All day Jane carried on a silent, furious conversation with Eric, and finally he called to see how Grace was. Jane said she thought she was better, and went through the details of temperature, appetite, and so on. “Good, that’s all good,” Eric said. “I’ll try to get home early.”
“Your time management problem keeps getting more and more complicated, doesn’t it?”
Pause. “What do you mean by that?”
She couldn’t stop herself. “This is what it takes, a sick child, for you to try to fit us in. No promises.”
“We’ve been through this before.” They had. “There are things that are beyond my control. Surgeries go on longer than expected. Patients have problems. Patients need emergency procedures. I wish you would try not to have resentments.”
“I guess I’m talking about the things that are within your control.”
“I’m not in the mood for this, Jane.”
“I was just wondering, when do you find time to see her?”
He was silent. After a moment Jane said, “Don’t bother saying anything. Just don’t think I don’t know. All right, fine. See you later.”
Jane hung up, feeling rattled, second-guessing herself for saying anything. She could have kept quiet, and instead she’d declared war. But he needed reminding that she was still there, not just an obstacle he had to maneuver around or evade, someone to be ignored, tolerated, lied to.
And just then it came over her. She was standing at the foot of the stairs, her hand on the bannister, damp spring clouds sweeping across the sky outside, her head aching from all her bad and poisonous thoughts. The next instant there was the floating, falling sensation of limitless white, of blessed nothingness, of peace and ease and everything else that her life no longer was, and it did not last long—Robbie’s ball still made its monotonous noise against the wall—but it filled her with such longing she could have wept. She could not, she could not, she could not allow this. Eric had made that clear enough. If she retreated from them, if she absented herself, if she did not do all that was expected of her and more. Supermom! She would be taken away, subjected to more and worse therapies, her children bereft at first, then forgetting her. She had to steel herself, live alongside them without arousing suspicion.
Now she was engaged in a war with Eric. How stupid she’d been to fall into it, to have taken up the sword, to care what he did one way or the other. Why not let him carry on his secret life just as she did hers? It had been nothing but vanity and weakness on her part and now it was too late.
Eric did get home, if not early, at least on schedule. Robbie butted his head into Eric’s knees and announced that he wanted to play Battleship, and that when he got a police dog it was going to be named Mike. Eric said that was a fine name, and maybe they could play Battleship later, he had to go see how his sister was doing. He had not spoken to Jane when he walked in, but once he’d been upstairs he came back down to the kitchen and said, “Her fever’s 101.5.”
“It’s been just over a hundred most of the day. I told you.”
He looked around the kitchen in an irritated way, as if the room itself displeased him. “Did you use the forehead scanner or a real thermometer? The forehead scanner’s crap.”
“Well that’s what I used. And I’ve used it before and you never said anything, so I don’t know why it’s a problem now.” He was scowling and ready to start in again, so Jane asked, “How is she?”
“She seems dehydrated.”
“She hasn’t thrown up since this morning. She’s had Pedialyte and orange juice and ice water and I’m making her chicken noodle soup right now. I’ve watched her all day, Eric. I’m going to go give her some more Tylenol. There’s lasagna in the oven and salad and rolls, please make sure Robbie eats.” Jane left him, aware that he was picking a fight because she had picked a fight, trying to turn his own guilt inside out, to blame her for everything wrong, sad, and failed between them. She understood how that worked. But it was disgusting of him to try and beat her up over Grace’s health and care. Just disgusting.
She brought Grace her soup and some soda crackers, gave her the dose of Tylenol, and sat with her while she ate and read her a story about a squirrel and a rabbit and a baby deer who all lived together in the forest. Grace’s skin had a whiff of sour, bed-bound sweat to it. “How about after you finish your supper, I’ll give you a nice warm bath.”
“Mommy? Why do people die?”
“Honey, what a question! Is it something you’re worried about?”
“I don’t know.” The all-purpose kid answer, half-sulky, half-fearful.
“Nobody’s going to die for a long, long time. Not you or me or Daddy or Robbie. So don’t fret.”
“What about Grandma and Grandpa and Granny Alice and Grampy Bob?”
This was harder. Jane tried to gauge the extent of Grace’s curiosity, or worry. The little girl was still flushed from fever. She looked serious but not distressed. “Well, older people usually die before younger ones. But your grandparents are fine and nothing’s going to happen to them anytime soon. And you are going to feel so much better by tomorrow,” she added, thinking that this had to be the source of the anxiety.
“But why do people die?” Grace repeated. Jane couldn’t remember Robbie asking such a thing. Then, Robbie was a different kind of kid.
Jane said, “Because our spirits go away and our bodies aren’t needed anymore.” It was the best she could do when put on the spot. They weren’t religious; the kids went to a Unitarian Sunday school on occasion, so they would not be ignorant of cultural traditions. “You know what a spirit is, right? The things you think and feel and believe.” The Sunday school had come up with a helpful pamphlet.
“Where does your spirit go away to?”
