Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

“I’ve looked,” Claire said. “I can’t find her anywhere. It’s like she doesn’t exist.”

Claire had, in fact, cracked open one phonebook. Nicolette wasn’t listed.

At the kitchen table, Jill’s toe touched the arch of her foot and stayed there and he gave no sign that he even noticed. Claire glared at the papers spread before her, smothered in legalese.

“If you don’t get some coffin-dodger for a judge,” Jill was saying, “it’s possible just to get your separation converted. Still, might be easier to go down to Mexico to get divorced. If your husband — ex-husband — if he can afford it.”

She moved her foot away, careful to make it seem as if she were not moving her foot away.

“With the apartment, you have a chance,” he went on. “You’ve been living here alone the past however many years.”

“Seven,” Claire said. The boys were playing the Fugs in the other room. Nothing, nothing, nothing , the lyrics rattled. She didn’t like this new song.

“He owns it nominally, but he’s got a new apartment—”

“Equipped with a new girl.”

“You haven’t met anyone?”

Claire stood and rummaged through the junk drawer, looking for a pack of cigarettes. “Can I borrow a smoke?”

Jill took out his pack, beat it on his palm, and handed her one from the middle. He lit it for her as he spoke. “He should be paying your legal fees, do you know that? You have to ask him for ancillary relief. You shouldn’t be representing yourself.”

Claire laughed softly.

“What?” Jill asked, as if she’d laughed at him.

“To represent yourself. You can only do it in a court of law.”

“If you get a lawyer, this could all work out for you, Claire. The wife’s usually favored. Unless there’s some scandal you don’t want unearthed.” Jill chuckled awkwardly.

“What about the painting?” Claire asked.

“What am I supposed to say? You won’t even let me see it.”

Claire walked around the table to close the blinds. It was getting dark.

“It was a gift?” Jill asked. “Allan commissioned it?”

“Who?”

“Your ex-husband. Allan.”

“Oh. He never went by Allan. That was his legal name. But, yes, he commissioned the portrait for my birthday.”

“A gift is considered personal property, not marriage property. So you shouldn’t have a problem. Taking it from someone’s wall like you did, I mean, that might be used to prove some sort of prior unstable behavior, but it shouldn’t mean he gets to keep the damn thing.”

Claire sat again, smoking quickly as if it would burn out. “I paid someone, a long time ago, right after it was painted. I paid someone to destroy it. Obviously he didn’t.”

“If you’d just let me see it, Claire.”

From the den, the lyrics drifted in, Nothing, nothing, nothing, lots and lots of nothing .

“How can I help you if you don’t tell me anything?” Jill stood and started pacing. “Maybe they’ll argue the painting reverts back to him, then. If they can prove it’s a gift you tried to get rid of. And,” he looked down at her, “who knows, Mrs. Bishop, they might hold your silence against you, too, because, because you’re too silent. To me.”

Jill stopped his pacing abruptly and headed out of the room. He paused in the doorway. “What did you call him? Your husband. Will you tell me that?”

“Freddie,” she said, looking down at Freddie’s handwriting.

Jill stood on a small stool under the arch of Washington Square Park. They’d managed a good turnout — three hundred people at least, Claire guessed. She stood on her tiptoes and saw Mary a few feet away and waved to her. They smiled and embraced, muscles rigid in the cold. Claire didn’t know how to hold her friend with that pregnant belly in the way. It was eight months large and it irked her. Claire pretended to listen to Jill with his megaphone, but she couldn’t force her eyes off Mary’s swollen profile, the loose white shirt that fell around her in a way that made Claire think: summer. Something about the scene made her want to flee.

“Dear, he’s talking about you ,” Mary said.

“Don’t say that. He is not.”

“‘Anonymous women who give their souls to the cause?’ You’re right, that can’t be you.” Mary rolled her eyes. “You do know those boys are madly in love with you.”

“Oh please. I’m old enough to be their grandmother.”

“You spend an awful lot of time with them. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

Mary’s tone was arch, but she wasn’t smiling. Claire didn’t know what to say, except, “They live with me.”

Mary studied her, forming some conclusion Claire was certain she would have been insulted by. “I should leave,” Mary said.

Claire didn’t know why she had been avoiding Mary — ever since she’d started showing. Mary had only cared to share her pregnancy with Claire when she couldn’t hide it any longer. She’d waited so long to tell her. And that had hurt.

But Claire didn’t have room for it now, or time. She didn’t have what it took to simply stand beside her friend. Claire struggled to say, “So soon?”

“I thought it was going to be a small rally,” Mary said.

“It’s good, don’t you think? They need the numbers.”

“I don’t want the baby to get hurt at a peace rally. It would be too ironic to bear.”

As if to prove her point, a man leaned out of his fifth-story window overlooking the park and yelled, “Commie criminals!”

Claire grimaced. “Of course. They don’t need me here. I’ll leave with you.”

They inched out of the crowd. “Walk me to my place a ways?” Mary said.

“Oh, I would. I should go home. The hearing’s only a couple weeks away. I can’t tell you how much reading there is to do. Anyway, better if you take a cab.”

“That’s right. The hearing. I should have known,” Mary said. “And here I am, worrying about my baby.” She stopped walking and turned to Claire, one hand on her belly. “You haven’t even asked how I am, Claire.”

“I didn’t? I was going to,” Claire tried.

“Forget it.”

Mary turned north to hail a cab. Claire backed away, nodding stupidly, and walked into a group of pigeons — they flew up and toward her, too dumb to fly away.

The house was empty. She needed a few moments of quiet. But there was nothing quiet in her head, hunched over her divorce papers at the kitchen table. She was furious with Mary for her self-righteousness, for saying those things to her. None of it was true.

The door — she heard it open and close and thought, just for a moment, that it was Freddie. That was the life tucked inside these files, all those nights in the kitchen alone, hearing the sound of coming and going that had nothing to do with her.

She could feel him behind her but she couldn’t turn around. Jill stood for a while in the kitchen doorway before asking, “Are you okay?”

When she didn’t answer, he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She imagined his hands moving up her neck, down again. She could imagine it all. How his skinny body would be clammy against her own, his freckled arms around her in her bed. He was so thin.

“I wrote that speech for you,” Jill said.

She opened another file. “I can’t understand this,” she said vaguely.

“I’ll help.” He was still touching her shoulder. With his other hand, he reached around her to close the file.

She turned to face Jill. “The man I asked to destroy the painting — he’s the superintendent here. We were involved.”

“I can help,” Jill said again. He hadn’t seemed to hear her. Then he leaned in and kissed her.

She did not move toward him or away from him. She stood perfectly still. His lips were sticky as he pulled away.