Beginners by Raymond Carver

Author:Raymond Carver
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

So Much Water So Close to Home

MY husband eats with good appetite but seems tired, edgy. He chews slowly, arms on the table, and stares at something across the room. He looks at me and looks away again, and wipes his mouth on the napkin. He shrugs, goes on eating. Something has come between us though he would like to believe otherwise.

“What are you staring at me for?” he asks. “What is it?” he says and lays his fork down.

“Was I staring?” I say and shake my head stupidly, stupidly.

The telephone rings. “Don’t answer it,” he says.

“It might be your mother,” I say. “Dean—it might be something about Dean.”

“Watch and see,” he says.

I pick up the receiver and listen for a minute. He stops eating. I bite my lip and hang up.

“What did I tell you?” he says. He starts to eat again, then throws the napkin onto his plate. “Goddamn it, why can’t people mind their own business? Tell me what I did wrong and I’ll listen! It’s not fair. She was dead, wasn’t she? There were other men there besides me. We talked it over and we all decided. We’d only just got there. We’d walked for hours. We couldn’t just turn around, we were five miles from the car. It was opening day. What the hell, I don’t see anything wrong. No, I don’t. And don’t look at me that way, do you hear? I won’t have you passing judgment on me. Not you.”

“You know,” I say and shake my head.

“What do I know, Claire? Tell me. Tell me what I know. I don’t know anything except one thing; you hadn’t better get worked up over this.” He gives me what he thinks is a meaningful look. “She was dead, dead, dead, do you hear?” he says after a minute. “It’s a damn shame, I agree. She was a young girl and it’s a shame, and I’m sorry, as sorry as anyone else, but she was dead, Claire, dead. Now let’s leave it alone. Please, Claire. Let’s leave it alone now.”

“That’s the point,” I say. “She was dead—but don’t you see? She needed help.”

“I give up,” he says and raises his hands. He pushes his chair away from the table, takes his cigarettes and goes out to the patio with a can of beer. He walks back and forth for a minute and then sits in a lawn chair and picks up the paper once more. His name is there on the first page along with the names of his friends, the other men who made the “grisly find.”

I close my eyes for a minute and hold onto the drainboard. I must not dwell on this any longer. I must get over it; put it out of sight, out of mind, etc., and “go on.” I open my eyes. Despite everything, knowing all that may be in store, I rake my arm across the drainboard and send the dishes and glasses smashing and scattering across the floor.

He doesn’t move.

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