by Amity Gaige
The old woman readied herself. She felt the urge to neaten her hair. She would put on her coat and glasses. She lifted a finger, as if to say to death, Please, just let me get my glasses.
The nursery was quiet. Alice stepped into the room crookedly, stopping to put one hand over her eyes and concentrate. Exhausted and made monstrous by her crying, and by the one hour of nightmarish sleep sitting upright in a chair, she doubted she should allow herself into the nursery. But she wanted to look at them. Just one look. Her silhouette darkened the nursery window, her hair a tousled shadow.
In the darkness, the green darkness of the nightlight, she leaned over the cribs, and was startled by two eyes staring back at her. Frances was awake. The infant gazed upward, silent. She was never awake at this hour; they had begun to drop off—eight o’clock—off the face of the earth. But now, the infant smiled, completely awake, content. She pressed her hands together and looked down at them seriously. Tearfully, Alice laughed. She reached down to touch her daughter. She drew her hand away.
“Can’t sleep either, can you, sweetheart?”
The infant stared at her mother. Nearby, her sister slept. The infant reached up.
“No,” Alice said. “Stay where you are. Where it’s safe and warm.”
But the child had already reached up far enough to grasp a lock of Alice’s hair. Caught, Alice bent over into the crib. There, she remembered her nightmare: she was watching them, in the crib, flames licking up through the floorboards, the match in her hand.
“Let go,” she whispered. “Let go of Mommy.”
The child did not let go. She pulled back harder, reeling Alice in.
“Let go!”
The child let go. The corners of her lips pulled down. She filled her lungs.
“No,” she whispered. “No. Don’t cry.”
Tenderly, repentantly, Alice lifted the infant from the crib. The child’s sandy hair was aglow in the nightlight, as was her white throat as she struggled to hold her head up.
“Don’t cry. Don’t cry.”
The baby felt hot in her arms. Hot. Delicate. Alice bounced the baby. The baby stared at the nightlight. She had recently grown one tooth on her lower jaw; it sprouted upward like a small white turnip.
“Oh, Frances Shade,” Alice whispered into the child’s hair. “What in the world do you want me for? Should I lie for you?” She looked into the baby’s face. It seemed to say Naturally, yes, you should lie. Alice’s chin buckled, but she did not cry. She looked out the window.
“I’ve failed. I have poisoned everything. You don’t know now. But someday you’ll know. You’ll know who I really am. And then you won’t—you won’t—”
In her arms, the infant hungrily tasted her mouth. Alice sighed. The warmth of the child was making her sleepy, finally. The innocence and incomprehension of the child was making her sleepy. She lowered herself into the rocking chair. Of course, it was not confessions the child cared for now. It was milk, warmth, wool. Reclining in her lap, the child tasted her mouth again, eyes bright with desire. She placed a hand on Alice’s breast and twisted the shirt. Alice turned her head away, unable to bear the look.
Someday you’ll know who I really am. And you won’t love me.
Outside, branches clattered in the wind. The moon gazed at the apartment building and the apartment building stared back with its old, myopic windows. She did not go get a bottle. Instead, she found herself moving the child’s hand, that soft, searching animal, and lifting her shirt, exposing her breast to the bluish white moonlight. She cupped the child’s soft head, saying nothing.
The child stretched her lips toward the nipple, remembering. Alice bent forward, leaning over the child. The small, protuberant mouth sought, fell wide. Alice felt the child’s lips slide across her breast. She tried again, pressing the head forward. Again the mouth fell wide, and Alice gasped, the small head in her hand like an egg. She could feel the tendons of her neck protrude, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
Then, below, a pinch. The child was reaching out. She was clutching the breast in her hand, burying her downy head. Alice felt the mouth around her nipple, like a small, warm mitten.
