Gil rolled down his window. “Hey, Charles! You mind being my set of eyes? I need to back this thing in.”
“Sure, no problem.” Charles stationed himself in front of the garage door and used hand signals to help Gil maneuver his newest restoration project into the driveway.
It was probably the most hopeless-looking vehicle yet, barely a shell. The only clue to its former glory was a small silver icon on the right front wheel well: a sleek, stylized horse in profile, running with such speed that all four of its legs were off the ground, as if it were flying.
Gil got out of the truck. “Thanks, neighbor,” he said, shaking Charles’s hand. “Good to see you.”
“You too, Gil. So, what do we have here?”
“Mustang, 1970 Mach One.” Gil held up a preemptive hand, as if Charles were about to ask something. “You don’t wanna know, but trust me, after we get this baby restored, it’ll be worth every penny.”
“I believe you.” Charles strolled around the heap of metal that would be his regular view from the kitchen window for possibly the next decade. There were few traces of the poppy-red paint that must have once graced the car’s exterior; it had no driver’s side door; its transmission was sitting in the back seat, on upholstery that at one time had probably been a pristine white but was now riddled with grime and grease.
“Four-twenty-eight Cobra Jet … ,” Gil said as he unhitched the trailer.
This made no sense to Charles, but he could tell that Gil was elated. “Sounds like you found yourself a treasure,” he said.
“Had to drive all the way to Ellensburg to get it, but yeah, it’s a treasure, all right. I haven’t told Erik about it yet. It’s a surprise.” Gil stood up and stretched. “Thanks again for your help.”
“You bet. No problem. Have fun.” Charles started heading to his front porch.
“Say,” Gil called out, “you planning on being around this summer?”
Charles found this question amusing, as he and Gil had been neighbors for twenty years.
“I’ll be here.”
“Well, we’d love to have an extra set of hands on this thing.”
“Oh, that’s nice of you, Gil, but I don’t really know much about … what you do.”
“Hell, Charlie, most of what we do, in the beginning, anyway, is apply tons of elbow grease. You’d do fine at that. You could even bring Cody. I’ve been meaning to ask how he’s doing.”
“We’re moving him into a new house, actually. Not too far. Over in Pinehurst.”
“That’s good. Must be hard, what you and Alison have had to go through …”
“We’ve had some challenges, it’s true.”
“Well, you do your best. It’s not like these kids come with an owner’s manual.”
Charles laughed.
“You want some coffee? I texted Erik and he’s on his way. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
Charles considered. What exactly was waiting inside that he needed to rush to? Piles of boxes, a nearly empty crawlspace, another DVD from Netflix, student papers …
“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
“You take it regular?”
“Sounds good.”
Charles had forgotten that Gil was originally from New York City, so when he came back outside and delivered the mug of coffee regular, Charles discovered that it was generously laced with cream and heavily sugared. He drank it anyway.
Notice of Proposed Land-Use Action
It was late afternoon. They were putting the final touches on Cody’s room.
“Can you find his comforter, Charles?” Alison asked as the bed sheet billowed and snapped. “I think it’s in that box over there.”
It had been a frantic day, one that began early: Cody and Robbie and Myles were roused, readied, and loaded into the van for a daylong outing with their caregivers; once they were gone, their parents, along with Robbie’s and Myles’s siblings and friends, moved the boys’ furniture and personal items out of the old group home and into Pinehurst Palace—an efficient team of benevolent burglars.
Everyone agreed that it was important to execute this transition with sensitivity and care. It was decided they would tell the boys that, after their trip to the riding center and the park and the pea patch, they’d be coming home to a new place. You’re going to like it so much! But of course, there was no way to know whether this made any sense or how the boys would react when faced with the reality. In each mother/father unit, one parent had a consistently better track record in terms of meltdown management, so these three parents would form the welcoming committee. Charles would be departing along with Robbie’s mom and Myles’s dad. It was really for the best.
Alison received Cody’s freshly laundered, threadbare Toy Story comforter from Charles and cast it onto his bed. A few days ago, standing in Bed, Bath, and Beyond, they had seriously debated buying a new comforter to commemorate Cody’s legal advancement into adulthood but had decided against it. One small step at a time.
With the exception of the wall color, Cody’s new room was a near exact duplicate of his old one. They’d arranged his furniture in the same configuration as before: twin bed against the wall; cowboy light on the nightstand; small shelf stocked with board books, some still bearing the bite marks of Cody’s pre-changeling, teething self; and, hanging on the wall opposite his headboard, where he could see it first thing every morning, Pam’s pastel drawing of purple ponies.
“How’s that girl’s project coming along?” Alison said.
“Which girl?”
“The one who’s taking pictures? Pam told me that one of your students is photographing Cody’s art classes.”
“She did?”
“You needn’t look so shocked. Pam and I are still friends.”
“I know that.”
“Have you seen the photos?”
“Some. She’s showing them at the fundraiser in May.”
“That’s always a nice event.”
“You could come, if you want.”
Alison rubbed her eyes. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
After Ali spread out the comforter, they started tucking in the edges; tight, military-style, the way Cody required.
