Swimming by Nicola Keegan Page B

.
    He seems all right, busy, his reading light casting sinister shadows down the hall deep into the night. But then the tears come. He cries when we say hello, cries standing in the bathroom door watching us brush our teeth, cries when we model our new jeans, cries at the dinner table. June and I try to figure out what dishes make him sad, but the tears go off indiscriminately no matter what she serves. When he cries, the food on our plates looks obscene, our chewing jaws animal. At first, he clutches us to his chest and weeps into our hair as we hold our breath, freezing into statue. Later, he becomes pragmatic about the tears, so that when they start, he ignores them, continues doing what he was doing— speaking, eating, shaving, looking out the window, watching a particularly difficult tennis match—with wet streaks down his face that leave trails he doesn’t bother to wipe away with his sleeve.
    My new thing is to eat dinner like breakfast, in a bowl with a spoon. No one cares. He cries in the car, cries watching TV commercials that aren’t sad, cries when he listens to music designed for teenage tears, cries when it rains, cries looking out the window at the spiraling snow, cries at the rushing streams it leaves when the weather warms and the world thaws. He cries at the first sign of flower, sitting in his corduroy chair, the world folded up and left unread by his side, his head in one hand.
    Besides the tears, his voice thickens and he grows a scraggly beard that winds its way around his mouth like a fence. Manny doesn’t like it, makes a slight rumbling sound in his chest until Leonard kneels down, scratches that place behind his ears.
    When Leonard cries, Mother gets up and goes. She walks around the house punched in at the solar plexus, grabbing on to things as though the world were lurching. She no longer comes down when Leonard comes home; her sad chair sits on its sad legs as I eat a bowl of white rice and beans with a large wooden spoon normally used for stirring. I follow him in spite of the tears, Dot trailing behind like a living shadow. I find him watching Johnny Carson talk to an old comic who is not funny. He’s holding up a rubber fish with round holes in it screaming: Holy mackerel as no one in general America laughs except Leonard, who also happens to be crying. I try to think of something good to say. Nothing good comes. He turns, says: Holy mackerel , shaking his head. I walk upstairs to my room, where Bron’s tightly made bed stares at me until I close my eyes.
    We become schedule-oriented people. I awake at dawn, creep out of bed, down the stairs, into the kitchen, where I turn on the TV set and listen to it chatter. Leonard awakes at dawn, creeps out of bed, down the stairs, into the kitchen, to the window, where he studies the creepy sky. I look up from my bowl of cereal and there he is, a tall black smudge lit from within like a well-worn candle. Mother awakes at dawn, lies in bed waiting for the anesthesia to take hold. Roxanne awakes at eleven, lies in bed with her eyes closed until she can’t take it anymore. Dot gets up at seven and kneels, praying for Bron’s everlasting life, a healing love for our parents, the abolition of war, free school lunches for all—especially those kids in Africa—and, on a personal note, a good pair of boobs. Through the Infinite Mystery of Life, she will hit puberty a full year before I do, use one of my maxi pads without saying a word.

Wondrous and Wonderful, Amazing
    Leonard is standing next to the toaster waiting for two pieces of Texas toast to pop. When they pop, he covers them with an inch of mole-colored apple butter, then slides one over to me. I watch his hands, thin-fingered and knobby.
    Thanks . I’ll wake up when my body hits the water.
    He studies me, breathing dust. I don’t think the sparkles in that thin sweater will keep you warm on a day like today, chickpea . I’m wearing a green sweater with multicolored sequins scattered