The Dogs of Littlefield Read online

  The next morning she received an email message: Sorry to miss you yesterday. Something came up. Could we try again? She had not answered.

  ‘Okay, everyone,’ called Bill, finally sitting down. ‘Don’t let your food get cold.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you want to know if something’s wrong?’ Naomi was persisting with her analysis of Nicholas. ‘What’s the good of denying a problem that’s right in front of you?’

  ‘I was there,’ George said testily. He rolled the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. ‘I was there when the dog died. The kid was pretty calm, all things considered.’

  ‘Why were you there?’ asked Hedy.

  ‘On my way to meet someone. But I got held up.’

  Finally Margaret looked at him. Oh, really?

  George looked back at her. Yes, really.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Clarice Watkins was asking about Emily’s little boy, Nicholas. She had been quiet all evening, apparently content to listen to the conversation; now at the sound of her voice everyone turned toward her, impassive and exotic in her gold turban and leopard skins, facing candles and baskets of rolls, the wall behind her like a stage curtain.

  Naomi set down her wine glass and gave it a small deliberative turn. ‘I certainly hope so. Kids are resilient.’

  ‘Some kids,’ said Hedy.

  Binx was groaning beneath the table.

  Resilient, thought Margaret, or just good at disguising that they weren’t, which maybe added up to the same thing. Look at her this evening, hosting Christmas dinner at her lovely table with family and friends; she seemed not just normal but enviable. No one thought she was crazy. Her marriage was not over, her husband had not left. She had not had an affair. But she was balanced on the blade edge of disaster.

  When she’d come home the night of the town hall hearing, Bill had been waiting for her in the kitchen. As she took off her coat, he commented on the two empty wine glasses and the empty wine bottle sitting by the sink. A friend stopped by, she said. She stood holding her coat, waiting for him to ask, ‘Who?’ Prepared to tell him about George, wanting and not wanting to see the expression on his face when she said, ‘I had a glass of wine with George Wechsler. The guy whose book I’ve told you about.’ Here, in our kitchen. We talked about adultery. George loves olives; he ate almost all of them. Look, here are the pits. Then I kissed him in his car. ‘Fun night?’ said Bill. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the refrigerator. ‘Oh, you know,’ she’d said, moving toward the door, ‘how these things go.’

  Poor Bill. Pasty and drawn, his tie askew, leaning on one elbow at the head of the table, smiling at Hannah Melman, who was talking about the middle school chorus. Stupid Bill. With that cataleptic smile. She could, this instant, lay down her fork, tuck her napkin under her plate and announce to her guests at the table that she was seeing ghosts, that Bill did not love her, that she had kissed George Wechsler in his car. She could say all that and the evening would slip from before to after, like an eel gliding into a pond. Everyone would be shocked. But then they would go home, and after a little while they would not be shocked anymore and would eventually forget about what she had said, and remember this evening only vaguely, and she would be as alone with her problems as she was now.

  What happened to me? she thought. How could my life have ended up this way?

  But yes, she thought, renewing her effort to focus on the dinner table conversation instead of the one inside her head, children are resilient. Julia, she hoped, was resilient. (Yet so hard to talk to these days.) That little boy would probably grow out of whatever was making him so unhappy and become a sensible adult. Unless he really did need a diagnosis?

  ‘Do you ever wake up at night,’ she asked Stan in an undertone, ‘and find yourself asking, “Where are the parents?” ’

  Stan smiled attentively, as if waiting for the punchline, and then said he supposed occasionally he did. She smiled back and asked him to pass the wine bottle, topping off his glass before she refilled her own. Margaret had been aware of Hedy watching her with shrewd crinkle-eyed attention since the beginning of dinner; but now Hedy and Clarice Watkins were discussing Marv Fischman’s healthcare coverage. At the other end of the table, Aaron and Bradley Wechsler had started complaining about the SAT exam to Hannah, while Julia fed scraps of ham to Binx under the tablecloth and Matthew kept interrupting to say what was the point of going to college when you’d never get a job anyway. The wind was racketing against the windowpanes. She listened to the chink of silverware against china, wishing people would talk about something entertaining and sophisticated, something distracting. Books, or art, or movies. Naomi was wagging her finger at Bill, trying to persuade him, with the help of George, that free-market economies were incapable of self-regulation.