The infant suckled. She smacked at the dry breast. Alice knew she was offering nothing. Alice was not innocent. She could not pretend that she didn’t know what it was like to be alone with a weeping woman, or to miss one’s father, or to be presented with the gift of wreckage. But the infant ignored all this. It seemed an incredible kindness. It seemed the kindest action anyone had ever taken in the world. Alice covered her face. The tears ran down her face and breast. Yet still the child, somehow confident, somehow Christly, pulled and pulled, gently, with her warm mouth.
Charlie stared at the coffee table in front of him. He wore a blanket around his shoulders. They had been silent for some time.
He was trying to steady himself. He felt so light and so empty that he was afraid he had ceased to exist. Across from him, in an easy chair, wearing a flannel robe, Bruce sat with one huge leg crossed over the other. His shins were hairy, and one slipper hung from his toe. Under the track lighting of the apartment, Bruce’s scalp, big and round as a globe, shone through his thinning hair.
“I’ve never seen you without your baseball cap,” Charlie said. “You look naked.”
“Well,” said Bruce, finally. “I’ve never seen you rolling around in your own vomit on my doorstep.”
Charlie coughed into his fist. His head throbbed. A clock ticked in the kitchen.
Bruce stared back at him. “So why did you come here? Did you want to have a physical confrontation with me?”
“What? A fight? With you?” Charlie laughed.
“Well, you were drunk. And belligerent. Pounding on my door.”
“I was? I honestly—ha—don’t remember. In any case, I’m not angry at you.”
“Really?”
“I don’t blame you for firing me.”
Bruce nodded, squinting. “So—”
“You might be surprised to know I don’t really have a lot of places to go to at the moment, Bruce. I guess I needed someone to talk to. I don’t really have a lot of friends.”
“Come on. You must have a lot of friends. You’re one of the most likable guys I’ve ever met.”
“Sure. I’m like a lot of men. I have tons of friends and not one single friendship. It’s a way—It’s a way to stay liked.”
Bruce uncrossed his legs and paused. “I have several intimate friendships,” he said.
“Good for you.”
“Like you said, some guys have a hard time being genuine.”
“I bet you learn to be pretty damned genuine at AA meetings.”
In the kitchen, a buzzer marked the hour.
Charlie did not look up. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry,” said Bruce. “Be different.”
“Can’t I just be sorry?”
“You have no boundaries, Charlie. With no boundaries you have no self and no accountability. Who are you? What comes first and last in your life? You can’t have everything. What do you need most? Need, you know, with your gut? If you need everything equally, it’s an insult to life. It’s indiscriminant.”
“Come on,” Charlie rubbed the side of his head. “Please. I’m not quite ready for this, Bruce. For revelations.”
“No,” Bruce leaned forward. “You’re in the perfect place.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re in the vise. You’re either going to break or push back. It’s the perfect place for revelation. For some people, the only place.” The big man sat back. He rested one square hand on the armrest, and with the other, he scratched his lushly whiskered face. “Listen, I can reduce this to a sanction. You can easily find another job until you’re licensed, and it’ll just look like you moved on. I thought about it all day. You don’t have to be fired. Nobody needs to know. After the weekend, I know Harriet will soften up. She’s just hurt. She really liked you, Charlie. You can ev
en go back to Maynard, take your position with Gregorian. That’s my final decision. OK? Everything’s going to be OK.”
“My wife,” said Charlie. “She’s seeing somebody.”
Bruce dropped his hand to his lap. “Jesus.”
“She just told me about it tonight. She didn’t spare any—details.” Charlie swallowed back bile, gesturing for the trash can. “Could you please pass that—”
“Take a deep breath, kid.”
Holding the trashcan, Charlie’s eyes fluttered closed. But the blackness behind his eyes had been colonized by the image of them, and they looked good together, his wife and Hal—dark-eyed, dark-haired, embracing in the shadows. Charlie opened his eyes. Bruce was handing him a washcloth.
“Here, kid. Put this over your right eye. It’s totally bloodshot. I think you burst a couple blood vessels.”
Charlie pressed the washcloth over his eye. There the image burned again.
“I can’t,” he said.
Bruce nodded. “You can see them.”
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “How did you know?”
