A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

younger than my parents, in her midthirties. But Clarissa seemed an older soul than any of them. A dark-haired woman with a long, planar face, she wore in every weather the same clunky pilgrim shoes and knee-length sundresses that revealed her skinny, snow-white shins: oddball outfits typical of someone who had been isolated and brain-bound her whole life, who’d never noticed, or maybe never cared to observe, the habits of socialized folk. She drawled out her vowels, and fluttered her eyes as she spoke, in a kind of tic. She was pretty—a refined face, a rosy complexion—but somehow devoid of eroticism. She took no interest in classical music or literature (normally this disqualified anybody from friendship with my parents), but her burning interest in her own field, psychology, appealed to my mother’s gender-is-destiny politics; and her status as a reader at the Episcopal church won over my father. Her defining moment for him came at one of my parents’ cocktail parties, when she treated a room full of leftist humanities professors to a thirty-minute lecture about the clear indications in the Gospels, St. Paul, Acts, and Revelation, that the majority of people would, in fact, go to hell.
    That’s a little tough on those of us who aren’t perfect, said one guest in a snide voice, clearly feeling he voiced the majority view. I suppose you feel pretty sure of yourself.
    I reckon most of us have a little roasting to do before we’re done, said Clarissa.
    But hell or heaven—isn’t that a typical male, black and white view?
    It was my mother speaking, her tone, urgent, argumentative—even a touch strangled, as if she felt nervous confronting her friend. Women have been disqualified from virtually any role in the church. Why should I feel an obligation to submit to something that excludes me? Especially if it means . . . going to hell.
    A ripple of agreement passed among some guests. Or perhaps it was the excitement of a crowd at a bullfight—a sitting forward, a watching for first blood.
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    Clarissa defused it with an acquiescent gesture. Joan is our hostess and gets the last word, said Clarissa, without a touch of sarcasm. And all this talk of hell has made me thirsty. How about another bourbon? I remember my mother’s face, smiling, gratified, but also tense—some conflict remained unresolved there—merely postponed.
    I heard my mother ushering Clarissa into the hall. My door was open. I lay in my pajamas, under the window. Beside me sat a halfempty glass of water and a mostly depleted Tylenol bottle. The voices carried up the stairs.
    “George is having some trouble,” my mother whispered.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Can you take a look at him?”
    “Does he need a doctor?”
    “I’d rather start with you.”
    “A psychologist?” Clarissa chewed on this. “What about Richard Manning?”
    “I’d rather Richard didn’t know.”
    There followed a pause.
    “I see,” said Clarissa. Then: “Lead the way.”
    Clarissa appeared in the doorway a few moments later. In her hand she held a mason jar filled with water, containing a single cut flower: a parrot tulip of flaming orange-pink. She peered at me over her fine, long nose. She rested the flower on my dresser, then sat on the side of my bed.
    “Hello, George,” she said.
    Clarissa’s examination took only a few minutes. She asked me what had happened; I told her. She observed my back, stomach, and sides. Her reaction was somber, but terse.
    “Put some ice on these,” she said with a frown.
    “Is that flower for me?” I asked as I pulled my pajamas on again.
    “It is,” she replied.
    “Why?”
    “I haven’t seen you much since your father died,” she said. I did not reply; it was a statement.
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    J u s t i n E v a n s
    “Thought I’d bring you something, George. Y’ever hear that song,
    ‘a few of my favorite things’?” She reached out a hand and gently stroked the petals of the parrot