  The roasted red beets on her plate seemed to be doing a lazy backstroke in a little white pool. When she looked up again George was pouring her some water.

  She glanced at George. Briefly said thank you, then turned back to Stan.

  Someone asked for the red wine and, before the bottle was passed down the table, Margaret splashed a little more into her glass and tried to listen to Stan, who had joined in the free-market conversation. Instead she found herself staring at Matthew, two seats down to her left. Matthew, in his striped rugby shirt, saturnine and faintly whiskered. Attacking his slice of ham as if he had not been properly taught how to handle a fork and knife. Naomi had told her about Matthew’s run-in with the Littlefield police. Acting out, she’d said. Also, he wouldn’t let her read his college application essay. Separation anxiety. Trying to show he didn’t need her because he depended on her so much.

  But, thought Margaret, by all logic it should be George’s twins acting out – their parents actually were separated, mother taking up with a massage therapist, father writing about zombie baseball players – it should be those boys getting drunk and having run-ins with the police. Instead it was Matthew, whose parents were not only married but both psychologists. Or could that be why? In any case, poor Matthew, who looked like Raskolnikov.

  She watched Matthew wolf down a bite of ham. Beside him sat small grave Julia, both of them listening to Aaron and Bradley Wechsler describe their summer backpacking trip in Wyoming. Matthew had probably spent last summer sprawled on his bed, playing violent video games and downloading pornography. Selling his Adderall pills online.

  Julia caught her eye and scowled.

  When Julia was a baby, a bib round her neck, she’d banged her tiny hands against the high-chair tray at dinner, crowing as Margaret spooned apple sauce into her mouth. It had been so gratifying to feed her, to see her quickly satisfied. Matthew had once been a baby, and here he was now, in a shirt like a convict’s coverall, sneering as he asked Hedy for the bread basket. Two weeks ago he was slumped in the front seat of his mother’s van, lit up by the glare of a policeman’s flashlight, slack-jawed, pimply neck showing above the collar of his black leather jacket, reeking of peppermint schnapps. What was next for him? College rejections, crack addiction, car theft, venereal disease, the degradations of isolation and fear, a dusty back room that smelled of old cigarette butts overlooking a parking lot in some distant city, where he lay weeping on a filthy mattress, streetlights shining through broken slatted blinds, barred shadows across his face, and as she followed Matthew to this desolate conclusion everyone at the table looked up at her.

  ‘Did you say something, Margaret?’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ she coughed. ‘Something in my throat.’ Blindly, she reached for her wine glass, but again it was empty. She picked up her water glass instead.

  Anything could happen to any of us, she thought as everyone else resumed talking. To me and Bill, to Julia. And who among the people at this table would truly care? They might be interested, but would they spend even one sleepless night? She put down her water glass, feeling suddenly chilled. Was it possible that the dogs were a sign, a portent of something bad a
bout to happen? It seemed so obvious a possibility and yet she had not until now considered it. They had seemed only about her, not about anything else. But now she looked down the table at her guests in their holiday clothes, laughing, eating, drinking red wine, talking about money and doctors’ appointments and the SATs. What if the dogs were for all of them?

  Silence fell over the table.

  ‘The economy,’ she stammered, realizing that once again she’d made a sound. ‘So awful. It’s affected everyone. Bill’s firm is being investigated by the SEC.’

  ‘Margaret,’ she heard Bill gasp.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She tried to focus on him. ‘I’m so sorry. Was I not supposed to say anything?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ Bill was already explaining. ‘Just allegations.’

  ‘Allegations?’ echoed Stan.

