Chapter 21
Paul slits open the first envelope with his dagger-shaped letter opener and settles into the armchair to read.
Margo in Illinois calls Judith’s work “disturbing, unladylike, and harmful to the general public.” Not exactly a fan letter but it makes him laugh, and laughing feels good.
When did he last laugh? Everything has been so serious and intense for days—though it’s all going well.
Except for Tom. He turns to another letter, quickly: this one from a fellow photographer in Idaho who says Judith’s work has been a great inspiration.
There are more like this, one after the other, thanking Paul for what he’s done.
He pours himself a generous glass of whiskey and toasts himself, then takes a burning sip.
He’s having fun, and he deserves to have fun, doesn’t he?
The next letter is written in a childish hand and signed by someone named Eddie.
There’s no return address. Eddie asks if Paul knows “who knifed the lady photographer,” and if he watched it happen.
What did it look like, how did it sound, what did Paul feel?
Eddie asks. Suddenly, the whiskey sits like acid in his empty stomach.
Paul should have eaten, though he had no appetite—and now he has less.
He knows “Eddie” is just some wacko, but he feels guilty somehow—as if he encouraged men like Eddie to write things like this.
He didn’t, of course; he blames the interviewers, forever asking him about Judith’s morbid end.
He has no choice but to answer them, does he?
To the twisted delight of the Eddies of the world.
Paul tears up the letter and tosses it into the trash.
After a brief pause and a deep inhale and exhale of clarifying smoke, Paul keeps moving through the diminishing pile, gaining a sense of small accomplishment.
It’s suspenseful, too. He keeps wondering what’s next.
In one letter, a woman from Arkansas thanks him for helping women artists everywhere.
“We’ve been neglected and dismissed out of hand, but in helping Judith rise to the top, you’ve helped the rest of us,” she writes.
Paul rereads it several times, smiling as the acid in his stomach fades to mellow warmth.
He thinks about sending this one to Tom, along with some others that sing his praises.
But it might just enrage him, all these strangers weighing in on his precious “private” wife.
Forget Tom, he tells himself, and picks up another.
This one comes in a plain white envelope with no return address; Paul’s name and address are written in block letters.
Hopefully not another odd one—the handwriting reminds him of “Eddie’s,” though it’s bolder, cleaner, and more assured.
He opens the envelope, unfolds the single piece of unlined white paper inside, and reads the message written there, also in tidy block lettering:
YOU’RE A FUCKING PARASITE
LIVING OFF JUDITH’S WORK
I BET YOU’RE GLAD SHE’S DEAD
DID YOU KILL HER, PAUL?
FUCKING LOWLIFE
MONSTER
He rereads it several times, just as he reread the last one, though he isn’t smiling, isn’t pleased, and the paper trembles in his hand.
He tells himself this is just another crackpot like Eddie, but it feels different.
Worse. He reaches for his whiskey bottle, unscrews the top shakily, and takes a long, hot swallow.
As it pools heavily in his stomach, he burps.
He lets the letter and envelope drop to the floor instead of tearing them up—he isn’t sure why—but then he stares down, compulsively rereading.
The truth is, he is a parasite. What else could he be?
Though technically he isn’t “living off Judith’s work”—the Harper’s check still hasn’t arrived, and even when it does, it won’t give him any great financial boost. But he is profiting from her work in other, less material ways, and he may profit greatly after this gallery show, so…
the label will be irrefutable then. He fixates on the word and takes it in, lets it settle inside him.
It almost feels good—cathartic, anyway—to let the word parasite attach to him—like a parasite itself.
A parasite living off a parasite, he thinks with a dry chuckle.
The word pierces the skin of the dream he’s been living since the Harper’s feature appeared, and for the moment he welcomes it, savors its blunt truth.
A blunt truth he would never publicly own, of course.
A blunt truth he’ll soon shove to a shadowed corner of his brain.
After a long while, he reaches down to pick up the letter with thumb and forefinger, scanning the words, wondering for the first time who wrote them. Certainly a woman; he can almost taste her woman’s rage.
But what woman? A deranged stranger, or someone he knows?
Someone like his student Charlie, maybe.
He doesn’t believe it is Charlie—not really—but someone like her: drawn to Judith’s work and the drama of her death, eager to blame Paul in the absence of anyone more deserving of blame.
The writer is frustratingly unaware, too, of her own hypocrisy—because she would never have known about Judith without Paul’s involvement.
And she’d never have had the opportunity to hate him, then.
He wonders if she’s written more.
He returns to the pile, recoiling from the thought of finding another but still sifting through the letters quickly, almost eagerly. Finally, he dumps them all on the floor and gets on his knees to survey them.
After a few minutes, he’s certain: there are no other envelopes addressed to him in block letters with a missing return address.
He should be relieved—and he is, to some degree.
But he also wants more. More information, he tells himself, so he can figure out who this epistolary enemy might be.
But he also craves more nastiness and hurt: the delicious pinch of real feeling at a time when his life often feels unreal.
Wonderful, but sometimes unbelievable. Fucking parasite, though, he can easily believe.
He picks up the letter and rereads it, letting it prick him all over again.