Only Children

by Rafael Yglesias

  She fell into the dark, the absolute rest. In her dreams Eric and she made love on the lawn under the sun. She played in the backyard at Brookline. She rode on Brandy’s shoulders. She made cookies with her mother. She kissed the head of Eric’s red penis and drank wine. She laughed. And she slept deep. She watched her father walk through the woods. She saw him steer the car, the length of his face quiescent, in command.

  Her eyes opened. It was day.

  Her body was still and warm and relaxed.

  It was day? She looked at the clock. Seven-thirty. Eric, his face buried into a pillow, had his mouth open, his eyes blanked by the closed lids.

  Had he gotten up with Luke and let her sleep all night?

  No, he was still naked. If he’d gotten up—

  Like a stab, the thought split her brain.

  She pulled the covers off, her heart back in the real world, the world of anxiety. Crib death.

  She pulled on jeans, rushing, reached for her bra. Then she slowed down. If Luke was dead, she was in no hurry to find out.

  Eric sat up and peered around. He looked stunned. “Wha—”

  “I’ll go,” she said, and finished dressing. Eric scanned the room. She knew he was figuring it out.

  “He slept?”

  “Shhh,” she said, and began the walk, every step heating her blood, widening her vision. She had images: holding a limp body; standing beside her mother in black. She stopped right outside Luke’s door.

  She heard Eric dressing. The sounds were frantic. He had arrived at the same terminus of terror.

  She didn’t put her body in the doorway, but let her head peer about the edge.

  Luke’s little body was still. Deathly still. And in the same position she had put him the night before.

  She stared so hard at his back, searching for movement, that her eyes watered.

  And she saw it. A slight rise and fall. His eyes twitched. She waited for him to cry. But he slept on.

  The joy of this discovery was almost as awful as the earlier tear.

  Eric came thudding toward her. “He’s asleep,” she whispered, stopping him with her hand.

  “He slept through the night!” Eric said, his mouth open stupidly.

  “Three months,” she said. “He’s three months old today.”

  “You think it’s over?” Eric said with such simple trust in her, so sure that she would know.

  She felt a chill of pleasure.

  She could move. She could dance! She was rested, her son was normal, life was going to be life again, not war, not misery, but life.

  They heard Luke peep. Then a rustle. And another peep. Not a complaint, but a noise of curiosity.

  They looked. Luke’s head, resting on its side, was turned in their direction. The blue jewels of his eyes peered at them. He fought to move, to rise up.

  “Hey, fella,” Eric said, and entered. “You slept, baby.”

  Nina followed. She got ahead of Eric and picked Luke up. His face glowed from warmth and newness. He stretched his arms and wiggled his body. The long black hair was askew. She put him down on the changing table and unsnapped his stretchy.

  His mouth opened. The tiny fluted lips widened. And widened. The semicircles of his gum appeared.

  “You’re smiling!” Eric said.

  Nina couldn’t speak. She didn’t dare break the enchantment, but she found herself leaning down and kissing his white belly.

  And she heard a laugh.

  A laugh she had never heard before: the first laugh of Luke’s life.

  Her core of joy exploded. Everything was beautiful. She and Eric began to babble at Luke. He smiled again. He winced at the cool wipes, but didn’t cry. Eric, almost hopping with pleasure, went to get coffee. She heard Eric brag shamelessly to whoever was in the kitchen: “He slept through the night! And he’s smiling his head off.”

  She didn’t care that Eric showing off his happiness to her family would be an admission they had been right to be critical.

  Luke was feeding heartily. His eyes stayed on her, and when she smiled at his glorious beauty, he paused and smiled back. When she grabbed his foot and squeezed, he giggled. Even his eyes glittered cheerfully.

  The colic was gone. This was a beautiful, happy baby.

  After Luke ate, he beamed at everything. She carried him into the kitchen and showed him to the family. Luke watched them all calmly. He laughed when Brandy made a silly face. He touched her mother’s hand and let her hold him without a whimper of protest.

  “Let’s take him out,” Nina said to Eric.

  She showed Luke the pretty, pretty morning, the new golden light of this glorious day. She put Luke’s face to feel the shore air. He closed his eyes and rolled his head in rapture. She felt so good, so proud that she began to twirl.

