Memory changes us. That is, our recollections figure in what we do, what we fear, and what attracts or repels us. Memory shapes our habits. It also shapes our future. I know how to clean, load, and fire a weapon because familiarity and repetition have imprinted these actions on my brain. I remember how to kill because I’ve done it before. I am likely to kill again despite promises made and best forgotten.
As my son lies suspended between life and death, I think of the people I love or respect, people who know what I’ve done. Brian and Michael. Grayson Tenant, who for two decades kept me sane by keeping me apprised of my family’s whereabouts. Charlie and his friend Fred. Possibly even Kate. They assume I had no choice. They’ve never questioned further.
I do, though. I ask myself whether I am predisposed to kill. Am I an abomination or merely a product of my culture or environment? I’m an American, after all. D. H. Lawrence declared the essential American soul to be “hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.” Lawrence, a British novelist and essayist, found himself reviled later in his life as a pornographer. I suppose we could take his assessment with a grain of salt. At the same time, the description provides both explanation and cover.
Perhaps my run-in with Victor or someone like him was inevitable. I can’t say. I had to learn the art of self-preservation early on. When your father is an unsuccessful poet dependent on heroin and cocaine for inspiration, you learn to disappear. When your mother, an opportunistic beauty with no time for a daughter, takes up with a variety of disreputable men, you stay hidden. Until one man comes along and tries to make you do something you don’t want to do.
Not Victor. Stuart.
After my mother threw my father out, I lived under the slit-eyed scrutiny of strange men for three years. I tried to be careful around these interlopers. I kept my anger in check. I didn’t want confrontation. I just wanted to be left alone.
I was not yet fifteen when Stuart made his move. A plain and slender girl, I dressed in androgynous, oversized clothes from Goodwill. Nothing about me should have tempted him, except if he found my very unavailability perversely suggestive.
One January afternoon, I sat at our rickety kitchen table trying to study. Lisette was at work. Stuart was napping, I thought. Then I felt his heavy hand on my shoulder. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You smell good.”
“I’ve got schoolwork,” I said and shrugged to dislodge him. No good. He pushed down hard, aiming to keep me in place. Time to move. I rose with effort, planning to retreat to my loft upstairs. He blocked my way.
“Come on, sweetie,” he cajoled. “You’re old enough. Hell, I’m as close to your age as to your mom’s. I’ll make it good for you.” He pressed against me, reeking of sweat and rosé.
I put a hand on his chest and said, “No.” He ignored me, caught up in his determination or desire.
I killed him.
I should say, I meant to kill him. Being young and inexperienced, my timing was off. I missed the carotid artery, but I hurt him.
Lisette came home to find her lover on the floor clutching his pulsing throat while her daughter scrubbed blood off the cheap parquet. She didn’t panic, my mother. She called our local police precinct to frantically report the near-rape of her daughter by a man she had trusted.
“Put away the cleaning materials,” she commanded after she hung up. I did as I was told. Then I watched with fascination as she cut her hand. “I need credibility,” she told me. “Now sit down on the couch and don’t say a word until I tell you to.”
When the two policemen arrived, she explained she came to her daughter’s defense with a broken glass. In the struggle, her hand and the assailant’s throat were cut. One of the men, a handsome guy whose long hair suggested he spent his off-hours surfing, commended her on her bravery.
“Self-defense,” Surfer Dude announced. “No doubt about it.” He took her hand tenderly. “Do you need that cut looked at?” he asked, his soft brown eyes gazing into her blue ones. I thought he was going to offer to stay the night.
The policemen remained until the ambulance came to peel Stuart off the floor and take him to the hospital. Lisette promised to come to the station once she’d made sure I was okay. They were all breaking some sort of protocol, but no one seemed to care. A couple of neighbors appeared, drawn into the hall by the excitement. Now Lisette had a wider audience to entertain. She played her part to the hilt. I stayed on the couch. My mother explained to her sympathetic listeners that I’d been thrown into a temporary and mildly catatonic state.
When everyone had cleared out, Lisette came back inside the apartment, closed the door, and turned on me.
“I thought I was going to pass out in front of the police. You cut a man’s throat! With a piece of glass! Jesus Christ, you almost killed him! What kind of person does that? Are you insane, Suzanne? Have I raised a crazy person? Oh God, what if he dies? What were you thinking? Never mind. I don’t want to hear it. Do you even understand what you’ve done? Do you realize who you made me lie to? To the police. To our neighbors. Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? God Almighty!”
“Stop, Mom. Just listen. The guy came at me. He threatened me. He was going to rape me! I had to defend myself.”
Lisette was having none of it. “You didn’t have to do that! There are so many other ways—God, I don’t even know who you are anymore. I can’t look at you. You need to get out of here. Do you understand me? You have to leave.”
“Mom—”
“I mean it, Suzanne. Get your things and go.”
“But where?”
“I don’t care. Just go. Now!”
It hit me then; my mother wasn’t afraid for me. She was afraid of me.
I left, found shelter elsewhere, and didn’t speak to her for six years. She knew where I was, but she never asked me to return home. Even after our tentative reconciliation, I still asked myself why she treated me like a monster instead of a frightened girl. She was wrong, wasn’t she? Or did she see something I didn’t, know something I couldn’t?
