He knew. He hadn't cried, and that was good. He didn't, usually, but tonight he didn't trust himself. He smiled, and remembered to say, —So that's why you're home now? Waiting for stray lonely goyim to come in out of the rain?
She touched his hair. —It is my destiny. My spiritual practice, in return for killing your god. I feel I owe you something. Tomorrow I observe the ritual celebration of a movie and Chinese food, but for tonight . . . hot sex with a hunky blond. What about you? Your folks out of town?
He waited too long to say No, and she kept going: —Went to Aspen and forgot to book you a ticket? Gone to Vienna for the winter balls and left you to take care of the Shih Tzu?
—Nuh uh. He nuzzled her hair again. Her scalp smelt like herbs, and the ends of her hair a little like popcorn. He wasn't ready to leave, even though they were getting to the talky bit, and he should. Soon.
—It's OK, she went on; —I'm used to spending Christmas Eve with people who are depressed about their families. It's kind of a specialty. In college I had all these divorced friends —I mean, their parents were—and they were all upset, you know, spending Christmas Eve with one parent, and the Day with the other . . . so I'd make them come over and we'd do stupid kid stuff like painting on clown faces—you don't hate clowns, do you? Some people are really weirded out by them.
—My sister hates clowns. But I don't care. What else did you do?
—Well, we made french fries from scratch. She scrunched up her face. —Boring, huh?
—Not really. Not if the point is to get someone to feel happy and normal. Food is good that way. My dad is, like, the king of comfort food. If you like whole steamed sea bass.
—Is your dad, um, Asian?
(And a second husband? Because he himself was blond? She was so obvious.)
—Naw, he's just a foodie. When he's jetlagged, he used to go to the Fulton Fish Market to get the first catch, back when it came in there at dawn. Makes his own duck confit. You know, like that. My other dad—
—Stepfather?
—No. Two dads, no mother.
—Oh, Peter! she chortled, and rather sharply he said, —What?
—Sorry. She ran a fingertip down his arm in apology. —Peter Pan. "Haven't got a mother."
—Lost boys, he said. —That's us, all right.
—Except for your sister.
She lay waiting to listen, but he could feel her quivering with another quote.
—Spit it out, he said, and she chortled, —"Girls are far too clever to fall out of their prams."
He pinned her deliciously down. —Better stop reminding me of my sister, or things could get weird.
—How weird? she purred.
He pulled back slightly and she gasped, —God, I'm an idiot. You're not there for a reason, and I—I'm sorry, I'm just an idiot. She bunched her fingers in his curls —Sorry— and kissed him.
He had kissed his sister exactly once. They were both fifteen, and both a little drunk, and she said, OK, let's just get it over with, so they puckered up, but at the first sign of moist inner membrane they broke apart, going Eew! like six-year-olds, and Eloise said, OK, so now can we stop worrying?
And he said something blindingly original like, Yeah, I guess.
He'd still been a little scared, then, that he'd like his sister the way her dad liked his dad. It was a huge relief, so huge they never spoke of it again. He was sure his sister was back home with them tonight. Eloise got along with both of them so well. Her own dad didn't scare her, even now.
This kiss was enthralling, deep and thoughtful. He always liked the kisses that happened after, building their way back to urgency, but not there yet, not urgent, just deep. He liked the way she assumed there would be an after, too. She wouldn't kick him out before he was ready to go.
—So it's just us, she murmured into his cheek. —Just you and me, and a city full of people full of their own crazy business out there, who don't know we're even here.
—With no idea what we're up to.
—Not a clue.
Was he talking too much? She seemed to want it, but did he?
Mouths licked and pinched and sucked between words. Words dropped in between their busy lips and teeth. She said, That's nice . . . and he occupied her mouth with his to keep words out, to keep words in.
—Not thinking of your sister now, huh? she asked him, and he moaned, No— and so, of course, then he was.
His sister said he couldn't possibly remember the first time; they were too young. But that was her, not him. He was five whole months older. He remembered, really well.
They were in the living room high above the city, with all the glittering lights, the fire in the fireplace, the huge tree, the spread of cakes and fruit and decorated Christmas cookies—some the gifts of clients, the best ones baked by his dad—the spiced wine they each got a sip of . . . he could have been remembering any year, sure. The tree never seemed to get less huge, no matter how much he grew. Maybe their dads kept buying bigger ones. He wouldn't put it past them to think of that.
