“Because he wants it more than we do,” Elizabeth responds.
“Wants what?”
“To destroy us. That’s the problem, isn’t it? He wants to destroy us more than we want to destroy him. Because we have a moral code and he doesn’t. In a fair world, this would give us an advantage. But now? Not so much.”
She’s denying her own fury, and I wonder why.
“We can’t let the jerks win,” Laurie says. “I mean, that’s what this is about, isn’t it? That’s what it’s always about. Look—do I want to chop off his head and hoist it in the air as a trophy? Not even a little bit. But I don’t want him to win, either. There’s no way we can let him win.”
“That’s the problem with having a moral code,” I say. “We want to destroy the jerkish part of the jerks, but we want to save the human being underneath.”
“And do you think that’s possible?” Elizabeth asks. “He’s an old man. You’re his only family. Is there any chance of persuading him to change?”
I wish I could believe it was an option. But I can’t.
“No,” I say. “If I turn him down, that’s it. It’s all over. He’s not going to back down.”
“So he has to die,” Laurie says.
“No,” I say.
“Then he lives.”
“No.”
We hang there for a moment, in the uncertain gap between each no.
Then Elizabeth says, “Exactly. My point exactly.”
* * *
I step away from them. I say I’ll be back in a second. I just need to be in another room. I need to think about this without them in front of me, without seeing the consequences playing across their lives.
I retreat to my bedroom, as I have for as long as I can remember. Surrounded by all the touchstones of my youth, I wonder if I am strong enough to walk away from it all. Because that’s the question in my mind now—if I left, would Arbus follow me? What would happen if the invisible boy vanished? If I left this small, small world I’ve constructed, would it remain safe?
I think of my father, of his life in California. What if I started there? Even if he doesn’t want me around, I know he would help me.
It’s possible. Entirely possible. Emptily possible. Because even as I consider it, I know there’s no way I will leave. I want to escape, yes. But it’s not the future I want to escape into. I want to take the path that leads back to us, not away from us. It’s selfish, I know. Perhaps destructively selfish. But I can’t be selfless enough to erase everything I’ve found in these past few weeks.
My mother stayed. She is here with me now because she stayed with me then. I’m sure she thought about running too. She ran once, when there was truly nothing to live for. But then she stayed, when she found something, and that something was me.
“What should I do?” I ask her now, knowing the silence I will get in return. Even though I know she can’t answer, I still like to think she’s listening.
I hear Elizabeth’s footsteps approaching down the hall. She calls out my name, giving me warning, the chance to tell her I want her to stay away.
“In here,” I tell her.
We wear our concern so nakedly with each other. I see it on her face and know she must see it on mine.
She doesn’t ask me if I’m okay. She knows. Instead she asks, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Millie hasn’t taught you how to turn back time, has she?”
Elizabeth shakes her head. “She’s keeping that one to herself.”
“That’s too bad,” I say, “because what I’d really love right now is for us to exist in the world as we knew it five weeks ago. I want us to be there, to be like that again. No Arbus. No Millie. Just the two of us meeting each other and having the world be so purely ours.”
“All couples get nostalgic about the start of their story,” Elizabeth tells me, coming closer. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But not all couples are going to have the next day that we’re going to have.”
She wraps her arms around me. I make myself there for her.
“We can’t do this alone,” she whispers. “You know that, right? It has to be both of us. Together. There’s no other way.”
This isn’t true. There are plenty of other ways.
But it’s also true, because neither of us is going to take another option.
* * *
Protection. For so many other couples, this is a metaphorical vow. It is the emergency form of caring, the defense mechanism against the unexpected. But Elizabeth and I have woven it into the fabric of who we are together. So I must not try to separate it, or separate us. I must wear it all.
* * *
We walk back into the living room and find Laurie lying back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
“Any revelations?” Elizabeth asks.
“No,” he says. “But you could probably use a new coat of paint.”
I look up and see the chips and cracks he’s talking about.
“Not a priority right now,” Elizabeth tells him.
“Well, we can just add it to the list of things we’ll do when we’re through with this, right?” Laurie says, undeterred.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I say.
Every fight for survival is really a fight to return to the inconsequential concerns of the mundane. I can picture us in this room—sheets over the furniture, paint dripping off rollers, paint splattered all over our clothes. We are happy in the hypothetical future. I cling to that.
* * *
“We really need to head back,” Laurie says. “Mom is going to be worried soon.”
“You’re coming with us,” Elizabeth tells me. “I wasn’t lying to Millie—we’re keeping an eye on you, and an eye out for Arbus. I don’t want you alone here, just in case he decides to come back early. Laurie and I will make an excuse to leave at eight, and you’ll come with us. But in the meantime, you can be witness to a good, old-fashioned family dinner.”
This sounds great to me.
* * *
Elizabeth and Laurie’s mom must hear us coming down the hall. She opens the door before either Elizabeth or Laurie can get out a key.
“You’re late,” she says to Laurie.
Then she turns to Elizabeth.