Charles made a last quick sweep of the floor with the broom; Ali plumped the pillows, stood back from the bed, surveyed the room, and tossed a couple of small moving boxes into the big one. The gesture seemed to drain her of energy. She sighed heavily.
“You ready for a break?” Charles asked.
“Yes.” She sat down on Cody’s bed, smoothed her hands across its surface.
“I brought wine; you want a glass?”
She sighed again. “Sure.”
Charles went into the kitchen and pulled a couple of plastic juice glasses out of the cupboard. In the other two bedrooms, he could hear the Youngs and the Gurnees murmuring to each other in quiet, exhausted voices.
He returned to Cody’s room, sat on the bed with Ali, and opened the wine (another bottle recovered from the wine rack, which had emptied significantly since the start of the school year): Santa Margherita, a pinot grigio. Margaret was the patron saint of women in childbirth.
“This color,” Alison said, her eyes ranging around the room in invisible curving lines, “it’s nice. Very peaceful.”
Charles knew that she meant this belated compliment as an apology. “Thank you,” he replied.
There were twenty-year-old photos somewhere, in a drawer probably, of the two of them getting Cody’s room ready in the storybook cottage before he was born: painting the floor, stenciling the walls, hanging the mobile, laying the cross-stitched comforter over the arm of the antique wicker rocking chair. They’d built the bassinet and the swing. They childproofed the electrical outlets, locked up the poisons. They planted bulbs, an herb garden, cherry tomatoes, an Italian plum tree. All those gestures of tenderness for the guest they had yet to meet.
They did many of those same things again in preparation for Emmy’s arrival—a different room, a
different set of colors, but with regenerated, hopeful hearts.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to die?” Alison asked. Her voice was without affect, as tired as Charles had ever heard it. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to let go as long as he’s like this?”
“Of course not,” he answered.
“Immortality it is, then,” she said, letting herself lean against him.
Charles moved an arm around her and settled his palm on the bed beside her hip.
If things went as planned, their son would turn twenty-one years old while living in this house; he would wake up looking at Pam’s drawing of wild horses on the day he turned thirty; he would be smashing ramen noodles and tearing magazine pages here when he turned forty. He would perhaps spend all the birthdays of the rest of his life here. And what, Charles wondered, will those years add up to? A life has to mean something, doesn’t it?
They continued to sit, still and speechless. Their clothes were damp with sweat from the exertions of the day, and Alison gave off a scent Charles hadn’t smelled for years: an exotic, thin-skinned fruit that was slightly overripe.
He became aware that Alison had shifted her gaze so that she was looking at his chest; he’d undone the first few buttons of his shirt at some point during the day.
“You still wear that,” Alison said flatly. “After all this time.”
“Of course.”
Gently, she lifted the necklace away from his skin, lightly fingering the paper clips and translucent colored beads.
“I forget sometimes,” she said, “how sentimental you are.”
•♦•
It was 1995. Charles and Alison had been married for seven years.
Cody was three.
No longer talking, socializing, or imitating; no longer making eye contact; not smiling, not laughing, not toilet-trained, not interested in other children; eating only certain foods; sometimes eating his own feces.
The diagnosis of autism had already been offered up several times, but Alison would not accept it.
Or, rather, she’d accepted the diagnosis but not what it meant.
She was pregnant and having an ultrasound and she wanted to bring Cody.
He won’t understand, Alison, Charles said. The setting is unfamiliar; there will be too many new people, too much stimulation.
But she fought him. She fought him all the time now, whenever he dared to question decisions involving Cody. A pattern had been established: he proposed, she rejected; he suggested, she modified, and Charles kept asking himself how he had lost all voting rights when it came to their son.
Cody now shrank from his father’s touch. No one knew why. Perhaps Charles exuded some energy—like a radio signal—that Cody found upsetting. Perhaps Charles’s fears were palpable, his love for Cody too desperate.
And now Cody was going to have a little brother or sister, and Alison felt it was important to include him as much as possible, even if that meant the occasional disruption of his routine.
Can’t you see that, Charles? she’d argued. Yes, he might have a tantrum; in fact, he probably will, but what is it you’re really worried about? Disrupting Cody’s schedule or being looked at? Being judged? If people are going to be educated about children like Cody, they have to encounter them in everyday situations.
But this isn’t an everyday situation, Charles longed to shout, this is us, getting a chance to see our new baby for the first time. Can we not have that experience for ourselves, just the two of us? Can we not for this one moment—I’m not talking about pretending or denying—can we not just, you and I, without complication, enjoy some peace? Can we not give all our attention to this child? This he or she who is already doomed to be banished to the suburbs of our attention?
Alison had recently purchased noise-reduction headphones for Cody; these sometimes helped when he was in situations with unfamiliar sounds. They weren’t helping today; Cody had planted himself in the hospital foyer and was screaming.
Charles and Alison flanked him, but they couldn’t take his hands, so what was Charles to do but pick him up—a big, manhandling bully—and carry him up the stairs while Alison glared at every person who looked at them askance.
