Chris Bohjalian - Before You Know Kindness

Most of the time, what Sara had told her partner was exactly what she believed: Charlotte indeed had presumed she was shooting a deer. That’s all there was to it. Sometimes, however, the idea that her vegetarian niece-the daughter of the communications director for FERAL-was either planning or pretending (who could ever know for sure?) to shoot a wild animal suggested to Sara that her niece might actually have some unresolved conflicts with her dad. And then she would have to admit to herself that this other woman in her practice, despite her apparent difficulties raising her own children, may have been onto something.

Now, as she and Willow drove from her daughter’s elementary school to ballet practice, the September sun highlighting the first orange leaves at the very tips of the sugar maples and the dying, knee-high remains of the cow corn, she asked the child the question that off and on had passed through her mind.

“Willow?” she began, and she turned down the volume on the radio. She was careful not to turn the radio off, because she did not want her daughter to view the conversation as ominous.

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question about your cousin?”

“Sure. What about her?”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. I’ve just always wondered… I guess I’ve been curious… does Charlotte ever wish their family ate meat?” There, Sara thought to herself. A perfectly innocuous opening.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“I was just thinking about the accident.”

“Plenty of people are vegetarians. I don’t think it’s a big deal for anyone in the whole world except Grandmother.”

“Oh, I know. But her dad… Uncle Spencer… what he does for a living makes it all so… so public. That does make it a big deal.”

“Charlotte actually likes the taste of things like his awful Soy-garine.”

“Well, what about the other parts of her life? All the things that I know she doesn’t get to do because of Uncle Spencer?”

“You mean like the time we all went to Sea World, and she wasn’t allowed to come with us?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Maybe sometimes she misses that sort of thing. But I also think she’s kind of proud of her dad.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yeah. At least she used to be. She thought it was incredibly cool when he was on The Today Show a couple years ago. She’s into that sort of thing.”

“So she never gets angry at him…”

“At her dad? Oh, she does. But as far as I can tell, mostly she gets mad at her mom.”

“Yes, we have gotten to witness Catherine and Charlotte go at it over the years, haven’t we?”

“Sure have. And Charlotte and Grandmother in the summer.”

“And heaven knows all mothers and daughters can have pretty dicey relationships, especially when the daughter is an adolescent-or almost one,” she said. Then she added quickly, her voice light, “Now, don’t you get any ideas, Willow Seton.”

“I can’t be a brat?”

“I’d rather you weren’t.”

She glanced back after she spoke, and Willow seemed to be pondering seriously the notion that heretofore unchallenged behavioral boundaries might be worth exploring. When she returned her gaze to the road, she asked, “Do you think there’s anything in particular that Aunt Catherine does that might trigger all that anger in Charlotte? Anything specific she does around your cousin or your uncle? Or maybe just around other people?”

There was a long silence, so long that Sara was about to repeat the question. Finally: “Nope.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Mom? I just told you: No. And it’s not like Charlotte and Aunt Catherine spend their whole lives fighting.”

She wasn’t sure why, but she sensed there was something here that Willow wasn’t telling her about Aunt Catherine and Charlotte, the silence not so much the filing cards in the girl’s brain riffling for an example as it was the quiet of a child trying to avoid a potentially unpleasant conversation. But she knew also not to push the girl. The important thing, she decided, was that in Willow’s opinion Charlotte wasn’t harboring any special hostility toward her father.

Or, at least, she hadn’t been venting constantly to Willow that July and August.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Go ahead.” There was a twinge of exasperation in her daughter’s voice now.

“Actually, it’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

Initially Sara hadn’t planned on bringing this up for days, but then John had phoned her this morning with the news that he and Paige Sutherland had set a date to begin his preparation for his deposition. That meant they would have to start prepping Willow, too. And so Sara decided that she had better tell her that, like her father, soon enough she would have to start speaking to lawyers.

“You’ve heard your father use the term deposition before, right?”

“I guess.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“No. Not really.”

Carefully she pulled into the left lane to pass a lumbering manure spreader and waited until they were back on the right side of the road to continue. “It’s like an interview. But the person asking the questions is a lawyer instead of a reporter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re supposed to tell the truth-just like a witness in a courtroom, you swear an oath-because the lawyer uses the information from the interview to try to figure out what happened at the scene of a… at an event. It’s not a big deal. We’ll go to someone’s office and we’ll-”

“I do not want to talk to a lawyer! No way!”

Only briefly was Sara surprised by how quickly Willow had determined where this conversation was heading. Her daughter was sharp, and she and John had never treated her like a baby: They’d tried always to respect her intellect and talk to her like a grown-up.

“Well-”

“No! I didn’t do anything but open the trunk to get Patrick’s diapers! How was I supposed to know there was a gun in there? And-”

“Willow-”

“And you know I told Charlotte to leave the gun alone! I told her not to touch it! I’ve told you that, I told the trooper guy that, I-”

Already Sara was braking to a stop in the patch of grass along the side of the road, grateful that the ground was flat and the farmer hadn’t put his fence too close to the asphalt.

“I’ve told anyone who will listen that! And now I’m done talking about that whole night, okay? I won’t talk to anyone anymore!”

She put the vehicle in park and turned around. “Willow? Are you finished?” she asked, her inflection, she hoped, playful and soft.

“I’m just telling you: I’m not taking any oaths and I’m not talking about that night with any lawyers.”

“A second ago you said you won’t talk about that night with anyone. Now I’m hearing it’s the presence of the lawyer that’s the deal breaker. Can you help me understand a little more why-”

“You’re using your therapist’s voice. I hate it when you use your therapist’s voice with me. I’m your daughter, not one of your patients!”

She considered offering Willow a small, sympathetic smile, but she feared if she did her daughter would see clearly parental condescension. The truth was that she was using her therapist’s voice. “Fair enough,” she said, evening her tone. “Tell me why you’re getting so upset about this, without-”

“It’s because-”

“Without interrupting me. It’s my turn to speak now, okay? Here’s what I want to know: Are you getting upset because you don’t want to talk about that night anymore or because you might have to talk about it with a lawyer?”

Willow cupped her hands in front of her nose and mouth like a gas mask.