  Luke chuckled; his feet kicked. Eric began to laugh, his eyes tearing with joy. And then Eric joined her dance.

  They twirled in the growing sun of the morning, spinning beneath the trees, Luke exultant, laughing, happy, exquisite. They danced with the wind and the grass and the water and held their son between them, their perfect baby for the new day, their final bond of love.

  Eric collapsed after a minute, but Nina persisted. She offered her beautiful son to the world, and the beautiful world to him, spinning her Luke, her new planet under the ancient sun.

  Part Two

  8

  “NO MO!” BYRON shouted. The big floor was cold. Ice floor. Byron slid his feet along until he saw his house. He loved his house. Your house is beautiful, Grandma said. Beautiful. He could make it more: he took a long block, a smooth block, ice block, and balanced it sideways on the roof. Another floor.

  “Byron! Breakfast!”

  “No!” He was a big boy. “No breakfast!” he said with the resonant voice of a hero.

  Mommy’s feet thumped. He grabbed another block fast. Do it fast. Byron put the long, smooth, tall block straight up on the roof. “Look, Mommy! Look, Mommy!”

  “Byron, what are you doing? I told you to come in for breakfast. I’ve made cereal for you.”

  “No—” He couldn’t make the sound. What was the sound? “No sea! No sea!”

  “You don’t want to eat? Fine. Then you’re getting dressed.”

  “Look at house, Mommy. See the ant-enna?” Byron pulled on his penis, the pleasant rubbery attachment, stretched the hose at her, as if it could extend forever and entwine her. “Look at my ant-enna!”

  Diane slid open a dresser drawer. It floated on air, mouth agape, tongue out, and displayed undigested clothes. “Antenna! Antenna!” Diane corrected, her back to Byron, selecting a white turtleneck, blue overalls, socks, and sneakers for him. “Put this on,” she said, holding the turtleneck out.

  Byron moved at her with his quick feet, small hand out, his wide mouth parted, showing tiny, brilliant teeth. He had a look of pleasant obedience as he grasped the turtleneck. He lowered his head and bent his knees, bowing, and joyfully flung the turtleneck away.

  It flew on the air, a ghost person, and died on the crib, crucified by the bars.

  “Byron!”

  “Look, Mommy. It’s dead.”

  “It’s not dead. Stop saying that.”

  Got Mommy angry. “It isn’t living.”

  “It was never alive, that’s why it can’t be dead. Now put the shirt on. We have to go out and meet this nice woman who you’ll play with.”

  “I wanna play with Francine.”

  “Put on your clothes.”

  “I don’t like them!” No winning with Mommy. She made everything always wrong.

  “Byron, that’s ridiculous! Okay, fine. Then what do you want to wear?”

  “My pj’s.”

  “Oh!” Mommy’s body looked ready to jump, jump like Grandma’s cat.

  “Pee, pee, pee,” Byron said. Pulling on himself had made him tingle. He danced from one foot to the other and his voice pierced his skull.

  “Go ahead!” Diane motioned to the door to the bathroom.
>
  The floor inside was colder. He bent his back and shot the juice out. “Apple juice!” he said. “I’m going to drink some,” he said, and waited.

  “Don’t you dare!” Mommy called.

  There wasn’t much in him. He skipped out on his toes. He didn’t want to touch the cold with all of his feet.

  “What do you do after you pee?”

  “Drink more,” Byron said. He laughed like Mommy, whooshing the air out between his teeth. His lips buzzed and felt fat.

  “Go and flush the toilet and then put this on.” The turtleneck was in her hands again.

  Byron grabbed it and had a good idea. One of his funny ideas. He ran. She called him. He ran onto the colder floor right up to the toilet, its pelican mouth open and filled with yellow. He threw the shirt at the bowl with all his might, but the turtleneck only floated on its way in—a graceful white kite fluttering down into the foamy sea.

  DADDY HELD him, held him in those big warm arms. His blanket pressed against his cheek, soft and smooth. He twisted the shiny edge, pulled it away from the fuzzy part. The blanket was bright skin. Luke unwound it to see the always skin of his finger.

