The World According to Garp

wouldn't usually pass up the opportunity to go on teasing him in the rain. Yet, instead, she looked suddenly shocked by Garp's ghastly smile; she rolled her window back up.

“See ya,” she called, and drove off. Slowly.

“See ya,” Garp mumbled after her; he admired the woman but he was thinking that maybe even this horror would eventually come to pass: that he would see Mrs. Ralph.

In the house he gave Walt a hot bath, slipping into the tub with him—an excuse, which he often took, to wrestle with that little body. Duncan was too big for Garp to fit in the tub with him anymore.

“What's for supper?” Duncan called upstairs.

Garp realized he had forgotten supper.

“I forgot supper,” Garp called.

“You forgot?” Walt asked him, but Garp dunked Walt in the tub, and tickled him, and Walt fought back and forgot about the issue.

“You forgot supper?” Duncan hollered from downstairs.

Garp decided he was not going to get out of the tub. He kept adding more hot water; the steam was good for Walt's lungs, he believed. He would try to keep the child in the tub with him as long as Walt was content to play.

They were still in the bath together when Helen got home.

“Dad forgot supper,” Duncan told her immediately.

“He forgot supper?” Helen said.

“He forgot all about it,” Duncan said.

“Where is he?” Helen asked.

“He's taking a bath with Walt,” Duncan said. “They've been taking a bath for hours.”

“Heavens,” said Helen. “Maybe they've drowned.”

“Wouldn't you love that?” Garp hollered from his bath, upstairs. Duncan laughed.

“He's in a great mood,” Duncan told his mother.

“I can see that he is,” Helen said. She put her hand softly on Duncan's shoulder, being careful not to let him know that she was actually leaning on him for support. She felt suddenly unsure of her balance. Poised at the bottom of the stairs, she called up to Garp, “Had a bad day?”

But Garp slipped underwater; it was a gesture of control, because he felt such hatred for her and he didn't want Walt to see it or hear it.

There was no answer and Helen tightened her grip on Duncan's shoulder. Please, not in front of the children, she thought. It was a new situation for her—that she should find herself in the defensive position in a matter of some contention with Garp—and she felt frightened.

“Shall I come up?” she called.

There was still no answer; Garp could hold his breath a long time.

Walt shouted back downstairs to her, “Dad's underwater!”

“Dad is so weird,” Duncan said.

Garp came up for air just as Walt yelled again, “He's holding his breath!”

I hope so, Helen thought. She didn't know what to do, she couldn't move.

In a minute or so, Garp whispered to Walt, “Tell her I'm still underwater, Walt. Okay?”

Walt appeared to think this was a fiendishly clever trick and he yelled downstairs to Helen, “Dad's still underwater!”

“Wow,” Duncan said. “We should time him. It must be a record.”

But now Helen felt panicked. Duncan moved out from under her hand—he was starting up the stairs to see this breath-holding feat—and Helen felt that her legs were lead.

“He's still underwater!” Walt shrieked, though Garp was drying Walt with a towel and had already started to drain the tub; they stood naked on the bathmat by the big mirror together. When Duncan came into the bathroom, Garp silenced him by putting a finger to his lips.

“Now, say it together,” Garp whispered. “On the count of three, “He's still under!” One, two, three.”

“He's still under!” Duncan and Walt howled together, and Helen felt her own lungs burst. She felt a scream escape her but no sound emerged, and she ran up the stairs thinking that only her husband could have conceived of such a plot to pay her back: drowning himself in front of their children and leaving her to explain to them why he did it.

She ran crying into the bathroom, so surprising Duncan and Walt that she had to recover almost immediately—in order not to frighten them. Garp was naked at the mirror, slowly drying between his toes and watching her in a way she remembered that Ernie Holm had taught his wrestlers how to look for openings.

“You're too late,” he told her. “I already died. But it's touching, and a little surprising, to see that you care.”

“We'll talk about this later?” she asked him, hopefully—and smiling, as if it had been a good joke.

“We fooled you!” Walt said, poking Helen on that sharp bone above her hip.

“Boy, if we'd pulled that on you,” Duncan said to his father, “you'd have really been pissed at us.”

“The children haven't eaten,” Helen said.

“Nobody's eaten,” Garp said. “Unless you have.”

“I can wait,” she told him.

“So can I,” Garp told her.

“I'll get the kids something,” Helen offered, pushing Walt out of the bathroom. “There must be eggs, and cereal.”

“For supper?” Duncan said. “That sounds like a great supper,” he said. “I just forgot, Duncan,” Garp said.

“I want toast,” Walt said.

“You can have toast, too,” Helen said.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Garp asked Helen.

She just smiled at him.

“God, even I can handle toast,” Duncan said. “I think even Walt can fix cereal.”

“The eggs are tricky,” Helen said; she tried to laugh.

Garp went on drying between his toes. When the kids were out of the bathroom, Helen poked her head back in. “I'm sorry, and I love you,” Helen said, but he wouldn't look up from his deliberate procedure with the towel. “I never wanted to hurt you,” she went on. “How did you find out? I have never once stopped thinking of you. Was it that girl?” Helen whispered, but Garp gave all his attention to his toes.

When she had set out food for the children (as if they were pets! she would think to herself, later), she went back upstairs to him. He was still in front of the mirror, sitting naked on the edge of the tub.

“He means nothing; he never took anything away from you,” she told him. “It's all over now, really it is.”

“Since when?” he asked her.

“As of now,” she said to Garp. “I just have to tell him.”

“Don't tell him,” Garp said. “Let him guess.”

“I can't do that,” Helen said.

“There's shell in my egg!” Walt hollered from downstairs.

“My toast is burnt!” Duncan said. They were plotting together to distract their parents from each other— whether they knew it or not. Children, Garp thought, have some instinct for separating their parents when their parents ought to be separated.