Strangers at the Feast (35 page)

Whoop, I’m a crazy black mothafucka! Come on out here and look at me!

The boy on the floor thrashed toward the doorway. “Spider, take off!”

Whoop, whoop. Whoop, whoop, look at me. I’m a crazy nigger on your lawn! Come and get me!

Ginny, watching the boy circling closer, was only vaguely aware of someone lifting the pistol off the side table. She recognized her mother’s voice, screaming, “Leave us alone! Get away!” but did not see
her mother point the gun. She thought nothing until four loud shots thundered through the air. The boy on the lawn spun from the force. His knees buckled and his half-raised arms went limp as he slammed, with a crackling thud, face-first onto the grass.

Stunned, Ginny turned around in time to see the boy in the foyer reel back in fear. Hands bound behind him, he lay on his back, trying to push himself along the floor with his legs. In what she would remember, years later, as the worst moment of that entire night, his eyes caught Ginny’s—why hers?—and fastened on her face in a desperate plea for life, as Ginny’s mother emptied the chamber into him,
pop, pop, pop,
like she’d been firing guns all her life.

DENISE

Denise had fixed her gaze on her mother-in-law. Her entire vision was consumed by Eleanor’s liver-spotted hand squeezing the pistol in steady, deft spasms until the gun offered a hollow, almost mortified click. Bullet casings rolled over the floor, gunpowder thickened the air, and the boy, who moments earlier had crawled across the foyer, now lay hideously still. Through the black scraps of his clothes, patches of bright pink flesh shone obscenely.

Her knees weakened and she sat, noticing that her velour sweatpants were speckled with blood.

The gun clanked to the floor. “Oh, Gavin, what did I do?” Eleanor began to walk in a circle, until it looked as if she might walk straight into the wall.

Gavin led her to the bench.

Her face contorted as though she were in physical pain. “Oh no,” she mumbled. She covered her face with her hands, then pulled them back. “Are the children okay?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what…”

“Everybody’s not okay,” Denise heard herself say. “There’s a dead body in my foyer and another on my lawn. What the fuck
was
that?”

Douglas moved before her and opened his arms, but she pushed them away, loosening in her own arms a sudden unruly energy. She slapped his knee, his hip, and in one fierce swing her palm landed noisily across his cheek. Motionless, silent, her husband accepted her
rage. But almost as quickly as the fit began, Denise’s arms went slack with fatigue. She lost the urge to move, to speak. And as her breathing slowed, she discovered that what minutes earlier had been terror, what had been an awful looming possibility, had been replaced by a thick, black certainty of ruin.

They all held perfectly still as the silence of what happened pooled around them. They did not look at one another. Time thickened, molded over, and filled Denise’s mouth with sour dread.

Gavin broke the stillness as he crossed the foyer and retrieved the gun from the floor. “We should move quickly,” he said, as he began to wipe the gun’s handle and trigger with the hem of his undershirt.
Move quickly
. Denise realized what had to happen. Numbly, she stood and from the top drawer of the entryway table pulled a package of disinfectant towelettes. She carefully wiped down her hands, then handed the package to Gavin, who nodded and crouched before Eleanor to clean her fingers one by one. Slowly, Douglas shouldered closed the door. They all moved quietly, senselessly, like sleepwalkers.

“Douglas, untie him,” said Gavin, and Douglas, standing over the dead boy, momentarily shook his head before turning him facedown to unfasten the belt binding his hands.

The swift choreography of her husband’s motions nauseated Denise.

As she sat there, an image came to her unexpectedly of her parents in Pittsburgh. And her brothers. What were they doing right now? She had an urge to call them and tell them she was all right. To see if they were all right. She rose, rushed for her purse, and dug for her phone.

“Say there’s been a break-in,” Gavin called out. “Intruders down. But keep it short.”

It took a moment for his instructions to register, but then Denise realized what needed to be done, and she began to compose her statement before dialing.

“And Eleanor,” Gavin called, “wash your face and take off that sweater.”

Eleanor, confused, looked down at her blood-drenched clothes. As though her sweater were on fire, she yanked it over her head, and flung it to the floor.

“The cops will find it,” Ginny said distantly, the only one who hadn’t moved, still staring at the body on the floor.

