“They’re doing a blow-by-blow reenactment of that amputation scene.”
“Oh, yeah? Who’s who?”
“Lila is Abby Lockhart. Robin is Rocket Romano. Chicken Dance Elmo is the patient.”
“Goodness. I’ll have to see this for myself.”
She crept in and kissed their soft, serious foreheads and cheeks. She washed her face and Colin wandered in and out of the bathroom, brushing his teeth, looking curiously at the photographs taken during that first optimistic year with Lila—so many of them!—all hung in careful arrangements on the bedroom wall. And a few of Robin too, hastily added. Poor neglected girl, sad little second child.
He spit. He flossed.
She applied Oil of Olay eye lotion and then Pond’s everywhere but the area between her brows. There she applied an expensive cream discovered and purchased through the Bliss website, a cream that dried on contact and, according to Bliss, paralyzed the skin as Botox did in order to soften and stave off frown lines. Kate leaned into the mirror. She shook the bottle in her right hand and tapped on the cream.
“What’s that all about, again?” Colin asked.
“It’s supposed to stop frown lines. By freezing my face. My expression. See? Look. It dries. It’s drying. You wear it in your sleep and it keeps you from frowning so you don’t get lines.”
“But you don’t frown in your sleep.”
“Don’t I?”
“Nope.”
“Well. I don’t know then.” Kate leaned into the mirror and poked at the substance hardening between her brows. “A hundred bucks for this stuff. What a racket. I might as well just ask you to come in my face.”
“Free of charge.”
She curled up on her side in bed to read her book. But he pressed up against her from behind and put a hand on her breast. All that week and the previous one she’d avoided sex. She’d relied on her usual strategies: going to bed and getting up early, falling asleep in the girls’ room, picking a fight, referring to fatigue, wearing a special pink faux-silk nightie, a garment that would have enticed had it not been given to Kate by her mother-in-law (as she reminded Colin if need arose). But it had found its way into the wash, she’d replaced it with an old T-shirt, and now Colin was groping her, running his hand up and down her waist and over her hip.
She counted back the days to their last sexual encounter. Not yet two weeks. Two weeks was her deadline. But only a few days shy. She turned down the page and put the book aside and turned around. With great effort she suppressed her physical indifference to him. Poor man. He didn’t deserve such apathy.
How sick she was over it all—how she wanted to love him again.
She put her arms around his neck and closed her eyes.
He rolled on top of her and pulled at her underpants. She bent one leg and he slid them over her foot. She maneuvered her pillow under her rear. He nudged her thighs apart and pushed himself through her dryness. She watched the serious, intent look of him inserting himself into her, tongue protruding slightly and clenched between his teeth—his habitual expression of sexual entry. With the same expression he played video games and had aimed purées toward his infant daughters’ mouths.
Once engaged, her capitulating body loosened and dampened. He supported himself on his forearms and pounded away. She made appreciative sounds and lifted her pelvis and contracted her muscles, hoping to facilitate the process. She felt his face close to hers.
“Does that feel good?” he asked.
“Yes, yes.”
It did feel good—physically, it did. But mysteriously, the pleasure restricted itself to a specific area of her body, and she still didn’t want him. The pleasurable sensation was like a piece of information that had little to do with her. It was like one of those dye tablets, the kind that came in kits for coloring Easter eggs, one that wouldn’t dissolve even when submerged in a tub full of hot water. Something had gone wrong—since the old days, when the tablet would melt and turn the water deep colors.
Why, why did he insist on wanting her—and why couldn’t she get the same pleasure out of it he still seemed to get? He reached for it and there it was, a simple normal satisfaction that eluded her.
Activity ceased and he lay heavily on top of her. She shifted irritably. On her way to the bathroom, to wash herself clean of him, her right foot struck the satellite radio contraption. She sank and clutched her toe. She rocked back and forth on the floor. “Ouch. Ouch, ouch.”