But he remembered seeing the book for the very first time that night. Eloise was on her own father's lap on the sofa, he was sitting on the floor next to them, and Linton reached one arm out around his little girl to show Kay the pictures. The book was little, with pale blue cloth and animals stamped on the front in gold, and the smell of the old paper rose up even through the pine and spices.
"He's going to get chocolate on it," his own dad said, but Linton just kept holding the book out to him.
"It's OK, Graham," Linton said. "They won't know it's not hundred-year-old chocolate by the time it goes to auction next."
"What about carbon dating?" muttered Eloise.
"That's just for dinosaurs and fossils," Kay said. "Gimme."
"'Give it to me,'" Linton corrected.
"Please," added Graham.
He held the book carefully. There were line drawings of animals, almost on every page. They all wore clothes. You could tell the animals were still little, though, because of their being next to leaves and grass and things. There were colored pages, too, pretty and pale, of animals rowing boats. "Read," Kay said.
Linton opened the book, began reading something about spring-cleaning. Then he said, "No. Not tonight. I think it should be more . . . ." He flipped through the pages, and began again:
Home! The call was clear, the summons was plain.
"Ratty!" Mole called, "hold on! It's my home, my old home! I've just come across the smell of it, and it's close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I must, I must!"
Kay had barely understood it, the first time, but it was the voice that mattered.
Home! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken, that day when he first found the river.
The voice, warm and flexible and fluid like the river, taking him somewhere he'd never been before, introducing the two animals who were such good friends, and looked after each other when they were lost in the snow, and found the pathway to the Mole's little house in the ground, and Ratty made the fire and cooked some snacks, and then—and then—
—He's a musician, he said, —my other dad.
—What kind?
—Piano, mostly.
It was the harpsichord, really, but there was always one thing he changed or left out whenever he talked about them. He just did.
—Jazz?
—No. Classical. And new music. Downtown stuff.
—Is that where you get it from, the music?
—He's not my bio dad.
She pulled both his arms around her, flattening her breasts against him. —Sorry.
—He hates what I do, my band, anyway.
—Music snob?
—No. He thinks I've got no technique. And know what? He's right.
—Ohhhh, you've got technique, all right. I love your technique.
Every year after that, Linton read from the book on Christmas Eve. The same chapter, Dulce Domum,
where they're trudging through the snow on their way back to Rat's cozy River Bank digs, but Mole suddenly catches the scent of his old underground home, and they go and find it but then it's all cold and there's no food and then they build up a fire and then Rat finds some biscuits and sardines and then they light candles and then – and then they hear voices, and Mole says, "I think it must be the field-mice. They go round carol-singing this time of year," and then they open the door to the field-mice with lanterns and mittens and little red scarves and then—and then—
We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal's intercommunications with his surroundings . . . and have only the word "smell," for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day . . . .
—Enjoying yourself?
He was giving her all he could, holding back carefully, holding back to observe her giving in to him, to observe how she enjoyed it, to admire his own skill and selfless self-restraint.
—Mrrrrrph . . . .
—Is that a Yes? It is, isn't it? Cat got your tongue?
—You're evil.
—No I'm not. I'm good. . . .
Linton tried reading Dickens once instead, and Eloise nearly had a meltdown. They were very young. Funny how, now that things were surreally bad, his sister was acting like nothing was wrong, and he was the one who couldn't stand it. Especially since it was her dad who was so messed up.
—Wait, she said. She pushed her tangled hair back from her eyes with the back of her wrist.
—What?
—My turn.
He tried to say No, but he shivered with delight as she did things, delicious things with him on Christmas Eve.
—Cat got your tongue? she purred.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither . . . A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.
He lost it. She was giving him everything he wanted, and it was a terrible thing. All that physical pleasure, tricking him into feeling on top of the world, feeling powerful and invulnerable and joyous. And then—And then—
He heard the music.
Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide
Linton at the harpsichord, the book in front of him so he could improvise right there as the little mice came to the door in the snow, and the lamps were held high, and they sang their carol:
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
Joy shall be yours in the morning!
The very first year, Linton just spoke the words, fiddling around with underscoring as he read. The second year, though, he had composed a tune, secretly, to surprise them, and when he got to the field-mice he put the book down and went to his instrument, and rattled it off on the keyboard, singing with gusto.
