Only Children (60 page)

“Yeah. She’s upset,” Mommy told Daddy. She hugged Byron and put her face to his. Her breath splashed him, but it was hot and didn’t smell. “Please, Byron. It makes Grandma cry if you talk about dying. Please don’t say anything about it.”

There’s something wrong about dying. Maybe you die if you’re bad.

“I won’t say anything!” he shouted. He grabbed Mommy. “I promise I won’t say anything! I’ll be good. I’m a good boy, Mommy.”

“I know you are, Byron. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Her neck covered him and he could put his face on her springy breast. “Would you like another cookie?”

Wow. Another cookie for being good. “Yes!” he shouted.

16

L
UKE CAUGHT
the words in his stomach, stuck there at the bottom, and blew them up, leaves swirling in the wind, magic appearing from his mouth. “Byron,” he said. The words were almost out, almost free from the secret Luke. The Luke with power. “You know, Byron, you’re not older than me. I mean, you’re a little bit older—”

“That’s right!” Byron hopped. Byron pulled at Luke’s arm. Come on.

Pull against him. I’m heavy. Too heavy to move. “But we’re really both the same age.”

“No,” Byron said, and pulled harder, now using both hands.

I’m a heavy weight. I’m a big heavy box no one can lift. Byron’s face got round. His eyes swelled. He can’t move me!

“Yes,” Luke the immovable said. “We’re both three. That’s the same.”

“That’s right,” Pearl said.

Francine slapped Byron’s tushy. “Let go of Luke! What you doing!”

I’m the World Trade Center and he can’t pull me down.

Byron teetered, a tall pile of blocks, leaning, going—Byron fell at Luke.

Hold him up—I can’t—

The cement was sharp and flat and hard. His brain bounced up to the blue sky and down again against the rough and the hard street. The hot sun hurt the ache, warmed the pain.

Pearl and Francine yelled at Byron. I’m not getting up. I can’t tell him any more things.

Francine slapped Byron across the face. He cried. Pearl picked up Luke. She put her hand on the softened part of his head. Her fingers melted inside and made the hurt more.

“Ow!” Luke told her. Saying that made him cry.

“You pulled me down!” Byron shouted. Francine’s hand was still on Byron’s face: red ghost fingers blinking white and red.

Luke fought to get out of Pearl’s fat black arms, heavy and wet, smothering him. “Let go!”

“He’s all right,” Francine said.

Everybody who’s hurt is all right to Francine.

“Now say you’re sorry, Byron,” Pearl said, and pushed Byron at Luke.

“I’m sorry,” Byron said. “Let’s play now.”

You’re not older than me. You’re not stronger than me.

“Come on, Luke!” Byron said, and grabbed Luke’s hand again.

“Byron!” Pearl yelled.

I’m not here. Someone else is being pulled. I’m not here.

“Let’s play now, Luke, okay? I don’t wanna argue anymore.”

Someone else is playing. Someone else is being pulled.

T
HE WORDS
came out terrified, not as he had wanted to pronounce them. They trembled in the air, fluttering baby birds on their first flight: “I’m here to see Larry Barrow. My name is Peter Hummel.”

“Do you have an appointment?” The receptionist was neutral. She didn’t acknowledge his scared tone.

(“Do you want me to tell you not to see Larry?” Kotkin had asked at that morning’s session.

(“I don’t know.”

(“Then why are you telling me you plan to see him?”

(So you’ll tell me not to. So you’ll tell me to. “I don’t know,” he answered.)

“Does he know what this is in reference to?” the receptionist asked.

Does he ever. Imagine Larry at his desk—safe, smug about his dirty secrets, sure of his invulnerability, and now I’ve come. I’ve come grown. Powerful, able to destroy. At last, on equal terms.

What will he think? Do I have a gun? Do I have a lawyer? Be scared, Larry, be confused. Like me, feel the dread, the uncertain sickening doubt.

The receptionist accepted Peter’s stammered answer: “I’m an old, uh, acquaintance. Personal, not business.”

What did she mean by that look? That snicker? Does Larry often have boys visit him in the office?

I’m not a boy.

(“What will you say to him?” Kotkin asked.

(I’m floating on Kotkin’s couch, floating on the sea of my unconscious, buoyant, just above the great dark ocean, giving the back of my head to the depths. “I don’t know.”)

