Lydia Millet - Magnificence

“I didn’t really know him,” said T. “As you said. That was just how he struck me.”

They sat there quietly for a while in the dim light of the bedside lamp, until T. turned and looked at the wall painting, one of the big spreading trees. Possibly an acacia, Susan thought idly. They looked different over there.

“Hunting, you know, it wiped out some of them,” said T., scanning the animal figures in the background. “It’s not a leading cause of extinction around here anymore. But Africa, yeah. Monkeys killed for the bush meat market, for instance. Elephants for ivory, rhinos for powdered horn. You know: some Chinese people, a folk-wisdom group that isn’t actually particularly educated in Chinese medicine, think it’s an aphrodisiac. Globally, mostly the driver is habitat loss. But soon the leading cause is going to be climate change. Or too much carbon, anyway.”

“What?” asked Susan. “You’re kidding.”

He shook his head.

“Is it time to go home?” asked his mother, raising her head.

“I think so,” said T., and helped steady her as she got up. “Sorry,” he said to Susan. “We were hopeful she would last a little longer this evening.”

“Please, no,” said Susan, and turned to Angela. “It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

They left the room, T. and Angela walking slowly into the wide hall with Susan behind them. She flicked on the line of sconces as they passed; it was too dark for strangers, who knew what they might bump into — dim shapes of horn and hair, the lips of elk. Then she noticed the sconces still had their basins half full of light-brown moth bodies.

We’re brittle and fading, she thought. Fading like moths, gray-blond mothers. With each day the population aged. Maybe not in the so-called third world, where there were plagues of babies, but here, where there were plagues of the elderly. Before long there would be scores of old ones for each of the young, their lives prolonged but rarely cherished — certainly not by the old themselves, who hung on by threads of pharmacology in stages of slow death. Not by their children either, the children moved away pursuing an idea of self, an idea of fulfillment as once, not all that long ago, nomads had followed the seasons. They lived their adult lives in distant cities now.

Soon all the young would be absent, lifted into the momentum of their speedy existences in which the past was only a minor point of information — the parents who had raised and loved them, even adored them with all their hearts, only the vaguest imprint.

Ahead of her Angela picked her way with care down the wide stairs, as though her bones were hollow. Yes, it was coming, the generations of the ancient would be left to their own end. The grandmothers would feed the great-grandmothers in their final falls, the ones in their seventies would tuck in the sleepers who were in their eighties, nineties, hundreds—

Hal, she thought, had been on the cusp of a whole new life.

Regret needled her, and something like envy.

“Oh,” said Angela, as they led her past the eagle. “A beautiful birdie.”

In the foyer the two of them watched as T. leaned down to Casey to say good night — Angela smiling vaguely, Susan feeling a quick, guilty flush of pride in her daughter. Together they were beautiful, it couldn’t be denied. Then T. took his mother’s arm again and Susan followed them outside and helped Angela into the passenger seat of his car. The high-end black Mercedes was an affectation he still hadn’t dropped, it turned out.

There was continuity there, at least. She felt reassured by the black Mercedes.

As she went indoors again she waved at Casey, who had moved outside and was sitting by the pool, talking to Jim and others in the dappled turquoise refractions. The lights in the library were on so she ducked in and saw piles of books all crooked on the floor, then Nancy and Addison, the quiet college girl whose name Susan forgot, and Sal. It smelled liked marijuana.

“Oh shit,” said Sal under his breath, when he saw her coming. He had the joint in his hand and seemed to be casting around for an ashtray.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve actually seen pot before.” There was an ashtray on a sideboard, she recalled, and headed over to pick it up.

“Thanks, man,” said Sal.

“So we’ve been looking at these antique anatomy books,” said Nancy. “Animal anatomy. Some are from the 1920s. There are diagrams of earthworms.”

“Informative,” said Susan, and set the ashtray on an end table.

“It says here worms are gay,” said Sal. “Listen. ‘Two earthworms mate by attaching at their clitella and exchanging sperm.’ They sperm on each other.”

“It’s not uncommon, in nature,” said Nancy.

“The worms aren’t gay,” said the girl from UCLA, with some difficulty. It was the first time Susan had heard her speak — her voice was affected by the multiple sclerosis. “They are hermaphrodites.”

“You want?” asked Sal, and held out the joint toward Susan.

“Maybe I will,” she said. She drew on it and held in the smoke as she passed it to Addison. “Thanks,” she said after she let it out. “Been a while.”

It would allay her nervousness, she thought. If it didn’t put her to sleep instantly.

Sal took the joint back and slipped on his headphones.

“Susan?”

She turned to see Steven and Tommy at the library door just as Sal began to recite the lyrics. “All virginal maidens / Satan will ulcerate. .”

“Oh hey! Steve, Tommy. I’m so glad you made it!”

“Whoa,” said Tommy. “I’m getting a contact high.”

“Susie. I had no idea,” said Steve, as though he’d stepped into a bordello.

“What can I say,” said Susan, cheerfully. “It’s California.”

“But Mother Earth, she heals them,” croaked Sal, head rocking, “By sending them to Hell. .”

She would report to Casey: the possible benefits of wheelchairs were outweighed by the costs.

“Let me get you some drinks,” she persevered, and went toward the cousins, leaving Sal and the others behind.

“This place is like that Haunted House ride at Disneyland,” said Tommy. “Do you have one of those elevators where the pictures on the walls stretch out?”

She realized suddenly that she must not have seen him in years. He had thick eyebrows that met in the middle and cheekbones with a spray of acne. A show of affection was clearly called for, so she held out her arms and smiled.

“Tommy,” she said, and embraced him, remembering as she drew close and smelled his strong deodorant that he was the one his father was proud of. Unlike the unfortunate art student, or whatever the other kid was. “The prodigal engineer.”

He let himself be embraced but barely participated. She pulled back and noticed he was unsmiling.

The father, at least, could be plied with spirits.

“Would you like a cocktail? A beer? Please, follow me.”

She kept up a patter as they headed down the hallway toward the room with the bar.

“What kind of engineering program are you in? Civil?”

“Chemical,” he said. “Going into cement.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding, but despite casting around desperately could find nothing to say about this. Doubtless there were many people qualified to speak on the cement subject, but she was not among them. “Oh, I thought you were still a student.”

“Graduating in May. Early recruitment. Already got my first job lined up.”

“Congratulations!”

“Focus on GGBS.”

“GGBS?”

“Ground granulated blast-furnace slag.”

“Right outta college,” said Steven. “Six figures.”

“Wow,” she said.

At the end of the hall, in the darkness under a rhino head, Reg and Tony were kissing.