Chris Bohjalian - Before You Know Kindness

“And there are scientists who turn flamethrowers on pigs so they can look at burns on live tissue. If you really believe we need to be prepared for a discussion of ecosystems, we’ll just trot out the birth control studies.”

She watched both Keenan and Randy nod patiently. They both knew that birth control only worked in places like Fire Island, worlds so small that individual deer could be tracked annually and darted with contraception. Still, this was about racket, not reality, and Dominique probably was right. And so Paige sat forward in her chair, a palpably physical need driving her to be back in the center of the conversation. “Now,” she began, “even though the point of the press conference is to announce the lawsuit-”

“And call attention to the moral horrors of hunting,” Dominique said.

“Yes, of course. But from the perspective of the lawsuit, I want to be sure that we do not reveal too much about our case or our plans. I don’t want any of Spencer’s doctors or his physical therapist talking, I don’t want a psychiatrist there if one happens to evaluate him in the next week or two, and I don’t want any ballistics experts present. The only people on the dais with me should be Dominique and Spencer. Are you okay with that, Keenan? I just don’t want three people from FERAL up there, because technically FERAL isn’t even a party to this suit.”

“Oh, I’ve spent enough time in front of cameras in my life. And I know I speak too slowly for the younger folks in broadcast. Give me a judge and a jury anytime,” Keenan said. Then: “When is the last time you heard from Adirondack?”

“Thursday of last week. They want to start talking, but I’m not interested in negotiating since we’re not interested in settling. At least not yet.”

“At least not until we know more about the gun, right?” Randy asked.

“And John Seton only got the gun back from the New Hampshire authorities on-” she glanced at a note on her pad-“the eleventh of August. And by the time we got it back from him and down to the lab, it was the fourteenth.”

“The state’s attorney made our public defender friend sweat for ten days before deciding not to press charges? Isn’t that something? That alone must have taught him a lesson,” Keenan said.

“And with people taking their summer vacations and Labor Day and the laboratory’s own backlog of work,” she continued, “they haven’t gotten to our gun. Nevertheless, they should have something for us any day now. And that’s one of the very last gaps we need to fill in before we file the suit: the concrete specifics of our theory of liability. But the fact is, even if the people in Maryland can’t find anything wrong with the extractor, there is still the issue that when you unload the magazine, a bullet remains in the chamber. It would be more difficult to win with that in front of a jury, but we could certainly threaten to make enough noise that Adirondack might say uncle. Now, I haven’t spoken to Spencer today, but you have, Dominique. I presume he still wants us to drag this out as long as possible before settling.”

Dominique took a deep breath and then said-her voice a human purr-“Spencer is ailing. I don’t honestly know for sure when he’ll be back. But I believe I can speak for him when I tell you that, yes, he wants to drag this out for as long as the media is interested.” She looked at Keenan. “You agree?”

“I do. And I also believe that he’ll stay mad at his brother-in-law for as long as needs be, and his shoulder will continue to torment him until this is behind him. And he’ll bear it all, because he is, like each of us, a true believer. I think ol’ Spencer would be more than willing to-pardon the pun-take a bullet on behalf of the deer of the great northern forest.”

AT LUNCH THAT DAY in the teachers’ lounge, Catherine finally asked Eric Miller exactly how old he was. It was a spontaneous question, triggered, she guessed, because she had just spoken to Spencer on the phone and heard that he’d thrown up in the cab and had to return home. She felt her husband’s setback acutely, experiencing not merely the disappointment he was enduring at their apartment across town but also the harrowing sense that her own life’s opportunities were continuing to dwindle. To herself (and only to herself) she could admit the truth: She, too, was trapped by her husband’s disability. Yes, she was back at school, and in the days immediately after the shooting she had seriously doubted such a thing would be possible. But there was a far bigger issue in her mind: She certainly had not admitted to Spencer that had he not been crippled by a bullet and nearly died, she would have told him she was dissatisfied with their marriage-with him, to be honest.

“Twenty-nine,” Eric said, after taking a sip from his bottled iced tea.

She nodded.

“Why?” he asked her, and even his eyes seemed to be laughing. He was sitting below the window, and the sun was pouring in on the back of his head and his hair seemed to shine like a freshly buffed pumpkin pine floor. Sometimes she thought his hair was only blond. Today she decided it had splashes of a red-not unlike her own hair-especially in his sideburns and the long, unruly swath of bang he had to keep pushing back off his forehead. This afternoon he looked more like a surfer than an English teacher. He had spent much of the summer on Nantucket, and his skin was the sort of deep tan she herself hadn’t had since she was a child and her mother was still oblivious to sunblock.

“I was just wondering,” she answered. “I didn’t think you’d hit thirty.”

He smiled. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Sometimes it’s nice to see a man who still has a little puppylike awkwardness. That hubris that’s really just optimism. Innocence. On the other hand, sometimes it’s also nice to see a man who’s a little more calm. Not wizened-but chastened, perhaps.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Is it good or bad that I haven’t reached thirty?”

“It isn’t either. It was just that I didn’t know.”

“Are you suggesting I’m puppylike?”

“Hah!”

“And if I were to ask you your age?”

“I’d tell you.”

“Okay: How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“No. Really?”

“Don’t try to flatter me. I know how old I look. And we both know that I have a daughter who turned thirteen last month.”

“You don’t look thirty-eight. Honest to God, if I met you in, say, a bar, and didn’t know Charlotte was your daughter, I would peg you for my age.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m being completely sincere.”

“Any man who even tries to peg a woman’s age in a bar is completely incapable of sincerity.”

“Hey, you were the one who just admitted you were wondering about my age!”

“Because you’re a good teacher and I know you’re younger than I am. I was curious.”

“People get curious in bars, Catherine.”

They were alone at the moment, and suddenly she wanted them to be beyond this conversation about age before another teacher strolled in. As one certainly would. She wished she hadn’t asked him his age now in the first place, because it made her feel disloyal to Spencer. Sometimes she thought the only subject she should talk about was her husband: his disability, his pain, his attempts to regain a semblance of control over his life.

But it was hard. Often she wanted to talk about anything but his injury, especially if she was around people who knew about the way FERAL was going to make the lawsuit a cause célèbre. She never wanted to think about that, much less discuss it. It made her feel at once like a bad mother and a bad sister.

And so with an almost guilty quiver to her voice-guilty both because she hadn’t been speaking of Spencer sooner and because she was speaking of him now largely out of obligation-she brought up her husband. The transition was awkward, clunky. She guessed it was obvious to Eric that she was changing the subject because she didn’t want to flirt with him at the moment.