Jane understood now, as she had not before, that one value of organized religion was that it provided answers you could dole out to children. She could hardly start in with some glib explanation of heaven and Jesus, let alone hell, even if she believed in such things herself. Grace and Robbie had been told that Christmas was Jesus’ birthday and everybody got to celebrate it because Jesus was nice about things like that. Easter was for candy and colored eggs. Churches were places like school, except you went there on Sundays. Really, when it came to indoctrinating their children with belief systems, she and Eric had been total slobs.
So Jane took a breath and waded in. “Well, nobody knows exactly where, sweetheart. Some people say we go on living, but in a different place, where everybody’s always happy.”
Perhaps she had been insufficiently enthusiastic? Grace looked unconvinced. “Then why don’t people want to die and go there?”
“Because, it’s not a real place, honey. You can’t get in a car and drive there or anything like that. It’s more of an idea.” Jane thought she heard the sound of plates, silverware from downstairs, Robbie asking something, Eric’s rumbling answer. At least they were eating. She turned back to Grace, who had given up on her soup but was still pushing her spoon around in the bowl. “I’m sorry, that’s not a very good explanation. It’s not easy to explain.”
“OK.”
“Even grown-up people can’t agree about it.” Especially grown-up people. “You have plenty of time to think about it.”
“Does everybody die?”
“All right, let’s stop talking about dying. Let’s eat a little more soup.” Rattled in spite of herself, Jane spoke more sharply than she intended. She was going to have to come up with some better Mom-answers for some of the hard questions. And whatever was she going to say about sex? About marital discord? Would she and Eric get a divorce? Is that what happened next? She had not thought such things through.
“But do they die?” Grace prompted her.
“Yes.” No way around that one.
“If I get a cat, will it die?”
“Yes.”
“If Rob
bie gets a dog, will it die?”
“Yes.”
“Celia had a goldfish and it died.”
“All right, you know what? You need to concentrate on being here right now and doing things you want to do and need to do. Not worry about dying. That doesn’t help. Think about getting better. Can you do that?”
An eruption of noise from downstairs, Robbie yelping in a high, wordless voice. “What is it?” Jane cried, heading for the landing. “Robbie?” She ran down to the kitchen, where Eric was boosting Robbie up to hold his hand under the running tap. “What happened?”
Robbie was still bawling, his face bright red and his nose streaming. “Eric?”
“He pulled a pot of boiling water over and burned himself. Get some ice, would you?”
“What were you—” Jane stopped herself and went to the freezer door to lever some ice into a glass. A saucepan lay on its side on the stove top in a puddle of hissing water. She wrapped the ice in a dishtowel and handed it to Eric. She didn’t see any blistering, at least not yet. There would be some explanation for the boiling water, some bad decision, some lapse in supervision. As if Eric was piling up all his mistakes at once.
She put a hand on Robbie’s neck, kissed his cheek, and mopped at him with a Kleenex and told him it was all right, it was going to be all right. His sobs were trailing off into whimpers now. Her eyes met Eric’s. “What was it?”
“He wanted macaroni and cheese instead of lasagna. He was trying to see the water boil.”
Jane didn’t have to say anything. He already knew. He tied up the ice in the dishtowel and laid it on top of Robbie’s burned hand. “Doesn’t that feel better?” he said encouragingly, though Robbie wasn’t having any of it.
“Does he need the emergency room?”
“I don’t know yet, Jane, let’s give it a minute, OK?”
She understood that he was angry because the accident had been in so many ways his fault and now he felt bad about it. Angry at getting called out for what he must consider his purely private screwing around. That didn’t mean he had to act like an asshole.
And how she hated being a person who cared about such things! This furious, diminished self!
She turned off the stove burner and mopped up the spilled water. The pan of lasagna was sitting out on the counter and she cut a square of it and fixed Robbie a plate with salad and a roll and poured him a glass of milk. “How about you try eating dinner? You can sit right here with the ice on your hand and I’ll cut your food up.”
Jane helped him blow his nose and get settled at the kitchen table. “Keep the ice on it,” Eric instructed. “Do we have any gel packs? I can give him some lidocaine, that should help.”
Jane ignored him. “I thought you liked lasagna. Here.” She loaded a forkful of it and lifted it to Robbie’s mouth. He swallowed it down. His eyes still leaked stray tears. “Can you manage the rest with your good hand?” His left hand was the injured one. She guessed that was lucky. “How about some milk?” Eric watched them for a minute, then left the room. He kept his medical supplies in the upstairs bathroom. She wanted to tell him to check on Grace, but why should she have to tell him that?
Robbie wasn’t making much headway on the lasagna. Jane helped herself to his portion. Eric hadn’t eaten yet either. One more blown dinner. “How’s your hand doing?”
“Hurts.”
“Did you try to reach the stove top? You know better than that. Here.” She helped him blow his nose again. “You have to learn to be more careful, sweetie.” Already Jane had unspeakable visions of bicycles, automobiles, organized sports.
Eric came back in then with his medical kit and his brisk, Doctor Dad cheerfulness. “All right, buddy, let’s get you fixed up.” To Jane he said, “Grace says you’re supposed to give her a bath.” He must not have liked the look she gave him. “Tag team,” he said, an attempt at lightening things up, if only for Robbie’s sake.