“I know.”
They sat there for a while. Bruce leaned forward. Blinking, Charlie looked at the man across from him, sitting attentive and hairy-chested and hairy-legged in a bathrobe in the middle of the night. And with just that simple act, the attentive leaning forward of a friend, the last stanchions collapsed. Sheets came off Charlie. He felt his very identity clatter in bolts and screws to the floor. The raw, fetal nakedness of himself remained, recoiling, untouched by sunlight. Shaking, Charlie pushed the washcloth into his mouth. His shoulders were shaking. He wept. He dropped the washcloth and ran his hands through his hair again and again.
“Oh God,” he said. “Oh God Oh God Oh God.”
He was really crying now. He looked up helplessly at Bruce in his chair, trying to explain. He wanted to say, This’ll be over any second now. This has got to end soon. Right? But his body had taken over. There he was, cross-legged under a blanket, punching his own leg with a balled-up washcloth. Even when Bruce stood and went into the kitchen and turned on the tap, Charlie kept crying. He could not stop. Bruce came back into the room carrying a glass of water. He stood there, patting Charlie a couple times on the shoulder.
“It’s all right, Bud. Take a deep breath.”
Charlie began to hiccup.
“It’s all right, my man.”
“Give me,” said Charlie. “One of those—Klonopin or something. Would you? I know you must have some around.”
“No,” said Bruce. “Absolutely not.”
“Wish I—could stop,” said Charlie.
Almost magically, with a hiccup, the sobs turned to laughter.
“Shit,” Charlie said, laughing uncontrollably.
Bruce sat down heavily across from him again, looking weary. Charlie tried to raise the glass of water to his lips but it rattled against his teeth.
“Just imagine,” said Bruce, stretching his arms over his head, “Become a drunk and every night could be just like this one.”
“I—am such—a prick,” said Charlie, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.
“Why? Because you ignored your wife?”
“No. Because I didn’t really know how hard it was to be unhappy.” Charlie sat back against the couch. He licked the tears from his lips. “I was going around pretending like I understood everybody. I had no idea!” He laughed. “It’s hell.” Bruce laughed too, shaking his head. “Just to think of myself with my clients. Thinking any minute now they were going to snap out of it. I thought if I got a smile, they were cured. Like I could tap-dance it out of somebody. What a narcissist. What a fucking circus animal. I’ve always been that way. And with Alice. Was it any different? She was saying ‘I’m scared. I’m lonely.’ And I’d waltz in with carnations. I’m a pretender.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Charlie. You were born, well—” Bruce shrugged, “—golden. It wasn’t your fault. How could you know?”
“But you saw this coming. You tried to warn me.”
“I suspected. The gods are cruel gods. They had a bead on you.”
Charlie smiled. “That’s what Alice used to say. She used to talk about the gods. She said she wanted to live a small life that the gods wouldn’t see.”
“Well, they saw.”
“You bet they saw.”
“But maybe now?—”
Charlie swallowed. “But now what? What the fuck now? I feel like dying.”
“Nothing has changed in the world. Only you’ve changed. The world will be waiting for you to come back, changed. Besides, listen. I’ve been working in this field for years and all I can come up with is that either all of us are crazy or none of us are.” Bruce rose from his chair. “Hey. How about some sleep, Charlie. Go to sleep, friend.”
“No. Not yet. I can’t even—close my eyes.”
Charlie stared down at his lap.
“You’ve got a nice place, by the way, Bruce. It’s nice.”
“All these condos are new. We’re the first people in them.”
Charlie pointed with the washcloth to a photograph on the mantel. “Who’s that woman?”
Bruce did not turn to look. “My ex-wife Amy.”
“Why do you still have her picture up if you haven’t seen her in years?”
“Don’t know.”
“She’s pretty,” Charlie nodded. “Pretty smile.”
“Listen,” Bruce said. “I have to go in tomorrow. I’m on call. And besides, I’m going to have to find someone to replace you. You can stay here if you want. Sleep, clean yourself up. Check the cupboard to see if there’s anything to eat. Have whatever you find. OK, Bud? Make yourself at home.”
