The New Yorker Stories

“Did you speak to him?” Charlotte said.

“No,” Nicholas said. “I have nothing to say to him.” He was walking toward their car, at the foot of the drive. She looked up.

“I only asked,” she said.

He was too far ahead of her to hear. He held open the car door, and she got inside. He crossed in front of the car, and she realized that for some reason he was upset.

“All right,” he said, getting in and slamming his door. “You’re wronged. You’re always wronged. Would you like it if I left the engine running and we both went back in and said good night to Father Curnan? Because that would be entirely proper. I could bow and you could curtsy.”

Charlotte wouldn’t have thought that at that moment there was an emotion she could feel stronger than frustration. Wouldn’t have thought it until she realized that what was smothering her was sadness. “No,” she said quietly. “You’re entirely right. He didn’t even notice that we left.”

The telephone rang twice, interrupting their Christmas Eve ceremony of tea and presents. Nicholas had been nice to her all day—even taking her out to lunch and trying to make her laugh by telling her stories about a professor of his who delivered all his lectures in the interrogative—because he knew he had jumped on her the night before, leaving the party. Each time the phone rang, Charlotte hoped it wasn’t Andrea, because then he would drift away and be gone for ages. The first call was from Martine in New York, overjoyed by the flowers; the next was from M.L., to wish them a good Christmas and to say that she was sorry she had not really got to talk to them amid the confusion of the party.

Nicholas gave her a cashmere scarf and light-blue leather gloves. She gave him subscriptions to Granta and Manhattan, inc., a heavy sweater with a hood, and a hundred-dollar check to get whatever else he wanted. His father gave him a paperweight that had belonged to his grandfather, and a wristwatch that would apparently function even when launched from a rocket pad. When Nicholas went into the kitchen to boil up more water, she slid over on the couch and glanced at the gift card. It said, “Love, Dad,” in Edward’s nearly illegible script. Nicholas returned and opened his last present, which was from Melissa, his stepsister. It was a cheap ballpoint pen with a picture of a woman inside. When you turned the pen upside down her clothes disappeared.

“How old is Melissa?” Charlotte asked.

“Twelve or thirteen,” he said.

“Does she look like her mother?”

“Not much,” Nicholas said. “But she’s really her sister’s kid, and I never saw her sister.”

“Her sister’s child?” Charlotte took a sip of her tea, which was laced with bourbon. She held it in her mouth a second before swallowing.

“Melissa’s mother killed herself when Melissa was just a baby. I guess her father didn’t want her. Anyway, he gave her up.”

“Her sister killed herself ?” Charlotte said. She could feel her eyes widening. Suddenly she remembered the night before, the open window in the bathroom, the black sky, wind smacking her in the face.

“Awful, huh?” Nicholas said, lifting the tea bag out of the mug and lowering it to the saucer. “Hey, did I shock you? How come you didn’t know that? I thought you were the one with a sense for disaster.”

“What do you mean? I don’t expect disaster. I don’t know anything at all about Melissa. Naturally—”

“I know you don’t know anything about her,” he said, cutting her off. “Look—don’t get mad at me, but I’m going to say this, because I think you aren’t aware of what you do. You don’t ask anything, because you’re afraid of what every answer might be. It makes people reluctant to talk to you. Nobody wants to tell you things.”

She took another sip of tea, which had gone tepid. Specks of loose tea leaves had floated to the top. “People talk to me,” she said.

“I know they do,” he said. “I’m not criticizing you. I’m just telling you that if you give off those vibes people are going to back off.”

“Who backs off ?” she said.

“Charlotte, I don’t know everything about your life. I’m just telling you that you’ve never asked one thing about Dad’s family in—what is it? Eleven years. You don’t even mention my stepmother by name, ever. Her name is Joan. You don’t want to know things, that’s all.”

He kicked a ball of wrapping paper away from his foot. “Let’s drop it,” he said. “What I’m saying is that you’re always worried. You always think something’s going to happen.”

She started to speak, but took another drink instead. Maybe all mothers seemed oppressive when their children were teenagers. Didn’t everyone say that parents could hardly do anything right during those years? That was what Father Curnan said—that although we may always try to do our best, we can’t always expect to succeed. She wished Father Curnan were here right now. The whole evening would be different.

“Don’t start sulking,” Nicholas said. “You’ve been pissed off at me since last night, because I wouldn’t go over and glad-hand Father Curnan. I hardly know him. I went to the party with you because you wanted me to. I don’t practice anymore. I’m not a Catholic anymore. I don’t believe what Father Curnan believes. Just because twenty years ago he had some doubt in his life and sorted it out, you think he’s a hero. I don’t think he’s a hero. I don’t care what he decided. That’s fine for him, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“I never mention your loss of faith,” she said. “Never. We don’t discuss it.”

“You don’t have to say anything. What’s awful is that you let me know that I’ve scared you. It’s like I deliberately did something to you.”

“What would you have me do?” she said. “How good an actress do you think I can be? I do worry. You don’t give me credit for trying.”

“You don’t give me credit,” he said. “I don’t get credit for putting up with Dad’s crap because I came to Virginia to be with you instead of going to his house. If I go to a stupid party for some priest who condescends to me by letter and says he’ll pray for my soul, I don’t get credit from you for going because you wanted me there. It never occurs to you. Instead I get told that I didn’t shake his hand on the way out. If I had told