Free The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris Page A

into a different car and being driven past the car she shared with Tim where he sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, listening to public radio. A different life, a totally different life. How easy it would be. They would arrive at the man’s place and she would never leave. Give him to me and I will change. I will see the point again. I will discern the code. I will laugh into the pillow at my unbelievable luck. I will inhabit a bed for hours with a fullness I thought gone forever. I will not look at anything as a chore again. I will smile unprompted. I will be in love. I will have boundless energy. I will not complain. Get me out of my life and I will wax again. I’ll make trips to boutiques in SoHo and pick out garter belts and babydolls, and as the clerk wraps them in tissue, it will take every possible restraint not to cry out with happiness.
    The calls in the middle of the night, the long car rides out to God knows where. The worry, the frustration, the uncertainty, the sacrifice. Let Becka pick him up from now on. Make him take cabs.
    She left the meat counter and walked to the far end of the store. She walked down the wine aisle. She chose the most expensive bottle. She left and then returned to the aisle for a second one.
    “Where’s the food?” he asked.
    She shut the door. “The line was too long. I thought we could pick up something on the way.”
    “I was looking forward to veal,” he said.
    She set the two wine bottles in back.
    “You could buy wine but not veal?”
    “I bought the wine at the liquor counter. There was no line there.”
    “You couldn’t buy the veal there, too?”
    “You know, it really pisses me off that you won’t let Bagdasarian try to help you,” she said. “With the exception of me, he’s the only one who hasn’t accused you of being crazy. I mean, he’s gone out of his way to argue that this is a real disease, and now he has something that might offer some evidence, some hope, to do for you what you’ve wanted, what you have searched and searched—what you have
begged
for, Tim—he says to you here it is, possibly, maybe, can’t guarantee it, but hey, it’s more than we’ve ever had. Good news, right? Exciting stuff! And you look away and say, let me think about it? What the hell is wrong with you? How many times—”
    “Hey,” he said, “where is this coming from?”
    “How many times have I sat with you in waiting rooms? How many specialists have we seen? I have flown to Ohio, to Minnesota, to California, to The fucking Hague! to be with you while you track them down. All the big names, all the experts. I have been there. Do you remember the chart, Tim? The log? What did you call it? Every day. Every day we recorded what you ate, what you drank, how you slept, how many hours, on and on… when you had your bowel movements, what change in weather that day, the temperature, the barometric pressure, for fuck’s sake. What else? Every insane insignificance! I kept a map full of pushpins! Here’s where you walked to on Monday. Here’s where you walked to on Wednesday. I listened to your rants, your rage, your frustration—”
    “Can I get a word in?”
    “And after all my struggle and all my patience, you can’t make one—more—fucking—effort?”
    “Don’t you understand that if he comes up empty, I’ll want to kill myself?”
    “You said you’d never do that.”
    “But I would want to, Jane.”
    “So that’s it? That’s the final word?”
    “I said I would think about it.”
    “And I get no say in it? After everything, I get no say?”
    “It has to be my decision,” he said.
    “Don’t think I don’t know why,” she said. “You’d have to wear that helmet at work. Don’t think I don’t know that’s your thinking.”
    She threw the car in reverse, then suddenly slammed on the brakes. She had come close to hitting a mother and daughter as they passed by.
    They drove home in silence and did not stop for dinner. On their way