Charlie smiled gratefully. “You know what your problem is Bruce? You don’t have any boundaries. Always giving giving giving.”
Bruce pressed his lips together. He took his baseball cap off the sideboard and put it on. Cinching his bathrobe, he walked out of the room.
“You wear your baseball cap to bed?” asked Charlie.
“None of your business.”
Charlie could hear him now, walking up the stairs, the boards creaking underneath him.
“You saved my life,” Charlie called. “You know that, you bastard? I could have died.”
The creaking paused. He could hear Bruce breathing in the stairwell. Then the big man proceeded up the stairs to bed.
Having dirtied their clothes, having dug a trench for rainwater, having chased a tomcat up a tree, the neighborhood children wondered what to do next. They had already dammed the sewer and stripped all the birch bark they needed for their secret club documents. The light of the Sunday afternoon was draining back into the horizon. In his house, a father looked out, folding closed his newspaper. What to do? he thought. Should he drag the trashcans to the curb, or take another nap? He smelled his empty juice glass, having forgotten what he’d been drinking. Rye, was it? His wife coughed in the adjoining room. Outside, in the shadows between houses, the children watched the tomcat in the tree, flicking its tail. Even the tomcat looked bored. He began preening himself on his branch. For he liked the onset of night because that meant moles and mice in their stupid intrepidness and their fresh delicious eyeballs, but he himself wished for the longer days to return, the light, his summer coat, glossy and handsome. He coughed, hair in his throat. The children stared up at the tomcat. A boy dropped the rock in his hand. It was Sunday. They were impatient for spring. There was nothing left to play with in winter. Under the porches of houses, the dirty snow hunkered, willing itself to melt.
Leeeeeeeeeeeuh. Your mother wants you inside please! Leah!
What, already?
I said come here. Now.
And with this, Alice awoke, as if she herself were the child being called. She looked wildly around the room, scrambling to sit up in her chair. In her lap, a sleeping infant. The child’s bottle had long rolled across the carpet. The floor was covered with objects: rings and rattles and m
irrors, a stuffed panda bear faced down, a trail of Cheerios, a crusted bowl, a dirty diaper that was coming unrolled like some awful night flower. The stench hit Alice—her own child, in her arms. She waked the child.
“Franny, for god sakes, you’re filthy.”
Alice clawed her hair out of the way, swearing. She swung the child off her lap, but the child had already clutched a lock.
“Goddamn it. God damn useless hair.”
The baby sneezed, speckling Alice’s face. Alice bent over the child. Her nose was red around the rims; her face, damp and hot.
“Oh please don’t be sick, Franny baby. Please don’t be sick.”
The child on her hip, now beginning to cry grumpily, she strode down the hallway to the nursery. She lay the child on the changing table and, with one hand, steadied her there, pantless. The dirty diaper was heavy with urine and feces.
“Stay,” she said.
She moved to the second crib, but it was empty. The sight took her breath. She burst out into the hallway.
“Evie? Evelyn!”
She lurched into the bathroom, looking—crazed—under the sink and in the tub, as if the child might have stored herself there. She ran back into the nursery and grabbed Frances.
“Evelyn! Evelyn!”
They ran down the hall. There were only so many places to look. The key was in her memory somewhere—how could you misplace a child? Below the window, in a pool of sunlight, in the middle of an unmade bed—fingers! Alice climbed across the bed; Evelyn squinted, whined, and turned her head away, wanting to be left in peace. Her sister, unwatched for one second, casually ate a Kleenex, proffered by the box on the bedside table.
“Don’t,” gasped Alice. “Don’t eat that. Jesus!”
She took the two infants in her arms and waded down the hall through the colorful debris. Evelyn shrieked, clawing at her mother’s arm. Frances, the meat of the Kleenex still in her fist, spread her legs, and when replaced upon the changing table, relieved herself, the urine rainbowing out over the carpet.