A secretary appeared. She seemed uncertain. “Hello. I’m Larry’s assistant, Maria. He’s in a meeting. I don’t want to interrupt him. Can you tell me what this is about? Maybe I can be of help?”

Peter felt his anger gather at his brow, a black cloud storming in front of his vision. You can’t escape me like this: with secretaries, with the platitudes of business. “No,” Peter said, and his true voice, his adult voice, was back. A trace of contempt played in the polite melody: “I’ve known Larry since I was a child. He might not remember my last name, although I’d be surprised. I was best friends with his cousin Gary. He’ll remember me if you mention Gary.”

“I see.” She was stuck for a second. “Well, I don’t know how long he’s going—”

“I’ll wait.” Peter sat down on the gray modular couch. I’m here to stay.

T
HIS TIME
Diane was determined to say her conditional good-bye. Lily was scheduled for a 7:00 A.M. operation. Open-heart surgery for breakfast.

Diane stayed with Lily until 10:00 the night before, the end of visiting hours, sitting all day in an uncomfortable armchair beside Lily’s hospital bed.

Lily was terrified. Her head was propped up by a triple layer of pillows. They diminished her face, held it still, halfway in a cave. She peered out like a cornered animal. Lily’s bony hand gripped Diane with relentless pressure. Even when Lily reached for another sip of ginger ale, or for a tissue to wipe away the slow, steady stream of tears, her hand stayed flexed around Diane’s palm. Lily’s skin was pasty, her forehead as frail as a newborn’s, and her lips trembled continuously so that hard consonants were lost and speech became a plaintive whimper of vowels.

“They dope you up—so you don’t remember.” Lily said this every hour or so.

“That’s good,” Diane said.

“But it hurts just the same. You just don’t remember later.” Lily swallowed. “What about the blood? How do I know they won’t give me something in the blood.”

“They check the blood, Ma.”

“They check everything! But things still go wrong!”

“Ma,” Diane said softly, hopelessly. Don’t worry, Ma. Everything’s going to be all right. I love you. Say it. “Don’t worry, Ma—”

“I can’t help it,” Lily said, and she was crying again. “I just wanted to die in my sleep. That’s all I asked of God, that He kill me in my sleep.”

Lily had never spoken of God before. She was so self-centered that even the most powerful being Lily could imagine was cast as a breaker of promises. Not a savior to humble herself before, but just another disappointment. Shut up, Diane. Shut up.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Ma.”

Lily sighed to end her weeping, a heavy, almost sexual pause. “I know. I’m a very weak person. I’m scared of everything. I never wanted to be alone, to handle anything by myself. And your daddy left me alone—I should have killed myself when he went.”

A nurse appeared. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave in five minutes.”

“Can’t they make up a bed for you here?” Lily whispered to Diane. She knew that had already been refused.

“I’m going to get you something to help you sleep,” the nurse said. She had overheard.

“Drugs. That’s their answer to everything,” Lily said.

When the nurse returned with a sleeping pill, Diane said, “I’m going to stay fifteen minutes until she’s drowsy.”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse answered, eyes blank, her voice mechanical, “but it’s against hospital procedures.”

“Just fifteen minutes.”

“I’m sorry, it’s a rule. You wouldn’t want anyone to say later that we had done things wrong. That’s the kind of thing—”

“I’m a lawyer,” Diane answered. This is my mom, after all. I can be obnoxious. “And I certainly wouldn’t want to have to waste my professional time on any of this. So I’m going to stay here for fifteen minutes as a visitor. Thank you.” Diane didn’t look at the nurse to judge her effect. She kept her eyes on Lily. The nurse remained for a moment, then left.

Lily’s face was transformed. “You told her!” she said with a delighted smile, a Byron-smile of mischief and power. “You should have seen the look on her face!”

“I was bluffing. There’s nothing I can do about her wanting to kick me out.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re a professional person. They respect that.” Lily seemed to have forgotten all her worries and self-pity. She smoothed the blanket down and pursed her lips. “My daughter. You told her.”

I’ve sat here holding her hand and talking softly and she got more scared by the minute. Two sentences of bullshit and she’s happy. She wants me, after all the years of talk about my marriage, having children, worrying over my femininity, after all that, she really does want me to be in control, to be another Daddy, to be strong.

“When the doctor comes out and tells you about the operation, I want you to get the truth out of him. Threaten him if you have to. I know he’s lying. Doctors don’t feel important unless they lie to you.”

