Peter Straub - Lost Boy Lost Girl

Philip ducked into the kitchen, and Tim took his usual cursory inspection of the living room. As ever, it contained the same peculiar mixture of furniture Philip had shifted from house to house before settling back in the old neighborhood. All of it seemed a bit more worn than it had been on Tim’s previous visits: the long green corduroy sofa, black recliner, highboy, and octagonal glass coffee table from Mom and Pop sharing space with the blond wooden furniture from some now-bankrupt ‘Scandinavian’ furniture store. Tim could remember Mom sitting in the rocking chair beside Pop’s ‘davenport,’ the fat needle working as she hooked thick, interwoven knots of the rug that covered three-fourths of Philip’s living room floor. Fifty years ago, it had been a lot brighter: now, it was just a rag to keep your shoes from touching the floor.

Philip came back into the room holding two glasses beaded with condensation. He passed one to Tim and dropped onto the far end of the davenport. His gray suit bunched up around his hips and shoulders.

‘Philip, with apologies for my earlier question, how are you doing these days? How are you handling it?’

Philip took a long pull at his ginger ale and sagged against the worn cushions. He seemed to be staring at something akin to a large insect moving up the half-wall leading to the dining room and kitchen.

‘With apologies, huh? That’s nice. It should be Nancy who apologizes to me, not you.’ He fixed Tim with a cold, brown-eyed glare. The rimless spectacles slightly magnified his eyes. ‘We’re getting into a strange, strange topic here. It is truly strange, this topic. I have to say, it surpasseth comprehension. Do you know what I mean, or do I have to explain it to you?’

‘I think I understand. I read the obituary in today’s Ledger . When I saw the words “without warning,” I thought –’

‘You thought?’

‘I thought Nancy probably killed herself.’

‘Is that what you thought? Well, guess what? Big brother rings the bell.’

‘Would you prefer it if I didn’t understand?’

‘ I don’t know what I’d prefer.’ Philip’s face twisted, and everything below his nose seemed to collapse like a punctured paper bag. ‘Nobody asked me for my opinion about anything.’ He snatched off his glasses and passed a hand over his eyes. ‘No, they just go ahead and do whatever they feel like.’ He emitted a shaky sigh.

‘Do you think she should have asked your permission before she killed herself?’

Philip aimed an index finger at him. ‘There, that’s a great question, I mean it. A great fucking question.’

Tim swallowed cold ginger ale and forced himself to remain silent.

‘Yes,’ Philip said. ‘I do think so. I would have said, You selfish bitch, you can’t kill yourself. You have a husband and a son. Are you crazy ?’

‘It was selfish – a selfish act.’

‘All suicides are selfish.’ He considered that proposition. ‘Unless the person is in tremendous pain, or dying, or whatever.’

‘Was she feeling depressed lately?’

‘What are you, a shrink? I don’t know. Nancy usually seemed a little depressed, if you ask me.’ He shot Tim a wary look. ‘Are you asking if I noticed that she seemed depressed lately?’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Philip.’

‘Keep it that way. I’m not to blame for what happened. Nancy and I got along all right. Why she did it is a mystery to me. Maybe she had some kind of secret existence. Maybe I didn’t know what was going on in her life. If she didn’t tell me, how the hell could I?’

‘How is Mark handling all this?’

Philip shook his head. ‘The kid keeps his feelings all wrapped up inside. He’s been hit hard, though. Keeps to himself, except for when he’s with Jimbo, the knucklehead you saw today. We’ll see how he gets through tonight and tomorrow and the next couple of weeks. If he looks like he needs it, I’ll get him some counseling or therapy, or whatever.’

Tim said that sounded like a good idea.

‘Sure it does, to you. You live in New York, where everybody sees a shrink. For you people, a shrink is a status symbol. Out here in the real world, it’s different. Plenty of people see it as an admission that something is wrong with you.’

‘You wouldn’t have to tell anybody. Neither would Mark.’

‘Word gets out,’ Philip said. ‘Vice principal’s wife commits suicide, his son starts seeing a head-shrinker. How do you suppose that plays out? What kind of effect do you think it would have on my career? On top of that, those appointments don’t come cheap. Excuse me, elder brother, but I’m a humble educator in the public school system, not a millionaire.’

‘Philip, if Mark could benefit from therapy, and you’d have trouble paying for it, I’d be happy to take care of it.’

‘Things aren’t quite that dire,’ Philip said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

‘Do you really think your job is going to be affected by what Nancy did?’

‘One way or another, yeah. Subtly, in most ways. But what do you think my odds are of moving into a principal’s office anytime soon? I was on track before this. Now, who knows? It could hold me back for years. But you want to know the worst part of this whole deal?’

‘Sure,’ Tim said.

‘Whenever anybody looks at me, they’re going to say to themselves, There’s Underhill. His wife killed herself . And two-thirds, three-fourths of them are going to think I had something to do with it. She did it because of me, they’ll think. Goddamn it, I never thought I’d hate her, but I’m getting there. Fuck her. Fuck her.’

Tim decided to say nothing and let him roll on.

Philip glared at him. ‘I have a role in this community. I have a certain position . Maybe you don’t know what that means. Maybe you don’t care. But it is of very, very great importance to me. And when I think that stupid woman did her best, out of no reason at all but her own private unhappiness, to tear down everything I’ve worked for all my life – yes, I’m angry, yes I am. She had no right to do this to me.’

At least one thing was clear to Tim Underhill as he watched his brother chewing an ice cube from the bottom of his empty glass: Philip was going to be of no use at all.

‘What’s our schedule?’ he asked.

‘For tonight?’

‘For everything.’

‘We go to the Trott Brothers Funeral Home from six to seven for the viewing, or the visitation, or whatever it’s called. The funeral is at one tomorrow afternoon, out at Sunnyside.’ Sunnyside, a large cemetery on the Far West Side of the city, was still segregated into separate areas for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. There were no African-Americans in Sunnyside. When you drove past it on the expressway, it went on for mile after mile of flat green earth and headstones in long rows.

‘Philip,’ Tim said, ‘I don’t even know how Nancy died. If it isn’t too painful for you, could you tell me about it?’

‘Oh, boy. I guess you wouldn’t know, would you? It’s not exactly public information, thanks be to God. Well, well. Yes. I can tell you how she did it. You’ve earned it, haven’t you? Coming out here all the way from New York City. All right, you want to know what someone does when she’s going to kill herself and really wants to make sure there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it? If she wants to hit that nail right square on the head? What she does is, she basically kills herself three different ways, all at the same time.’

He tried to grin. The attempt was a hideous failure. ‘I had this bottle of sleeping pills left over from a couple of years ago. Not long after I left for work that morning, Nancy swallowed most of the pills – twenty of them, more or less. Then she ran a nice hot tub. She put a plastic bag over her head and fastened it around her neck. After that, she got in the tub and picked up a knife and cut open both of her forearms. Lengthwise, not those pussy sideways cuts people make when they’re faking it. She was serious, I’ll say that for her.’