She once lunged at him with a steak knife after he’d made what he knew when he was saying it and even a few seconds before was a cruel remark about her. He flinched, the knife whisked past the place his face would have been if he hadn’t moved back, and then he jumped behind the table — it was in the dining room, they’d been clearing off the dishes after dinner — and said “What’re you, crazy? You just almost killed me,” and she said “I didn’t, I knew exactly when to pull back. I’ve got plenty of reserves; you’re the one who hasn’t, in anything. You’re fantasizing again, thinking I’d waste my time trying to stab you and then the next twenty years of my life wasting away in prison because I did. Please, get your freaking things together and leave the house now,” and he said “Don’t tell me you didn’t try to stab me. You did, so of course I’m going — how could I trust you again?” and she said “Listen, you’re raving, but do what you want,” and her face said she was trying to forget the incident and he wondered what to do. She put the knife and a couple of other utensils back on the table and looked at a photo on the wall of the three of them in a rowboat, Bronson and he rowing, she looking as if she was barking comical orders to them through cupped hands, and then left the room. He cleared the rest of the dishes, washed them in the sink, continued wondering what to do, leave? stay? What would he say to Brons? “Your mother and I just don’t get along. We do some, but not enough. It’s a pity too, because I love you, but I’ll see you and we’ll do things if I stay in the area, you and I, but that’s the way it is, I’m sorry to say, though it’s nothing you’ve done that’s sending me away.” She came into the kitchen and he expected her to say “What are you still doing here?” but she started drying the dishes. “How do we pile up so many dishes and pots and stuff for just three people and a simple dinner?” and she said “We’re extravagant,” and he said “Oh yeah, that’s us.” Then he called Bronson if he wanted to carpetsweep the dining room as he did last night—“You did a great job. And it needs sweeping badly, kiddo; lots of everyone’s crumbs,” and Brons said from his room “If it’s okay, can I not? I’m busy playing,” and he looked at her and she smiled and said “He’s playing; what a life,” and he said “So, what about that thing before? — our argument. Does it mean we’re over it? Fine by me if we are, but you don’t want it discussed?” and she pressed her cheek to his chest and put her arms around his waist and her hands went under his shirt till they were on his lower back and he kissed the top of her head and said “Your hands are wet, but you can keep them there,” and she said “I’d never try to hurt you like that, never. If it looked like it then that can only be because when I was pretending to wield the knife, but with no intention of coming close, I must have stumbled frontwards a bit, though I don’t remember that. But I’m sorry and it’s finished, the incident, all right?” and he said “I’m sorry too if I misjudged the distance of the knife from my face, if that’s what I did,” and she said “It had to be, or like I said, it was all to sort of scare you a little, more like a harmless jolt, but I got too close by accident or mistake.”
