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A Novel
by Elizabeth Berg
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"Take it," Anderson says, pushing the box toward her.
She takes it, her hand shaking, and opens it to find a pearl solitaire necklace, identical to the one he gave her before.
"A token of my appreciation," he says, as though he were dressed in a tux and bowing before her. "Do you like it?"
She reaches beneath the neckline of her T- shirt to pull out her necklace and shows it to him.
"Oh," he says. "Shit."
She starts to get out of the car and he grabs her arm. "What are you doing?"
She says nothing, tries to wrestle her arm free, and he holds on tighter. It hurts. She turns toward him and slaps his face. It startles both of them, he lets go, and she gets out of the car, leaving the door open. Let him shut it. She starts running away.
"Maddy!" he says. "What in the hell are you doing? Get in the car, I'll give you a ride home. For Christ's sake, get in the car!"
She keeps running, faster.
"Maddy! It's not safe!" She hears him slam the passenger door and the car starts coming toward her. She runs into the woods.
"Maddy!" she hears. And then she hears the car driving off.
She comes out of the woods and there is no sign of him. She waits for a minute to see if he will come back, but he doesn't.
Maybe fifty feet away, just at the periphery of the woods, she notices a doe watching her, and she becomes flooded with an elemental sense of shame. She stares back at the animal, its wide and patient eyes, its stillness. For a long time, neither moves. Then, "Mom?" Maddy whispers.
When she was little, Maddy used to watch Mister Rogers on TV. Her father would set her up on the sofa with animal crackers and juice and disappear into the bedroom or the basement, where he could be alone. Maddy would watch the little train and the puppets and the regular visitors to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. She would listen to the soothing voice of a man she wished her father were like. One day Mister Rogers stared out from the screen as though he were talking right to her. "Look for the helpers," he advised. "If you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope." She'd started when she heard that, then held perfectly still. She wouldn't have been surprised if Mister Rogers had reached out his hand through the screen. She has never forgotten that day, that feeling of being offered some sort of lifeline.
Maddy feels her mother sometimes as a glow in her brain, as a knock at her heart, as a whisper she can't quite hear. And then there are times when she thinks her mother takes on the form of something else, like this doe, appearing from out of the woods to stand by her, if only from a distance. Maddy sees this as wordless reassurance, as fulfillment of the promise that Mister Rogers made, and it does offer her hope, though that hope is not nearly as bright as it used to be. That hope has gotten tired.
Maddy swallows, holds up a hand. "Bye," she says, and starts walking.
When she gets home, she climbs noiselessly through the window and, once inside, turns on her desk lamp. Her father is sitting on the edge of her bed. "Where have you been?" he asks.
There is nothing left in her. She is not afraid.
"I snuck out to meet a boy." Her father nods. He stares at her standing there, her arms crossed, her heart shattered.
Then, "Come here," he says, and pats the bed beside him. Maddy moves to the place he's indicated and sits staring straight ahead.
Her father clears his throat. He puts his hand over Maddy's, and Maddy's stomach clenches. Her natural response to his rare attempts at affection is to stiffen or move away from him. Because these attempts are not felt as warm. Rather they are felt as foreign and intrusive, and as reminders of what was almost always missing and, at least at first, acutely longed for. Over the years, she has built a little fort against wanting any of that from him anymore. It is too late now. The fort is impenetrable. She is safe inside it.
Excerpted from The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg. Copyright © 2017 by Elizabeth Berg. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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