At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  “You’ll feel better now,” Ed tells her.

  Polly kisses him and when he kisses her back she can tell he’s been waiting for her. She kisses him as if she would die without him. This is the kiss Amanda will never have. Polly doesn’t want to stop, she wants never to stop, but she knows she has to. She slides over to her own seat, feels in her pocket for a tissue, then blows her nose.

  “Temporary insanity, she says. It’s supposed to be a joke.

  Ed Reardon looks straight ahead. “Not insanity,” he says.

  Polly looks at him and feels her desire for him all over again. She takes his hand, then lets go.

  “I’m going in,” she says.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ed says.

  “Go home and get some sleep,” Polly tells him. “We need you too much for you to be tired.”

  She gets out of the car, knowing Ed is watching her, just in case she turns back. She continues to feel their kiss; a heat lingers in her mouth and deep inside her. Much later, as she sits beside Amanda while she sleeps, Polly can still feel the heat. It’s so pure that when she leans down and kisses Amanda’s forehead, the heat is transferred to her daughter, exactly where it belongs.

  TWELVE

  AFTER HE LEAVES THE HOSPITAL, Ivan gets onto Storrow Drive, heading west to 93, but when he gets to the Copley exit he turns off and drives to Marlborough Street. It isn’t Adelle who answers his ring on the intercom hut the night nurse, who tells him that Brian is sleeping and can’t be disturbed. And yet, Ivan feels good just walking in the dark down Marlborough Street, where the old streetlights barely cast a shadow. It is good to think of Brian sleeping, dreaming of something other than pain. Just before he reaches his parked car, Ivan looks up, past the black roofs; it’s a relief to see familiar stars. But as he watches, the clouds move in, they close up the sky. Ivan can smell the rain before it comes, he can feel the dampness in the pit of his stomach. He can’t allow himself to think about his daughter in the hospital, he won’t think about the strain of each of her breaths, the rattling sound of each gasp. He just drives, and he thinks about stars all the way home. He gets it into his head that he should buy Brian a telescope, a small one they could set up at the window. He has a frantic desire to get the telescope right now; he’d do anything to escape walking past Amanda’s empty room, but he just keeps driving, and before he knows it he’s reached Morrow. He hasn’t paid any attention to where he’s been going, but he’s home anyway, and it’s not really as if he ever had a choice.

  In the morning, Ivan collects the few belongings Amanda’s asked for and packs them into her gym bag. He can hear Al and Claire and Charlie having breakfast down in the kitchen, but he doesn’t have the stomach for food. They can hear him too, rummaging through the drawers in Amanda’s room, going through her box of cassettes.

  “You still make the best coffee I ever had,” Al says to his wife.

  “Now I know you’re a liar,” Claire says. “I couldn’t find any filters. It’s instant. You hate instant.”

  They are both watching Charlie for his reaction as they tease each other.

  “Did you hear that, boy?” Al asks Charlie. “She set out to trick me, didn’t she?”

  Charlie looks at his grandfather blankly. “I guess so,” he says.

  It seems to Al that everyone has forgotten that Charlie exists. When Ivan came home from the hospital he didn’t talk to anyone. He sat out on the porch, then went upstairs to bed before ten.

  “I’ll drive you to school,” Al tells Charlie.

  “That’s okay,” Charlie says. “I’ll take my bike.”

  “Does your mother allow you to do that?” Claire asks.

  “Sure,” Charlie says.

  He gets his books and goes to the door.

  “Don’t you say anything?” Al asks him.

  Charlie stops at the door. He’s wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday, a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt on which a dinosaur rides a skateboard. He slept in the T-shirt and the fabric is a mass of wrinkles. Polly has forgotten to do the laundry, and there’s not one clean thing in Charlie’s bureau that fits him. Even though his grandmother plans to do the wash that afternoon, Charlie hates his mother for not doing the laundry. For some reason he’s afraid he’ll never see her again.

