Whoever Increases Knowledge For in much wisdom there is much sorrow; whoever increases knowledge increases grief. - Ecclesiastes 1:18
The rapid scratch of pen on paper did slow down when Joe put a fresh pot of tea and a clean cup down beside his mother, and Mom did raise her free hand to pat his while he was collecting the four empty mugs and two pots cluttering up the rest of her nightstand, but since the pen did not stop moving altogether, Joe felt safe assuming it would take nothing short of John showing up with bells on to move her from her current position for the next hour or so. Accordingly, he walked into the kitchen, put the dirty dishes in the sink, and then, as quietly as possible, walked out the back door.
Julian, he thought as he walked down the street, had it all wrong. His sister tried to reason with Mom sometimes, more often tried to appeal to her emotionally ("if you haven’t forgotten, Mom, you’ve still got four other children. Even if you know I can take care of myself, and Steve, think about Paul and Joe. Or even just Joe. For God’s sake, Mom, will you put that thing down and listen to me? Saying another fifty Hail Marys isn’t going to fix anything!”), but either way, she had it all wrong. Joe remembered how Mom had been when they hadn’t known if Julian was alive or not when Sonora had that charms facility incident – she had paid exactly enough attention to John and Joe to ensure they were all right, as they really hadn't been old enough to take care of themselves then, but had spent the rest of her time sunk into gloom, praying and worrying and finally doing all the complicated paperwork needed to go pray and worry in a single tiny motel room with John and Joe in Arizona instead of among the comforts of home. In a few weeks, no doubt, she’d take it into her head to go to Maryland and try to find John. For now, Joe knew the only thing to do was keep everything running as smoothly as he could, lie to Dad and his siblings when they expressed concern for or annoyance with her when they were home so they could pretend she wasn’t still a mess over John, and let her carry on with her rosaries and prayers to Thomas Aquinas and long spells of reading and writing – particularly the reading, pushing a book into their hands was the best thing anyone could do for Mom or John when they were stressed. He understood why Dad and Julian and Steve and Paul were all angry, with Mom or John or God or the world or the whole wretched lot of them, but he couldn’t really muster the energy to be angry with anyone now.
Joanie, it seemed, still could – she looked anxious when Joe saw her, but when she saw him, her expression quickly shifted to annoyance. “You’re late,” she observed severely as he sat down on the park bench beside her.
“Sorry,” said Joe. “Mom remembered teatime today, so I couldn’t get out of the house.”
Joanie could only nod curtly to that. Mom no longer allowed Joe to go out alone if he asked or if she saw him attempting to leave, which meant the only sensible thing for Joe to do was to wait until she was distracted and then go out the back door. Mostly Joe indulged her desire to bury herself in religious observations and speculation right now because he didn’t think arguing with her would actually help anything, but if pressed, he supposed he’d have to admit that he wasn’t only concerned with her.
“That’s good,” said Joanie.
“Yeah.” He decided to get to the point. “I haven’t heard anything else,” he said bluntly.
Joanie half-smiled. “No news is…no news,” she remarked.
“Yeah.”
“I am going to make your brother wish he’d never been born the next time I see him.”
“You might have to wait in line,” said Joe, and Joanie laughed.
Before John left, Joanie had been almost a fixture at their house during the day. She had been around so much that Joe had, by the end, not so much as blinked whenever he caught her casually flipping through books she wasn’t even supposed to know existed. John had left on a Saturday night, though, and the next morning, Joanie had grabbed Joe by the collar after Mass, shoved him against a wall in an alcove, and demanded to know where in the hell John had gone and why the hell he had gone there before Joe could even entertain a single wild thought about this aggressive physical interaction indicating a willingness on her part to do things they should most definitely not do at all, never mind do in the church. It seemed she had found a parcel including an even vaguer note than the family had gotten and a collection of notebooks on her windowsill that morning, which was one more thing to add to the list of reasons why it made sense to be very angry with John – brotherly prerogatives were all well and good, but Joe thought forcing him to talk very fast to persuade John’s girlfriend that killing one of John's brothers was not a good idea was a little outside the usual limits.