Jane went back upstairs. Grace was fretful, all wrapped and tangled in her bedding. “What happened to Robbie?”
“He hurt himself with some hot water on the stove.”
“Is he going to die?”
“No, and I want you to stop talking like that! Grace! It’s not funny!”
Grace kept quiet while Jane prepared her bath. She liked it hot but not too hot. Full but not too full. A few squirts of pink bubbly soap. Jane peeled away Grace’s pajamas, limp from a full day’s wear. “All right, hop in. I’m not going to wash your hair because your ear’s still sore. We’ll do it tomorrow. Let me help you.” She steadied Grace as she stepped into the tub, then squatted down. “Here’s your washcloth. Scrub your feet, please.”
A knock on the door. Eric looked in. “Hey there, monkey girl.”
“I am not a monkey.”
“I beg your pardon. My mistake. Clearly, you are a kangaroo.” To Jane he said, “I’m going to give Robbie some of the acetaminophen with codeine. It’ll help him sleep.”
“Fine.” She didn’t know why he’d bother seeking her out and telling her this. “I’d get him in his pajamas first. Here, take his toothbrush. He can get ready for bed in our bathroom.” Tag team indeed.
Grace finished her bath and Jane wrapped her in a towel and helped her wiggle into clean pajamas. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” Jane asked, when she was tucking her in. Grace’s temperature was below a hundred by now. Even the pink room seemed less lurid.
“Yes,” Grace admitted, as if she was giving up a privilege, with reluctance.
“And tomorrow I bet you’ll feel a whole, whole lot better.”
“Mommy? Do people die when they’re awake or asleep?”
“Grace. What did I tell you?”
“But which one?”
“Both. Neither.” If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Some universal childhood fear? Jane couldn’t remember it herself. “You don’t have to be afraid to go to sleep. I promise you are going to wake up in the morning just like you always do, and you’ll be fine.”
“What if I have a bad dream?”
“Then you come get me.” Jane stopped. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if it was a dream or you don’t know if it was bad?”
“It was about Daddy.”
“What about Daddy?” Jane asked, trying to keep the brittle edge out of her voice. Yes indeed, what about Daddy?
“He was crying.”
This was unexpected. “Well, your daddy doesn’t cry.” At least, she couldn’t remember him doing so. Or just the once, when they’d almost lost Grace. He was entirely too confident, which was another way of saying, full of himself. “What was he crying about?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said again, yawning.
“Then it was just a dream and you don’t have to worry about it. Go to sleep now. Think about something pleasant.”
“Daddy is a big crybaby.”
“Good night, Grace.”
Jane pulled the bedroom door closed, leaving a hand’s width opening so Grace could see the hall light and wouldn’t wake up frightened. In spite of what she’d told Grace to reassure her, she felt spooked, filled with free-floating dread, too many things gone too wrong, and how did you know when it was over?
She crossed the hall to Robbie’s room, which was dark and quiet. His door too was open and she looked in, letting her eyes adjust. Robbie was in bed, asleep on his back. Drugged up, cried out. His white, bandaged hand lay beside him like a small pet.
Eric was in their bedroom, she guessed, waiting to tell her more of his indignant half-lies. Jane had to remind herself of the passage of time, the day and the night gone by since her suspicions, or no, her absolute dead certainty had crashed-landed on her, but Eric would not have made the same reckoning. He’d be wondering what she knew and how, and waiting
to have it out with her, having already tried on this or that argument or excuse, and to Jane it was as if all of it had already happened and she had moved on past it to whatever numb and ugly part of their life came next.
Jane went to the room she’d prepared for herself, found a nightgown and robe in the closet, and changed into them. She washed her face and brushed her teeth in the children’s bathroom and readied herself for sleep. She crept into Grace and Robbie’s rooms and stood over them for a time, holding her own breath so that she could listen to theirs. Satisfied that they slept without distress, she returned to the small bedroom and lay down in the narrow bed and turned off the light.
Her nerves were broken glass, her head full of jumpy thoughts. She didn’t expect to sleep, not any time soon at least. There was only the dry waiting to get through. For a time she dozed, or thought she did. Footsteps came toward her down the hall. Eric threw open the door to the room. “What’s this about, Jane?”
The hall light made her shield her eyes with her arm. “Leave me alone.”
“This is some stunt. How about, if you have something to say, say it.”
“I did. Leave me alone.”
“This is not the way an adult behaves, Jane.” He fumbled around for a light switch, didn’t find one. The room was too small for an overhead light. He’d probably never noticed. He kept reaching and thumping the wall. “Ah, crap.”
Jane sat up in bed. “Do you want to wake the kids?”
“Come out of there so we can see each other.”
“I’m fine right here.”
“Goddamn it, Jane.”
“Why are you the one who’s angry? Why are you bothering? Talk about stunts.”
Eric stepped into the room, a backlit shadow. She hissed at him. “Get out! What are you doing, leave me alone!”
“What’s the matter with you, huh?” His face was in shadow, she couldn’t see it. “What, you’re afraid of me now? Christ.”
She Poured Out Her Heart Page 24