  Then Luke placed his finger on top of Daddy’s; there were all the same things, only smaller. Same lines on his knuckle, same nail tips. But Daddy had little hairs. Luke brushed them. They were limp, curled to sleep on Daddy’s skin. Luke brushed them up and watched them cascade down.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  Daddy looked away from the TV. “What’s what?”

  Luke brushed the hairs again.

  “Hair,” Daddy said.

  “What’s hair?”

  “That’s hair.”

  “Hair on a finger?”

  “I have hair in lots of strange places. I’m kind of an ape.”

  “Noooo!” Luke arched forward with pleasure. Daddy was big like an animal, but he was a daddy.

  “I have hair on my chest, hair on my legs, hair on my back, hair on my airs—”

  “Hair on finger!” Luke shouted, laughing but a little scared too.

  “Even hair in my nose.”

  But that was really silly. He fell into Daddy’s lap with pleasure at such idiocy. Daddy squeezed him and turned him, the TV rolling in the air, the lamplight going up, the coffee table twisting on the rug. Daddy kissed him, hot and wet, on his forehead. Luke looked up at Daddy, at the big round face, open and cheerful, and saw into his father’s nostrils.

  He couldn’t believe what he saw. There was hair in Daddy’s nose!

  PETER WENT into the lobby and searched for the company name in the directory. The security guard watched him. “Barrow & Company 8th Floor Lawrence Barrow, President”—then other names. It seemed quite unreal. Apparently, just as Gary had said, Larry the child molester was a respectable businessman. Possibly a role model for eager yuppies.

  How old was he now? Sixty? Sixty-five?

  Probably doesn’t do it anymore.

  Gary had said Larry’s headquarters was in Washington, but even so Larry might visit the New York office, might walk through any moment. Peter turned to go.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the guard asked.

  Peter, as if he were fifteen and cutting school, almost jumped to hurry his escape. “No, no,” he mumbled guiltily, and spun through the revolving door into sharp, clear New York, the stone and brick of Madison Avenue bleached into adobe towers by the fall sun.

  An image of the time Larry, of the one time (remember, Peter, it was just once) that Larry, well, that Larry took Peter’s peter into his mouth—he laughed. Peter’s peter. A bully at school used to call that out in gym. Peter’s peter, peter eater. The bully stopped after the first football scrimmage; Peter knocked him down on an end reverse.

  I liked football, Peter remembered, surprised at himself. Gary had urged him to play. Maybe I had been afraid I was a fag; maybe that’s why I did it.

  I have to get off Madison Avenue, Peter thought, sure that if he were on Park, or Lex, or Fifth, all these crazy memories would stop. He would be late for the staff meeting if he didn’t hurry.

  But he stopped at a phone booth and called Rachel.

  “Hello, honey.” She answered his greeting sleepily. “I miss you,” she said plainly, without the elaboration of passion or the disguise of irony.

  “I think I’d better see a shrink,” he said.

  “I’ll ask mine for some names. What’s the matter? Are you all right? Why don’t you come over?”

  “I’m lost, love,” he shouted into the cool receiver. Peter hid himself behind the Plexiglas panel that shielded his upper body from the wind. But it curled up the legs of his unguarded pants until it reached his briefs. He felt X-rayed by the wind. It wasn’t cold, it was cool, like a doctor’s examination. “I’m just a lost person,” he shouted against the wind into the plastic.

  “Oh, baby,” Rachel said from the warmth of her bed. “Come over. I’ll take care of you.”

  NINA WAS embarrassed to ask Pearl. She knew Pearl needed a new job. The little girl Pearl had cared for since birth was now seven and in school full-time, and her parents had finally decided not to have a second child. Nina had spent many a morning in Washington Square Park with Pearl, her charge, and Luke. Although Pearl was black, middle-aged, not well educated, and clearly of a different social class, Nina had spent more time chatting with Pearl than with the few other mothers who, like Nina, weren’t working.

