Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781448169344
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

On Friday, October 9, a week before the day of Vi’s predicted earthquake, a man in O’Fallon waited until his wife and children were sleeping, shot them in their beds, then turned his gun on himself. He’d done it because he’d wanted to save them from the impending destruction, according to the initial news reports, and I thought, No, no, no, no, no. It wasn’t in the morning paper, but there was an article on the Post-Dispatch’s website that I read on the small screen of Jeremy’s phone as soon as I came downstairs in the morning, while my stomach churned.

My impression was that Vi’s prediction was mostly considered ridiculous and not credible; certainly it was seen as such by people outside St. Louis. Within St. Louis, as far as I could tell, people who’d admit to being nervous would then express embarrassment at their nervousness. St. Louisans weren’t evacuating the city. And yet, as with the warnings of doomsday cults, even if you didn’t buy the claims, you’d still breathe a sigh of relief when the day in question passed without event.

I took Owen for a walk in the stroller, and when we returned home, Jeremy waved his phone at me. “There’s all this stuff coming out about how the guy had lost his job months ago, he was mentally unbalanced, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Obviously, he was mentally unbalanced,” I said.

When Vi called that afternoon, she said, “People are so fucking nuts,” and I could feel her refusal of culpability.

“And you still think the earthquake will happen?”

She sounded impatient as she said, “If I get word to the contrary, you’ll be the first to know.”

The next evening, Jeremy and I were sitting on the couch in our living room, watching the episode of Saturday Night Live we hadn’t stayed up for the night before, when we heard a whimper from one of the two monitors set on the coffee table. I said, “Is that him or her?” Jeremy paused the TV, and there was a silence and then another whimper—a whimper of bereftness, it seemed to me, of desolation even—and I said, “It’s her. Should I go up?”

“She’s probably not even awake.” Jeremy hit the Play button on the remote control, and I set my hand on his arm.

“Hold on.”

“You’ll hear her.” But he’d frozen the screen again; he was indulging me.

We were quiet for a minute—Jeremy pulled his phone from his pocket, presumably to check either his email or football scores—and I sat there listening. After another minute, I said, “I might go sit upstairs in the hall.”

He looked up from his phone. “Seriously? For how long?”

I gestured toward the television. “You can keep watching.”

“If she needs us, she’ll let us know.”

“I won’t go in her room unless she makes more noise,” I said. “But I just want to be up there if she does.” It wasn’t that I thought I was being rational; it was that something about hearing that whimper had triggered anxious heart, and I knew I couldn’t sit and chortle at sketches featuring men dressed as women.

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