The Last Good Night by Emily Listfield Page A

had their hands over their mouths to cover their laughter. Of course, there was no reason to think that it had anything to do with me.
    As soon as the speeches were over, I motioned to David that I wanted to leave. I was suddenly exhausted by it all, the noise, the smiling, the effort it took to be one of them. David, too, was ready. The woman he was talking to had left to find her husband.
    The paparazzi were gone when we stepped back out into the night.
    There were no faces in the light.
    There was no one there at all, just a lineup of bored drivers standing before the strand of shining black limousines.
    We found a taxi and rode the first few blocks in silence.
    â€œWho was that woman you were talking to?” I asked.
    â€œShe’s on the City Planning Commission. She’s overseeing the renovation of the Hudson River piers.”
    I nodded.
    â€œShe knows my work,” he said. “Remember my work?”
    â€œOf course I remember your work. I’m sorry, David. I had to do this tonight.”
    â€œI know.”
    The cab pulled up to our building and David paid the driver.
    I shrugged it off outside the door, the fame, and stepped back inside—as who?
    Â 
    W HILE D AVID PAID Dora and saw her to a taxi, I ran a hot bath, poured in half a bottle of French herbal bubble bath, and then felt instantly guilty. I still cannot help adding up how much everything cost, a remnant of being poor. Outside the door, I heard David returning to the bedroom, listening to the late news while he undressed, clicking it off when he got into bed. I lay back and let the steam fill my nostrils, my mouth. The only sound came from the cars outside. There had been so much solitude once, too much, all those frantic empty years when I thought I’d never be held, really held again. Now it was something I could find only behind locked doors. I lay still until I grew light-headed from the heat.
    I climbed out of the bath, put on one of David’s worn-out T-shirts, and got into bed, quickly falling into a heavy sleep.
    But I woke at three in the morning in a cold sweat, breathless.
    I sat up, pushed the damp hair from my face.
    I lay back against the pillows, terrified to shut my eyes, terrified to sleep, to see them again, the gnats, the noose of hands, the eyes, the blood.
    I got out of bed, made myself a cup of coffee, and watched the sun rise.

F IVE
    T HERE ARE LULLS that are so sweet, so simple, so calm, that for a little while you can almost convince yourself that this is how your life really is, this is how it will always be. Later, of course, you realize it was just a brief respite, a pocket.
    After the broadcast on Friday night, David and I bundled up Sophie and then made three trips downstairs to the car. The amount of paraphernalia we suddenly needed for a weekend away was overwhelming: a stroller, a folding crib, a baby monitor, blankets, diapers, diaper wipes, formula, bottles, a bottle warmer, a first aid kit, toys, clothes. “So much for the days of traveling light,” David said grimly as the turquoise diaper bag slid from his shoulder. He wasn’t really displeased, though, neither of us were. We had come to parenthood late enough to doubt that we would ever find ourselves there and now that we had, it was so new and wondrous, all this encumbrance, that even complaining about it gave us a sense of pride.
    I strapped Sophie into her new car seat and settled in the back beside her, too uncertain of how she would react to sit up front with David. David never likes talking until he has maneuvered out of the city, and we rode in silence through the Village streets crammed with taxis and people anxiously hurrying into those first promising hours of the weekend. I tucked a blanket about Sophie and stroked her fuzzy scalp. By the time we made it out of the Holland tunnel and were on the highway headed south through New Jersey, she had fallen into such a deep sleep that I shook her firmly to make sure