  “How about a good-bye?” Al says. “How about a see-you-later-alligator?”

  “See you,” Charlie says as he slips out the door.

  Al finishes his coffee, cursing to himself.

  “Don’t say anything,” Claire warns him. “Don’t tell Polly and Ivan how to run their family. Don’t say a word.”

  “If you can’t tell your own children what to do, who can you tell?” Al says, indignant.

  “Anyone else,” Claire advises him.

  The kitchen has already been cleaned up from breakfast when Ivan comes down.

  “I’ll be back this afternoon,” Ivan tells his inlaws. “Six at the latest. Tell Charlie I should be home by suppertime.”

  “Tell him yourself,” Al says.

  “What?” Ivan says, figuring he’s misread his father-in-law’s hostility.

  “You heard me,” Al says. “You tell him. It’ll be the first time you’ve spoken to him in two days.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ivan says.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Claire tells Ivan. “Go on to the hospital.”

  “You’ve got two children,” Al says. “In case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Charlie knows we have to take care of Amanda first,” Ivan says. “You’re the one who’s too stupid and selfish to understand. Polly’s always said that about you, and like an idiot I defended you.”

  “Well, she was right,” Al says. “I was selfish. I left my family and they took me back, and I’ve been paying for it ever since. Haven’t I?” he says to Claire.

  “You fool,” Claire says. “This isn’t the time.”

  “I’m an old man, and I may be stupid, but there’s one thing I know,” Al tells Ivan. “Don’t you dare forget about that boy.”

  Ivan shakes his head, disgusted. He grabs Amanda’s gym bag, gets his keys from the counter, and goes out, slamming the door behind him. It takes a while for the Karmann-Ghia to start and when it does the engine sounds like a motorboat. He makes the turn onto Ash, still furious with Al. It’s easy for Al to give advice; he’s so free with it, it must be. The last time Al was on his case was when he heard the conference Ivan was supposed to go to was in Orlando. Why didn’t Ivan take the kids with him so they could go to Disney World? And in fact, several of the astronomers he knows took their families with them, made a vacation out of the trip. Ivan had thought the kids were too old for Disney World, he forgets how young they arc sometimes because they’re both so much more sophisticated than he was at their age. If he had to name what is important to him in his life he could do it in three words: Polly, Amanda, Charlie. He guns the motor of the Karmann-Ghia, knowing that he’s lying to himself. There’s something else he loves: science. He didn’t want to take Charlie to Disney World because of science, he didn’t want his son to be sidetracked by pretense: fake submarines and plastic sea monsters and talking stuffed bears.

  Ivan wants everything that seems marvelous to Charlie to be pure science, the way it was for him growing up. This is the gift he’s given to Charlie, it’s a gift Charlie was ready for, wanted, delighted in. They’ve communicated with lightning bugs in bottles rather than words, constellations sighted instead of what they feel inside. Ivan has always stressed how much there is to marvel at, whether it was a colony of ants they’d found or a rare mushroom. Now what is he supposed to tell Charlie? Is it marvelous that an entire immune system can be attacked by a single virus? Do egrets and ants and shooting stars make up for that?

  Ivan goes straight where he should turn if he’s getting onto 93. He guns the motor again and rolls down his window. He keeps an eye on the bike path that runs parallel to the road, separated from traffic by a strip of g
rass. Lots of kids bike this way to school, but Ivan finally spots Charlie on his black Raleigh, his books tied to the back of the bike, looseleaf paper flapping out of his notebook as he pedals.

  Ivan honks the horn, and Charlie turns to look. Ivan slows the Karmann-Ghia to the pace of the bike, then pulls over and parks on the grass. Charlie rides over and grabs on to the roof of the car to steady his bike.

  “I didn’t get to say good-bye to you,” Ivan says.

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to be late,” Charlie says.

  “Five minutes won’t kill you,” Ivan says. “I’ll write you a late note.”

