flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 82
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I’d read that.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNETEN WEEKS AFTER THE RETURNNick still pretends with me. We pretend together that we are happy and carefree andin love. But I hear him clicking away late at night on the computer. Writing. Writing hisside, I know it. I know it, I can tell by the feverish outpouring of words, the keys clickingand clacking like a million insects.
I try to hack in when he’s asleep (although he sleepslike me now, fussy and anxious, and I sleep like him). But he’s learned his lesson, thathe’s no longer beloved Nicky, safe from wrong—he no longer uses his birthday or hismom’s birthday or Bleecker’s birthday as a password. I can’t get in.Still, I hear him typing, rapidly and without pause, and I can picture him hunchedover the keyboard, his shoulders up, his tongue clamped between his teeth, and I knowthat I was right to protect myself. To take my precaution.Because he isn’t writing a love story.NICK DUNNETWENTY WEEKS AFTER THE RETURNI didn’t move out.
I wanted this all to be a surprise to my wife, who is neversurprised. I wanted to give her the manuscript as I walked out the door to land a bookdeal. Let her feel that trickling horror of knowing the world is about to tilt and dump itsshit all over you, and you can’t do anything about it. No, she may never go to prison,and it will always be my word against hers, but my case was convincing.
It had anemotional resonance, if not a legal one.So let everyone take sides. Team Nick, Team Amy. Turn it into even more of a game:Sell some fucking T-shirts.My legs were weak when I went to tell Amy: I was no longer part of her story.I showed her the manuscript, displayed the glaring title: Psycho Bitch. A little insidejoke. We both like our inside jokes. I waited for her to scratch my cheeks, rip my clothes,bite me.“Oh! What perfect timing,” she said cheerfully, and gave me a big grin. “Can I showyou something?”I made her do it again in front of me. Piss on the stick, me squatting next to her onthe bathroom oor, watching the urine come out of her and hitting the stick and turningit pregnant-blue.Then I hustled her into the car and drove to the doctor’s o ce, and I watched theblood come out of her—because she isn’t really afraid of blood—and we waited the twohours for the test to come back.Amy was pregnant.“It’s obviously not mine,” I said.“Oh, it is.” She smiled back. She tried to snuggle into my arms.
“Congratulations,Dad.”“Amy—” I began, because of course it wasn’t true, I hadn’t touched my wife since herreturn. Then I saw it: the box of tissues, the vinyl recliner, the TV and porn, and mysemen in a hospital freezer somewhere. I’d left that will-destroy notice on the table, alimp guilt trip, and then the notice disappeared, because my wife had taken action, asalways, and that action wasn’t to get rid of the stuff but to save it. Just in case.I felt a giant bubble of joy—I couldn’t help it—and then the joy was encased in ametallic terror.“I’ll need to do a few things for my security, Nick,” she said.
“Just because, I have tosay, it’s almost impossible to trust you. To start, you’ll have to delete your book,obviously. And just to put that other matter to rest, we’ll need an a davit, and you’llneed to swear that it was you who bought the stu in the woodshed and hid the stu inthe woodshed, and that you did once think I was framing you, but now you love me andI love you and everything is good.”“What if I refuse?”She put her hand on her small, swollen belly and frowned. “I think that would beawful.”We had spent years battling for control of our marriage, of our love story, our lifestory.
I had been thoroughly, nally outplayed. I created a manuscript, and she createda life.I could ght for custody, but I already knew I’d lose. Amy would relish the battle—God knew what she already had lined up. By the time she was done, I wouldn’t even bean every-other-weekend dad; I would interact with my child in strange rooms with aguardian nearby sipping co ee, watching me. Or maybe not even that. I could suddenlysee the accusations—of molestation or abuse—and I would never see my baby, and Iwould know that my child was tucked away far from me, Mother whispering,whispering lies into that tiny pink ear.“It’s a boy, by the way,” she said.I was a prisoner after all.
Amy had me forever, or as long as she wanted, because Ineeded to save my son, to try to unhook, unlatch, debarb, undo everything that Amydid. I would literally lay down my life for my child, and do it happily. I would raise myson to be a good man.I deleted my story.Boney picked up on the first ring.“Pancake House? Twenty minutes?” she said.“No.”I informed Rhonda Boney that I was going to be a father and so could no longerassist in any investigation—that I was, in fact, planning to retract any statement I’dmade concerning my misplaced belief that my wife had framed me, and I was also readyto admit my role in the credit cards.A long pause on the line. “Hunh,” she said.
“Hunh.”I could picture Boney running her hand through her slack hair, chewing on the insideof her cheek.“You take care of yourself, okay, Nick?” she said nally. “Take good care of the littleone too.” Then she laughed. “Amy I don’t really give a fuck about.”I went to Go’s house to tell her in person. I tried to frame it as happy news.
A baby,you can’t be that upset about a baby. You can hate a situation, but you can’t hate achild.I thought Go was going to hit me. She stood so close I could feel her breath. Shejabbed me with an index finger.“You just want an excuse to stay,” she whispered. “You two, you’re fucking addictedto each other. You are literally going to be a nuclear family, you do know that? You willexplode.
You will fucking detonate. You really think you can possibly do this for, what,the next eighteen years? You don’t think she’ll kill you?”“Not as long as I am the man she married. I wasn’t for a while, but I can be.”“You don’t think you’ll kill her? You want to turn into Dad?”“Don’t you see, Go? This is my guarantee not to turn into Dad. I’ll have to be the besthusband and father in the world.”Go burst into tears then—the rst time I’d seen her cry since she was a child. She satdown on the oor, straight down, as if her legs gave out.
I sat down beside her andleaned my head against hers. She nally swallowed her last sob and looked at me.“Remember when I said, Nick, I said I’d still love you if? I’d love you no matter whatcame after the if?”“Yes.”“Well, I still love you. But this breaks my heart.” She let out an awful sob, a child’ssob. “Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way.”“It’s a strange twist,” I said, trying to turn it light.“She won’t try to keep us apart, will she?”“No,” I said. “Remember, she’s pretending to be someone better too.”Yes, I am nally a match for Amy.
The other morning I woke up next to her, and Istudied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn’t feel like I wasstaring into the sun. I’m rising to my wife’s level of madness. Because I can feel herchanging me again: I was a callow boy, and then a man, good and bad. Now at last I’mthe hero. I am the one to root for in the never-ending war story of our marriage. It’s astory I can live with. Hell, at this point, I can’t imagine my story without Amy.
She is myforever antagonist.We are one long frightening climax.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNETEN MONTHS, TWO WEEKS, SIX DAYS AFTER THERETURNI was told love should be unconditional. That’s the rule, everyone says so. But if lovehas no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thingever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge? I am supposed tolove Nick despite all his shortcomings.
And Nick is supposed to love me despite myquirks. But clearly, neither of us does. It makes me think that everyone is very wrong,that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be theirvery best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all haveseen, undisciplined love is disastrous.You can read more about my thoughts on love in Amazing. Out soon!But rst: motherhood.
The due date is tomorrow. Tomorrow happens to be ouranniversary. Year six. Iron. I thought about giving Nick a nice pair of handcu s, but hemay not nd that funny yet. It’s so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoingmy husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.Nick has spent all his free time these past months slathering my belly with cocoabutter and running out for pickles and rubbing my feet, and all the things good fathersto-be are supposed to do. Doting on me. He is learning to love me unconditionally,under all my conditions. I think we are nally on our way to happiness. I have nallyfigured it out.We are on the eve of becoming the world’s best, brightest nuclear family.We just need to sustain it.
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