bed a plastic bottle: turquoise, he could just barely make out.
“What’s that?”
“Prenatal vitamins.”
“Oh, Ricky.” They’ll be expired, John thought but did not say. “Are you crying?”
“No.” And it was true: her voice held no sound of tears. She set the bottle on her nightstand and got back under the covers. He wanted to comfort her but she seemed almost giddy, and it was she who placed a hand on either side of his face and guided his head back to rest on her sternum. He listened to her heart, felt it like a small animal stirring within her ribs.
The ashes. Biscuit’s “ashes,” whatever they had really been. They had to talk about Biscuit. He lifted his head again, made a sound preparatory to speech.
But, “Shh,” she told him, touching his mouth. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry so much.” And she undertook to stroke his face, the wiry coils of his beard, the smooth depression of his temples, his lips again. He held himself still and wondering, propped above her on his forearms, his breath shallow. She traced the frill of his ear, then the cord that led from the base of his ear to his clavicle. Drew the backs of her hands down his stomach. Slid her fingers inside the waistband of his pajamas. Here, without warning, was more intimacy than she’d offered since before the baby’s birth. He would not speak now to save his life.
AT THE FAR END of the hall Paul was sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas and the porkpie hat he’d bought at a vintage clothing booth at the street fair last fall. He was drawing. He drew in bed whenever he couldn’t sleep. In the past his mother had reprimanded him for getting ink on the sheets, but as no sign of reform ever made so much as a cameo, she’d resorted to looking the other way (at which point Paul had spontaneously decided that pen and ink were too troublesome to manage in bed; now when he drew from a reclining position his implement of choice was his antigravity pen—the kind used by the astronauts—which wrote like a ballpoint but worked at any angle, even upside down).
At the moment he was working on a portrait of his alter ego, gaunt and brooding. He wore a trench coat with the collar turned up. On his head, a porkpie hat, angled low. He leaned against a lamppost. Paul gave him dark shadows under his eyes. His own eyes burned with fatigue. He closed them a moment, the lids fairly creaking shut, like the metalwork door of a birdcage elevator. That was pretty good. If he were representing it in a strip, he’d draw it that way, two little metalwork elevator doors for eyes, and he would write in the word “CREEEA-KK.”
Sleep eluded him by and large. It had for years. When he was younger, he’d get up out of bed five, ten, as many as fifteen times a night, going to his parents with minor, revolving complaints (tangled blanket, stomachache, strange noise, itch), which sometimes progressed, as the night wore on, to tearful, wordless appeals. His parents would resolutely walk him back to his room, and he would submit to being tucked in again, over and over, until exhaustion finally overtook him and ended the cycle until the next night. Paul had been aware, even at the time, of his parents’ efforts to suppress their frustration at these dramas that dragged into the early hours of the next day, and in a way their success at this was harder to bear than their occasional failures. Twice his father had punched a wall; several times his mother had wept and once she’d hissed at him to stop being such a baby . In the course of their desperation they had offered him, variously, relaxation tapes, warm milk and Benadryl at bedtime, a system of star charts and rewards for staying in bed, a system of time-outs and loss of TV privileges for not staying in bed, a beautiful green suede–covered journal in which to vent the ungainly thoughts that were supposedly keeping sleep at bay, and karate classes three times a week in which to vent his
“What’s that?”
“Prenatal vitamins.”
“Oh, Ricky.” They’ll be expired, John thought but did not say. “Are you crying?”
“No.” And it was true: her voice held no sound of tears. She set the bottle on her nightstand and got back under the covers. He wanted to comfort her but she seemed almost giddy, and it was she who placed a hand on either side of his face and guided his head back to rest on her sternum. He listened to her heart, felt it like a small animal stirring within her ribs.
The ashes. Biscuit’s “ashes,” whatever they had really been. They had to talk about Biscuit. He lifted his head again, made a sound preparatory to speech.
But, “Shh,” she told him, touching his mouth. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry so much.” And she undertook to stroke his face, the wiry coils of his beard, the smooth depression of his temples, his lips again. He held himself still and wondering, propped above her on his forearms, his breath shallow. She traced the frill of his ear, then the cord that led from the base of his ear to his clavicle. Drew the backs of her hands down his stomach. Slid her fingers inside the waistband of his pajamas. Here, without warning, was more intimacy than she’d offered since before the baby’s birth. He would not speak now to save his life.
AT THE FAR END of the hall Paul was sitting up in bed, wearing pajamas and the porkpie hat he’d bought at a vintage clothing booth at the street fair last fall. He was drawing. He drew in bed whenever he couldn’t sleep. In the past his mother had reprimanded him for getting ink on the sheets, but as no sign of reform ever made so much as a cameo, she’d resorted to looking the other way (at which point Paul had spontaneously decided that pen and ink were too troublesome to manage in bed; now when he drew from a reclining position his implement of choice was his antigravity pen—the kind used by the astronauts—which wrote like a ballpoint but worked at any angle, even upside down).
At the moment he was working on a portrait of his alter ego, gaunt and brooding. He wore a trench coat with the collar turned up. On his head, a porkpie hat, angled low. He leaned against a lamppost. Paul gave him dark shadows under his eyes. His own eyes burned with fatigue. He closed them a moment, the lids fairly creaking shut, like the metalwork door of a birdcage elevator. That was pretty good. If he were representing it in a strip, he’d draw it that way, two little metalwork elevator doors for eyes, and he would write in the word “CREEEA-KK.”
Sleep eluded him by and large. It had for years. When he was younger, he’d get up out of bed five, ten, as many as fifteen times a night, going to his parents with minor, revolving complaints (tangled blanket, stomachache, strange noise, itch), which sometimes progressed, as the night wore on, to tearful, wordless appeals. His parents would resolutely walk him back to his room, and he would submit to being tucked in again, over and over, until exhaustion finally overtook him and ended the cycle until the next night. Paul had been aware, even at the time, of his parents’ efforts to suppress their frustration at these dramas that dragged into the early hours of the next day, and in a way their success at this was harder to bear than their occasional failures. Twice his father had punched a wall; several times his mother had wept and once she’d hissed at him to stop being such a baby . In the course of their desperation they had offered him, variously, relaxation tapes, warm milk and Benadryl at bedtime, a system of star charts and rewards for staying in bed, a system of time-outs and loss of TV privileges for not staying in bed, a beautiful green suede–covered journal in which to vent the ungainly thoughts that were supposedly keeping sleep at bay, and karate classes three times a week in which to vent his
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