger Corley exclaimed.

“Whoa, slow down, Rog!” said you. “Criticize anybody’s sense of humor, gotta tell the joke first.” Despite your jocular cadence, you did not invite him in, and when I peered out to the foyer I noticed that you had only opened the door halfway.

“Trent just rode his bike down that big hill on Palisades Parade, lost control, and landed in the bushes! He’s knocked up pretty bad!”

I’d tried to stay on amicable terms with the Corleys, whose son was a year or two older than Kevin. Though Moira Corley’s initial enthusiasm for arranging play dates had waned without explanation, she’d once displayed a gracious interest in my Armenian background, and I’d stopped by only the day before to give her a loaf of freshly baked katah —do you ever miss it?—that slightly sweet, obscenely buttery layered bread my mother taught me to make. Being on congenial terms with your neighbors was one of the few appeals of suburban life, and I feared that your narrowing our front door was beginning to appear unfriendly.

“Roger,” I said behind you, wiping my hands on a dish towel, “why don’t you come in and talk about it? You seem upset.”

When we all repaired to the living room, I noted that Roger’s getup was a little unfortunate; he had too big a gut for Lycra cycling shorts, and in those bike shoes he walked pigeon-toed. You retreated behind an armchair, keeping it between you and Roger like a military fortification. “I’m awful sorry to hear about Trent’s accident,” you said. “Maybe it’s a good opportunity to go through the fundamentals of bike safety.”

“He knows the fundamentals,” said Roger. “Like, you never leave the quick-release on one of your wheels flipped open .”

“Is that what you think happened?” I asked.

“Trent said the front wheel started wobbling. We checked the bike, and the release wasn’t only flipped over; it’d been turned a few times to loosen the fork. Doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to conclude that Kevin was the culprit!”

“Now wait just one minute!” you said. “That’s one hell of a—”

“Trent rode that bike yesterday morning, no problem. Nobody’s been by since but you, Eva, along with your son. And I want to thank you for that bread you sent over,” he added, lowering the volume. “It was real good, and we appreciated your thoughtfulness. But we don’t appreciate Kevin’s tinkering with Trent’s bike. Going a little faster, or around traffic, my kid could’ve been killed.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions here,” you growled. “That release could have been tripped in Trent’s accident.”

“No way. I’m a cyclist myself, and I’ve had my share of spills. The release never flips all the way over—much less turns around by itself to loosen the spring.”

“Even if Kevin did do it,” I said (you shot me a black look), “maybe he doesn’t know what the lever is for. That leaving it open is dangerous.”

“That’s one theory,” Roger grunted. “That your son’s a dummy. But that’s not the way Trent describes him.”

“Look,” you said. “Maybe Trent had been playing with that release, and he doesn’t want to take the rap. That doesn’t mean my son has to take it instead. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got some work to do around the yard.”

After Roger left, I had a sinking feeling that the Irish soda bread Moira had promised to bake me in return would never materialize.

“Boy, I sometimes think you’re right,” you said, pacing. “A kid can’t skin his knee anymore without it having to be somebody else’s fault. Country’s completely lost touch with the concept of accident . When Kevin broke his arm, did I give you a hard time? Did it have to be somebody’s fault ? No. Shit happens.”

“Do you want to talk to Kevin about Trent’s bike?” I said. “Or should I?”

“What for? I can’t see he’s done anything.”

I said under my breath. “You never do.”

“And you always do,” you said levelly.

A standard exchange—not even exceptionally acrimonious—so I’m not sure why it flipped something in me, like Trent Corley’s quick-release. Maybe because it was standard now, and once it hadn’t been. I closed my eyes, cupping the back of the armchair that had walled off Roger Corley’s outlandish accusations. Honestly, I’d no idea what I was going to say until I said it.

“Franklin, I want to have another child.”

I opened my eyes and blinked. I had surprised myself. It may have been my first experience of spontaneity in six or seven years.

You wheeled. Your response was spontaneous, too. “You cannot be serious. ”

The time didn’t seem right for reminding you that you deplored John McEnroe as a poor sport. “I’d like us to start trying to get me pregnant right away.”

It was the oddest thing. I felt perfectly certain, and not in the fierce, clutching spirit that might have betrayed a crazy whim or frantic grab at a pat marital nostrum. I felt self-possessed and simple. This was the very unreserved resolve for which I had prayed during our protracted debate over parenthood, and whose absence had led us down tortuously abstract avenues like “turning the page” and “answering the Big Question.” I’d never been so sure of anything in my life, so much so that I was disconcerted why you seemed to think there was anything to talk about.

“Eva, forget it. You’re forty-four. You’d have a three-headed toad or something.”

“Lots of women these days have children in their forties.”

“Get out of here! I thought that now Kevin’s going to be in school full-time you were planning to go back to AWAP! What about all those big plans to move into Eastern Europe post-glasnost? Get in early, beat The Lonely Planet ?”

“I’ve considered going back to AWAP. I may still go back. But I can work for the rest of my life. As you just observed with so much sensitivity, there’s only one thing I can do for a short while longer.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re serious! You’re seriously—serious!”

“ I’d like to get pregnant makes a crummy gag, Franklin. Wouldn’t you like Kevin to have someone to play with?” Truthfully, I wanted someone to play with, too.

“They’re called classmates . And two siblings always hate each other.”

“Only if they’re close together. She’d be younger than Kevin by at least seven years.”

“She, is it?” The pronoun made you bristle.

I shrugged my eyebrows. “Hypothetically.”

“This is all because you want a girl ? To dress in little outfits? Eva, this isn’t like you.”

“No, wanting to dress a girl in little outfits isn’t like me. So there was no call for you to say that. Look, I can see your having reservations, but I don’t understand why the prospect of my getting pregnant again seems to be making you so angry.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Anything but. I thought you’ve enjoyed being a parent.”

“ I have, yes! Eva, what gives you the idea that even if you do have this fantasy daughter everything’s going to be different?”

“I don’t understand,” I maintained, having learned the merits of playing dumb from my son. “Why in the world would I want everything to be different?”

“What could possess you, after it’s gone the way it’s gone, to want to do it again?”

“It’s gone what way?” I asked neutrally.

You took a quick look out the window to make sure Kevin was still patting the tether ball to spiral first one way around the pole, then the other; he liked the monotony.