  Charlie gets off his bike and lays it on the grass, then sits beside it. He doesn’t move when Ivan comes and sits down beside him, but he feels trapped. He keeps one hand on the cool metal frame of his bike.

  “Great shirt,” Ivan says.

  “It’s old,” Charlie tells him.

  “Oh,” Ivan says. “I guess I haven’t seen it before.”

  They’re less than a foot from the bike path, and every once in a while a kid passes by and there’s a breeze from the turning wheels.

  “I know you’re worried about Amanda,” Ivan says. “They’ll find a cure. All they need is time and money.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Charlie says. “You don’t know for certain.”

  “Polio,” Ivan says. “Tuberculosis. Influenza. Diphtheria. Scarlet fever. All of them were once critical or terminal.”

  Charlie is staring up at the sky. “Will they find it in time for Amanda?” he asks.

  It’s easy for Ivan to forget that Charlie is eight years old. He rides his bike so wildly, searching out bumps, his sneakers and jeans are so filthy, he chews gum as loudly as a teenager. He has been alive for only eight years. Not long ago he slept with a stuffed dog called Nova. In nature, Ivan knows, anything is possible. Logic is a human assumption, twisted to fit any shape a man wants. Is it any more logical for a child to die than for a bug to walk on water?

  “It’s very unlikely,” Ivan says.

  “Just tell me yes or no!” Charlie shouts.

  “No,” Ivan says. “It won’t be in time for Amanda.”

  Charlie runs his hand over the wheel of his bike and it begins to move in a slow, silver circle.

  “Then I wish she would just die,” Charlie says.

  Charlie expects his father to slap him, but Ivan joins him in looking up at the sky. Ivan is thinking about the night Amanda was born, how fragile she seemed and how tough she actually was.

  “Is there anything that has a lifespan of one day?” Charlie asks.

  “A mayfly,” Ivan tells him. “Genus Ephemera.”

  For an instant, when he looks at Charlie, Ivan imagines he’s seeing Brian. They both sit hunched over, they’re both so young.

  “Let me write that note for you,” Ivan says.

  Charlie nods and rips a piece of paper out of his notebook. His throat feels tight. He doesn’t want his father to go. A car speeds by and the sudden noise and vibration make Charlie’s heart beat faster. Last night he dreamed he was the tyrannosaurus again, and every once in a while the panic of his dream comes back to him, even here in broad daylight, beside his father.

  Last night he was alone on earth, or at least there was nothing else like him, just turtles with shells too hard to crack and small, running things he couldn’t catch. He tried to eat dirt, just to fill up his stomach, but the ground would not move. It was black ice.

  He is the last of the things like him, so he doesn’t bother to run and hide when the sky explodes with thunder, with a thousand fires that will not die but that can’t bring back the heat he needs. He has a terrible urge to see the thing that is like him but bigger; if he doesn’t see anything like himself, he knows there will soon be an end to him. He makes a noise, a bellow loud enough to shake the earth, but no other living thing will ever hear it. He walks as fast as he can, almost runs, when he sees water, a shallow swampy pool that has not yet frozen solid. He bends to the water, he throws himself at it, clawing for fish, for creatures without shells, but everything is fast and small enough to get past him or else it is frozen and dead.

  He is the tyrant lizard who sinks into the water. His body is limp, his tail embedded in the cold mud, turning to clay, turning him into clay. Above him, the sky no longer looks familiar, so the tyrant lizard closes his eyes. He lets himself stop breathing. Who will remember him and who will find him is not his concern. Bubbles of air escape from his nostrils and ripple the shallow water. He lurches and tries to get to his feet. He makes that bellowing sound again. He is the last of his kind, and that is a battle in itself. Already, creatures that will outlast him, fish and turtles and things with wings, are circling him, waiting to take pieces of him, snapped off in their beaks. With amazing effort, he rises to his feet, and after that effort he has won, he can let himself go, down where there were once reeds and warm water, where there is the mud that will preserve him, or parts of him, at least, although nothing can preserve the sound he made the last time he looked at the sky.

