The Bigness of the World by Lori Ostlund Page A

his hand brushed his father’s head as his father climbed the stairs for bed. “I would wake to that feeling, the brush of my father’s hair against my fingertips, and for a moment, I had no idea where I was. You see, already I thought of sleep as a period of isolation, and that was so ingrained in me, Annabel, that even half-awake, I found the feel of another person disorienting.” Then, he would reach out to stroke her head or caress her earlobe before he went on.
    “It was like sleeping on the edge of a cliff. On any given night, I could have rolled right instead of left, and that would have been it. I would have gone right over the edge.” This is where her father’s story always ended, with the understanding that had he been a different sort of boy—less vigilant, less aware—he would have simply rolled over the edge and been gone.
    This Saturday, when she and her mother return from her grandparents’ house, her father is not there. She and her mother eat dinner together quietly, and when her mother puts her to bed because her father is not there to do it, her mother perches awkwardly on the edge of the bed and says, “I told him to leave, Annabel. It was just getting to be too much. I hope that someday you will understand this, maybe when you’re older.” Her mother goes out of the room quickly, forgetting to leave the hallway light on as her father always does because he understands about the dark.
    The next day, Sunday, the telephone rings again and again, and when the answering machine picks up because her mother has told her that she is not to answer it, there is her father, singing a song or telling them about something unimportant—a snapped shoelace, the way his orange juice tasted that morning because he forgot and brushed his teeth before he drank it—as though he is right there in the room with them. By evening, however, he has begun pleading with her mother. “Think about Annabel,” he says. “Have you asked her what she wants?” Before they go to bed, her mother erases the entire tape, and then she unplugs the answering machine.
    When Annabel opens the door to the apartment on Monday, letting herself in with the key that she carries around her neck, the telephone is ringing, and she cannot help but feel for a moment that the apartment does not belong to her because the ringing was there before her. She knows that she should not answer it because her mother has instructed her not to, but after several rings, she picks it up, justifying this course of action by telling herself that itcould be her mother calling to make sure that she has arrived home safely. However, once she has already committed herself by lifting the receiver, she realizes that if it is her mother calling, she is only doing so to test Annabel.
    “How’s my girl?” says her father, whispering as he used to do when she was young and having bad dreams in the middle of the night.
    “Hi,” she says in response, surveying the apartment nervously because she cannot fully shake the feeling that her mother is there somewhere, sitting off to the side, listening.
    “Did you get my messages yesterday?” he asks.
    “Yes.”
    “I miss you.”
    “I miss you,” she answers, whispering now also.
    “Listen,” he says then. “I need your help. I need you to write down some things. You know, things that your mother says about me, things that we could use if we had to.” She doesn’t answer, and then he says, “Annabel, she doesn’t want me to see you or even talk to you. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not as though this is the first time. She acts like this is the first time, but it’s not, so why now, Annabel? Do you understand? Because I don’t. I surely don’t.” There is a very long silence.
    “The day you were born,” he declares suddenly, no longer whispering. “That was the first time. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? It was the day you were born. Your mother made me promise that I would never tell you