First You Try Everything by Jane Mccafferty Page A

paper, and so is the dog’s.”
    â€œThat’s a nice story.”
    â€œThe baby’s just fine. It’s a great story. So come back home! I’m dying here without you. So is Ruth. I’m hallucinating . Please. Just come over and watch a movie with us.
I’ll make popcorn. You can still be my friend ,
right?”
    â€œI can’t , Ev, at this
point. Not yet.”
    â€œI don’t get it! Why
not? ”
    She needed to have him repeat things a hundred
times. It was as if she had no brain anymore, no comprehension.
    â€œIt’s not good for you to talk to me like this. It
just keeps you attached.” He walked with the phone into the kitchen, and opened
the door. The night was wild and cold, and wind washed over his face as he
closed his eyes. “It keeps you thinking like we’re still married.”
    â€œWe are still married!”
    â€œWe’re separated.”
    â€œMaybe you are!”
    â€œThat’s my point.”
    A silence fell.
    â€œRemember that other story about that crazy kid in
the Bronx who started hearing voices coming out of his meat?”
    â€œYeah.” He opened his eyes to the low moon, the
torn purple clouds.
    â€œWell, I’m going to the Bronx to find that kid and
I’m bringing him home. That kid should be mine.”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œOK? Just like that?”
    He stepped back, and closed the door. “You’re an
adult, and a free citizen. If you want to go abscond with a psychiatric patient
in the Bronx and get arrested and go to jail, you should. By all means you
should do what you want.”
    â€œAre you trying to be funny?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œYou don’t even care that I’m going crazy?”
    â€œI care deeply. I think you know that. But I’m not
the one to help you. The more I try to help, the worse it gets. You end up
passed out in a bar, remember?”
    â€œYou’re the only one
who can help. I’m coming over.”
    She hung up.
    Then called back. “I wouldn’t come over there if we
were getting nuked and you had the last fucking bomb shelter on Earth.”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œOh. Isn’t it sweet to have all the power in the
world, Ben? Especially on a night like this, when we’re getting a tornado?”
    â€œ Sweet wouldn’t be the
first word that came to mind. And we’re not getting a tornado.”
    â€œI really don’t like how calm you sound. I really
don’t. You can sit there and think how crazy I am,
Ben, how glad you are that you put me in the Dumpster, and then you’ll hang the
phone up and forget about me within five minutes! You haven’t even bothered to
check in and say hi to Cedric at Giant Eagle! And what about Ruth? We’re the
discarded, I guess. On with your new life. Trading us all in like a good
American. It’s become the national sport, so why not join in?”
    She slammed the phone down.
    For the first time, she was really angry, and he
was grateful. It meant she might be halfway normal after all.
    L ate the next night she managed to climb into his
window. Using all her strength, she’d hoisted a ladder (their landlord’s ladder,
which he’d used to paint their top shutters last year) against the side of the
house, climbed up to the second-story apartment, whistling no less, and pushed
the slightly open window up as high as it would go. He watched from his mattress
as she did this. “This is not happening,” he chanted. He watched as she climbed
in through the window dressed in his old coat, his old high school football
helmet!, and flannel pajamas. No doubt she wore the helmet to protect her head
in case she fell from the ladder, but she looked insane, and now she was singing
Lou Reed’s “Coney Island Baby,” a song they’d both loved.
    Had to play football
for the coach . . .
    â€œWhat the fuck are you—”
    He sat up. It was true. This was