Since then, Joanie had gone out of her way, Joe was pretty sure, to avoid any and all contact with his family. She had even changed seats in church, going to elaborate lengths to sit with friends instead of with her parents in the pew in front of Joe’s. Every evening, though, she was at the park, and Joe was at the park, and she asked if they had heard anything from his brother, and only once had he had anything to tell her other than what he just had.
“You think he’s really with this Clark person?” asked Joanie.
Joe thought about it. “Yeah, probably,” he said. “I can’t think of anywhere else he’d have to go, really.”
Joanie nodded, then sighed. “This person – what’s he like?”
That one caught Joe off-guard. “I…uh, I guess…the best explanation I can think of off the top of my head is that he’s like John, except he’s nice and actually likes people,” said Joe. “And they like him. I mean, people other than John like him. So I guess he’s even weirder than John, in a way. There aren’t many people who simultaneously like John and everyone else, are there?”
“I know I’m not one,” said Joanie, sounding amused. “I’d wondered….the way John talks about him. I’d love to meet him, shake his hand.” A beat passed. “And then probably kill him. Anyone John thinks that highly of has to be a danger to society.”
“He thinks that highly of you.”
Joanie gave him a cynical, almost mocking smile. “And your point is…?”
That was, Joe knew, the proper way to look at her – or at least, a more proper way than the way he actually did. Of course, just about anything was a more proper way of looking at her than the way he actually did was. Even before all this had happened, he had assumed she and John sort of hooked up every summer, and – later in before, after puberty had started distinguishing girls from other people to an extent that he thought he would sooner cut his own throat than speak of to John or Mom, that this meant she would always be strictly off-limits to Joe; how much moreso was she now that he realized that she and John were not only a couple (albeit a strange one, given he knew for a fact Joanie dated other guys, too), but one he could only conclude was, improbable as it seemed, in love?
John in love – that was a strange thought, so strange Joe almost had to reject it every time it occurred to him. Someone being in love with John was an even stranger thought, and Joanie Murphy being so downright bizarre; he could just about see it with someone like Lenore Crowley or Aislinn Nicolls or Clark Dill, but Joanie? Joanie was not what Joe had always thought she was, but he just found her more impressive for having seen behind the front she put up for everyone. She and John seemed as poorly matched as an eagle and a duck. There was, however, no other explanation for how they had both behaved this summer, was there? He had heard enough to know that John had been okay with dying if doing so was the only way to protect her, and that she had refused to let him do so. Then she’d stuck with him afterward, too, even though that had not been safe for her and she had had to deal with the silent animosity of his mother and sister all that time, and now she came here every evening. That – Joe didn’t even really understand the things he wanted, or even know exactly what they were. What was evidently between Joanie and his brother was something he knew he could not manage the slightest comprehension of.
They hardly even seemed real to him now, if he was to be honest. People in his world didn’t have relationships like that – they weren’t literally willing to die for each other, they didn’t make it work over thousands of kilometers, they didn’t carry secrets for a decade of encoded messages. People in his world didn’t even do what William and Julian did – William and Julian had a little more sparkle than Joe imagined he ever would, Julian being Snow White, the princess who’d lived in a cottage with a bunch of men all these years, and William being willing to convert (and, in happier times, tolerate John and Joe in particular amusing themselves giving him fabulous misinformation just to see how he’d react before he’d actually finished RCIA) in order to marry her, but he still couldn’t picture William and Julian causing everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Julian had been quick enough, anyway, to lie to William to protect John….
Maybe that was it: that it was John. He had, Joe thought bitterly, an uncanny knack for getting intelligent, well-educated women who ought to know better to become devoted to him. Like a serial killer or something.
“You’re not a danger to society,” said Joe. Joanie raised an eyebrow. “You’re the perfect Girl Guide,” he teased her. “You go around saving the lives of idiots even when you know you can’t take any credit for it or get any medals for it – or aren’t going to get any, anyway. That’s heroism.”
“John called it stupidity.”
“That’s because he’s an idiot.”
“He really is,” agreed Joanie with a sigh.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” blurted Joe, and then he wished he hadn’t.