I will myself back to the present.
Michael lies in a bed. I’ve panned back and forth between him and the machines that monitor his vital signs countless times. He looks weak. The numbers remain unchanged. Which image do I trust? Neither offers the slightest hint of what is to come.
I look around. Pale-yellow walls are hung with what appears to be original artwork. Sheer curtains flutter over Venetian blinds. A couple of floor lamps provide soft ambient lighting, except when someone on the staff enters and throws on those hideous overhead lights. Overall, the room combines the features of an upscale corporate hotel with a guest bedroom.
I have two vantage points. I either wait in the armchair or decamp to the hallway. Handsome wall fixtures mitigate the harshness of standard issue fluorescent illumination. Wall-mounted television monitors on either end are set to a low volume. One shows sports, I think, the other a BBC channel. A central nurses’ station, very high-tech, completes the picture. Chairs and at least one seating area provide options for visitors.
I never sit in the hallway. I pace. I keep my head down, unwilling to risk eye contact. I memorize the path beneath my feet: well-traveled, low-pile textured carpeting the color of chestnuts. A red fleur-de-lis appears every couple of meters or so to break up the monotony.
From time to time, as I sit with my son, the door opens. I frown at whichever nurse enters to read a screen or change a drip. I’ve apparently terrified most of them. They can sense the murderous rage that burns just beneath my flat affect. I heard an orderly warn another to “mind the tigress.”
They have no idea, no idea at all.
Then there is Nancy Okorie. A tall, slender, black-skinned woman, she manages to be efficient, patient, kind, and quite strict when necessary. Brian tells me she is from Sudan. She’s just a few years older than my son. I imagine she’s dealt with plenty in her lifetime, including murderous mothers. I don’t scare her. I respect that. As a result, I’m inclined to heed her bidding. I also trust my son’s care to her completely.
I am fixated on the flowers that fill the room, massive quantities of them. Many people have sent fruit baskets, as incongruous as that might seem. No teddy bears, thank God, but a huge wreath from someone. Of course: it’s nearly Christmas. Friends of Michael and Kate have pooled their resources to buy a garland of brightly colored out-of-season flowers that must have cost them a fortune. Discrete arrangements arrive from Tommy and Maggie’s many friends. Some of them likely attended the holiday party where the shooting occurred. I don’t expect anyone included a card that said, “Merry Christmas and thanks for a lovely evening.”
We’ve made our own friends in our short time back in London. Brian, in his dual roles as professor and SIS analyst, hears from colleagues. A beautiful bouquet from C is among the gifts. My fellow volunteers with Freedom to Hope deliver confections. Even the shooting club to which we belong sends a small offering. How odd that seems in the present context.
Michael has miraculously escaped injury to the solid organs. He’s in a private room, attended by a well-regarded military surgeon Tommy Edgerton has brought in. Most doctors in the UK lack experience with gunshot victims. This surgeon is able to remove the bullet. The doctor is initially guarded but optimistic. With any luck, my son will make a recovery.
Except that as luck would have it, Michael has not one but two critical episodes in the first seventy-two hours. The second crisis, an infection that causes a dangerous spike in his temperature, requires we remove all plant life from the room. Just as well, since the space resembles an unkempt English garden or a flower shop on delivery day. None of us wants to take anything home, not that we leave, except to change and snatch a bit of sleep.
Kate takes over the job of relocating all of it with Widgy’s help. The poor boy is beside himself. Michael is the older brother he never had. Unable to stay in the room for more than a minute, he takes over delivering flowers to other floors. Kate provides direction and sometimes accompanies him. They present the floral gifts to each of the nurse’s stations, placing the plants and flowers next to plug-in desktop Christmas trees and wilting poinsettias.
My future daughter-in-law also keeps a list of gifts so that we can issue thanks at a later time. The task keeps the two of them marginally occupied. It’s good for Widgy and for Kate, who otherwise wouldn’t leave the room. She’s as immoveable and as stubborn as I am, or so Brian notes with a touch of admiration. I love her, both for her steadfast nature and her love for my son.
Lord and Lady Westcott have opted to make a generous donation to the hospital. Annie Westcott, her arm in a sling, has stopped by twice. If I have any sympathy to spare, it’s for my new friend. She’s been dragged into Victor Kemp’s ongoing narrative through no fault of her own. I don’t yet have proof, but I am certain her half-brother fired the shot that wounded her and so grievously injured my son. So is she.
During the first days, I sense the reassuring presence of my husband. From the beginning, Brian takes charge, as I am unable to do so. He’s once again the patient teacher with whom I fell in love nearly thirty years ago. He gently instructs the nurses to work around me, keeps well-wishers at bay, and keeps his concerns about my well-being to himself. He simply urges me to eat, to walk around, even to nod off in the chair. Since I won’t leave the hospital, he brings a change of clothes.
I don’t deserve him. He doesn’t deserve this. But most of all, the man who shot my son doesn’t deserve to be walking around while Michael fights for his life. I push that thought down where it lurks, a predator just beneath the surface.