Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

In the late afternoon, they gathered at table. Joyce shabbily asked where his mother was on this Thanksgiving Day, and Toulouse, not half because Amaryllis was still on his mind, spontaneously said, “A dinner for orphans.” Lucy nearly choked on her marshmallow’d yams; Edward grinned— touché —for his cousin had killed two birds with one stone: not only had he boldly referenced their illicit boarder, but he had also stood on Joyce’s nerve by implying that Trinnie would be more inclined to help the abandoned living than the abandoned dead.

But his comment had a deeper meaning — at meal’s end, he promptly announced that he wished to go home.

He thanked his hosts and said heartfelt good-byes to Lucy and Edward. That was the wondrous thing of being their age; they hadn’t yet the sophistication to shut a final door — whereas in adulthood bruised feelings born of shared adversity become the stuff of feud, and mysteriously acquire permanence. The spite of children is truly child’s play; grown-ups hate for all eternity.

The light in his mother’s room was on, and he decorously rapped at the door. She softly asked if it was Winter (who’d been told she could stay on indefinitely even though Bluey would not return) and was surprised when Toulouse answered.

He slipped in with her assent.

Trinnie lay in bed in the dark, in a crumb-stained Ghesquière caftan. She asked him to hand her a glass of water. She looked druggy.

“Are you sick?”

“No — why? And why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you … taking drugs?”

“No, I’m not taking drugs. Are you ? You’re not being very respectful. I’m tired. And I don’t feel well.”

“That’s what you say when you’re taking drugs.”

“I thought you were with Lucy and Edward.”

“I wanted to come home. I need to talk to you.”

“You mean you need to torture me — I told you: I’m not taking anything, OK?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the girl.”

“What girl?”

“Amaryllis. The one Samson was looking for.”

“What about her? You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?”

“No,” he said, bringing all his youthful contempt and puritanism to bear. “I want you to talk to Samson. I need to know if they found her.”

“You really like that wild child, don’t you? ‘The diplomat’s daughter.’ ”

He shyly nodded, averting his eyes.

“C’mere.”

He crawled into bed and snuggled up. “I’m worried about her — I just feel like it was all my fault. We could have worked it out, couldn’t we? Grandpa could have made it so Amaryllis could have stayed …”

“You can’t save the world, Toulouse. And you can’t save everyone in it.”

“I don’t want to save everyone — I just want to save her .”

“People have their own lives, their own destinies. Their own karma.”

He didn’t want to hear any of her negative mysticism. “I–I just worry that I’ll never see her again. Like — you and Dad … only I didn’t get a chance to really know her. At least you and Dad — at least you got married— ”

He didn’t want to hurt her; he thought to himself how he was always ruining everything.

She blew her nose and looked at him with a face disfigured by irresolution. “Oh, Toulouse! You should know this, you should know this … — but I promised your grandfather I wouldn’t say!”

His heart stuck in his throat. “They found her … something happened —”

“I can’t, I can’t!” she said, scurrying to light a cigarette. She was wild-eyed now. “I said I wouldn’t, but I can’t keep it from you! I promised him — but I can’t!”

“She’s dead, she’s dead!” he cried. He stood and shouted— demanded to know: “Who killed her!”

“Tull, it’s your father — your father came back, Tull! He came back, he came back, he came back!”

He reeled away, and only the wall held him up. His mother nattered on, sobbing and mumbling and blowing her nose as she rushed to the bathroom, then out again, inadvertently exposing one tit, then another. In his shock, he heard only a few isolated phrases: “jail for murder,” “Grandpa got him sprung,” “four hundred pounds!”

That night he stayed in the Dane’s great villa, curled into the dog like a pup. As Half Dead before him, Toulouse licked his wounds in preparation for war.

†Thanks to the efficient plasma-protein bindings of Olanzapine.

Louis Trotter ignored the calls from his physicians. He’d been feeling much better since the emergency-room visit; his collar buttons were even fastening again. While such indifference to “follow-up” was perhaps unwise, it should not of necessity be considered a harbinger of doom — the old man had survived all manner of assault to his various systems, in degrees both large and small. It would take a lot to bring him down.

He busied himself with Bluey, who was still settling in — if that’s the appropriate phrase when all the settling is done for you, and nearly against your will. He held her hand and occasionally ducked or broke away when the going got rough; then clucked and chuffed and asked of her his pet question over the years: “And how, little girl Blue, do you like your new digs?” (The thin humor of this being that she had always called him the digger.) “I don’t like them at all,” she said cogently and it pierced him through and through.

She asked why he had put her there, and while Louis remorsefully pondered a reply, Bluey shouted he was trying to kill her and that she’d fix his wagon good. She reached in her diaper, pulled out a hand smeared with feces and gave chase. The dapper old man dodged and parried as nurses in arm-length latex gloves scrambled — Marx Brothers by way of Dante.

The staff was careful around him, because they knew he was a donor and had billions and that his daughter had even designed the wandering garden; but Louis still worried about what they’d do to his wife when he wasn’t there. He would have to hire special people to stand around, like NATO observers; more men in suits. No … best not to meddle. He was horrified to find himself comforted by the fact that Bluey bruised easily — a handy indicator of skulduggeries. Maybe he would install a webcam in her room so that he could watch her from Saint-Cloud. (He thought of a friend whose wife had lost her mind. The suspicious man set up a secret camera to document the abuse — as it had turned out, the one being abused was the nurse.)

He rushed out, unable to bear any more. Passing through the doors, he found Winter on her way in; they could hear Bluey’s chilling chorus of “I’m afraid!”s.

“Can’t they give her something, Winter? Why don’t they give her something to knock her out?”

“I’ll go see about it, Mr. Trotter. Don’t you worry.”

He sat by himself on a bench. He had yet to share with the old nanny any details relating to the purchase of the “condominium.” He wasn’t sure how to bring it up; there was time enough for that. There would be time … But it was real. The condo was very real.

He surveyed his daughter’s handiwork. A profusion of honey locust trees with underplantings of fern and Siberian iris abounded, in the intimate style of a sixteenth-century garden; lining the Yorkstone path were bluebells, cosmos and mini-narcissus. Senescent creatures walked this eternal return of heavenly road — more surreal by far than anything made of yellow brick — waxen-skinned foragers on a looped and loopy veldt.

The boy waited impatiently in the foyer — Mr. Trotter could not help noticing him from the living room, where he entertained his fiftyish, rumpled guest. About half an hour later, he ushered the visitor to the door, where they exchanged earnest good-byes.