Christopher Hacker - The Morels

Fuck Andy Warhol! Will you get real for a minute? This is my life, okay? It would be my life you’d destroy.

There is another long pause, after which Cynthia says, You’re the one who needs to be real. Call me back when you’re ready to do that. She hangs up.

He sets the phone back gently in its cradle. When he returns to the dining room, everyone has gone. Dolores stands in the kitchen sudsing the pots in the sink. Benji is shuttling dirty dishes to her side from the dining room table. He looks like he is going to cry.

Dolores says, I’m trying here. You see that I’m trying, don’t you?

I see that you’re trying.

And I’m willing to try harder, as hard as I can to bring us back together. But I can’t do this alone. You have to want this, too. Do you want it, too?

Look, he says, babe. He is about to say something, some autopilot reassurance to end this discussion — nonsense that he doesn’t even believe — but stops himself. He looks at his wife, who has turned to face him.

They have known each other for so long — since they were kids, almost Sarah’s age now. They are kids no longer. She looks so old, so tired and sad. Maybe it’s the booze — her eyes are droopy, her hair matted to her forehead — she has taken off the sombrero, but it’s left a thin red line across her forehead. Her face has become so wrinkled — under her eyes, around the corners of her mouth. When had that happened? She isn’t old, yet she has the face already of the old woman she will become before long. She has always insisted on a full face of makeup — it’s something his mother has been warning her about for years, whenever she visited. All that makeup, dear. It’ll make you old before your time. You’re young. A little love is all you need to make those cheeks rosy. A kiss from that fine man — that’s all you need to get color in those lips . It seems his mother was right — the products are taking their toll on her. Her hands hang at her sides, dripping suds.

A year ago — a month ago! — he would have welcomed this moment, would have rejoiced in it, would have gladly taken his wife into his arms, kissed her, and said whatever he had to say.

She says, I’m not stupid. And I’m not deaf. I don’t want any admissions, any explanations either. Not interested. Keep it between yourself and whoever. I’m only interested in hearing if this is something you want, something you want to work.

It is, he says. I do want this to work. Which is true enough. But it won’t, which he knows, too.

Dolores looks so relieved at hearing him say it, and so on the verge of collapse, that he has no choice but to take her into his arms.

He lies awake the entire night. He watches day brighten the window, hears the birds begin their morning noises. He had his opening. He could have said, No — it’s over . He could have told her the truth. But to do so would have been to end the marriage, end their lives — the lives of the four of them — as they all know them. Harder than it seems, to utter the word no . To tell the truth.

And what is he to do about Cynthia? She is threatening to end his marriage, this life as he knows it, even if he can’t do it himself. He finds himself plotting her murder, something that, when he thinks about it, is actually easier than getting rid of the fetus. He would have to convince her to let him perform the procedure. Have her sneak out in the middle of the night to his office. He would put her under a general anesthetic and then give her a second, lethal, injection. He wouldn’t have to go as far as North Carolina for all this either. Drive out to Newark Bay to dispose of the body. But where would that get him? He’d be without Cynthia. So instead he plots his wife’s murder, which then brings him around to the easiest solution of all: suicide.

“All of which he tells me about the next time we’re alone! The man was not well. It was clear he hadn’t slept in days. He hadn’t called me back. The thing about him turning himself in, I don’t know that I was totally serious about it. I mean, what did I want? I didn’t know that either. Lying, sneaking. That was all I was opposed to. I hate secrets. They make me ill. I was sure he’d call me back later that night, try to convince me of some plan or other. But he didn’t call. A week I didn’t hear from him. I was getting concerned. I thought maybe he’d actually done it, gone to the police, because I didn’t see him around. Then I thought maybe the lab results came back, and the mouse was still alive! Maybe I wasn’t pregnant after all.

“Sarah had been keeping her distance, but I still spent time at the house, out of habit, I suppose. I should have had it out with her. Well, we would have it out soon enough. Instead, we said awful things about other people who thought they were our friends. I think it made Sarah feel better about hating me, and it made me feel better about not opening up about this whole affair with her father.

“We heard the car in the driveway, and then he was in the room with us. ‘Out,’ he said to Sarah, and she obeyed. He closed the door. He told me he’d been contemplating murder, he’d been contemplating suicide.”

He tells her these are not good options. But neither is going to the police. Has she really thought this through? (She hasn’t.) Has she considered that it will involve a trial, in which she will have to testify? (She hasn’t, no.) That it could drag on for months? Longer, with appeals? That she won’t be free to go to New York to become a Superstar until this is all over? He won’t give in, he tells her. It’ll be his word against hers. What evidence does she have, besides her word? He will fight it every step of the way. And whom will people believe? He is a respected member of the community, the friendly neighborhood dentist — and what is she? A promiscuous young girl who dresses like a hooker. It will be months before she can get the abortion — if she somehow manages to win, and by then it will be too late. The rape clause pertains only to first-trimester abortions. She will be forced to keep the baby and now be center stage in a messy trial. She will be famous — people will talk — but is this how she wants to spend her fifteen minutes?

No, she says meekly.

He feels sick. This is not how he meant for this to go. He botched a routine filling that morning, badly, and, after canceling the rest of his appointments for the day, had been driving around aimlessly. He pulled into the driveway expecting to throw himself on her mercy, to beg her not to make him turn himself in. He was on the verge of tears when he burst into Sarah’s room. He watches himself talk. He hardly knows the man who is saying these words, the man who is standing over this poor girl and browbeating her half to death.

So what do we do, she says.

He doesn’t know. He has to think. He will call her later.

When he leaves, Sarah returns, “And we finally had the fight that had been brewing for weeks. By the end of it, we were no longer friends, at least as far as Sarah was concerned. She called Lou Reed a fag and snapped my Velvet Underground album in half. She kicked me out of her house before I had developed a full-enough head of steam to storm out on my own. I went across the street, back home, slammed the door, stomped upstairs, and proceeded to trash my room.

“If I wasn’t quite ready to call this town quits, after that afternoon I certainly was. There was nothing left for me here.”

“What about your parents?”

“You mean my mother and her string of boyfriends? I would have moved out of her house at the age of twelve if I had the means — or knew where my father had run off to.

“I packed a duffel. If I hadn’t gotten the call from Doc that night, I would have left on my own. He asked me how long it might take me to be ready to leave and not come back. I said, ‘I’m already packed.’ He said to meet him out front at midnight.