The idea came to Denise like the answer to a riddle, and it was almost with pride that she said, “Not if you put it on.”

Ginny looked back in horror.

“Under what you’re wearing,” said Denise, who understood there was no time for niceties or gentleness, who understood they were now all complicit. “That’ll get it out of here.”

DETECTIVE BILL O’SHEA

It was close to 10:00 p.m. and the lawyer had yet to arrive. O’Shea still needed to interview the other family members individually, which meant a long night of statements. The fluorescent lights had triggered one of his fatigue headaches, usually remedied by activity, though none was in sight. He realized the shock of the scene at the house had taken a toll on him, and what he’d said to Gavin Olson was slowly sinking in, somewhat uncomfortably. As his jaw tingled into a silent yawn, he vigorously rubbed his face. He radioed Captain Briggs to explain the situation.

“Mr. Olson, we have to keep you, for now,” he announced. “But the rest of you can come back in the morning.”

Gavin Olson nodded with what looked like relief, brushed off his knees, and stood. He turned to his wife and touched her chin.

“Go home with Ginny. Try to get some sleep.”

She looked up at him, eyes teary. “I don’t want to leave you here.”

“I’ll be fine.”

O’Shea braced for a scene, for screaming, hitting. He’d seen every size and shape of crazy at the station. But she just squeezed her husband’s fingertips, then pressed them to her lips.

“You are a good man,” she said.

The son stood and stared at his father; they seemed like mirror images but for the father’s gray hair. The son set his hand awkwardly on his father’s shoulder. They looked to O’Shea like two people who had never before touched.

“We’ll come back first thing in the morning, Dad.”

Ginny Olson stood, her arms still crossed. Her red hair had come loose from its clip and hung in her face. With his thumb, Gavin Olson shifted it from her eyes.

“Go home,” he whispered. “Clean up.” Her chin dipped and she nodded.

Denise Olson gathered her sons, but said nothing to Gavin Olson.
The defector,
thought O’Shea. Tomorrow she would be the first to offer up the truth about the fingerprints. “Good night, Detective,” she said, and headed for the door. The rest of the family suddenly clustered together, barely an inch between any of them, as though taking shelter together beneath an umbrella, as they made their way out.

O’Shea felt a tinge of pity as they left; he knew none of them would sleep. They’d each lie in bed, replaying the events of the night. As he always did.

O’Shea rattled his keys and led Gavin Olson to a cell. He was tired but wanted a moment with the man. He sat beside him on the cot and poured him a cup of water.

“Sorry I can’t offer you anything stronger. It’s this or Snapple.”

“Water’s fine.”

“No one ever drowned their sorrows in water.”

Gavin sipped his water, swirled it around his mouth, and swallowed. “Can’t ever drown them.”

O’Shea laughed. “Don’t tell the Irish.” He twisted the cap back on the bottle. “You know, my father fought in Korea. Fifth Air Force.”

“Mine was in the Eighth,” Gavin answered. “Over Germany.”

“Different times. You Nam guys really got hung out to dry. Just so you know, some of us still give a damn.”

O’Shea saw the man open his mouth to speak, then exhale the thought. Instead, he glanced at O’Shea’s wedding ring. “Do you have a son?”

“Daughter,” said O’Shea. “But I tell you, she’d pick up a weapon and storm the enemy’s front line.”

“They’re tough these days.”

“Ballbusters. Still, you want to do everything you can to protect them. Hell, I’d unload a clip to protect my family.”

Gavin Olson stared into his cup and seemed to contemplate this. “Parents would do anything to protect their family.”

“Was it like a flashback? At the house?”

He threw his head back to take a long, final sip of water, then cleared his throat. “Something like that.”

As they sat in the chilly silence of the cell, O’Shea wanted to ask the man why he had wiped the prints off the gun. But he stopped himself—not because he thought he’d overstep boundaries but because, he realized, he didn’t want the answer.

Gavin Olson looked down at his knee, gave it a slow, melancholy rub. “I’m tired, Detective.”

“Get some shut-eye.”

GAVIN

The cell’s cement walls had been painted gray. From the bedside table rose an uneven pyramid of distractions that the detective had left for him: car magazines, a Bible, a worn deck of cards.

