The Things We Never Say: A Novel

He lived now in Somerville, about an hour away from his parents, working as a software engineer for a company that had contracts with the Department of Defense, and he made more than twice as much money as Artie made. Two years ago, he had married a woman named Francesca, a concert pianist who played throughout Europe; she was nine years his senior. While Evie loved their daughter-in-law, Artie found her to be a slightly odd woman, somehow unknowable, and his son, he thought, had become a person who remained deeply inside himself. But for Artie the worst thing of all had happened and it was this: Rob had distanced himself increasingly from his father. Artie kept trying to think when this had happened, and he felt that it was far more acute this past year. And all Artie could think of was the funny, happy child Rob had been.

Not a day went by that Artie did not think about this situation with his son. Was this an ongoing aftermath of the accident? Was it Rob's marriage? What had caused this distance to increase? Artie was thinking about this now as he drove home from school. The streets had odd angles and there were many streetlights as he passed by large old wooden houses painted deep blue or maroon or off-white; these houses sat very close to the old sidewalks. He stopped at a stop sign in a neighborhood lined with smaller wooden houses, and then he carefully pulled out. He had a real fear of hitting a child coming home from school.

"Yelled at the class today," he told his wife when she got home from work; she was a full-time family therapist these days. She took her coat off and looked at him with surprise. "You did?"

Evie had a beautiful head of white hair—it had turned white early because she had been a redhead, and it fell to the top of her shoulders, dipping down now slightly in the back as she reached into the closet for a hanger.

He told her about Danny Marino making fun of Rhonda Lazarre. Evie didn't say anything at first, but then she smoothed down her pale green sweater and said, "Well, that's good, Artie. I hope this Danny Marino fellow remembers it for the rest of his life."

Artie sighed as he sat down in the living room. "I don't know," he said.

"What don't you know?" Evie had followed him and sat now across from him in an old dark brown velvet chair.

"I never yell at the class. But it seemed—I don't know—like I should. I couldn't help it. That poor Rhonda."

"Well, I support you." Evie gave a nod and then told him about her last client, how the mother was impossible with her adolescent child. Artie nodded just slightly as he listened. Evie took her work very seriously, and he admired her for that. The tales of woe she often brought home seemed to him to require a distance that apparently came naturally to Evie. She was a professional, after all.

That same night, Friday, there was a party at the Merrills'. Anne Merrill had taught with Artie for many years, and her husband was a lawyer in town. As he and Evie got ready, Artie recognized within himself a sense of almost-anticipation, these were his old friends, after all, who would be there. "Ready?" Evie asked, putting on her black coat, and he said he was, holding up the car key. Evie had the figure of a slim teenage girl, meaning her stomach was flat and she was small. She did this with yoga and a good diet, and also her skin was remarkable, it had a glow to it at all times, and she applied her various creams with a religiosity that amazed Artie. This was clearly not going to be the story with Artie, whose face (he thought) had become just one more old man's face lacking any distinguishing features behind his large wire-framed glasses. Although he, like Evie, still had a full head of hair.

Rob had begun to lose his hair about a year after the accident, and now he shaved his head completely, and he was tall, and every time Artie saw him, Artie's heart broke a little more. The boy had gotten his height from Evie's father, who had been a tall man as well, though not as tall as Rob had turned out to be.

"Look at you!" Anne Merrill said this to Evie as she bent to give her a hug. "You look just as pretty as ever. Hello there, Artie!" And Artie said, "Anne, why don't you ever tell me 'I'm' looking pretty?" Anne laughed and gave his shoulder a small push. "Your white socks are pretty," Anne said coyly, and Artie nodded. Artie always wore white socks with what he thought of as his (now) old man black sneakers. When he had first met Evie, she had gone out and bought him some dress socks, and he had not liked them. "These are awful, they hurt my calves," he had told her. And over the years Artie continued to wear his white socks, except for exceptional circumstances, and Evie still could not stand them.

The Merrills' house was a large one, and people were moving through the living room; lights shone against the dark windowpanes as people held out their wineglasses to be refilled.

"Hello, hello!" Artie nodded to the many people who were happy to see him. A joke was made about the boys' soccer team this year; their first game was to be next week, and they weren't looking too good to Coach Clark, and this was blamed on Artie for no longer being the assistant. "It is my fault. My God, how could you think otherwise?" Artie said. He put some cheese into his mouth just as a woman said hello, and he made a joke about that, about his mouth being full, holding up a finger and chewing with exaggeration while the woman waited with merriment in her eyes.