Russell Banks - Affliction

As for Pop’s grandfather and grandmother, there was nothing: they were as lost in history as if they had lived and died ten thousand years ago. Pop had sisters and brothers, we knew, although we did not know how many, and they, too, had been farmed out with Canadian relatives and friends, but he had never seen them again after the fire, for reasons he never explained. And we never thought to ask, did we? The children of a man like him and a woman whose only life was her secret unspoken life, we thought it was normal to be alone in the world, normal to have sisters and brothers and dead parents and grandparents that one never spoke of. And by the time we were old enough to understand that such a life was not normal at all, we were too angry and hurt to ask. It was unimaginable to us that we ask our father, “Why did you separate yourself forever from your family?”

The door swung open, and Wade looked up: Lillian held back the glass storm door and waved for Jill, who stood in the hall a short ways behind her, to come along. The child’s face was sober, a little sad or possibly frightened, as if she were being sent away to summer camp. Lillian said to Wade, coldly, clipping her words, “Is there snow on the ground up there?”

“Yeah, lots.”

“See,” Lillian said to Jill, and she pointed down at the rubber boots on the child’s feet. “Keep them on whenever you go out.”

“Hi, honey,” Wade said, and he extended one hand toward Jill. She was carrying a small overnight bag and wore mittens and a bright-blue down parka with the hood up.

“Hi,” she said, and she passed Wade her suitcase and walked by him to the sidewalk, where she paused for a second at the rear of the truck, as if looking for his car, then stood beside the door on the passenger’s side, waiting for him.

In a trembling voice, Lillian said to Wade, “Have her back here tomorrow by six. We have something to do at six.”

“No problem. Look, I …,” he began, not sure what he wanted to say, only that he was sorry somehow, for something he could not name. What had he done? Why did he feel so guilty all of a sudden? An hour before, he was angry at her; now he wanted her forgiveness: he could not, for the life of him, connect the two emotions, rage and shame.

“You make me sick,” she spat at him. Though her gaze was flinty, she seemed ready to burst into tears. “I can’t believe you’ve sunk so low,” she told him.

“As what? Low as what? I mean, what the hell have I done, Lillian? It’s bad to want to see Jill? It’s bad to want to see your own daughter?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” she said. She suddenly pasted a smile onto her face and waved at Jill and called, “’Bye, honey! Call me tonight if you want!” Then her face filled with anger again, and her chin crinkled the way it used to when she was about to cry, and she said, “If I could have you killed, Wade Whitehouse, believe me, I would.”

“For … for what? What did I do?”

“You know damned well for what. For what you’ve done to me, and what you’re doing to that child you say you love so much. Love,” she sneered. “You’ve never loved anyone in your life, Wade. Not even yourself. Whatever you once had, you’ve ruined it,” she said, and she yanked the glass door closed, stepped back and slammed the inner door.

Slowly, Wade turned and walked down the path to the truck.

“Are we going in this?” Jill asked.

“Yeah. My car, it’s in the shop. This’ll be fine,” he said.

“It’s okay. It’s pretty old.”

“It belongs to Pop.”

“Pop?”

“Grandpa. My father. It’s his.”

“Oh,” she said, and she opened the door and climbed up onto the seat. Wade slung the suitcase in beside her and closed the door, walked around the front of the truck and got in and started the motor. Reaching in front of Jill, he switched on the heater, and the fan began to chirp loudly.

“You eat lunch yet?” he asked.

“No.” She sat up straight and stared out the windshield.

“How about a Big Mac?” he said, winking.

“Mommy won’t let me eat fast food. You know that,” she said without looking at him. “It’s bad for you.”

“C’mon, we always sneak a Big Mac. And a cherry turnover. Your favorite. C’mon, what do you say?”

“No.”

Wade sighed. “What do you want, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. You can’t have nothing, Jill. We need lunch. Mr. Pizza? Want to stop at Mr. Pizza’s?”

“Same thing, Daddy. No fast food,” she said emphatically. “Mommy says—”

“I know what Mommy says. I’m in charge today, though.”

“Okay. So we’ll get what you want. What do you want?” she said, continuing to look straight ahead.

Wade released the hand brake and pulled away from the curb. At the intersection at the end of the street, he stopped the truck and said, “Nothing, I guess. I guess I can wait till we get home, if you can. Maybe we’ll stop by Wickham’s for a hamburger when we get to Lawford. That suit you? You always like Wickham’s.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Fine.” He turned right and headed north on Pleasant Street, toward the interstate. They remained silent, as the old truck stuttered along the winding road. Then, after a few moments, Wade looked over at Jill and realized that she was crying. “Oh, Jesus, Jill, I’m sorry. What’s the matter, honey?”

She turned her face away from him. Her shoulders heaved, and she held her head down. Her hands were clenched in fists shoved hard against her legs.

“I’m sorry,” Wade repeated. “Please don’t cry. Please, honey, don’t cry.”

“What are you sorry for?” she asked. She had gained control of herself, had managed to stop crying, and she wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and looked grimly ahead.

“I don’t know. For the food business, I guess. I just thought, you know, we’d sneak a Big Mac on Mommy, like we used to.”

“I don’t like doing that anymore,” she said.

“Okay. So we won’t.” He tried to sound cheerful. “Whatever Jillie wants,” he said, using her baby name, “Jillie gets.”

She was silent for a few seconds, and then she said, “I want to go home.”

“You can’t,” Wade snapped back. His face stiffened, and he clenched the wheel with both hands, as they came to the Hopkinton interchange and drove up onto the turnpike. Soon he had the truck up to its top speed of fifty miles per hour, shaking and shuddering in protest. The wind blew in under the floorboards and fought the puffs of heat from the heater, chilling the air inside the truck. Jill curled up on the seat as far from her father as she could get and dropped into sleep, waking only when they stopped in West Lebanon for gas and for Wade to pee, and at the Catamount exit, where Wade picked up a six-pack of beer and a Coke at a roadside grocery. Jill declined the Coke with a shake of her head and watched while Wade, heading back up the ramp onto the interstate, cracked open a can of beer and took a long slug from it and stuck the can between his legs.

“That’s illegal, you know,” Jill said quietly.

“I know.” Wade glanced over at her, saw that she was looking out the side window at the snow-covered fields and woods, and took a second pull from the beer.

“You’re a policeman,” she said without turning.

“Nope. Not anymore. I’m not nothing anymore.”

“Oh,” she said.

By the time they reached the Lawford exit, Wade had finished two cans of beer and was halfway through a third. The empties rolled back and forth on the floor, banging lightly against one another as the truck followed the curving ramp down to Route 29, turned left and chugged alongside the river into Lawford.