What I Loved

six-year-old kid. Bill decided that Mark missed his mother too much, that he had to go back to her, and they flew to Houston. I think it was a fatal mistake, Leo. I understood that not long ago. A week later, Lucille called Bill and told him that Mark was 'perfect.' That was the word she used. It meant obedient, cooperative, sweet. A couple of weeks later, Mark bit a little girl in school on the arm so hard that she bled, but at home he was no trouble at all. By the time he came back to New York, the furious little wild man had disappeared for good. It was like somebody had cast a spell on him and turned him into a docile, agreeable replica of himself. But that was the thing I learned to love— that automaton." Violet's eyes were dry and she clenched her jaw while she looked at me.
    I examined her tight face and said, "But I thought you didn't understand what happened to Mark."
    "I don't understand what happened to him. All I know is that he went away one thing and came back another. It took a long, long time to even begin to see that clearly. He had to demonstrate his falseness for years before I could really look behind the mask. Bill refused to see it, but he and I were both part of it. Did we cause it? I don't know. Did we ruin him? I don't know, but I think he must have felt that we were throwing him away. I'll tell you this, I hate Lucille, too, even though she can't help the way she is—all boarded up and shut down like a condemned house. That's how I think of her. I felt sorry for her in the beginning, after Bill left her, but all that pity is gone. And I hate Bill, too, for dying on me. He never went to the doctor. He smoked and drank and stewed in his own melancholy, and I keep thinking he should have been harder, tougher, meaner, angrier, not so goddamned guilty about everything all the time, that he should have been stronger for me!" She paused for several seconds. Her lashes were shiny black from her tears and I could see the small red veins in her eyes. She swallowed. "I needed somebody, Leo. I've been so alone with my hate. You've been so kind to me, and I used your kindness."
    I started to smile then. At first, I had no idea why I was amused. It was a little like giggling at a funeral or laughing when someone brings you news of a terrible car accident, but I realized that it was her honesty that made me smile. She was trying so hard to tell me the truth about herself as she knew it, and after the innumerable lies and thefts and the murder we had lived through together, her self-criticism seemed comic. It made me think of a nun in the confessional booth whispering her meager sins to a priest who is guilty of far worse.
    When she saw the smile, she said, "It's not funny, Leo."
    "Yes," I said, "it is. People can't help what they feel. It's what they do that counts, and as far as I can tell, you've done nothing wrong. When you and Bill sent Mark back to Lucille, you thought you were doing what was right. People can't do more than that. Now it's your turn to listen to me. As it turns out, I have no power over my feelings either, but it was a mistake to talk to you about them. I wish I could take back what I said— for my sake as well as yours. I lost my head. It's that simple, but there's nothing I can do about it now."
    Violet's green eyes regarded me steadily as she put her hands on my shoulders and began to stroke my arms. I was caught off guard for a moment by her touch, but I couldn't resist the happiness it brought me, and I felt my muscles relax. It had been a long time since I had felt someone's hands on me like that, and I actually tried to remember the last time. When Erica came for Bill's funeral, I thought.
    "I've decided to go away," Violet said. "I can't be here anymore. It's not Bill. I like being close to his things. It's Mark. I can't be near him anymore, not even in the same city. I don't want to see him again. A friend of mine in Paris invited me to give a seminar at the American University, and I've decided to do it, even though it's just for a few months. I'm leaving in two weeks. I was going to tell you at dinner but then the phone rang, and ..." Her face contorted for a second and then she continued, "I'm lucky that you love me. I'm really lucky."
    I began a reply, but Violet put her finger to my lips. "Don't talk. I have to tell you something else. I don't think it could go on, because I'm too confused. I'm broken, you see, not whole." She moved her hands to my neck and rubbed it