Diane wanted to say, You’re crazy, he’s not lying, but Diane knew now that wasn’t what her mother wanted. “Don’t worry, Ma.” This was her revised speech, her conditional good-bye. “I love you, you’re my mother. If they don’t take good care of you, I’ll sue them for every penny they’ve got.”

Lily smiled. She put her head back on the pillow. She closed her eyes. She looked dead. She spoke in that pose. The sight of her, still, her head aloft on the pillows, was eerie. “I was very lucky to have you. If you had been a boy, you couldn’t have helped me and I couldn’t have helped you. If you had been like me, weak and scared and silly, I couldn’t have made it through your daddy’s death. You didn’t need help. You gave it. My strong little girl.” Lily opened her eyes and they were swimming with love, with her easy tears of unhappiness, her eyes big and old and, like always, not seeing very clearly.

“Okay, Ma,” Diane said, feeling her pretense about to collapse, unable to keep up the calm and strength on her face that was expected. She stroked Lily’s hand. “Go to sleep now.” Soothing a baby. “Go to sleep now.”

N
INA WAS
ready for Eric when he came out of Luke’s room, finished with the bedtime ritual. “I’ve got great news.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been promoted again.” Eric said this pleasantly. He hadn’t objected to her job as Tad’s assistant, but Nina was convinced that Eric’s reserve over his own worries had evolved into deviousness. Ever since her mother had called and asked a lot of pointless, atypical questions about the well-being of Nina’s marriage, Nina thought something had to be up. Something more than Eric’s “I’m having a bad run of luck. That’s why I’m in such a shitty mood. I just gotta reposition stuff, then I’ll be okay,” something more than that was up.

“No,” Nina said, excited. Here was a great present for Eric.

She couldn’t say it in front of Luke and the wait had been almost unbearable. “I got the results of Luke’s IQ test. Well, not the results, they don’t give that out. But they tell you what’s on it. Here— I knew I couldn’t remember it exactly—I made some notes.” Nina took out the paper she had kept in her purse since morning. She had always known that Luke was bright, but the tester’s comments had astonished her anyway. “They do it by age levels. His vocabulary is at the top of the range, a nine—it goes no higher than nine.”

“Nine?” Eric was shot with excitement, standing in the middle of the living room, going up on his toes, and then down on his heels, hands in his pocket, jiggling keys and money.

“Nine years old that means. Vocabulary, his language was at the top. Nine. His math skills were eight. Then, in a category, I forget what she called it, abstract reasoning, cognitive something, anyway, she told me it’s very important because it measures ability, rather than acquired knowledge, was also at the very top, nine. Also orientation was nine.”

“Orientation?”

“Knowing his name, his address—”

“Right, right,” Eric said. “Diane, Byron’s mother, told me that was something they did. So I taught him our phone number, our address. Even taught him our zip code.”

Nina was amazed. “You’re kidding.”

Eric smiled. He rocked on his heels and beamed. “I thought I should teach him more than just how to take a crap. Didn’t he do badly on anything?”

Of course. Eric wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t be happy if there weren’t something a little wrong. “Well, his motor skills were only between five and six.”

Sure enough, that shot Eric down from his floatation up to the heavens. He took his hands out of his pockets, from his excited rattling, and he sank into a chair. “What the hell are motor skills?”

“Folding a triangle, drawing a circle. She said boys are always a little behind girls in that area.”

“Folding a triangle! What the hell is the point of that!”

Nina wanted him to be satisfied, to be happy, to know that he was a good man, that he was a successful father. She tried to smooth disapproval out of her answer: “Eric, he was still two to three years ahead of his chronological age. And listen to this.” She read from her notes: “ ‘Luke will make an excellent student. His ability to concentrate and complete a task is well-developed beyond his years. He is in the upper quarter of the 99th percentile of his age-group. He would thrive in a competitive, challenging academic environment.’ ”

Eric looked off, toward their windows. His mouth hung open and his face softened. “Good for him,” he said, and then cleared his throat loudly. “You did a great job.”

“So did you,” Nina said, although she didn’t think it had been a job, didn’t think they had done anything, except love Luke.

“No, I mean, you must have done a great job of keeping him relaxed when you took him to the test. I knew I shouldn’t take him. He would have sensed how nervous I was about it. Well, now we’re in great shape. Every one of those fucking schools will want him!” Eric leaned back and he smiled. “I was scared. You know? I was really scared I would fuck him up with my stupid genes.”