“Let me see.” Naked, he bent to examine her foot. He touched the injury: the loose skin flap, the blood. “Hang on.” He fetched and applied peroxide, Neosporin, a Band-Aid. He kissed the doctored toe.
“Poor Uncle Wiggily,” he said. “Poor, poor Uncle Wiggily.”
13
HE FOLLOWING EVENING, after Colin’s celebrated return from the office, Kate got between the girls on the parental bed with Norse Gods and Giants, now titled D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths—a brand-new copy, purchased by Kate several weeks earlier while she disposed of time between the shelter and school pickup. She skipped the introduction and began with “Chapter One: The First Gods and Giants.” She read, “Early in the morning of time there was no sand, no grass, no lapping wave. There was no earth, no sun, no moon, no stars.”
There was a pit of fire and one of water and one, in between, of chaos. The frost giant, Ymir, and an enormous ice cow emerged eventually from this pit. The giant lived off the cow, drinking from her udder, and the cow sustained herself by licking the salt-crusted brim of the pit.
“Why is it salty?” Lila asked.
“I don’t know why. Maybe—I don’t know; it’s like the ocean.”
“What are udders?”
“They’re like the cow’s nipples.”
“Did we drink from your nimples?” Robin asked. She already knew the devastating answer.
“Yes, yes, you did; you know you did.”
Both girls screamed exuberantly.
“Hey, no teasing.”
They screamed louder and drummed their legs on the bed.
“Enough, guys, enough. Do you want me to read or not?”
They shushed each other and settled down.
Ymir slept, and two more giants, a male and a female, were born from his damp, warm armpit and a six-headed troll from his rank, sweaty feet. The ice cow, now with nine mouths to feed, licked vigorously at the salt rim, and under her industrious tongue a head formed, then a whole beautiful man.
“Who is he?” Lila asked.
“He is …” She skimmed ahead. “The grandfather to the Norse gods. So that’s how it began,” she said. “And now,” she said, segueing to Maurice Sendak, “let the wild rumpus start!” She grabbed the girls’ solid thighs and squeezed. They giggled and wriggled away.
Colin walked in and stood at the end of the bed in a T-shirt and striped boxer shorts and observed the three females he lived with. He waited for a break in the commotion and asked, “Who wants to brush their teeth?”
“I brushed mine!” Lila cried.
“Did you floss?” Kate asked.
“Yes!”
“Good girl.”
“Robin? You?” Colin pointed at his younger daughter.
“She didn’t,” Lila said.
“I’ll take her.” He lifted Robin from the bed and carried her off.
Lila turned to Kate. “Mommy?”
“Yes, baby girl.”
“There’s this girl, Leonora, in ballet? She’s a fifth grader, I think.”
“Does she go to Wintergreen?”
“I think so.”
“Leonora. Is she the one with the long black hair? The one who played Drosselmeyer?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes. She’s at Wintergreen.”
“I like her so much.”
“Are you two friends?”
“I haven’t ever talked to her. I just like to look at her.”
“Well, you should! Talk to her.”
“I don’t know what to talk to
her about.”
“Ballet? School?”
“I love her face. I love how she stands. On ballet days I think about her and then I get so excited to see her.”
“That probably has something to do with how you feel about ballet. But that’s very sweet. That you like her so much.”
“It’s funny.”
“It’s called a crush.”
“Mommy, did you ever feel this way about anybody?”
“Well. About Daddy, at one point.”
“You did?”
“Yes, Daddy. You know, I felt romantic about Daddy once. That’s why people get married; they feel romantic about each other. So Daddy and I, we did too; we felt romantic about each other.”
Visibly, Lila struggled with this notion. Robin and Colin returned with clean teeth and Colin swept the kids off to bed.
“Lila likes a girl,” Kate said later. They were cleaning up the kitchen, carefully carrying out their allotted tasks: Kate the dishwasher and the sink and the dishes in it, Colin the counters and the putting away of items in cabinets and fridge and depositing of other items beside the sink.
“Likes likes?”
