Stay Awake by Dan Chaon Page B

calm him with that gently therapeutic voice they all used these days.
    “She’s
reasoning
with him,” January remarked to Jeffrey as they observed the unfolding drama. “It’s so stupid. It’s like trying to explain something to a cat.”
    “Hmm,” Jeffrey said. “Cats don’t really understand human language.”
    “Do you remember that time when Robin was about four and she would have those terrible fits of rage? Pulling her own hair and throwing herself around like something out of
The Exorcist?
God, that was awful.”
    “I don’t remember that,” Jeffrey said.
    “You were very good with her, actually,” January said. “Very matter-of-fact. I thought you were a good father.”
    “I don’t really remember anything about what Robin was like as a little girl,” Jeffrey said. He was still observing the mother and toddler a few rows over, who were in the midst of a great contest of wills. “I remember when I look at pictures,” Jeffrey said. “I remember taking the pictures.”
    “Hm,” she said. The photographs had begun to taper off precipitously not long after Robin turned five. Whatever urge there had been in the beginning to document every “first” they experienced had faded, and soon the photo albums were only bare outlines of their years together: a few posed portraits on birthdays, or in front of some vacation landmark, or a Christmas tree. She wasn’t sure how much she herself could recall of those last years of their family life, so distracted had she been by unhappiness. It was kind of chilling, in a way.
    “Well,” she said at last. “Memory’s not all it’s cracked up to be, anyway.”
    “Probably not,” Jeffrey said, and after a moment he leaned into her, tilting his head so that it rested lightly on her shoulder. He was capable of such gestures every once in a while, and sometimes she thought that, even without his memories intact, some residue must still remain. It was weird to think that she had known him for longer than she had known anyone else in the world.
    Across the way, she saw that the toddler had calmed. Freed from his stroller, he now rested comfortably and quietly in his mother’s lap, his head leaned against her shoulder, his blanket clutched to his mouth.
    She looked back at Jeffrey.
    Oh, she thought, and absently reached up and put her fingersthrough Jeffrey’s thick, shaggy, beautiful hair, and he nuzzled a little, comfortably. Jeffrey had his fist pressed to his mouth, as if he were holding an imaginary blanket.
    Oh
.
    But she tried not to think any further. She arranged a calm look on her face. She would not step even a tiny bit more into the future that seemed to be settling over her.
    The buzzer for another baggage conveyor began to bleat, and luggage began to emerge from another mysterious cave, but neither the toddler nor Jeffrey lifted his head. Above, on the screen that listed arrivals and departures, she saw that Robin’s flight had been changed from delayed to cancelled.
    She would just sit there a while longer, she thought. He was resting so peacefully.
    Outside, the sleet had gotten thicker. You could hear it pebbling against the large glass windows, you could see it swirling wildly through the spotlights of street lamps. It was the kind of night when you might expect to see a skeleton flying through the air, its ragged black shroud flapping in the wind.

I Wake Up
    Twenty years passed. Then one summer my sister Cassie began to call me on the phone. She’d call me up every week or so, just to chat, and it was a kind of weird situation. I hadn’t known anything about her whereabouts since I was very small, and at first I didn’t really know what to say to her.
    But Cassie acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Hey, babe!” she said. “What’s up?” She had the kind of voice that made her sound as if she was smiling affectionately as she talked, and I found that I enjoyed hearing from her. “What’s been going on,