XXIV

As she approached her apartment building, Mrs. March came upon a cluster of people on the sidewalk, huddled together against the cold. One was pacing in circles, while another stood a bit further away, smoking a cigarette. It was difficult to see any of their faces or to determine their genders, as all were strapped into puffy winter coats and wore winter hats pulled low over their eyebrows. Most, if not all, were carrying the same book—George’s new novel. The glossy cover winked in the light at Mrs. March from the gloved hands of one, from the coat pocket of another. One of them must have sought George out, she surmised, or spotted him going into the building—and now they were all waiting around for him, hoping to get a picture or an autograph.

A few of them eyed her as she dashed into the building. The doorman stood silent and stiff as he held the door for her.

“Good afternoon,” she said, to no response. She crossed the lobby, blinking in bewilderment. Had she uttered the words aloud or had she just imagined it?

THAT EVENING, the March family sat together at the dinner table. Across from Mrs. March, Jonathan quietly picked at his food. She sneaked glances at him, studying his sunken, dark-rimmed eyes, his reserved demeanor, and concluded that there was simply no way there could be any truth in what the principal had said about him. The word corrupt hung limply inside her like a rotting organ. Maybe, she theorized, grasping at straws, it was Jonathan who had been corrupted. Led to dark acts by a classmate, or by . . . she looked over at George, who was consuming his meal in noisy gulps. He has corrupted him, she thought. This monster has corrupted my baby.

“Potatoes, dear,” said George, not bothering to look up from his plate.

“Yes, potatoes,” echoed Jonathan.

Mrs. March slid the serving dish toward them, now perceiving, with a sudden electric clarity, the ways in which the two were alike. She had never really considered it before (Jonathan seemed to have sprung, self-formed, bearing no genetic material from either of them), but she saw now a definite likeness—the curve of the forehead, the hairline, the arch of the eyebrows. Their eyes were different, though, and she was relieved—for if they were indeed windows to the soul, it stood to reason that their souls must be quite different. Jonathan’s heavily lashed, big, empty eyes shone in stark contrast to George’s small, piercing, knowing ones. But maybe George’s came from nearsightedness, from years of squinting at his books through his glasses. As a child he may have been just as big-eyed and inexpressive as Jonathan. He had been an unusually intelligent boy, according to his mother. George had always been idolized by his mother. They had developed a special bond, Mrs. March supposed bitterly, after George’s father died. United in their grief. Even though his father, according to George himself, had been strict. Aloof. Perhaps it wasn’t losing him that had traumatized George, Mrs. March suddenly considered. Perhaps, unbeknownst to everyone, George’s father had been abusive. A drunk. Beating young George into submission. She berated George in her mind for hiding his painful past. He must be embarrassed by it, she supposed, or he blamed himself, as many abused children do. Or maybe, maybe George had liked it. She stifled a gasp at the mere thought, and the asparagus she was attempting to swallow caught in her throat. Maybe his father had turned George into a monster, too, and now George was doing the same to Jonathan. Grandfather, father, son: a legacy of monsters.

She stared at George, then at Jonathan. Neither of them acknowledged her. She wondered for a fleeting instant whether she was even there at all. They had asked her for the potatoes, hadn’t they? Wanting to speak—needing to speak, to have them look at her, to confirm her presence—she cleared her throat and said, “Well, Jonathan. Aren’t you going to tell your father what happened at school today?”

Jonathan raised his eyes, his face inscrutable, eyebrows puckering into a frown. George peered at him over his glasses. “Poe?” he said.

“I got suspended,” said Jonathan, looking down at his plate.

George sighed, more in resignation than surprise.

“He did something,” said Mrs. March with a dry mouth, “to a little girl.”