“I think so.”
“Well, maybe your dream will come true.”
“My dream?”
“Of lesbian daughters.”
“Well. She also likes Floyd from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.”
“What?”
“The Muppets. Floyd? The saxophone player? Hat, gold tooth?”
Then, the kitchen cleaned up and lunch packed and clothes and boots and coats laid out, Kate sat up in bed, paying bills on her laptop. Colin walked in and out of the bedroom, brushing and flossing his teeth.
“It’s just that I don’t want them to be like me,” she said. “With the whole gay thing. I don’t want them to turn out like me.”
He frowned and went into the bathroom and spit. He returned, wiping his face with a hand towel.
“But why don’t you want them to be like you?” he asked patiently. “What’s wrong with you?”
She shook her head. “Do you want them to be like me?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Touché.”
“But not like me either.” He sat next to her on the bed and rubbed her shoulder. “You know. I wish they could stay like they are.”
“I feel like we should do family dinners,” Kate said.
“Family dinners?”
“Like Dr. Levy asked about.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Other people do it, and it’s probably good for the kids.”
“I get home so late.”
“I don’t know, maybe once a week or something we could try it?”
“I guess. But we love our kids and we communicate with them anyway. Just because everyone else does something doesn’t mean we have to.”
“I know, I know. But. I bet they would really like it.”
“Okay. Well, sure. One night a week, family dinner, why not.”
“I just want them to be happy,” she said.
He kissed her hair. “I’m going to go check on them.”
She shut down her laptop and closed it and put it on her night table. When Colin came back she asked, “What are they doing?”
“They’re singing the pivotal Laurey and Curly duet from Oklahoma!”
“Ha, ha. No, really. What are they doing? Are they comfortable? Are they each still in their own bed? Are they snoring?”
“They’re talking. Holding a meeting. They’re talking about you. They’re saying that you’re the best mommy in the world.”
14
O THEY GATHERED for a Family Dinner. Kate made pork chops and applesauce and salad and green beans and mashed butternut squash. “Couldn’t we just have spaghetti or something? Does it have to be so elaborate?” Colin eyed her warily, as if she might transfer to him her own special infectious extravagance.
“Spaghetti? Really?”
“Oh, right. Right. I wasn’t … Okay. No spaghetti. No angel hair. No pasta at all.” He put his hands on her shoulders and stared into her face. Impatiently, she let him. “You are a really beautiful woman,” he said solemnly.
She kissed him—she didn’t feel like throwing down but she didn’t hate the compliment either. “Thanks. Thank you.”
He unloaded the dishwasher while she set the dining room table. She carried the food out and he rounded up the girls and led them to their seats. Robin dropped her tiny cut-up bits of pork one by one onto the rug. Lila made a design with them on her plate. Colin ate swiftly, spearing another bite before swallowing his current one, tucking the first into the corner of his mouth to make room. Dinner lasted twenty minutes. Released, the girls ran to the couch in the den, where they negotiated bitterly over whose turn it was to choose the show. It was Lila’s night, Lila claimed, but no one could back her up—so Robin, thrower of tantrums, got her Super Why! “Dumb baby show,” Lila cried, and pushed Robin off the couch.
Kate slid dishes into the empty dishwasher, pans into the sink. She poured herself another glass of wine. She heard Colin soothing in the next room. She scrubbed the pan, rushing, eager to join her children before their show. Lila would settle down and enjoy the baby show. Kate would sit between the girls and put her arms around their warm pliable bodies—this, her happiest time of day—a transgression, not something she’d admit to Brooke or Mave, but true.
Colin walked in and out of the kitchen, snorting and clearing his sinuses. He carried out the trash and sorted the recycling. He brought in firewood. He kicked the door shut and open. The cold air crept below her shirt. She felt, acutely, the heavy presence of him. His footsteps, each one, seemed to steal something from her, seemed to nudge her into a smaller and more compromised psychological space. Finished with his chores, he opened the corner cabinet and took something down. He rustled, rodentlike, in a plastic sleeve. She heard the munching and crunching of wafer, a disruptive accompaniment to the low running of water. His big sounds displaced her—his small sounds invaded her. He swallowed and spoke.
