Chris Bohjalian - Before You Know Kindness

But the truth was, she didn’t think it was her dad’s fault. She blamed this nightmare on Charlotte-which, she understood so suddenly that she actually sat up a little straighter on the stool, may have been another reason why she hadn’t felt an inclination to phone her cousin over the last month. Everyone was so focused on the idea that her father hadn’t gotten around to bringing his gun to a repair shop to have a stubborn bullet removed that they were forgetting-or ignoring-the fact that it was Charlotte who had taken the gun from the trunk of the car even though she’d been told explicitly not to touch it, switched off the safety, and fired it into the night. She knew the people at FERAL and her uncle’s lawyer were going to portray her cousin as a victim, and she knew also that this was a complete fabrication: Her cousin-two weeks beyond her thirteenth birthday now-had been stoned and a little drunk when she’d pulled the trigger.

“You and Aunt Catherine are talking, right?” she asked her father. “Mom says Aunt Catherine’s not mad at you.”

“Yes, your aunt and I are talking. And while I’d say she’s not as mad at me as your uncle is, she still wishes I had… behaved more responsibly. After all, she loves Uncle Spencer.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” She hadn’t planned to say this, either, but she realized there was indeed a lot that she’d kept inside her for almost six weeks now. She wondered how much she was about to reveal.

“What do you mean?”

“Charlotte…”

“Yes?”

“Charlotte thinks her parents might someday get a divorce.”

“What? When did she say such a thing?”

“This summer. The night of the accident.”

“Have you told your mother this?”

She shook her head.

“Why does your cousin think that?” Her father dropped his necktie into his lap and rested his temple against his fingers and stared at her.

“Because…”

“Yes?”

“Oh, a lot of reasons. She says her mom flirts all the time, and her dad isn’t really interested in Aunt Catherine. He’s so busy with his animal causes.”

“Your aunt Catherine has always been a flirt,” he said, and although his eyes looked tired he was smiling. “Trust me. When we were growing up, I don’t think I had a friend she didn’t flirt with-especially when she was the age Charlotte is now. I think it would have killed her if I’d gone to Exeter, which your grandmother and I discussed pretty seriously, instead of staying in the city at Trinity. She wouldn’t have been able to bat her eyelashes at my friends when they came by the apartment. And as for your uncle Spencer…”

He paused and took off his eyeglasses. This was, Willow knew, one of his courtroom gestures. But it also meant that he was about to say something that mattered to him greatly. “And as for your uncle Spencer: He may be self-absorbed, he may be fixated on monkeys or dolphins or whatever… but he adores your aunt. I know that. I know Spencer. He loves your aunt Catherine very much.”

“But what if…”

“Go on.”

“What if she doesn’t love him? Charlotte doesn’t think she does. She says her mom and dad are always fighting, and it’s usually over nothing.”

“Your mom and I argue sometimes-”

“No, you don’t.”

He thought about this and nodded. “We don’t, do we?”

“Not like some parents I hear about. Not like Loree’s parents. Or Mr. and Mrs. Hall.” Loree King and Kristin Hall were two of Willow’s classmates, and the squabbles Willow had witnessed when she was playing at Loree’s or Kristin’s house were legendary around the Seton dinner table.

“But most parents have their arguments,” her father continued. “Just like most siblings and most friends. And most cousins.”

“Charlotte thinks this is different.”

“Your mom really doesn’t know any of this? You haven’t told her?”

She felt the sides of her eyes start to quiver. She still had math homework that was due tomorrow, she hadn’t done her required thirty minutes of reading for the day, and it was clear that her father and she were still a while away from going upstairs so he could read to her while she curled up in bed. She didn’t want to cry, and she didn’t quite understand how her innocuous peek at the calendar had led to this. But she was afraid she was about to start sobbing-not hideous Patrick-like howls, but real tears and whimpers and sniffles, nonetheless. And a lot of them. A month-and-a-half’s worth. Tears for her uncle who couldn’t ever use his right arm again, for her cousin who-even if she wasn’t getting blamed for this the way her dad was-still had to live with herself, for her aunt and uncle who might someday get a divorce, and (perhaps most of all) for her dad who she decided firmly now had done nothing wrong but was being treated like he had and always seemed sad. She felt her body starting to shake and gave in. Before she knew it she had climbed onto her father’s lap on the stool as if she were a girl half her age, her shoulders heaving with sadness. She cried into the cotton shoulder of his button-down shirt, only vaguely aware of the smell of the deodorant he wore to work and the coffee that was still on his breath, and completely unconscious of the fact that her father’s eyes had begun to water, too.

CATHERINE PUT THE NOVEL she was reading on her nightstand and was about to turn out the light. She glanced at Spencer, hoping he was finally asleep, because his breathing had been even and soft for at least the last two or three pages. He wasn’t: He looked up at her, his eyes alone moving. He was, as he was always now when he tried to sleep, flat on his back-a position that, in the month and a half since the accident, he still had not grown accustomed to. In the past, he had fallen asleep on his right side, his body facing hers. Not only did he now have to try to nod off in what was still a new and uncomfortable position for him, the two of them had switched sides of the bed: For twenty years, since they’d been freshmen in college, he had always slept on her left. No longer. She couldn’t be on his right because it meant his wounded shoulder was near her, and she couldn’t bear the thought that she might pain him further by rolling against it in her sleep.

She leaned over and kissed him on his forehead. “You’ve taken a sleeping pill, right?” she asked him. “If not, I can get you one.”

“I took one. It will kick in soon enough.”

“Okay.”

“I keep wondering about something…”

She had been sitting up with her knees making a tent of the sheets, but now she lay on her side so he wouldn’t be looking up at her like an invalid. Something in his tone suggested he might want to talk about his disability and his future. “Yes?”

“I keep wondering: Should we have a surgeon at the press conference? Paige says we shouldn’t because -”

“You want to talk about the press conference?” she asked. She realized she sounded shrill, but she couldn’t contain her surprise-and her disappointment. Even now, at ten thirty at night in their bed, he was thinking about the press conference. Even though he knew how much she detested the very notion of the press conference-and FERAL’s whole involvement in a lawsuit that, as far as she was concerned, was absolutely none of their business-he was bringing it up as if she supported what he was doing and was willing to discuss its particulars. She couldn’t believe it. She simply could not believe it, and reflexively she sat up again so she could have some distance from him. If they were going to have a discussion that involved FERAL, she didn’t want to be that close.

“Yes,” he said. “I was thinking-”

“No you weren’t thinking. That’s the problem. You know my opinion of that press conference, you know how unhappy it makes me. Your animal-obsessed friends want to humiliate my brother and make a spectacle of our-yes, our-daughter. I will not discuss this right now, Spencer. I’m sorry.”