Read The Rules of Survival Online
Authors: Nancy Werlin
The Rules of Survival (9 page)
“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked Callie.
“No.” But my sister was clearly less interested in this movie than in the Pleasantville one. I felt her eyes on me.
“Matt, listen. Why did Emmy say what she did tonight?”
“You mean about Murdoch?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess she still thinks about him,” I said. “And misses him.”
“Right,” Callie said patiently. “But I meant, why did she come out and say it to Mom? Why didn’t she know better?”
“She did it on purpose. I could tell.”
“She ought to know better!”
“She does,” I said. “She decided to do it anyway.”
Callie picked up the remote from where it lay on the carpet between us. She switched the TV back to
Pleasantville,
where the girl was causing people to see things in color. She was like an infection, that girl. I tried to get the remote back, but Callie put it under her stomach.
Pleasantville,
where the girl was causing people to see things in color. She was like an infection, that girl. I tried to get the remote back, but Callie put it under her stomach.
“That’s a problem,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“You know what it is?” Callie said thoughtfully. “It’s that she feels safe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Emmy feels safe. She knew we would protect her from Mom, and so she felt like she could say whatever she wanted. Take the risk.” She paused. “And as long as she feels safe, she might keep on doing stuff like that.”
“What exactly are you trying to say?” I sat up and turned my back to the movie. “That we shouldn’t protect Emmy?”
Callie kept staring at the TV. “No.”
“That’s what it sounded like you were saying.”
“I’m just thinking things out.” Callie’s voice was flat. “Emmy feeling safe is dangerous. For her. For us. It’s just a fact, Matt. I never imagined she would feel safe.” She added: “
I
never have.”
I
never have.”
I turned away from Callie. Of course it was better, safer, for Emmy, with both of us older and on the watch. I had only been one and a half when Callie was born. I had done my best.
On the television, the brother, who had loved Pleasantville before, was becoming convinced that his sister was right after all. Color and life were better, even if they came with pain and death attached. Wow, thanks for the explanation, Hollywood. I said, “I’m glad that Emmy feels safe. It means we’re doing a good job.”
“Maybe. But we’re just doing what we always did.” A pause. “I don’t think it’s only about us.”
I saw where she was going. “Murdoch,” I said. “You’re saying that Emmy feels safe because of Murdoch. Even though he’s gone.”
Callie’s hands gripped each other. “Look. I’m not sure how to say this. But Matt, it’s time to stop dreaming. It’s time to live in the real world. All of us, I mean. Emmy. You.” A pause. “And me.”
Was that an admission? It didn’t matter. I said, “I do live in the real world.”
“You know what I’m trying to say,” said Callie softly.
I did. I hoped she wouldn’t say it out loud, but she did. It didn’t matter that her voice stayed soft.
“Matt, it’s all over. He’s gone.”
“I know that,” I said.
“No, you don’t. You’re still hoping, like Emmy. But you know what? Murdoch’s not some superhero who’s going to swoop in and change everything. That dream is over. Our life is what it is. Don’t you see? It’s getting dangerous to go on dreaming that it’s going to be different.”
“Because of what Emmy said tonight.”
“That’s not the only thing,” said Callie, even more softly. And then I did turn to look at her. In an instant I knew.
I said, “You heard Nikki this afternoon. You heard what she was threatening about Murdoch.”
Callie nodded.
I shrugged. “I’ll warn him,” I said.
“No,” said Callie. “You have to forget him. Not pretend to. Really forget. We have to get on with our lives as they are. Listen, Matt. Think for a minute. Even when you went to talk to Daddy, you were really thinking about Murdoch. You were trying to make Ben be Murdoch.”
“No,” I said. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“No,” I said again. But in fact, she was right that I’d had superhero fantasies, father fantasies . . .
“I’m sorry,” Callie was saying. “Matt, I’m so sorry. I wish it had all come true. But it didn’t. Okay? We agree?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“We can get back to normal here if we try. That’s what we need to do. We need to get back to thinking and feeling exactly the way we did before. It’s the
only
way to reassure Mom.”
only
way to reassure Mom.”
“But how are we supposed to do that?” I said. “Program ourselves to forget? I can’t. Emmy can’t.”
“We just pretend.”
“I’ve been pretending.”
“We have to do a good job at it. A great job.”
I was silent.
“Will you try, Matt? We can’t mention him or even think of him. We have to erase him from our memories. He has to be dead to us. That time, last summer—it never happened. It was just like the summer before.” Callie got right in my face. “Emmy’s only little, Matt. Just six. If we help her to forget, she will.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She will if we show her how,” said Callie. And then she added, “And so will you. In time, we’ll all forget.” She waited.
I didn’t believe I would. I also didn’t believe we could go back in time. But Callie was right that you, Emmy, couldn’t be allowed to goad Nikki. “Okay,” I said.
19
DEMONS
What neither Callie nor I knew that night, as we talked about trying to go back in time in our relationship with Nikki, was that things were changing in our mother—just as you, Callie, and I had changed. I believe it had to do with Murdoch, Murdoch as kind of a catalyzing experience in our lives, the chemical ingredient that made an already poisonous compound unstable as well. I might be wrong; it might simply have been time itself that destabilized us so sharply and so permanently. Whatever it was, the end result was the same: No amount of pretending could take us back to the way we were before.
The change in Nikki over that winter . . . I’m trying to find a way to describe it.
Okay. Emmy, this is what I think: Demons are real. Since I’m not religious, I think of them as metaphors for the evil desires and impulses all humans have. A religious person can think of them as separate evil beings that can possess you. Either way, I believe they exist, lurking patiently around and in us, whispering their twisted points of view, ever alert for an opportunity. The sudden chink in your armor when you’re tired, frightened, or angry. The invitation you issue in that moment of vulnerability.
