WHITNEY PREPARES A SUPPER OF grilled salmon, steamed brown rice, and string beans. For dessert there is Greek yogurt with blueberries. Hastings wears plaid pajamas and watches his daughter skip around the living room singing one of her favorite songs.
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
With what should I fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry?
With what should I fix it, dear Henry? With what?
He drinks tea and settles in for a long, tranquil evening with his wife and child. Liza pulls at his arm and leads him to the table. They all wash their hands and eat together as a family.
“How was coffee with Mr. Jackson?” Whitney says.
“Good,” he says. “We discussed solipsism.”
“I’m so glad you have someone you can talk to, baby.”
Liza chews with dutiful distaste. She eats all the fish first, then the rice. She rolls the green beans across her plate and sips at her water. “I want a pop,” she says.
“No,” Whitney says. “We don’t drink pop. It isn’t good for us.”
“All the kids at school do. It tastes good. Why can’t I drink it?”
“It’s unhealthy,” Hastings says. “We’re just discouraging poor choices.”
“Dr Pepper’s my favorite.”
“Liza,” Whitney says. “You’re not having pop. It makes you fat and gross. And no boy likes a fat girl.”
Liza sighs into her hand and squishes her cheek. “Meine Mutter ist böse.”
“No. She isn’t. Sie liebt dich.”
“What’re you two saying now? What did she say about me?”
“She asked me if Dr Pepper is a real doctor.”
Liza giggles.
“I hate being lied to at my own table,” Whitney says. “It’s not funny anymore.”
The lights flicker. They look to the shaking ceiling. The house pulses black.
“The bad men are blasting again,” Liza says.
“They’re just men,” Hastings says. “And they have addresses.”
Soon it’s over, and they continue eating.
“Today Mrs. Hotchkiss came in for a coloring. Her daughter’s still angry with us, Brett.”
“He was grabbing at me, Momma! I didn’t like it. I just wanted to go down the slide.”
“It was just a scratch,” Hastings says.
“She said it never healed. That Rick has a scar. I think I should take Liza over to apologize. Or better yet, you should take her, in uniform. I think that would be good.” She takes a bite. “I think that would be the right thing to do.”
“It was months ago,” Hastings says.
“Liza needs to learn how to be a nice girl. How to play with others.”
“I am a nice girl. He was the mean one.”
“You just can’t respond that way, honey,” Whitney says. “You should have stayed calm and used your words. Asked him to please stop because you don’t like being touched that way.”
“He wouldn’t have listened,” Liza says.
“You hurt him. You hurt that boy. And you need to apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” Liza says.
“Don’t be sorry!” Hastings slams his fist on the table. He wants to punch his wife in the mouth, just to prove the point. Instead, he shouts, “If you listen to people like your mother, you will only become a victim.”
She lets go of her fork. “Thanks, Brett. Thanks a lot. Asshole.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Liza says, looking between them. “Don’t fight, please. I didn’t mean to. I’ll do whatever makes it okay.”
“Arrogant. Selfish.” His wife won’t look at him. “Asshole.”
“I really didn’t mean to,” Liza says. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t like him touching me, and I didn’t know how to make him stop.”
“You know better,” Whitney says. “That’s not how I raised you.”
Hastings stares far away. After a long time of scraping forks and furtive bites, the heat subsides. His tone turns whimsical, detached, abducts his father’s professorial voice. “The concept of Will is very instructive here. To will is not about free choice, although it is part of decisiveness, which is merely the biological instinct to act in uncertainty, the deer that flees, the wolf that chases, the little girl who pokes bullies with sticks. Will is about passion and what passion desires. But passion is not sex as with Freud or beauty as with Plato. For Nietzsche it is power. Power has a metaphysical status. It is the only truth. And to will violence reveals the dark sentience of the world itself.”
After a moment, Whitney just shakes her head. “Dark sentience?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?” Liza is too uncertain, too afraid, to laugh. “What’s Dad talking about?”
“Don’t worry, baby. And don’t listen to your father. He’s just being weird again.”