“Hazel.” He took Di’s left hand and the other doll’s right hand. “I won’t be alone. That’s what the gals are for. Meet Roxy. Also, I think we should all be drinking.”
“Are you worried about the gross parts? Don’t be. I’m so glad you’re not a machine! Bodies breaking down . . . that’s what Byron wants to stop, but there’s something special about it. ‘Special’ is the wrong word. Correct? Orderly? Maybe even benevolent? The fact that we end. A body that’s in the woods long enough will deteriorate into nothing. We’re guests that clean up after ourselves. That’s, like, a sign of our goodness in a way? Our cells if not us? I don’t want you to feel embarrassed. I’m sure you never thought about me having to change your diaper or something. But to me it’s like, you’re real. You’re separate from things that are manufactured.”
“Jesus Christ, Hazel. Byron really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
He did. Hazel walked over to the mirror on the wall and stared. Looking at herself meant that in several hours she’d be looking at Byron.
It was possible that her father would change his mind when the going got tough. She could keep working on him. But he was stubborn, and for the moment wouldn’t budge, so she decided to take the opportunity to tell Byron to go to hell since she’d hopefully be begging for his forgiveness soon, calling to tell him they’d had a change of heart and were ready to be picked up. “Byron,” she said aloud, “he doesn’t want the help. But thank you for the offer.” In the background reflection, Hazel saw her father’s eyes go wide.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Then he smiled and in a half-joking voice asked, “That mirror’s not some kind of spy camera, right? Byron hasn’t been watching us?”
Hazel could only imagine what living room ménage à trois antics her father and crew had performed.
“Don’t worry, Dad. When you’re alone, you really are alone. At least I think you are. I’m a different story.”
“Huh? Hazel, you’re not making any damn sense.”
“I’m just kidding,” she said. “Forget it.”
Part of Hazel wanted to go down to the bar to meet Liver, but then she had an image of him gravesitting for her father’s own grave and she decided to just take the night off everything. Instead she’d go out back to the porch and sleep in the casket box while her dying father slept in the next room with two women who were never alive.
In the morning she’d try to decide what the hell to do. If it was better, after her father was taken care of, of course, to live out her days inside Byron’s spyglass. Or if it was preferable to take herself out and make Byron’s screen go black.
It was nighttime, and now that she didn’t have to sleep next to Byron she felt a little like masturbating. But then he would see it and know all the embarrassing scenarios she thought of to help her orgasm. He’d hear her come. Her mind thought forward: as she got older and softer and probably more out of shape, he’d see her naked body and its sagging contours, intimate sights meant to be viewed through a loving lens. He’d see them all. And if she one day found a significant other, everyone she met and cared about, actually—he’d see them too.
The only way to not be spied on was to completely not exist.
HAZEL WOKE WITH A BURNING URGE TO WASH HER FATHER’S FEET and trim his toenails, really ceremonially, disciple-style. Maybe she’d been going about this wrong. Maybe instead of pissing Byron off by sleeping with ex-convicts or taking herself out she needed to embrace saintly duties and live a life of self-deprecation. It wouldn’t count as much as it should since Byron would know the thoughts she was having, know how miserable she was, know how a martyr’s life of restraint was a performance for her. But wouldn’t it count for something?
“No.” Hazel said this aloud. She looked over at the wide, attentive eye of the plastic flamingo and the word seemed to have come from him, an emphatic voice of agreement. Byron didn’t feel compassion, and Byron wasn’t her master. It wasn’t like she was a caged dog who’d bitten a child and had to prove she was rehabilitated enough to be released. Nothing she’d ever do would cause Byron to say, “I’m freeing you; you’ve earned it.” She couldn’t earn it. Byron had to give it and he never would. She had three choices: surrender and return to him, live in surveillanced exile, or die. Which option would be the least horrible, she wasn’t sure.
But there would be something of a personal redemption in tending to her father. She’d made the wrong choice in marrying Byron, and in staying with him for so many years. Even if it wouldn’t matter to Byron if she did something good, it could matter to her.
The thing was, her father was a grouch. As someone who wasn’t dying of cancer, and as a freeloader, Hazel knew she didn’t have a right to complain audibly, but wow was he difficult to spend an evening with. Diane and Roxy only complicated things—they were a silent presence, yes, but still a presence, and seemed to make him automatically win every argument—it was three against one.
Tonight they were all watching a movie about a past war. Diane was lying sideways across Hazel’s father’s lap, posed as though he’d just carried the doll over the hearth of their new home, one arm bent up around his neck, holding on in an almost casual way, Diane’s head turned to the TV. As the white flashes of gunshots and violent noise washed over her permasmile, the juxtaposition made it hard for her to not seem sadistic. She grinned through the most gruesome close-up shots of disemboweled soldiers. They each seemed to be a personal enemy; she was delighted to watch them get their comeuppance.
In his bathrobe with a painkiller-induced expression of serenity, Hazel’s father also seemed appreciative of the violence. Was it a masculinity thing he was going for, watching these films? If so, she didn’t understand it. It wasn’t like Diane and Roxy were complaining about his performance in the bedroom.