“Deserve me?” asked Joanie, frowning. “I hadn’t noticed he’d turned me into an antique watch." Joe contemplated finding a bridge and jumping off it for a moment before she distracted him. "Or that we’d started dating.” Joe supposed he must have had a particularly stupid look on his face, because the next thing she said was, “What?” and then “Oh – you thought – oh God,” she said, and to his surprise, began laughing – really laughing, not the cynical sort of laughter which was the best any of them had been able to do lately. “You thought – hahaha – “
Joe flushed, angry and not sure why. “If it’s not that, then – what?” he asked.
“Exactly the opposite,” said Joanie, wiping her eyes, still amused. “Oh – I needed that,” she said. “Thanks for that. But you’ve got it all wrong. Me and John – it’s that he doesn’t want to screw me.”
Joe, flustered by this blunt, crude way of summarizing it, could tell he was turning even redder. “I – what?” was all he could manage.
Joanie thought for a moment before answering some of the many questions wrapped up in that exclamation. “I heard something on TV once – everything is about sex except sex. Sex is about power,” said Joanie. She smiled at him, and Joe knew that she knew how this applied to the two of them. “And that’s how it is with – pretty much everyone. But not John. I could flash my tits at him until winter came and I got frostbite and it wouldn’t make him do anything I couldn’t actually convince him was a good idea. Vonnegut had it wrong – about women, anyway. I don’t know about guys. But John’s the only person I’ve ever met who liked me more than something I pretended to be.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” stammered Joe, trying not to think too much about everything else she'd said.
Joanie looked back at him with unreadable blue eyes. “Do you like me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Joanie smiled sadly. “Don’t think of me as heroic,” she said. “I don’t even know if heroes exist, but if they do, I’m still not one of them.” She leaned forward and gave him the chastest imaginable peck on the lips, which in its way was more provocative than if she had flashed her tits at him, and then took a small, tightly folded piece of paper out of her pocket. “When you see John, give him this,” she said, and then stood up and walked away.
* * * * * * * *
The first thing Joe noticed when he slipped back through the back door was the jumble of teapots and mugs which sat inverted on the drying mat, water droplets still clinging to their outsides. For a moment, he panicked, wondering if Mom had noticed his absence, until Julian said, “She doesn’t know you went out,” from the kitchen door and he jumped.
Joe glanced at his sister. “Jesus, Julian. You scared me.”
“Sorry,” said Julian. Her hair was curled and she was wearing her blue utility dress with the tie belt and her amber necklace, but she wasn't wearing any shoes. Something about this struck Joe as incongruous. “Do you want to cook supper, or should we play rock-paper-scissors?”
Joe lost rock-paper-scissors. “What do you want?” he asked, looking at the foodstuffs available to him and not feeling particularly inspired by any of them.
“I don’t care.”
“Cereal it is,” said Joe, picking up a box of raisins mixed with bran flakes in one hand and two bowls in the other. “You want to get the milk out?”
Julian complied with this request. “Where did you go, anyway?” she asked, pouring milk over the second bowl. Joe shrugged.
“Just down the street.”
Julian looked steadily at him as she pushed one bowl toward him and put the other in front of the chair she had elected to take, and he knew she knew. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know. I don't care.”
“Technically I didn’t,” said Joe.
“Technically,” said Julian. “There’s a fine word.” She sat down. “Can you tell me one thing?”
“Sure, if I can.”
“Why her? What is it about her?”
Joe shrugged. “She’s worried about John. It’s not like it’s going to hurt anything now to keep her in the loop.”
“It’s not going to help anything, either,” said Julian coolly.
Joe glared at her, annoyed. “I wouldn't be so sure about that," he said. "What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” repeated Julian. “You’re the one who can’t stop trying to look down our brother’s girlfriend’s shirt.”
“I’m not looking down her shirt and she’s not John’s girlfriend.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“Well, what is the point, then, Julian?” snapped Joe.
“I already told you: What is it about her?” demanded Julian. “First John, now you – what is it about her that’s worth – all of this?” She gestured widely, her hand starting low, near the cereal bowl in front of her and sweeping out to point toward their parents’ bedroom, where Mom was presumably still lost in Aquinas.
