Page 34 of The New Year's Party
As the group settled deeper in around the dining room table with Doug trying to resurrect his currency metaphor, Will was surprised to find himself still hanging back, as if he was wearing cement boots that were physically preventing him from moving fully into the dining room with the others.
At one point, Bennett joined him in the threshold, adjusting a very basic cone-shaped hat on his head.
“Not into hats?” said Bennett.
“Waiting for inspiration to strike,” said Will, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
But it wasn’t that. Memories of Oscar were gathering momentum, slamming through Will. He, too, remembered that three-in-the-morning conversation fourteen years ago. It was Oscar and Jenn who were dating at the time, with Will as the third wheel. They were twenty-one. Kids, tossing around big untested ideas, as if they could know anything at all without living it out first. Will used to believe, like their leaders in Compass had taught them, that even though you were powerless to change yourself, whatever problem you had,Godwanted to fix it,wouldfix it. That’s what it meant to be a Christian: to be heated like iron in God’s workshop, where he would bang you into the right shape with his mallet. Smooth out all the flawed parts of you. Sometimes it hurt, but it all had a purpose. In Compass, they called it sanctification.
Will had tried to let himself be banged into the right shape. He’d tried, year after painful year. But instead of feeling closer to perfection, he felt warped beyond recognition. Though... had God really wielded that mallet, or was it Jenn?
Why Oscar had killed himself that February following the party was technically unexplained, since no note had been found. But Will remembered that fateful moment at the first New Year’s party, when he and Oscar were on the same team in that crazy game of Clue, and suddenly found themselves in the pantry of Doug’s mom’s house... He remembered Oscar’s tearful explanation of his “struggles.” Then, in January, Compass had stripped him of his leadership role, and Will couldn’t help but wonder if their moment in the pantry was to blame. He couldn’t help but imagine that Oscar might have felt just like Will did now. Backed into a corner. Faced with an impossible choice. And Will knew how he started to feel when he was cornered, after the surge of fear wore off: violent.
Maybe that’s why Will had encouraged Hellie to leave Doug. That was years ago, of course—and the conversation hadn’t gone well, to say the least. In retrospect, maybe he’d said that less for her, and more for himself. Maybe he’d wanted to experience salvation vicariously, to see the proof in Hellie that it waspossibleto escape, that caged animalscouldrun free again...
Of course, it wasn’t as simple for Will as it could be for Hellie: he had kids. And Will was under no illusion that divorcing Jenn would result in him getting the girls. Who would believe Will’s story? He lost either way: he couldn’t let his girls be raised by Jenn, who would poison them against Will, but he couldn’t stay either, or he would break. Even though during the day, at his job, he felt normal, competent, and in control, in the deep of the night, next to his gently snoring wife, he imagined himself doing awful things—strangling her, smothering her while she struggled under him, drawing a paring knife across her throat and hearing her helplessly gurgle out the last of her life—
Even now he was breathless with the ugliness inside him.A monster was rising up within him, and soon Will would be too weak to stop it. He looked at Bennett, standing there, tall and good-looking, with his stupid party hat and his gorgeous wife and his perfect life. Bennett had thought the fifteen grand was a big deal—hah! It was nothing.Nothing.
Will glanced at Jenn. She was at the far end of the dining room, in conversation with Allie, who was helping her attach a pipe cleaner in the shape of a star to the top of her hat. He had fallen for her back in college for so many reasons. Her smile. Her energy. Her passionate single-mindedness. She was clear where Will felt blurry, decisive where Will could get caught up in a merry-go-round of deliberations. She completed him, he’d thought. With Jenn, he would become a better man. Afocused, purpose-driven person. How he ached for those hopeful days. That sense of potential in himself. Now look at what he’d become.
“She took my phone,” said Will to Bennett in a strained sotto voce, turning his face slightly so he wasn’t facing the crowd in the dining room. The monster was pressing against his ribs.
“Sorry, what?” said Bennett, too loudly.
Will shook his head quickly. Was Jenn looking their way? No, she was measuring the hat against her head. The head that sat, so fragile, on her neck—
“Jenn,” he hissed. His eyes remained locked on his wife. His fingers twitched in his pockets. “She took my phone. Last year. That’s why I haven’t—”
“What?” said Bennett, finally stepping closer and touching Will’s arm lightly. “Wait—”
Jenn’s head snapped up, and she was looking straight at them.
“Will? Aren’t you making a hat?” Her clear voice cut into their moment. Like she cut into everything. Will clenched his fists. She waggled her hat playfully. “Isn’t this craft so cute?The girls would love these! We’ll have to make extra so we have three to take home! You should do a pink one. Mackenzie would love it!”
“Sure! Yeah, I’ll do a pink one,” said Will in the normal, stable voice he had to use on purpose so that the other strangled, crazy voice didn’t come out. His fingers were fisted so tightly he could feel his nails digging into his palms.
“Will—” said Bennett in a whisper.
“Hats,” Will said, loud and jovial.
Telling Bennett had felt like a mad reach toward salvation—a final grasp at the strength of the brotherhood he’d felt coursing through him as they jumped together like fools. But in the end, it was still Will’s impossible choice. No one could save him from it. There was no help here. There would be no help anywhere. He released his fingers from the useless fists that he could never use. “Let’s make some hats, man.”
He couldn’t bear to look at Bennett again as he moved into the dining room. There was glitter and there were sequins. Colorful bottle cleaners and markers and all colors of construction paper. His hands moved over the craft materials, but they didn’t seem like his hands at all.
“Hey, we need to document this!” cried Jenn, holding her phone high up above, her arm fully extended, to capture the group. “Get in here, everyone! Smile!”
Everyone leaned in, smiled, and froze, Will included. Such was her power.
“Perfect!” she cooed. Motion resumed. She set her hat down and typed furiously on her phone.
Will could already imagine the subsequent post.So grateful for our village!Or that awfulso blessed. Peoplelovedher posts on Facebook. Will’s own parents loved her posts. Probably loved her posts more than they loved Will.
But they didn’t, couldn’t possibly, love them as much as Will hated them.
“So... what are you making, sweetie?” said Jenn, baring her teeth in a smile. Will could see the glint of poison on her teeth.
“One pink hat, coming up,” he said loudly, returning a fierce smile of his own as, inside him, the monster stretched.
