FIVE
* * *
I am with them. Maybe if I'm with them, it'll be all right.
Maybe.
We walk down the hall, Annie, Kevin, the psychiatrist and I. It seems a long way.
He has tried to dissuade them, but he probably knew it wouldn't work. Annie and Kevin have a way about them, and what they want, they always get. When they tell you something is going to happen, it does. There is no resisting them when they make up their minds.
I stopped trying years ago.
Was it so wrong, the way things were? Annie ruled the house; the matriarch. I knew her temper, her iron will. Lucy learned young, just like all of them did, not to cross her mother, not to risk that tone, that stare. Right or wrong, Annie's word was law.
This is good for kids, right? Even adult ones? They need that stability, that certainty.
God gives that, so why not my wife?
And Kevin -- he had that strength, and that undying love for Lucy. She was always flighty but he learned to control her. She would do as he told because it was best for her. When she threatened to leave that one time, when she had fought with Annie, had dared to fight with Annie, over something stupid like Ruthie's going to a party or something, it had been Kevin who had put his foot down and taken charge.
And Annie who had gone and accepted Lucy's apology.
That's good, isn't it?
It restored the old order in the household. It taught Lucy something about her place in the world, our world.
Did it teach her how to slash her wrists?
No. Don't think that. Don't you dare think that. Annie does what she does out of love.
I watch my wife as we approach the door. Her face is hard, rigid.
And I sense that she will restore order here too.
I try to speak, to say something, but the door opens before I can.
* * *
I am with them. Maybe if I'm with them, it'll be all right.
Maybe.
We walk down the hall, Annie, Kevin, the psychiatrist and I. It seems a long way.
He has tried to dissuade them, but he probably knew it wouldn't work. Annie and Kevin have a way about them, and what they want, they always get. When they tell you something is going to happen, it does. There is no resisting them when they make up their minds.
I stopped trying years ago.
Was it so wrong, the way things were? Annie ruled the house; the matriarch. I knew her temper, her iron will. Lucy learned young, just like all of them did, not to cross her mother, not to risk that tone, that stare. Right or wrong, Annie's word was law.
This is good for kids, right? Even adult ones? They need that stability, that certainty.
God gives that, so why not my wife?
And Kevin -- he had that strength, and that undying love for Lucy. She was always flighty but he learned to control her. She would do as he told because it was best for her. When she threatened to leave that one time, when she had fought with Annie, had dared to fight with Annie, over something stupid like Ruthie's going to a party or something, it had been Kevin who had put his foot down and taken charge.
And Annie who had gone and accepted Lucy's apology.
That's good, isn't it?
It restored the old order in the household. It taught Lucy something about her place in the world, our world.
Did it teach her how to slash her wrists?
No. Don't think that. Don't you dare think that. Annie does what she does out of love.
I watch my wife as we approach the door. Her face is hard, rigid.
And I sense that she will restore order here too.
I try to speak, to say something, but the door opens before I can.