“I like thinking about what she’d look like if she lost the shirt altogether,” said Joe. “I don’t know what John’s problem is.”
“Just that he has one,” said Julian, folding her hands together on the table. Her face was impassive behind a wall of make-up smoothing and evening out every feature, most of its proportions diminished by the fuller way she was wearing her black-brown hair today, but her eyes were sharp on his face.
“What do you want me to say?” asked Joe.
“Something,” said Julian, sounding exasperated. “You’re the one who was around them both the most. You’re the only one in the whole family who understands my way of looking at things. You’re the only one who can tell me if John’s – if he’s lost his mind, or never had one, or if she – God, I sound like Mom now – if she seduced him or something, or if he’s just a selfish bastard, or – I don’t even know what." She was twisting her engagement ring on her finger now, and there was an edge to her voice by the end which made him think now that she was near tears. "But what happened to us?”
“I don’t know," said Joe, and then decided he was stupid enough to continue. "But it wasn’t Joanie. You can’t blame her. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. John told her about us because – I don’t know. I don’t even know if it matters. But she's not what happened to us.”
“The last time I checked, we’re only in this position because he told her about us.”
Joe glared at his sister. “Yeah," he said sarcastically. "It's all her fault we're in this position where John isn’t dead.”
Julian glared right back at him, but she flushed, too, clearly taking the point. She was angry with John, yes, but it was a long jump between being angry with one's brother and being sorry that he was still alive. It was an article of faith for Joe that John and Julian only fell out so much because, as different as they were now, as much as they disapproved of each other now, they still loved each other - in spite of, because. If they didn't, why would they even bother fighting? Or at least, why would Julian? John might keep it up just to prove he was right, but Julian wasn't like that. Her thing was affecting the half-martyred, half-ingratiating smile of an indulgent mother while going out of her way to make everyone else happy. “You know what I mean,” she said impatiently.
Joe decided he didn’t want to argue about that one right now. “Even if I do - you really think we’re only here because of that one thing?” asked Joe. “We’ve all been acting like lunatics for years! We even talked about it last summer, Julian – ”
Julian’s lips thinned. “John and I have had our problems,” said Julian, “because I got thrown into this – this society stuff knowing my own brother was looking down his nose at me because of how I got into the world,” said Julian. “That’s on him. I refuse to live my whole life just doing whatever it takes to keep John from throwing a tantrum, and I would even if he weren't a hypocrite.”
“Then do that, but don’t wring your hands and wonder what happened when you doing what you know will make him want to throw a tantrum ends with him throwing a tantrum,” said Joe, digging his spoon angrily into his half-forgotten cereal.
“I thought you were on my side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” said Joe. “I’m mad at you both. I'm sick of you both - of you feeling sorry for yourselves and fighting and lying to patch it up, and you telling me why you're right and him muttering about his conspiracy theories when the other one's not around – and I don’t even think either of you can help it and I’m mad at you both anyway. And I’m mad at Mom for acting like the world’s ended, and I’m mad at Dad for going to work like nothing’s happened, and I’m mad at myself for not telling either one of them that I knew there was something honest to God wrong in John's head three years ago. Are you happy now?”
His voice had remained low, but he was surprised by the amount of venom it managed to accumulate before he finished his diatribe anyway. Julian didn’t reply. Instead, she rose abruptly and walked out of the kitchen.
Later, he knew, he would apologize. Later, he’d tell Julian at least part of what she wanted to hear, which was probably even the truth – that she was quite right to live her life how she wanted and that it really was all on John, this thing that had happened to them. Even if he hadn't told Joanie and caused this specific incident, he was still the one who simply couldn't deal with Julian accepting the acceptance of her biological mother and the whole world that went with her, one John looked down on in that particular way that only the well-educated non-rich could. Right now, though, he couldn’t really muster the energy to stop being angry with everyone.
OOC: Joanie supplements her dialogue with references to the Star Wars Expanded Universe (“I’d like to meet him, shake his hand. And then kill him, of course”), House of Cards referencing Oscar Wilde (“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power”), Mother Night (“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”), and the BBC’s Sherlock (“Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them.")