Gavin carefully removed his shoes and lay back on the bed. He set the cards on his stomach and over and over he cut the deck, shuffled, listening to the soft rhythmic slap of the cards. He wanted to quiet his mind, to block out the evening’s events, but kept recalling the look on Eleanor’s face in the pantry, an expression of helplessness he had seen before.

Suddenly he remembered—Eleanor’s article. An event from seven years earlier that he and Eleanor had never spoken of since.

Eleanor had lunched with a former classmate, a magazine editor who asked if Eleanor wanted to write an article about empty-nest syndrome.

His wife had once been a reporter for the Wellesley newspaper, writing articles about long cafeteria lines or about the plan to renovate the university gymnasium. Once in a while, she’d clip one and send it to him in Saigon. Gavin enjoyed seeing her name in the paper. He liked knowing that life back home, with all its trivial dramas, was chugging along. But he never suffered the slightest regret that she gave it up when he returned home, nor did he think she had.

Which was why he was surprised to come home one night and find their bed strewn with yellow legal pads and a rainbow of three-ring
binders. She’d bought ballpoint, rollerball, and felt-tip pens. Post-it pads of all sizes.

“Eleanor, I can get you this crap at the office. We have a supply closet.”

“I couldn’t wait!” She uncapped one of the pens and tested it on a pad with a dramatic scrawl, like a celebrity signing an autograph.

He could see she’d let her imagination run wild, gotten the idea in her head that this was going to be a breeze. It was going to be fun. Everybody would be talking about the brilliant article by Eleanor Olson, and soon she’d be writing articles regularly. Gavin found something grating in her cheery confidence, something verging on disrespect. He’d worked thirty years at one company, eking out four promotions and five raises, twice forgoing a Christmas bonus when the company was struggling. He’d woken at 5:30 a.m. each day to catch a train into the city so that he could put a roof over their heads and send their children to college. His wife thought a passing invitation to participate in the professional world meant red carpets would be rolled out for her.

“Eleanor, think this through. Magazines have editors, serious editors, and fact-checkers, and they’re used to dealing with professionals. This is going to be a lot of work, so don’t say you’ll do it unless you’re really willing to put the hours in. You don’t wanna piss people off.”

“Well, how many hours do you think it would take? I have oodles of free time.”

“You’ve never done this before. It’s going to be hard. You’re not a professional writer.”

“Colleen believes I can do it. And she’s a professional editor.” Eleanor settled on a felt-tip and swept the other pens aside. “And frankly,
you’ve
never done something like this before, so it would be hard for you to estimate the time, right?”

She was treating work as if it were a hairdo she had finally decided to try. Did she have any idea what his days had been like all those years?

“Colleen’s trying to talk you into doing this, that’s her job. You haven’t
put a word on a page in almost twenty years. It isn’t going to just pour out of you. Eleanor, you hardly manage to finish the books for your book club. You’re not goal-oriented. You never have been. These women who write articles and edit magazines—you’re not like them. Do this if you want to, I’m not stopping you. But as your husband, it’s my job to tell it to you straight. I’ve never sugarcoated things for you, and I think I should protect you if I see you walking into a brick wall.”

“Oh.” Her mouth hung open. He could see tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I thought you’d be excited for me.”

“Sweetheart.” He sat beside her. “You’re a great mother, and you’ve always taken pride in that, and I’ve taken pride in that. I just hate the idea of you thinking that’s not enough. I hate to see you set up to feel lousy about yourself.”

“Well, it was nice to be asked,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “I think that’s certainly very flattering. Don’t you?”

“Being asked is what’s important.”

He had thought that was the end of it. Life went on as normal; she ran her errands. She kept busy with her gardening club, planted a whole row of petunias and begonias in the backyard.

But then he came home one day, months later, and found her in the bedroom at six o’clock in the afternoon, sitting at her vanity table, her face naked and shiny with cold cream, staring dully at her own reflection. At first he worried something had happened to the kids, and he tried to think of where they were—Douglas at work, Ginny teaching. Then he noticed the pencil behind one of her ears, the pen behind the other. The bed was littered with crumpled pages, along with an open thesaurus and dictionary.