Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

Just thought I’d tell you, Merissa. Do you have any questions?”
    Plenty of questions. But you can’t answer them.
    â€œThanks for telling me, Mom. That’s good news. I mean, that’s cool—about Dad.”
    Patiently waiting for her poor, sad mother to sigh, rise to her feet, and leave—ideally, go to bed: darken the house.
    Usually, her mother went to bed at about eleven p.m. She might watch TV for a while before falling asleep.
    It was only 10:10 p.m. now. Early!
    Which meant—plenty of time to contemplate. To anticipate.
    â€œWell, honey—good night.”
    Merissa’s mother startled her by leaning over and kissing her on the forehead.
    Saying from the doorway, “Any time you want to—talk, I mean. I’m here, Merissa.”
    As soon as the door was shut, and Merissa was reasonably sure that her mother was gone for the night, she clicked back on to the internet and Blade Runner, and the astonishing picture of the girl in the black-satin half mask with the scab-and-scar-ridden body reemerged as if it had never been more than an eyeblink away.

15.
    â€œTRY NOT TO CRY”
    So maybe. Maybe he won’t. Maybe it’s like Mom says.
    Merissa felt so hopeful, she decided not to cut herself that night after all.
    Though she’d told a cruel lie about Hannah—or hinted at one.
    Though Blade Runner curled in her arms in the night, in Merissa’s sweaty-smelling bed.
    Â 
    Daddy was coming to dinner!
    The first time since Daddy had moved out .
    Of course: This would be a special dinner .
    A special dinner Merissa helped her mother prepare: Daddy’s favorite steak, which was plank steak, rare, with oyster mushrooms, whipped potatoes, glazed ginger carrots.
    Merissa had come to hate red meat, especially rare and bloody . Not just that Tink had said how disgusting it was, eating “fellow mammals,” and Mr. Kessler strongly hinted that eating meat was “wasteful of the earth’s resources”—but Merissa had developed an actual, visceral disdain for the chewiness of meat.
    Merissa’s mother suggested that she just eat the vegetables. “You know how he feels about vegans and people who go on and on about global warming.”
    â€œMom, I am not a vegan. I just don’t like red meat.”
    â€œWell, your father does. Men do. Especially rare.”
    â€œAnd what does it have to do with global warming? Global warming is a scientific fact.”
    â€œNot with the terrible winters we’ve been having here in New Jersey. Don’t get your father started on that subject, please!”
    Stacy Carmichael was so excited, you’d have thought this was a first date.
    And she was looking less haggard than she’d been looking in weeks: Her skin glowed (with expertly applied makeup), even eyeliner and mascara; the shadowy rings beneath her eyes seemed to have vanished. She wore lipstick. She’d filed and polished her fingernails. She wore a lavender cashmere sweater and black woolen slacks and around her neck a jade medallion Merissa’s father had brought back from a trip to Japan a few years ago. (Merissa had a similar jade medallion from the same trip: She wondered if she should be wearing it, too. What sort of a distress signal would that be for Daddy to decode?)
    Merissa’s father had been vague about when he’d probably arrive—around seven p.m. But it was past seven thirty p.m., and it was past eight p.m., and Daddy had not yet arrived, nor had he called on his cell phone.
    Merissa’s mother hovered near both the landline and her own cell phone, awaiting a call.
    Merissa, lightly fingering the (secret) panoply of little, healing cuts on her skin, (secret) beneath her clothes, drifted between the kitchen and the dining room, where the table had been set, by Merissa, as if for a special occasion.
    And then, at 8:23 p.m., the glaring headlights of his vehicle—a sturdy steel-colored