civilization, they mention everything; even the water glass shattered on the floor—something is said about that—but there is not one word on the misery to be found at a dining-room table. We all sat there locked up in that moment, and without a doubt it meant something different to everybody, none of it good. The spell was broken by Miriam, who started to cry; she cried and cried, the way children will when they know something is wrong but not exactly what. I picked her up to comfort her, and kissed her little head, but I might as well have been doing all that to myself, for I felt as if I were about to lose something I had just found. I gathered the children, and we went upstairs to my room and played a game of gin rummy.
One day Mariah persuaded Lewis to go to the marshlands with her. This was the day I received the tenth letter from my mother to which I would make no reply; as with the nine others before it, I would not even break the seal on the envelope. I believe I heard them drive away; I believe I heard the sound of the car’s wheels on the dirt road; I believe so, but I could not really say for sure; it’s possible that I just took those things for granted. Later, I wondered if just the way the car door had sounded as it slammed shut, or the way the car’s wheels sounded as they ran over the dirt road, should have told me to expect something. The children and I were getting ready to go to the lake when we heard a scream, and we ran to a window that looked out in the direction from which the scream came. We saw Mariah running back toward the house, crying, her hands moving about in the air as if she were conducting a choir. She ran into the house, and just as we were about to go downstairs to see what was the matter, Lewis came into view. He was walking slowly, and in his hands he carried the limp body of a small animal, a rabbit. He had a funny look on his face; he looked like a boy in a picture, a boy who had placed a live mouse under his mother’s saucer and, on getting the desired result, pretended not to know what all the commotion was about. Lewis walked along in this way, and then something made him look up, and he saw our five faces framed behind the large glass-paned window. He stopped for a moment; whatever he saw in his children’s faces I do not know, but I suddenly felt sorry for him. He looked lost, unhappy, as if he might remember this as one of the most unhappy days in his entire life.
They buried the rabbit in a ceremony I could not bring myself to attend. The ceremony was another one of those untruths that I had only just begun to see as universal to life with mother, father, and some children. I had thought the untruths in family life belonged exclusively to me and my family, with my mother’s unopened letters representing evidence of the most important kind. Mariah and Lewis told the children that the car had run over the rabbit by accident, and they said it in such a way that I could only think they wanted the children to believe the car was driving itself. But when the children were out of the room Mariah would accuse Lewis of running over the rabbit on purpose, and Lewis would say that it really had been an accident, that the very path he took to avoid hitting the rabbit was just where the rabbit ran. Then Mariah would say, “But you aren’t sorry that you did it?” and he would say, “No, I am not sorry that it happened.” It was an important difference, but in a situation like that, how could Mariah be expected to see it?
* * *
Everything remains the same and yet nothing is the same. When this revelation was new to me, years ago, I told it to my mother, and when I saw how deeply familiar she was with it I was speechless. One day, Louisa said to me, after reading a letter from one of her school chums, “My mother and father love each other very much.” She said it with such force that I looked at her closely, for I thought she would reveal something. And what made
One day Mariah persuaded Lewis to go to the marshlands with her. This was the day I received the tenth letter from my mother to which I would make no reply; as with the nine others before it, I would not even break the seal on the envelope. I believe I heard them drive away; I believe I heard the sound of the car’s wheels on the dirt road; I believe so, but I could not really say for sure; it’s possible that I just took those things for granted. Later, I wondered if just the way the car door had sounded as it slammed shut, or the way the car’s wheels sounded as they ran over the dirt road, should have told me to expect something. The children and I were getting ready to go to the lake when we heard a scream, and we ran to a window that looked out in the direction from which the scream came. We saw Mariah running back toward the house, crying, her hands moving about in the air as if she were conducting a choir. She ran into the house, and just as we were about to go downstairs to see what was the matter, Lewis came into view. He was walking slowly, and in his hands he carried the limp body of a small animal, a rabbit. He had a funny look on his face; he looked like a boy in a picture, a boy who had placed a live mouse under his mother’s saucer and, on getting the desired result, pretended not to know what all the commotion was about. Lewis walked along in this way, and then something made him look up, and he saw our five faces framed behind the large glass-paned window. He stopped for a moment; whatever he saw in his children’s faces I do not know, but I suddenly felt sorry for him. He looked lost, unhappy, as if he might remember this as one of the most unhappy days in his entire life.
They buried the rabbit in a ceremony I could not bring myself to attend. The ceremony was another one of those untruths that I had only just begun to see as universal to life with mother, father, and some children. I had thought the untruths in family life belonged exclusively to me and my family, with my mother’s unopened letters representing evidence of the most important kind. Mariah and Lewis told the children that the car had run over the rabbit by accident, and they said it in such a way that I could only think they wanted the children to believe the car was driving itself. But when the children were out of the room Mariah would accuse Lewis of running over the rabbit on purpose, and Lewis would say that it really had been an accident, that the very path he took to avoid hitting the rabbit was just where the rabbit ran. Then Mariah would say, “But you aren’t sorry that you did it?” and he would say, “No, I am not sorry that it happened.” It was an important difference, but in a situation like that, how could Mariah be expected to see it?
* * *
Everything remains the same and yet nothing is the same. When this revelation was new to me, years ago, I told it to my mother, and when I saw how deeply familiar she was with it I was speechless. One day, Louisa said to me, after reading a letter from one of her school chums, “My mother and father love each other very much.” She said it with such force that I looked at her closely, for I thought she would reveal something. And what made
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