The Plot, Jean Korelitz [read e books online free txt] 📗

Yes, said Jake, though he couldn’t actually hear himself say it.

“What?” said Anna. She looked up from her phone. His phone, actually. “You’re mumbling,” she said. Then she went on with whatever it was she was doing.

“I don’t want to be that person who’s always whining about her childhood, but you need to know it was always about Evan in our house. Evan and football. Evan and soccer. Evan and girls. The guy was an imbecile, but you know how it is with families. The pride of the Parkers! Scoring goals and passing his classes—wow! Even when he started doing drugs they thought the sun just shined out of his ass. As for me, it didn’t matter how smart I was or how good my grades were or what I wanted to do in the world, I was still nothing. So there’s Evan getting girls pregnant right and left and he’s an angel from heaven, but when I got pregnant it was like their job to punish me, and make sure it stuck for the rest of my life. It was all: you’re dropping out of high school and keeping this baby because that’s what you deserve. Zero chance of an abortion. Zero support for giving the baby up for adoption, either. You were spot-on with all that, actually, the way you wrote it. That’s absolutely what it was like for me. Which isn’t a compliment, by the way.”

He didn’t take it as one.

“So then I have this baby I don’t want and they don’t want and I’m out of school, sitting at home with her all day getting yelled at by my mom and dad about the shame I’ve brought on the family, and one morning when they’re out of the house I hear this beeping down in the cellar. The carbon monoxide alarm’s going crazy, and I didn’t know what that meant, but I did a little research. I just took the batteries out, and replaced them with a couple of dead ones. I didn’t know if it was going to work, or how long it would take if it did, or which of us were going to go, and I did keep the window open in my room, where the baby was, too, but to be honest, I think I was okay with whatever happened.”

She stopped and leaned over him. She was checking his breathing.

“You want me to go on?”

But it didn’t matter what he wanted, did it?

“I tried my best. It wasn’t fun, but you know, I thought, it’s just the two of us here. There was no one to count on, but also no one for me to blame if it went downhill. I kind of lost my drive after the rest of my class graduated, I’ll admit to that. And I got to thinking, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to go, giving up my own life for this other life. I thought I could make my peace with that, and besides, I wasn’t against having that thing you’re supposed to have with a kid. Companionship or whatever. But that girl.”

There was a ping on the phone. His phone. She picked it up.

“Oh look,” said Anna. “Matilda says your publisher in France has offered half a million for the new novel. I’ll get back to her in a couple of days, though I don’t think your French publisher will be at the top of our list by then.” She paused. “What was I saying?”

The cat had returned and leapt up onto the bed. He took one of his favorite positions, alongside Jake’s right calf.

“Not once, in sixteen years, was there one sign of affection. She pushed me away, I swear, when I was trying to nurse her. She preferred not eating to being close to me, physically. She toilet trained herself so I wouldn’t have that power over her. I knew she didn’t plan to hang around Rutland a day longer than she had to, but I thought she’d at least do things in the normal way—graduate from high school, maybe go as far as Burlington. Not Rose. She just came downstairs one day when she was sixteen and told me she was leaving at the end of the summer. Bang. I couldn’t even tell her there was no money for an out-of-state college a thousand miles away. She had a scholarship, she had a room in a dorm, she even had a stipend for living expenses from some do-gooder down there. I said I at least wanted to take her, and I could tell she didn’t even want that, but when she thought about it practically she understood what it meant for her own convenience. She knew she was never coming home, so she let me drive her, and I let her pretty much fill up the car, everything she wanted, only a little room left over for my own things. But you know what? There wasn’t much I wanted to take for myself. Just a few clothes and an old propane heater.”

With all of his strength he turned his head to her.

“It wasn’t an accident, Jake. Even with your supposedly great imagination you couldn’t get your mind around that. Maybe you’ve got some gender blindness about motherhood, like it’s impossible for a mother to do that. Fathers, sure, no one bats an eye if they kill one of their kids, but do the same thing while in possession of a uterus and bam: the world explodes. It’s sexism, really, isn’t it, if you think about it. Evan didn’t have that problem, in case you’re wondering. In his version I take a carving knife to my teenage daughter in the middle of the night, and bury her in the backyard. But then he actually knew me. And he knew my daughter, don’t forget that. He knew what a bitch she was.”

It reminded Jake of something, that word. But he couldn’t think what.

Anna sighed. She