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet—
You by the fire and we in the street—
Bidding you joy in the morning!
They made him sing it again, in falsetto, to sound like mice. And after that they copied him, learned the tune, made harmonies. Every year since then, as Kay changed from treble to baritone, and Eloise's soprano grew from piping to rich, it was the song they sang on Christmas Eve.
Were they singing it now? He doubted it. He doubted it very much. If they were, he would be there. He would be there, singing, instead of right here, howling, as his pleasure refused to be staved off another measure.
"Oh, Ratty!" he cried dismally, "why ever did I do it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold little place, on a night like this, when you might have been at River Bank by this time, toasting your toes before a blazing fire, with all your own nice things about you!"
Oh, and he knew he should be there now. He should be there with them. Even if they weren't singing. Especially if they weren't singing.
Omne animal triste post coitum.
All animals are sad after sex.
She nuzzled his neck. They were stuck together, the sheet wrapped around their legs, soaking up sweat and come. He started to shake.
He didn't know which he hated more, the idea that they weren't, despite what had happened, or the idea that they were: that somehow Linton was sitting gamely at the keyboard, pale and shaky—unless he was flushed, yeah, maybe he was flushed with a recent feeding from the bags in the fridge, for which Graham had called in every favor that years on the Board of the Sloan-Kettering could bring him—Linton sitting at the keyboard, eyes glittering with pleasure, young and strong and sure of himself for a few hours, until the daylight rolled around again and he had to go back in the—oh, no, it wasn't funny, but you had to laugh—the dark little place with the door where no light entered, where the bad kids were shut up in Victorian novels, the place where old coats were stored, fur coats that parted to reveal another kingdom, the dark place where hungry young men hid the truth until we all got enlightened and everything changed . . . and now his dad was back in there again because the light was so bad for him he cried and he burned when it touched him—
—What is it? she said. —You're shaking. What's the matter?
—Nothing, he said. —I'm OK.
She rubbed some of the wet off him with an edge of the sheet, and reached down for a quilt, and pulled it over them both.
—I don't think you're feverish, she said. She felt his forehead with her wrist, and he couldn't help smiling, it was such a Wendy thing to do. —You're kind of cold, really.
—Omne animal triste post coitum. Only in my case, it's chilly, not sad.
—You're chilly and sad.
—It'll pass.
—OK.
She didn't say anything, just held him.
I want you to be here, his father had said. I want to see you. We both do.
I don't want to see him. He didn't say that. He'd never say that. He just wouldn't show up. It wasn't even that he didn't want to see him. He didn't want to hear the voice.
—Did you ever have a tree? he asked. —Or a Chanukah Bush or something?
She squeezed him in mild protest. —Tacky. If you want a tree, have a tree, I say. Don't try to whitewash it. Don't, like, frigging lie about it.
—So you wanted one.
—Well, yeah. Of course. A tree in your house? Come on.
—I like that you don't have one.
—Good. I'm glad. She stroked his hair. —But you know what? For you . . . for you, Kay, I might get one. If you wanted it.
—You would?
—And when my mother visited, I'd say that it was all your fault.
—You would?
—I would. You'd back me up, though, wouldn't you?
—I would. For you, I'd lie to a nice old lady who probably marched against the Pentagon and won't drink coffee that isn't Fair Trade certified.
—Hey, when did you meet my mom?
—So how is she?
—Fine. But I was just kidding.
—I know, he said. —But your family. Are they all right?
—Yeah. Sure. I just saw them last week. We always have this Chanukah party. With big piles of latkes. Is there something—
—No. It's just . . . you never know. You never know when something's going to happen. I mean, one day you're all fine, and the next—the next —you just can't believe it. It's literally incredible. Like something you read in a book. Not something that could really happen. Not to anyone real. Not to anyone at all. Let alone someone you know. You see it, you know it, but you just cannot believe it. She told me, she even showed me, and I didn't believe her.
—Is she OK? Your sister, I mean.
—Eloise? She's fine.
—What about your dad?
—Graham's a busy man. A very busy man, these days. Calling in favors. Calling up doctors. Calli
ng on one-eyed gypsies from Transylvania . . . . No, they're fine. They're both fine. They don't know what happened, but they're sure it isn't catching.
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