George eyed Jonathan over his glasses. “Well, that simply won’t do. We have taught you how to behave,” he said, his voice stern. “I will not accept this kind of behavior from you. Frankly, I’m disappointed, as is your mother. You know better than this.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Jonathan, now with a wisp of regret in his voice. “Alec was daring the other boys to do it—”

“Alec?” said Mrs. March, hope returning as she relished the possibility that Sheila Miller might be going through the same ordeal upstairs. “Was Alec suspended, too?”

Jonathan shook his head, still staring into his plate. “No, he wasn’t even sent to the principal’s office, but it was all his fault—”

George slammed his hand against the table. Mrs. March jumped.

“This is unacceptable!” yelled George. “Suspended at age eight, and not even able to admit responsibility for something you’ve done! This is your fault, and yours only. You better think about this long and hard, Jonathan, and don’t you ever let this happen again.”

Mrs. March watched, bewildered, as the scene unfolded before her eyes. George’s jaw was set, his nostrils flared. The saltshaker lay on its side. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him like this, if ever. George had never been the stern disciplinarian with Jonathan. She imagined a seething George with Sylvia—Sylvia begging for her life, splayed on her bedroom floor, and George, towering over her, telling her that what was about to happen was her own fault, that she had to take responsibility for her actions. For teasing him. For provoking him. Later, as the life seeped from her violated body, she would have used her last breath to beg for mercy a final time while George laughed at her. Mrs. March shuddered at the monstrous tableau she had conjured. Inside her mouth, the lining of her cheeks bled from her chewing.

“Go to your room. You’re finished,” said George. Jonathan rose from his chair and ran out, refusing to look at either of them.

Mrs. March looked sideways at her husband, who carried on with his meal. She watched him cut into an asparagus spear, bit by bit. When he swallowed the last piece, he frowned and said, “Wasn’t it somebody’s birthday today? Your sister’s?”

“No,” she answered. Fearing he’d think she was being curt, she added, “September.”

“Oh, right. Well, it’s somebody’s birthday. Can’t remember whose.”

Sylvia’s, thought Mrs. March.

“Can I have the rest of that?” said George, nodding at her unfinished plate. “If you don’t want it.”

She pushed her plate toward him. He usually enjoyed light dinners, as a heavy meal made him too sluggish to write. Perhaps his anger had awakened a hunger, she thought. Maybe he thrived on it, on sucking the discomfort out of the air, like a bee sucking dew off a petal.

THAT NIGHT, George sat down on the bed as she slept, but it wasn’t George. It was the devil. “I won’t believe anything you say,” she told him. He stroked her cheek with a long yellow fingernail and said, “You have so many demons, my dear.”

“Yes.”

“They’ve found their way in.”

“The exterminator is coming on Monday,” she said. “There’s an infestation, you see.”

“What happened to your ear?” the devil said, tracing her earlobe with the same yellow nail.

“Oh, I burned it, but it’s all right now.”

“Is it?”

She brought her fingers to her earlobe and felt the crust. “Oh,” she said, “that’s funny. I thought it had healed.”

The crackling earlobe came off, like a wobbly tooth from its socket. She offered it to him to examine, and he popped it into his mouth, chewed on it, and swallowed it, which she found rather rude. “Excuse me,” she said loudly, “someone’s calling for me.”

He gave her a curious look. “No one’s calling you,” he said.

“Yes, in the hallway.”

“There’s no one in the hallway.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she was standing in her bedroom, her hand closed around the doorknob. It was mostly dark, except for the diluted moonlight entering through the poorly drawn curtains and a line of light from the hallway sneaking in under the bedroom door.

Slowly, she turned the knob and opened the bedroom door. There was someone just outside—a dark figure standing in shadows, facing her, motionless. She took a step back, gasping for breath, then squinted as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Jonathan. He was strangely erect, his large vacant eyes staring past her.

She knelt before him in his open-eyed blindness and shook him. He blinked, startled, and began to cry. She hugged him, or rather he hugged her, and as his shaking little body began to settle against hers, she noticed the light on in George’s study. They stood like that for a while, Jonathan and her, hugging each other as she looked at the light under the study door.