  Now everyone was peering across the candles at Bill, tallow-faced above his buttoned-down shirt and striped Christmas tie. Margaret put a hand to her pearls. What had she done? He had mentioned the investigation a couple of weeks ago while they were discussing a phone call she’d received that afternoon from Julia’s social studies teacher. A bullying incident, not serious. Julia called a name in class. ‘Allegations’ had sounded dry and unthreatening, and Bill had waved away her questions. ‘Probably nothing,’ he’d said then, too. She realized now she should have pressed him, but she’d been worrying about the phone call. In addition to the bullying incident, Julia was not participating enough in class. Not achieving to her potential. Any concerns at home? Perhaps she is overscheduled? ‘Well, I hope everything will be all right,’ she’d said to Bill. When he didn’t mention the investigation again, she assumed that whatever it was had been resolved.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.

  And she really was sorry. Sorry for blurting out this news and catching Bill off guard, sorry for kissing George Wechsler, sorry for inviting people to dinner while out in the cold whirling darkness thousands of dogs slunk just beyond her lit windows, ears laid back, hackles raised, circling and circling her house, leaving not a single paw print in the snow.

  Bill picked up his napkin and patted his mouth. Once he’d been hit in the head by a Frisbee as they sat on a blanket in the park with Julia; he wore the same dazed, abject expression now.

  She tried to smile at him, but already her thoughts were rushing away in a different direction. Could Bill’s unhappiness, his depression over the past months, have been less about their marriage than about what was going on at the office? He had withheld his worries about work, probably not wanting to trouble her, not mentioning them during their sessions with Dr Vogel. But could it be that Bill didn’t know himself how much those worries could explain?

  A new orderly matrix began to emerge from the turmoil and anguish of the past months. Bill was depressed about work. And she had only kissed George out of loneliness and pity, because his book was not selling well and his wife had left him, and because he was smart and funny and that wasn’t enough to guarantee him anything. Bill would understand. After everyone left tonight, they would talk. She would ask him questions about the investigation; she would apologize for getting angry earlier in the kitchen. They would get into bed and turn out the lights. Binx was the only dog in their house. Even now, everything could be all right.

  ‘Bill,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, Bill.’

  But he was so far away at the other end of the table, explaining something to Naomi, who had asked about SEC investigative procedures. His face looked strangely small and boyish above his striped tie, his thin nose fragile and outsized, as if it belonged to someone else. If only he would look at her. But he was still talking to Naomi. She lifted a hand to wave to him, an encouraging signal, to let him know that everything would be all right – and knocked over Stan’s wine glass.

  ‘Ah!’ said Hedy.

  Margaret apologized repeatedly to Stan as he began mopping his shirt front with his napkin.

  ‘Fuck me, Dad,’ snickered Matthew. ‘You look like you’ve been shot.’

  ‘Matthew,’ barked his mother.

  ‘I’ll get a sponge,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Let me.’ George was already standing. ‘Just point me to the kitchen.’

  ‘But everything’s such a mess,’ cried Margaret.

  Naomi called out to George to go left, and then launched into a long description of the best way to organize kitchen drawers and get rid of clutter.

  Margaret wasn’t listening. Because as she offered her own napkin to Stan she caught sight of something sharp and plain, bright as the flat side of the blade that had been lying beneath the confusion of her thoughts all evening. It was all just trouble. She might be going mad, she might be about to get divorced, she might be alone for the rest of her life, with no job and no money, but that’s all it was. Just as the wine on Stan’s shirt was only wine, it was only trouble. She was not the first to be in such a state, nor would she be the last. Whatever happened to her had happened to other people, who’d either survived or not, as she would survive or not, and the world would continue on, implacable and absorbing.

  Life is interesting, Dr Vogel had said a few sessions ago.

  If only, Margaret thought, I could see it all as interesting, then that’s what it would be.

  A capacious sadness filled her, and with it a great relief. At last she understood. At last it had come to her: she was just like everyone else who had troubles and if she was interested in her own troubles, she was also interested in theirs, and therefore she was not alone, would never be alone, even if Bill left her, even if she spent the rest of her life weeping in her bedroom with the door closed. The world and its troubles would be with her.

