A Happy Catastrophe

“I’m just trying to be considerate of your feelings,” he says. Because damn it, he is.

“Right. Thank you very much.” She walks around him and gets the crumb-covered plates from the table, and he winces, thinking she’ll fling them in the sink as well—or possibly at him—but she places them more carefully. He’s grateful for that. She might be able to respond to reason.

He tries to appeal to that part of her. “I’m just thinking it might be awkward. Hell, I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“I wish you didn’t have to also,” she says without looking at him.

“Okay,” he says. “Well. So that’s it, then. You won’t come.”

She doesn’t even answer him. She walks out of the room.

“Look,” he calls after her. “I just don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want this all to be over.”

She comes back to the doorway. “Over?” she says. “Over? You want the gallery thing to be over, or you want our little domestic situation to be over, or you want all human life as we know it on this planet to be over? Which is it?”

“Um, all human life as we know it on this planet. Door number three,” he says. Dark humor. Maybe she’ll recognize that. We are all suffering here, no good guys and bad guys. Just us, bumbling along.

She stops now and looks at him, and he almost can’t take the heartbreak in her eyes.

It snowed last night, and the white light coming through the windows is reflected on her face. She looks beautiful there, with her hair still uncombed from sleep, all jumbled up and halfway curly. Her eyes have no makeup yet, and they are looking at him straight on, plain and real. She reminds him of a deer he once saw in the woods in the wintertime, the way he and the deer both stopped and looked at each other, unblinking.

“Patrick,” she says. “I’ll be the one who decides whether or not I’m coming to the gallery tonight. Your daughter wants to see your work, as you might imagine, and so does my mother, and some of the Amazings. It would create much more of a statement if I don’t go. So it’s not really up to you.”

“But I don’t want you to be uncomfortable . . .” he says.

This time she does leave. “Noted,” she calls back over her shoulder. “Do me a favor and don’t worry about me anymore. I’m in charge of myself from now on. You don’t even have to think about me, okay? In fact, don’t.”

He shouldn’t have said that about not wanting her to be uncomfortable. You’re not allowed to say routine, condescending things about someone’s feelings when you’re in the process of hurting them. He knows this. Even if you’re scared shitless of the art opening you’re about to have. Maybe especially if you’re scared.

“I’m sorry,” he calls after her as she leaves.

Everything makes it worse, so he goes back into the studio and closes the door.

Hi, says Anneliese. You know, Patrick, none of this matters. We’re all just specks in the universe, floating out there in time and space, with only a limited time to live. You can fight and shake your fists and yell, but the truth is that you are going to be gone, too, Patrick. Poof! It’s over just like that.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

MARNIE

Patrick is a hit at the opening, despite everything. I can still feel all of his thoughts, so I can tell that he hates it, of course, hates that people are looking at him—hates hates hates that they see his scars. He’s imagining that they’re thinking with pity about the fire. But there he is, basking in his notoriety just the same—basking even in his disdain of it, being all artisty and wearing all black, and with his dark hair tousled and his big blue eyes cloudy and defensive.

Everybody here has surely read the story in Inside Outside, which Mr. Pierpont has thoughtfully blown up three copies of and posted on three walls in case anyone might have missed it. Everyone here knows what he’s been through, and they hover for a long time around the little sculptures. The beauty of her form, the sensuousness of her limbs and her expressions.

Still, like it or not, I know him enough to feel his pain here. He stays in the back of the room as much as possible, avoiding talking to the general crowd of people, just the ones who venture over. Let Philip Pierpont do all the hullabaloo, talk to the strangers. I can feel him thinking that. I remain near the front, surrounding myself with the Amazings. Ariana stays close in a protective way, and so does my mother.

People keep streaming in from the street, welcomed by the warm, twinkling lights, the tinkle of piano music, the plates of cheese, and little plastic goblets of champagne being passed around by people dressed in black. Philip Pierpont is a dapper man, buzzing around in between people, with his hands always seeming to be clasped together, as though in prayer. He is praying for Patrick’s success, and Patrick is bringing in a nice crowd, or at least what I think must be considered a nice crowd for a gallery opening. Good numbers.

I hear their enthusiasm. Muted, of course, because these are New York art people.

We leave early. I can only take so much. I see my mother watching my face curiously, wondering how I’m coping, probably ready to leap in and haul me out of there if the stress becomes too much. So after each of us has managed to have four pieces of cheese and a few crackers, and my mother and I each have a glass of champagne, we go. My mother is tired. The Amazings are drifty. There’s not much to do. The freezing cold wind is blowing off the river, and I’m glad to be out of the weather by the time we get down into the subway. A man is playing the trumpet down inside the tiled fortress, people are hurrying. The lights are bright. I hold Fritzie’s hand and she curls into me and starts sucking on a lock of her hair, a new habit. Lately she clings to me, which I kind of like.

“Do you miss your mom?” I asked her the other night as I was putting her to bed, and she was pouting and kicking at the blankets and telling me she was sick and tired of everything, and she didn’t want to go to sleep.

“No,” she said. “I miss my dad.”

When we finally come out from the subway into the Brooklyn night, my phone throbs in my pocket. I look down and see that it’s Natalie, so I press the button while we’re walking. Ahead of me, Fritzie is doing her usual heart-stopping balancing act along a low wall, dodging the iron spikes that are embedded in it. I’ve gotten better at standing this, but it still makes my teeth hurt.

“Hi, Nat,” I say tiredly. “You calling for Mom?”

There’s a bunch of noise in the background. “No,” she says. “I’m calling for you. Listen, Daddy’s had a heart attack, and he’s just gone to the hospital by ambulance. He’s stable, they said. But they just took him away. With the sirens on.”

“What? When did this happen?”

“It’s now. It’s happening right this minute, Marnie. I told you!”

“But what happened?” I don’t know what else to say. I feel like if I can get her to tell me the story, then I can explain to her why it’s all wrong. Our dad is healthy. In fact, he’s coming to Brooklyn soon.

“Look. I don’t know all of it, but he was alone in the house, and he started having chest pain and arm pain, and then he was out of breath, but he managed to call me. Why he didn’t call 911 I don’t know, but he didn’t. So I called the ambulance, and then I drove over there to meet them. They worked on him for a while, and they just took him away. I’m about to follow in my car when I can get someone to come stay here. I’ve been trying to get Mom, but she’s not answering her phone. So you tell her. I’ll call you later, when I know more about what’s going on.”