“Do you want this on?”
She turned, looked over her shoulder, understood that he meant the oven.
She had left it on again. Shutting it off was the last step, the one she often forgot when she cooked or baked or reheated. And Colin, instead of turning it off himself—because clearly, clearly she was through with it!—would notice and ask, as if in reproach.
Of course she did not want it on.
“No,” she said. “Thanks.”
He shut it off. He put a hand to his chest. “Do you have a Zantac by any chance? I’m out.”
“I have Prilosec.”
“Can you spare one?”
“It doesn’t work right away. You have to keep taking it. But sure, okay.” She reached into the medicine cabinet.
Once they had traded bodily fluids and childhood memories. Now they begrudged each other heartburn medication.
She dropped the pill into his outstretched hand and returned the bottle to the shelf. From the den she heard the Super Why! finale.
“I’ll get them up,” he said.
Internally, she lamented and cursed. He herded them up the stairs. She followed, drying her hands on her jeans. Colin got the girls into the master bedroom, then wandered away, mumbling something about the cable bill. Kate got onto the parental bed between her daughters and broke out D’Aulaires. Loki stole Sif’s golden hair and then replaced it, in atonement, with real gold. He stole Freya’s necklace. Thor attended a banquet dressed as a woman but gave himself away with his tremendous appetite.
“Okay,” Kate said. “Teeth.” Lila brushed her teeth quickly and got involved in her own book. Robin darted around the bedroom clutching her SpongeBob toothbrush, giggling.
“Robin, don’t run with that.” Kate didn’t care, really, what Robin did with the toothbrush, so long as she eventually brushed her teeth, but she knew what she was supposed to say: no, no, and no. Robin removed her freshly applied pajam
as and ran in circles, naked but for her underpants.
“You’re lucky you’re cute, Robin.” Kate stepped toward her, stopped, crossed her arms across her chest, and sighed. Kate heard the computer booting up in Colin’s study, then the sounds of Grand Theft Auto.
“Okay, Robin. Now.” Kate lunged toward the girl and seized the toothbrush. “Should I brush them or do you want to do it yourself?”
Robin pouted and pointed to Kate.
“Okay. Climb on the bed then.”
Robin climbed on and lay back against the European pillow. Kate bent over her with the brush. “Open your mouth, please.”
Robin clamped her lips shut.
“Open, please. Open. Open sesame.”
Robin clamped harder.
“Do you want to do it?”
The heavy head shook. The curls bounced.
“Open your mouth, please. I’m going to count to ten.” She counted. Robin’s lips vanished into the fold of her mouth. From Colin’s study, computerized explosions sounded.
“Okay,” Kate said. “Okay, that’s it.” Fury, with Robin its most available object, welled in her chest. She let it; she let it come over her—like an intestinal or sexual eruption, it insisted on its own release.
“Goddamn it!” she shouted in a voice several octaves lower than her speaking voice. With this voice she seized the paternal role—yes, she wanted to frighten, to bully, to intimidate!
She covered Robin’s nose with her hand. She pulled at the soft chin, pried the lips open. She forced the brush past the flattened lips and onto the tiny teeth. Robin began to scream. Colin appeared in the doorway. Kate finished and rolled away from Robin and shook off the brush. “I think I got them all.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little rough with her?” Colin said.
Lila crept toward him.
“Couldn’t you just let it go?”
“Let it go!” Kate cried. She sat up. “Well, if I let it go tonight then how about tomorrow night? And the next? How about we just ditch brushing teeth altogether? Fuck Dr. Reed! Or rather, how about you explain to him and that dental hygienist bitch Danielle when their teeth rot and fall out?”
He picked Robin up and took Lila’s hand. “I’ll get them to bed.”
Games to Play After Dark Page 15