  ‘Here we are.’ George had reappeared with a sponge.

  Under the table, Binx could be heard sighing and snuffling.

  The Wechsler boys were talking to Matthew about a biology project coming up – dissecting a sheep brain, which they said was the same size as a human brain – while Hannah and Julia giggled and made disgusted faces. Stan Melman finished sponging himself off. Naomi was now offering advice about removing red wine stains: salt, she said, while George contradicted her and said seltzer. Naomi stopped advising about red wine stains and, perhaps to get everyone at the table talking about the same thing, began condemning a recent vandalized holiday display. Two days ago someone stole a seven-foot gingerbread man from the lawn in front of the town hall, snapped off the gingerbread man’s legs and dumped his body on the steps.

  ‘I mean, why kill a cookie? Who’d have thought to worry about that?’

  Outside the dining-room windows it continued to snow. All that was out there was snow. Margaret breathed in deeply, feeling her lungs expand for the first time in months. She was so glad to be in her house, at her beautiful table, with candles and shining silverware, the red walls glowing behind the heads of these lovely people. She liked them all, she liked them so much, her guests, her family and the bright muddle of their mingled conversations, she loved that, too, all the marvelous, ordinary, perishable noise.

  Smiling, she pushed back her chair, getting to her feet like someone standing up on a tightrope.

  ‘I would like to make a toast,’ she called out, conscious again of Hedy’s small dark eyes upon her. ‘A toast to my husband, Bill.’

  Everyone else stopped talking and turned to look up at her.

  ‘To Bill,’ prompted Naomi, after a moment.

  ‘To Bill.’ Margaret raised her glass. ‘And to all of our troubles.’

  Something was not quite right about her toast, but she could not figure out what it was; only that no one seemed to be joining in. She tried to sit down again but miscalculated the position of her chair and fell to the floor. Binx shot out from under the table, barking madly, as everyone began pushing back their chairs, moving around the table to see if they could help.

  Bill, she thought. Where is Bill?

  But everyone was getting in Bill’s way, so that he was the last to reach her. Margare
t struggled to her knees, then fell over again, and lay on the floor calling out, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ as George hoisted her upright by her armpits and then, with Stan Melman’s help, lifted her into his arms. Swept with embarrassment at finding herself in George’s short, powerful arms, Margaret shut her eyes and pretended to pass out.

  ‘Where’s your bedroom?’ George was asking Bill in a gruff voice, holding her tightly. One of her black patent leather pumps had slipped off; the other was hanging from her toes.

  ‘I’ll take her.’ Bill was next to them now; she felt him put a hand on her leg. ‘It was hot in the kitchen,’ he was saying. ‘She’s just tired, after being in there all day. I’ll take her,’ he repeated to George.

  ‘I’ve got her.’

  The side of her face was pressed against George’s chest; his heart beat against her temple, a succession of steady tender mallets.

  ‘Just tell me where to go.’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Bill, his arms now around her thighs.

  He pulled slightly and George pulled.

  ‘You’ve got a bad back,’ said George. ‘Let me have her.’

  For another moment they both held her, like two dogs fighting over a stick.

  At last Bill loosened his hold; he gave her thigh a lingering, almost friendly pat, then she felt the warmth of his hand withdraw. Then she heard Julia’s voice – Julia’s voice, so much higher and younger, as it was when she heard her speak on the phone – offering to lead the way upstairs. Next Naomi, saying she would come along as well. Someone else said, ‘Here’s the other shoe.’

  George shifted his grip and heaved her higher onto his chest. She could not think now of what she would say to Bill. She could not think of anything. Her heart felt huge and full of blood. George was grunting with effort as he began carrying her up the stairs, gripping her more securely, his biceps tensing around her waist and under her knees. And from somewhere close by or far away, she heard the howling begin – it was only the wind, battering the north side of the house; of course it was only the wind, the wind, the howling wind.