No, we are not child beaters, her expression said. No, we are not refrigerator parents. And no, we will not hide, we will not cower; we will fight to be seen as a family because that is our right.
All Charles could see was that their son was clearly very unhappy.
Finally, they checked in at the ultrasound suite, raising their voices so their names could be heard above Cody’s anguished screams. They made their way to the small room, where the technician tried to be kind, tried to engage Cody in conversation. She offered him a sucker; he threw it in her face.
And then Alison was on the table, belly bared, saying, Cody, Cody, Cody, and Charles had to keep him from biting her, hitting her. Look, Cody, Ali went on. Look here, you’re going to get to see a picture of your baby brother or sister on this TV. Look!
The technician slathered the mound of Ali’s belly with an orange gel that Cody instantly found irresistible, so again Charles had to manhandle him, and then, finally, it was beginning.
The screen lit up. Cody fell silent.
The auditory assault had gone on for so long that Charles didn’t trust Cody’s sudden compliance, although he recognized this state of being; when he shut off quickly like this, it was because he was truly engaged in something, making his parents’ next worry Will we ever be able to get him out of here?
Alison smiled at Charles as if to say, See? Didn’t I tell you it would all be fine?
Cody was staring at the screen. Do you want to know the sex? the technician asked. In unison, Alison said no and Charles said yes and then they laughed—but quietly, so as not to disturb Cody’s concentration.
See, Cody? Charles said. The baby is floating, like you when you go swimming. The baby loves to swim too, and when the baby comes out, you’ll be able to swim together.
Cody’s body had relaxed. Charles wondered if he dared release his hold. Cody seemed so calm, and Charles’s arms were tiring, so he set Cody down, and then they were standing together, in close, light physical contact.
Let’s get a nice picture for you, the technician said, moving the wand around Alison’s belly. Everything looks perfectly normal, by the way, no cause for worry.
I’m not worried, Alison said.
The tech pointed at the screen: See? There’s the baby’s head, there’s the heart, there’s the femur … I’m just going to take a little measurement …
Is it all right, Alison asked, if our son touches the screen?
No! Charles wanted to say. Cody might push something over, flip a crucial switch, press the wrong button, but Cody was already reaching up, touching the place where the technician had pointed to the baby’s head.
His hand lingered there, completely still, chubby fingers spread wide against the screen—Gaaaaaah, he murmured—and when he withdrew his hand, his fingerprints remained, and his face reflected a rare lightness, almost transcendence. Charles thought of J. D. Salinger’s Seymour: An Introduction, about how, after placing a hand on his baby sister’s downy pate, Seymour Glass became happily scarred for life.
With a leap of spirit that Charles hadn’t felt for years, not even at his wedding, he thought: Maybe this baby will be our salvation, drawing out of our mystery child something that neither Alison nor I have succeeded in accessing; maybe this baby—
(It’s a girl! read the Post-it note the ultrasound tech pressed into his palm as they left.)
—maybe this baby girl will save us all.
•♦•
“Do you regret it?” Charles asked as he poured the wine.
“Regret what?”
“Our life together, our marriage.”
“How can you ask that?”
“It hasn’t exactly been an easy life.”
She accepted her glass, swirled its contents, took an expansive inhale, and th
en sighed. “I don’t think you can regret anything once you have children.”
“How do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Well, everything you’ve done up to that moment, every detour, every …” Charles could read her mind; he knew she’d pulled up short before saying the word mistake. “Every choice … it’s all led to getting them. To regret anything, to wish any of it changed, would mean a different outcome, wouldn’t it?”
How Charles yearned to get drunk with his ex-wife and explore this issue, but suddenly she was standing, shaking her head, saying, No, what am I thinking, I can’t stay, I’m sorry. She needed to rush home, take a shower, get a second wind, and then hurry back so she could have Cody’s favorite meal ready.
Thanks again, said the mother of Charles’s children as she hastened away. I’ll take a rain check on the wine.
Charles left shortly afterward, walking stiffly to his car (the muscles of his thighs, arms, and lower back were already sore) and meeting up with the other de-selected parents: Robbie’s mom and Myles’s dad.
The young people who’d lent their help—Robbie’s and Myles’s older siblings and their friends—had already gone out for pizza and beer, suctioning away any residual feelings of festivity.
Charles could tell that Dr. Young and Ted Gurnee were just as exhausted and eager to leave as he was—they still had to return the U-Haul—but Charles was experiencing a kind of postperformance letdown; he felt as if he were in the company of fellow reality-show competitors who’d almost made the final cut. Couldn’t they spend a few minutes commiserating over their shared fatigue and failures?
But they were non-wallowing types, and so they said their farewells.
As Charles watched them drive away, his back spasmed. He wished he’d asked for some pharmaceutical assistance from Dr. Young—a bit of Percocet, a smidgen of Ambien, a little something to get him through the night. Ah, well, at least there was the wine.
Suddenly, he knew what his plans were.
It was only a couple of miles away.
•♦•
The houses were still here. But the Nellie Goodhue School was gone.
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