Come inside me. Tell me what to do.
I believe that I could and should have known about the demons that were on the borderline of ruling our mother. I had actually seen something in her eyes and felt some force in the air around her for many years. The demons are unmistakable even when you don’t have a name for them. So, I knew. And yet, I didn’t.
My mistake was that I thought the demons already ruled her. I thought they were already in control. But I know now that, in her own strange way, she had been doing her best all those years, the years before Murdoch, to hold them at bay. They had her ear, but not her soul.
Now, I am not saying that she fought her demons in the years before Murdoch. Nikki played with them before. But she was not ruled by them before Murdoch and they did not own her.
And then—at some point, right around this time, maybe even the very night I promised Callie that I would try to forget Murdoch—at some point right around that very night, our mother invited the demons into her soul. I really believe that this was what happened. The lock was opened. The key was thrown away.
Come inside me. Tell me how to get what I want.
I believe that she thought the demons would help her win back the love and dependence of her children from the thief who had stolen them. I believe she chose this route on the night that you prayed for Murdoch in order to spite her.
One more thing. On that night I, too, was trying to think of some way to restabilize our lives. Callie had her own idea, as I’ve already described. And my idea involving Ben had already been shot down.
Despite my promise, my mind kept turning back to Murdoch. The man I’d seen in the Cumberland Farms, and the man we’d gotten to know since. That man wouldn’t feel right, abandoning kids in trouble. Real trouble. He was trying to do just that, of course, but what if . . .
What if I put some pressure on him?
20
CHURCH
Nikki didn’t come home that night, and by the next morning, when she did, she had a new man with her. He was the first man she’d brought home since Murdoch. She herded him into the kitchen, where we were sitting around the table pretending to eat cereal.
A half hour before, Callie and I had begun trying to have our talk with you, Emmy. We wanted you to agree to a new family rule: Never, ever mention Murdoch’s name, at least not in front of Nikki, but preferably never.
You had not wanted to promise. You folded your arms and stuck out your lower lip. “You can’t make me!” You were the defiant, powerful, and self-confident Emmy of the previous night, praying for Murdoch, defying Nikki.
Callie wheedled. I pleaded. Callie threatened. I bribed. I was thinking we were making progress—you sighed and lowered your head—when we heard the front door and footsteps on the stairs. Nikki’s laughter. A man’s voice.
We barely had time to throw together a just-the-kids-having-breakfast scene. You cooperated with that, at least. You were in your booster seat at the table, chomping on Froot Loops, when Nikki came in, pulling a large man behind her by the hand. The man was balding and ponytailed and very, very big. He wore an old leather jacket and frayed jeans, and had a big collection of keys clinking at his side. He could barely tear his hopeful, avid eyes away from Nikki.
“This is Rob,” Nikki said carelessly to us. “My kids,” she said to him. She didn’t bother telling him our names. He wouldn’t know it, but that meant he wasn’t going to be around for long. I was relieved.
“Hi, Mom,” said Callie. She threw me a quick look, but I didn’t need her reminder.
“Hi,” I said. I couldn’t quite manage to smile at Nikki, but I said, “Want me to make coffee?”
“Sure,” said Nikki. “Thanks, hon.” Then she looked at you, Emmy.
You picked up a yellow Froot Loop, stuck out your tongue, delicately placed the Froot Loop on it, and waggled it. With your other hand, you picked up your Minnie Mouse mug. I saw Nikki’s gaze travel to it, and I remembered Murdoch had bought it for you.
It would have to be thrown out. You were too old for it anyway, really.
“Say hi, Emmy,” said Callie. I could feel her tension.
You took your time chewing and swallowing the Froot Loop. Then: “Hi, Emmy,” you parroted.
Nikki decided to laugh, but it was a short bark that might possibly have convinced Rob she was amused, but would fool no one else, including you. “Tell me when the coffee’s ready,” Nikki said to me. She took Rob’s hand and guided him out of the room. We heard her bedroom door close, but not before we also heard Rob say:
I just can’t believe my luck.
I just can’t believe my luck.
I turned on the radio and punched the tune button at random. Church music came on—an organ. It was deep and sonorous and filled the room.
I got busy making Nikki’s coffee at the counter. She liked it weak, with milk. I didn’t know how Rob liked his coffee. So, what was I supposed to do, go knock on the door and ask? Would I have done that six months or a year ago, before Murdoch? What exactly did it mean to act normal, the way Callie thought we should?
The organ music from the radio swelled in the background.
You were now crunching Froot Loops with vigor, using your hands to eat. Murdoch would have insisted on you using a spoon. Defiantly, I found one and handed it to you. You looked at it, at me, and then condescended to use it.
I cleared my throat. “Well, what should we do today?” I asked my sisters. “Go on over to Castle Island? Emmy, you can go on the swings. I don’t think it’ll be too cold if we keep moving.”
Callie didn’t look up from her own cereal. She was stirring it intently, but it didn’t look like she’d actually eaten any. She replied immediately. “I think we should get dressed and go to church. Like, right now. How about that one over on East Broadway? I’m pretty sure they have a Mass at nine o’clock or nine thirty or something like that.”
“What?” We hardly ever went to church.
Callie stirred her cereal faster. “The music made me think of it. Why not, Matt?” She stopped stirring and shrugged. “It’ll get us out of the house. They’re open on Sunday morning. And Emmy likes praying. Well, she can pray at church.”
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