“How did it fare during the last quake?”
“He didn’t have it back then. He got into it when Mom started to get sick.”
“Do you think there’s a connection?” I said.
“Between what?”
“Getting into porcelain and your mother becoming ill.”
“Why should there be—oh I see. She couldn’t do things with him anymore, so he learned to amuse himself. Yes, maybe. Like I said, he knows how to adapt.
What did your mom think about the porcelain?
She didn’t think anything, that I saw. She didn’t think much about anything—Eric likes the porcelain. He can inherit it, I couldn’t care less.” Sudden smile. “I’m the Queen of Apathy.”
At the end of the sixth session, she said, “Sometimes I wonder what kind of guy I’ll marry. I mean, will it be someone dominant like Dad or Eric, because that’s what I’m used to, or will I go in a totally opposite direction— not that I’m thinking about that. It’s just that Eric was down for the weekend and the two of them went off to some Asian art auction and I watched them leave the house—like twins. That’s basically what I know of men.”
She shook her head. “Dad keeps buying stuff. Sometimes I think that’s what he’s all about—expansion. As if one world’s not big enough for him—Eric was thinking of coming with me today to meet you.
Why?”
“He doesn’t have classes till tomorrow, asked me if I wanted to hang out before he flies up tonight. Kind of sweet, don’t you think? He really is a good brother. I told him I had to see you first. He didn’t know about you, Dad makes a big thing about confidentiality. Gave me this whole big speech about even though I was under eighteen, as far as he was concerned I had full rights. Like he was giving me a big gift, but I think he’s kind of embarrassed about it. Once, when I brought up Becky’s therapy, he changed the subject really fast. . . . Anyway, Eric hadn’t known about you and it surprised him. He started asking me all these questions, wanting to know if you were smart, where you got your degree. I realized I didn’t know.”
I pointed to my diplomas.
She said, “The good old U. Not Stanford or the Ivys, but it’ll probably satisfy him.”
“Do you feel you need to satisfy Eric?”
“Sure, he’s the smart one…. No, he’s entitled to his opinions, but they don’t influence mine. He decided not to come, took a bike ride instead. Maybe one day you’ll get to meet him.”
“If I behave myself?”
She laughed. “Yes, absolutely. Meeting Eric is a reward of the highest order.”
I’d thought a lot about Eric. About the hellish Po-laroids he’d shot of his mother. Standing at the foot of the bed, highlighting her misery in cold, unforgiving light. His father considered them trophies, carried them around in that little purse.
How badly had Richard Doss hated his wife?
I said, “How did Eric react to your mother’s death?”
“Silence. Silent anger. He’d already dropped out of school to be with her, maybe that did it for him. Because right after, he returned to Stanford.” Sudden chill in her voice. She picked at her cuticles, stared down into her lap.
Bad move, bringing up her brother. Keep the focus on her, always on her.
But I wondered if she’d ever seen the snapshots.
“So,” I said.
“So.” She looked at her watch.
Ten minutes to go. She frowned. I tried to reel her back in: “A couple of weeks ago, we were discussing how expressing opinions can be tricky in your family. How did your mother—”
“By having none. By turning herself into a nothing.
A nothing,” I said.
“Exactly. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I found out what she did—with Mate. I mean I was, when I heard about it on the news. But after the shock wore off, I realized it made sense: the ultimate passivity.
So you had no warning—”
“None. She never said a word to me. Never said goodbye. That morning she had called me in to say hi before I went to school. Told me I looked pretty. She did that sometimes, there was nothing different. She looked the way she always did. Erased—the truth is she’d already rubbed herself out by the time Mate got involved. The media always make it out like he’s doing something but he isn’t. Not if the other people were like my mom. He didn’t do a damn thing. There was nothing left for him to do. She didn’t want to be.”