“Yes, that, too,” he admitted.
“When I think about Hal—” she said, suddenly stopping when she realized that this was the first time she’d said his name in a long time, that his identity had been kept out of the records of The IFP. She looked at Dr. Grind, who waited patiently. She decided, ultimately, that it didn’t matter. She could say his name. It wouldn't hurt anyone. “When I think about Hal, I get really angry that he killed himself. And then I think that I probably wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t. And that makes me feel so strange, so unsure of myself. It’s awful, but sometimes I think it was for the best.”
Dr. Grind was silent for a few seconds; he traced a circle in the sawdust on the floor, and Izzy immediately felt that she had made a mistake. Because he made it so easy, she often thought of Dr. Grind as just one of the other participants in the Infinite Family, not the person in charge. It was also the same kind of uncertainty that she felt in these moments, when it seemed like he was courting her, the way he made himself available. She understood that this was simply the kind of person he was, his skill at making everyone think they were the most important person in the complex, combined with her own loneliness, but it still left her confused at times. Now she wished only that he would say something, move past her admission.
“It’s not awful at all, Izzy,” he finally said, but did not continue. He kept tracing the circle in the sawdust, the circle slowly widening. Izzy was about to stand when Dr. Grind, still looking at the circle, said, “Marla and our son died in a car wreck. Did you know that?”
She nodded.
“Marla became very interested in my parents’ work with child development. She became slightly obsessed with the Constant Friction Method.” He then realized that Izzy might not know of this method and he looked up at her to explain, but she waved her hand and said, “I read about it. We all did some sleuthing on you before we came here.”
“I assumed that would be the case,” he said. “Well, Marla was very interested in it. She kept saying that, if the process had created me, then maybe it wasn’t so bad. Of course, I told her the various reasons for why I didn’t approve, and she knew these reasons herself, but she still seemed attached to it. So, a few times, I would find Marla with Jody and she would be intentionally putting him in harm’s way, doing something slightly dangerous. Nothing too severe; perhaps she would be playing with matches with him or tripping him when she didn’t think I was watching. We talked about it a lot; she even went to therapy to work it out. Things got better, and I stopped worrying about it. And then they died.”
Dr. Grind stopped talking and again stared at the floor. Izzy knew that if anyone else in the complex was telling this story, she would give them comfort, but she could not bring herself to touch him. If she did, she knew with certainty, she would kiss him again. She simply waited for him to continue, if there was anything left to say.
“I’m sorry for telling you this,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she admitted. She was amazed that he had said this much, and it felt good. There was a fuzziness inside her, better than being stoned, warm and pleasant, because the doctor had opened himself up just for her, given her a window into the life he had before the complex.
“Well, I often wonder, especially late at night, times like this when I’m awake and everyone else is asleep, if the car wreck wasn’t intentional. I wonder if Marla intended to drive off the road to shock Jody and then actually lost control of the car in the process. I wonder if, good lord, she drove the car intentionally into the tree, thinking they would survive it. And then I think that Marla wouldn’t do that. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We’re mysteries to each other, no matter how hard we try to prove otherwise.”
This time, Izzy did reach out for him, touching his shoulder as gently as snow falling, and Dr. Grind seemed slightly embarrassed by the gesture, but he grasped her hand and squeezed it. Then he stood and walked toward the door. He stopped and turned to Izzy.
“No matter what happened that night,” he said, “it doesn’t change the fact that I loved Marla very much. Even if I’m furious with what she might have done. That’s what emotions are, I think, complex and shifting, and yet we think that any deviation from what we’re supposed to feel makes us a bad person. We’re good people, Izzy. Hal was a good person. Marla was a good person. But they’re gone and so we do the best we can.”
He walked out of the studio, and Izzy felt so bereft, so strangely saddened for Dr. Grind and herself, the two people in the Infinite Family who had experienced such a loss, that all she could do was go back to the band saw and continue her work. Even if it amounted to nothing, even if it was tossed aside the day after, she had to believe that it meant something now. That it mattered. And so she made the letters and arranged them and read the words aloud.