Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin

“I put it away,” I said. “Back in that high cabinet with the child-lock on it, which Celia couldn’t even reach with a chair!”

“Then how did it get out ?”

“Good question,” I said icily.

“Look, I realize that you’re usually very careful with caustic substances and lock that shit up automatically. But people aren’t machines—”

“I remember putting it away, Franklin.”

“Do you remember putting your shoes on this morning, do you remember closing the door behind you when you left the house? How many times have we been in the car, and we’ve had to go back inside and make sure that the stove isn’t on? When turning it off is presumably second nature?”

“But the stove is never on, is it? It’s almost a rule of life, a, what, some kind of fortune-cookie aphorism: The Stove Is Never On.”

“I’ll tell you when it’s on, Eva: the one time that you don’t bother to double-check. And that is when the fucking house burns down.”

“Why are we having this inane conversation? With our daughter in the hospital?”

“I want you to admit it. I’m not saying I won’t forgive you. I know you must feel terrible. But part of getting through this has to be facing up—”

“Janis came this morning, maybe s he left it out.” In truth, I never thought for a moment that Janis had been so sloppy, but I was desperate to keep at bay the picture that began to form in my head when I entertained a more credible suspect.

“Janis had no need for drain cleaner. All the drains were clear.”

“All right,” I said, steeling myself. “Then ask Kevin how that bottle got left out.”

“I knew we’d get around to this. First it’s oh, what a mystery, then it’s the housekeeper’s fault, who’s left? And, what a surprise, that Eva—who never does anything wrong herself—should finger her own son!”

“He was supposed to be taking care of her. You said he was old enough—”

“Yes, it was on his watch. But she was in the bathroom, he says the door was closed, and we’ve hardly encouraged our fourteen-year-old boy to bust in on his sister in the john.”

“Franklin, this story doesn’t add up. Never mind for now why it was out, all right? Forget that. But why would Celia pour drain cleaner in her own eye ?”

“I haven’t a clue! Maybe because kids are not only dumb but creative and the combination is death. Why else would we keep that shit locked up? What’s important is Kevin did everything he should have. He says when she started to scream he came running, and when he found out what it was he ran water over her face and rinsed her eye the best he could, and then he called an ambulance, even before he called me on the cell—which was just right, the order was just right, he was a star .”

“He didn’t call me,” I said.

“Well,” you said. “I wonder why.”

“The damage—” I took a breath. “It’s bad, isn’t it. It had to have been very, very bad—.” I had started to cry, but I made myself stop, because I had to get this out. “If she’s lost the eye, and surgeons are better at this kind of thing than they used to be, then it was—. It was a mess. It takes, ah. It takes a while.” I stopped again, listening to the wah from the heat vents. The air had grown dry, my saliva sticky. “It takes a while for that stuff to work. That’s why the label tells you to—to let it sit.”

Compulsively, I had pressed my fingertips against my own eyes, padding the papery lids, guarding the smooth, tender roll of the balls.

“What are you saying? Because it’s bad enough to accuse him of neglect—”

“The doctor said there’d be scarring! That she was burned, all across that side of her face! Time, it would have taken time! Maybe he did wash it out, but when ? When he was finished ?”

You grabbed each of my arms, raised them on either side of my head, and looked me in the eye. “Finished with what? His homework? His archery practice?”

“Finished,” I groaned, “with Celia .”

“Don’t you ever say that again! Not to anyone! Not even to me!”

“Think about it!” I wrenched my arms free with a twist. “Celia, douse herself with acid? Celia’s afraid of everything! And she’s six, she’s not two . I know you don’t think she’s very smart, but she’s not retarded! She knows not to touch the stove, and she doesn’t eat bleach. Meanwhile, Kevin can reach that cabinet, and Kevin can work child-locks in his sleep. He’s not her savior . He did it! Oh, Franklin, he did it—”

“I’m ashamed of you, ashamed ,” you said at my back as I curled against the door. “Demonizing your own kid just because you can’t admit to your own carelessness. It’s worse than craven. It’s sick. Here you’re flailing around making outrageous accusations, and as usual you have no proof. That doctor—did he say anything about Kevin’s story not squaring with her injuries? No. No, he didn’t. Only his mother can detect a cover-up of some unspeakable evil because she’s such a medical expert, such an expert on corrosive chemicals because she’s occasionally cleaned house.”

As ever, you couldn’t keep shouting at me while I was crying. “Look,” you implored. “You don’t know what you’re saying because you’re upset. You’re not yourself. This is hard, and it’s going to keep being hard, because you’re going to have to look at it. She’s going to be in pain, and it’s going to look nasty for a while. The only thing that’s going to make it easier is if you confront your part in this. Celia—even Celia , with that elephant shrew—admits it’s her fault. She left the cage open! And that’s part of it, what hurts, that not only did something sad happen but if she’d done something differently it wouldn’t have happened. She takes responsibility, and she’s only six! Why can’t you ?”

“I wish I could take responsibility,” I whispered, fogging the side window. “I’d say, ‘Oh, I could kill myself for leaving that drain cleaner where she could find it!’ Don’t you see how much easier that would be? Why would I be so upset? If it were my fault, only my fault? In that case, it wouldn’t be frightening. Franklin, this is serious, it’s not just a little girl scratching her eczema anymore. I don’t how he got this way but he’s a horror, and he hates her —”

“That’s enough!” Your announcement had a liturgical finality, deep and booming like the ringing Amen in a benedictory prayer. “I don’t often lay down the law. But Kevin’s been through an incredible trauma. His sister will never be the same. He kept his head in a crisis, and I want him to be proud of that. Still, he was the one baby-sitting, and he’s inevitably going to worry that it was all his fault. So you are going to promise me, right now, that you’ll do everything in your power to assure him that it wasn’t .”

I pulled the handle of the door and opened it a few inches. I thought, I have to get out of here, I have to get away.

“Don’t go, not yet,” you said, holding my arm. “I want you to promise.”

“Promise to keep my mouth shut or to believe his feeble story? I might add, another one.”

“I can’t make you believe in your own son. Though I’ve sure as fuck tried.”

On one point you were right: I didn’t have any proof. Only Celia’s face. Hadn’t I been right. She’d never be beautiful, would she.

I climbed from the truck and faced you through the open door. The chill wind whipping my hair, I stood at attention, reminded of brittle military truces struck between mistrustful generals in the middle of barren battlefields.