Equal Affections by David Leavitt Page A

tight rubber gloves over her hands. Fills the sink with suds. There are always dishes to be done, always some activity for her hands. Louise has beautiful hands, very dark and smooth, with whorled, soft skin over the knuckles. When Danny was growing up, she played the piano two or three hours in the late afternoon. Whatever piece she was learning, its stops and starts, its tricky phrases kept him from sleeping for nights afterwards, as if those awkward repetitions of practice were in themselves a kind of harmony, superimposed over the actual music. She knit so well she could read while she did it, cracking the spine of the book so that it would lie flat on her lap. Her fingers crossed the knitting needles, her eyes moved back and forth along the page. Most of the books in the house had been ruined that way, their backs broken in sacrifice to her ruthless industry.
    Now Nat gets up from the table, approaches her from behind. “Honey,” he says, “I didn’t mean to upset you. But I was telling April about our youth, she was asking, and—it just slipped out. I was feeling nostalgic, and it slipped out. Anyway, why does it matter that the kids know? Really, it’s not that big a deal—”
    â€œThat’s for me to decide,” Louise says hotly. The steam rises in her face. Nat puts his hands on her shoulders, and her shoulders thrust them away.
    â€œJust leave me alone,” she says.
    â€œOkay, whatever you say.” He walks to the refrigerator, takes out a jar of jam.
    â€œWhy don’t you shut up?” she says softly.
    Nat takes a spoonful of the jam and carries it out of the room with him. Louise’s shoulders rise and sink. Her hands slow, still. Her head falls toward the suds. “Why does everyone in this family expect me to clean up their goddamned messes and jam jars and dirty spoons?” she says.
    â€œJam jars!” April says. “Jesus, Mother, I don’t see why we have to pretend so much! Jam jars has nothing to do with it! It’s like you’ve expected us to bury everything just because you have.”
    â€œYou always have to have center stage, don’t you?” Louise says. “No one else in the world is allowed to suffer except you.”
    April stands then. Danny stands. It is almost rehearsable, this scene, the variations from Christmas to Christmas are so slight. Danny walks out of the room, into his parents’ bedroom, where Nat has already turned the TV on loud enough to drown out the noise of Louise and April fighting.
    â€œAre they at it again?” Nat asks.
    â€œYes,” Danny says.
    â€œOkay,” Nat says. “Looks like we’re in for a long night.” He holds the remote control on his lap. He flips from channel to channel, bringing on a barrage of contradictory images: children holding toothpaste tubes, the moving mouths of newsmen, the famous wheel of fortune spinning, spinning, landing on bankrupt.
    There is a hangman puzzle on the television, the letters slowly filling in.
    â€œSo are you surprised?” Nat asks.
    Danny shrugs. “I guess it’s just hard to think of your mother as a sexual being—that is, sexual with someone else besides your father.”
    â€œI know,” Nat says. “I had the same problem with my mother.”
    â€œI’m not going to ask for any details, even though I’m tempted.”
    â€œSomeday I’ll tell you the whole story. Christ, I knew your mother would react this way.”
    â€œThen why’d you say anything to April? You know she’s a time bomb.”
    â€œI suppose,” Nat says, “that I knew April would tell Louisy. I suppose I finally wanted to get things out in the open.”
    â€œYou’re asking for trouble.”
    Nat continues looking at the TV.
    â€œSabotage,” he says.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSabotage.”
    Confused, Danny looks again at the hangman puzzle. But the answer is becoming clear,