  Besides, Pearl was one of the few people Luke seemed to trust. He loved to talk to her. Several times Luke had allowed Pearl to push him on the swings. Once Luke had agreed to let Nina go for a cup of coffee (only a block away) and stay with Pearl. Pearl had even made Luke’s first friend for him, a little boy only six weeks older, named Byron. Byron’s nanny, Francine, was a good friend of Pearl’s; if Pearl took care of Luke, they could be a regular foursome. The harmony, both adult and child, seemed like such a rare opportunity.

  And yet, now that Nina had decided on a career and Eric had agreed to hire someone to take care of Luke, now that Eric was making such good money they could afford any price, now that she had had the luxury of nearly two years observing Pearl and other housekeepers, Nina felt it was rude to ask. She and Pearl were almost friends. Might an offer of employment be taken as an insult?

  “Pearl, did I tell you that I’m going back to school?” Nina tried as an introduction. She had to force herself to jump, eyes closed, into the shock of worldly talk.

  “No!” Pearl said. She bent forward a bit and then straightened abruptly, as if the news were a spring she had sat on. “Who’s going to be taking care of Luke? ”

  “Well, I have to get someone.”

  Pearl looked to Luke, solemn, hardworking Luke. Disappointed that Byron wasn’t in the park, he concentrated on building his sand castle, but glanced up every minute or so to make sure Nina was there, even though she had been there, always there, for every minute of his life. “He’s not gonna like that,” Pearl said.

  “No, he isn’t!” Nina said, laughing at the dreadful prospect.

  Pearl smiled. “No, I don’t think so.” She chuckled with thoughtful pleasure. “No, he won’t want his mama to be anywheres but with him.”

  “Is there any chance you might be free to—” She had exhausted all her will in going this far. Nina couldn’t complete the sentence.

  “—be his sitter?” Pearl asked in a tone of wonder, as if it were too good to be true.

  “Yes!” Nina said. “I can’t think of anyone who would be better.”

  “Don’t think I’d be better than his mommy,” Pearl demurred. “But he does know me. And he’s such a sweet boy. Really, he is, and so smart! I can’t believe what he knows already.”

  “I just think it would be so great for Luke and me if you could do it.”

  “Well, I’d like to. But I’d best discuss it with my woman first and then come and meet your husband.”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you be needing me full-time?”
/>   “Yes,” Nina said softly, hoping this wasn’t a problem.

  “Good, because I don’t like to have time on my hands. My mama says I’m crazy. I just can’t stand to be doing nothing.”

  Nina heard a wail from the sandbox. Luke was in tears. He was still seated cross-legged in front of his sand castle, but his shovel was gone, in the hands of a self-possessed dark-haired girl of four, who walked away quickly with her ill-gotten tool. Luke’s head bobbed as he cried, chest pulsing, mouth broken open at the corners, his hands rising to cover his eyes.

  Nina got up. Pearl said, “Oh, I know that girl. She’s always causing trouble,” but Nina had no time to answer. Her heart, as always, quickened at the sound of Luke’s broken feelings. By the time she reached Luke, his long black eyelashes were wet. They held tear droplets at their edges, glistening, like jewels, in the sunlight. Nina glanced about for someone who might be the girl’s mother or nanny, someone to intercede and get the shovel back.

  “What’s the matter?” she heard herself ask Luke, even though she knew what was wrong.

  “I wanna go home,” Luke bawled. He was shattered crockery.

  “I’ll get your shovel—”

  “Don’t want my shovel!” Luke said, for the moment not wilting anymore, his back straight, his eyes open.

  Why does he do this? Nina asked herself. Why does he deny the simple truth?

  “Oh?” Pearl’s resonant voice came from behind Nina. “Well, I happened to get it.” She put Luke’s shovel beside him. “Is it all right if I leave it here? In case you be needing it?”

  Luke, surprised, looked up at Pearl with his great blue eyes. “Don’t want,” he said, but not sure anymore.

  “Course you don’t. My, my, is that a castle?”

  Luke nodded slowly, his face relaxing.

  “Of course it is!” Pearl said. “Looks all done.”

  Luke stared down at his creation. He had carefully sculpted the dirty sand (here and there were stray pigeon feathers, a cigarette butt, the top of a soda can) into walls and made little towers at the corners.

  “So you won’t be needing the shovel,” Pearl said. “But it is yours,” Pearl added. “So let’s keep it here beside you.”