  Charlie can’t tell his father about his dream. It’s stupid to have nightmares at his age, to think you’re a creature you’ve never even seen. All the same, he’s glad that his father’s here beside him on the bike path.

  “Come on,” Ivan says. “I’ll give you a ride to school.”

  “Nah,” Charlie says. “I’ve got my bike.”

  Charlie gets up and Ivan reaches out his arm so Charlie can imagine he’s dragging his father to his feet. Ivan doesn’t pull himself up the way he usually does and he’s surprised by how strong Charlie is.

  “Arc you all right?” Ivan asks.

  “Sure,” Charlie says.

  “You want to go to the hospital with me?” Ivan asks. He’s not sure how much Charlie can take, but he doesn’t want to shut him out.

  Charlie shakes his head no. “I’d better get to school,” he says. He’s already decided that he’ll bicycle home fast after school, tear off these filthy clothes, and put on some of the clean ones his grandmother will have washed.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Ivan says.

  “Go on,” Charlie tells him. “Mom’s probably waiting for you.”

  Ivan picks up Charlie’s bike and rights it. What he wouldn’t have given to have a bike like this one when he was a kid. He wishes he could ride along with Charlie, maybe not to school but out toward the beach. He wishes he were eight years old and could pedal faster than anyone in the neighborhood. He wouldn’t know any more than Charlie then. He wouldn’t be expected to.

  THIRTEEN

  AL HAS TO GO BACK TO WORK in New York. but Claire stays on for the rest of the week. Every day she fixes carefully prepared trays to take up to Amanda. And when Amanda finally is able to return to school, Claire stays on, and the oddest thing of all is that sometimes Polly is glad that her mother’s there. Not that she wants to talk to Claire. She’s uncomfortable when they’re together, she doesn’t know what to say. But when she smells the leek and cabbage soup her mother’s cooking, Polly feels like crying. She wants to be in the kitchen with her mother; after all these years, she wants to be close to her.

  It’s only the middle of October, but already it’s getting cold. In the fields surrounding Morrow there are pumpkins and stalks of drying corn; there are red and yellow leaves in the gutters of the houses and on the brick walks, and some mornings when Polly takes the garbage out she can blow and see her breath in the air. This used to be her favorite time of year; she used to wonder how people could live in California without mourning for the colors of fall. Now the black trees with their rich ruby-colored leaves seem heartless and gaudy. It’s getting colder, that’s all she knows. Before they turn around it will be winter.

  Claire has been outside, waiting for Al to arrive. Last weekend he fixed the porch step, and now, as soon as he gets out of the car he starts to search for the rake. He has a method of raking that involves making separate piles of leaves all over the lawn. Polly
and Ivan watch him from the kitchen; all the piles of leaves are the same size.

  “A compulsive fix-it man,” Ivan says to Polly.

  “Don’t offer to help him,” Polly says. “You’d never get it right.”

  Inside the house, it’s quiet. Laurel Smith has been by to pick up Amanda and take her to a record store at the mall. Claire comes in briefly to get the laundry basket and goes back out to hang the wash on the line, even though there’s a perfectly good dryer in the basement. Charlie is still in bed; he was up late last night, watching TV long past his bedtime. Ivan and Polly feel self-conscious having breakfast alone together. When they were first married and living in Cambridge, they always had breakfast together before Ivan walked over to his classes at MIT and Polly took the bus to Harvard Square, where she worked in the print department of the Coop. Ivan always got up first; he made extremely strong coffee, so bitter many of their friends refused to drink it. Polly liked to sit at the table in her nightgown and watch Ivan cook. Everything he did was fascinating, even the way he buttered toast. They were greedy for each other on weekends. They avoided their friends, not just because they wanted to make love but because no one else was as interesting to them as they were to each other.