Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

Mrs Grey blanched. 'What was that you said?' she asked.

'Mother...' George said, putting a hand on her arm - a hand which she immediately brushed away.

'Get her the hell out of here now', I shouted.

She calmly approached the bed. 'I will forgive that comment on the grounds that you have been through a traumatic experience'.

'I don't want your forgiveness. Just go'.

Her face flexed into one of her tight little smiles. She bent down close to me. 'Let me ask you something, Sara. Having self-induced this tragedy, are you now using disrespect as a way of dodging the fact that you've become damaged goods?'

That's when I hit her. Using my free hand, I slapped her hard across the face. It caught her off-balance, sending her to the floor. She let out a scream. George came rushing forward, yelling something incoherent. He helped his mother back to her feet, whispering, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry...' in her ear. She turned and faced me, looking disoriented, dumbfounded, robbed of her triumphant malice. George put an arm around her and helped her out the door. A few minutes later, he came back in as rattled as someone who had just walked away from a car wreck.

'One of the nurses is looking after her', he said. 'I said that she took a turn and fell'.

I turned away from him.

'I'm so sorry', he said, approaching me. 'I can't begin to tell you how sorry...'

I cut him off. 'We have nothing more to say to each other'.

He tried to reach for me. I put my arm up to fend him off.

'Darling...' he said.

'Please leave, George'.

'You were right to hit her. She deserved...'

'George, I don't want to talk right now'.

'Fine, fine. I'll come back later. But darling, know this: we're going to be fine. I don't care what Dr Eisenberg says. It's just an opinion. Worst comes to worst, we can always adopt. But, really...'

'George - there's the door. Please use it'.

He heaved a deep sigh. He looked rattled. And scared.

'All right, I'll be back first thing tomorrow'.

'No, George. I don't want to see you tomorrow'.

'Well, I can come back the day after...'

'I don't want to see you again'.

'Don't say that'.

'I'm saying it'.

'I'll do anything...'

'Anything?'

'Yes, darling. Anything'.

'Then I want you to do two things. The first is, call my brother. Tell him what's happened. Tell him everything'.

'Of course, of course. I'll call him as soon as I get home. And the second request?'

'Stay away from me'.

This took a moment to sink in. 'You don't really mean that', he said.

'Yes - I really mean that'.

Silence. I finally looked at him. He was crying.

'I'm sorry', I said.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands. 'I'll do as you ask', he said.

'Thank you'.

He was frozen to the spot, unable to move.

'Goodbye, George', I whispered, then turned away.

After he left, a nurse came in, carrying a small ceramic bowl, containing a syringe and a vial. She placed the bowl on the bedside table, inserted the needle into the rubber top of the vial, inverted it and filled part of the syringe with a viscous fluid.

'What's that?' I asked.

'Something to help you sleep'.

'I don't want to sleep'.

'Doctor's orders'.

Before I could object further, I felt a quick jab in the arm. I was under within seconds. When I came to again, it was morning. Eric was sitting on the edge of my bed. He gave me a sad smile.

'Hi there', he said.

I reached for his hand. He moved closer down the bed, and threaded his fingers through mine. 'Did George call you?' I asked.

'Yes. He did'.

'And did he tell you... ?'

'Yes. He told me'.

Suddenly I was sobbing. Immediately Eric put his arms around me. I buried my head in his shoulder. My sobs quickly escalated. He held me tighter as I cried. I was inconsolable. I had never known such wild, unbridled grief. And I couldn't stop.

I don't know how long I carried on crying. Eric said nothing. No words of consolation or condolence. Because words were meaningless at this moment. I would never have children. That was the terrible fact of the matter. Nothing anyone said could change that. Tragedy renders language impotent.

Eventually I subsided. I let go of Eric and fell back against the pillows. Eric reached out and stroked my face. We said nothing for a long time. I was still in shock. Finally, he broke our silence.

'So...' he said.

'So...' I said.

'My sofa's not the most comfortable bed in the world, but...'

'It will do fine'.

'That's settled then. While I was waiting for you to wake up, I spoke with one of the nurses. They think you'll be ready to leave in about three days. So - if it's okay with you - I'll call George and arrange a time to go to your house in Old Greenwich and pack up your things'.

'It was never my house'.

'George was pretty emotional on the phone. He begged me to get you to reconsider'.

'There is absolutely no chance of that'.

'I intimated that to him'.

'He should marry his mother and get it over with'.

'Why didn't I think of that line?'

I almost managed a small smile.

'It will be good to have you back, S. I've missed you'.

'I've fucked it up, Eric. I've fucked everything up'.

'Don't think that', he said. 'Because it's not true. But do keep using language like that. It dents your refined image. And I approve'.

'I landed myself in this entire disaster'.

'That's an interpretation - and one which is guaranteed to cause you a lot of useless grief'.

'I deserve the grief...'

'Stop it! You deserve none of this. But it's happened. And, in time, you will find a way of dealing with it'.

'I'll never deal with it'.

'You will. Because you have to deal with it. You have no choice'.

'I suppose I could jump out a window'.

'But think of all the bad movies you'd miss'.

This time, I nearly managed a laugh. 'I missed you too, Eric. More than I can say'.

'Give us two weeks together as roommates, and I'm sure we'll end up never talking again'.

'An asteroid will hit Manhattan before that happens. There's a pair of us in it'.

'Nice expression'.

'Yes. The Irish have all the right lines'.

He rolled his eyes and said, 'Yez lives and yez learns'.

'Too damn true'.

I glanced out the window. It was a perfect summer day. A hard blue sky. An incandescent sun. Not a single hint of an inclement future. It was a day when everything should have seemed limitless, possible.

'Tell me something, Eric...'

'Yeah?'

'Is it always so hard?'

'Is what always so hard?'

'Everything'.

He laughed. 'Of course. Haven't you figured that out yet?'

'Sometimes I wonder: will I ever figure anything out?'

He laughed again. 'You know the answer to that question, don't you?'

I kept my gaze on the world beyond. And said,

'Yes, I'm afraid I do'.

Part Three

Sara

One

THE FIRST THING I noticed about Dudley Thomson were his fingers. They were short, stubby, fleshy - like a link of Polish sausages. He had a large oval face. His chin was augmented by two tiers of fat. He had thinning hair, round horn-rimmed glasses, and a very expensive three-piece suit. It was dark grey with a thick chalk pinstripe. I guessed that it was made-to-measure, as it carefully encased his bulky frame. His office was wood paneled, with heavy green velvet curtains, deep leather chairs, a large mahogany desk. It struck me as a small-scale approximation of a London gentlemen's club. In fact, everything about Dudley Thomson reeked of Anglophilia. He looked like an overweight version of T.S. Eliot. Only unlike Mr Eliot he wasn't a poet, dressed in the raiments of an English banker. Rather, he was a divorce lawyer - a partner at Potholm, Grey and Connell; the white-shoe Wall Street firm of which Edwin Grey, Sr, was a senior partner.