The English Teacher by Lily King

Author:Lily King
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2005-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

She watched Tom close up the white boxes of leftover rice and lo mein and carry them by their perfect wire handles to the fridge. He slid her plate out from beneath her without a word. He was pursing his lips, a sure sign that he was upset. She wondered why he didn’t go have a talk with Stuart. He usually scampered so quickly back to the children’s hallway if there was any tension at dinner. She hoped when he did that he wouldn’t be too hard on the boy. An apology to her would suffice.

He was at the sink now, scraping and rinsing. She heard a huge plop into the garbage disposal. Someone had hardly touched the food. She wondered if it was her. Or Peter. Where had Peter gone? She couldn’t even remember him sitting at the table. She collected what remained on the table and brought it to Tom. He dropped the forks he was rinsing and wheeled around to her.

“Where does all that anger of yours come from?” He grabbed the bottle from the pantry closet. “From inside here?” He shook it at her. She was surprised by how little was left. “Or is it in here”—he poked her in the bone between her breasts—“all the time, crouching, waiting?”

Vida was stunned. The scene was like the nightmare in which one of her best-behaved students hurls obscenities at her. The poke on her chest stung and spread.

“The boy is simply trying to cope.”

“But he’s filling himself with illusions.”

“We’re all filled with illusions.”

“No we’re not.”

“Taoism is one hell of a lot less harmful than practically all the other ways of dealing with grief he could have latched onto.”

“I’m not so sure. Actionless action. Blankety blank. He’s negating himself from his own life. He’s disappearing.”

“Why does it upset you so much? It’s just a way of looking at the world.”

“It’s a way of not looking at the world. You heard him. He wants to detach. You might as well give him a shotgun so he can blow his head off.”

“Jesus Christ, Vida.”

There it was finally, the glare, the tone of voice he’d been denying himself. He saw her now for what she truly was; he saw the waste within. She needed to get out of the house. She threw on a coat and whistled for Walt.

“I don’t know why you’re trying to push us away. All of us. Ever since you agreed to marry me, you’ve been—”

“Pinched and thin?”

“I don’t understand what happened. I thought you were—”

“Someone else?”

“Stop it. Stop finishing my sentences. Stop looking at me with that smirk like you can see all around me, like I’m a character for you to analyze. You don’t have to be a goddamn English teacher all the time. Just be yourself.”

“And who do you think that is?”

He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “I don’t know. I think it’s the woman I first saw at a podium, in tears, clutching a little silver cup. It’s the woman, the first woman, who let me talk about Mary without feeling threatened in some way.

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