Only Children

by Rafael Yglesias

  “Of course not,” Peter snapped, with the true contemptuous dismissal of inherited money. She believed him. “Is this your way of preparing for a second child?” he asked.

  “You don’t want another child,” Diane answered.

  “You don’t always pay attention to what I want,” Peter said.

  He’s prepared a final argument against me. For a moment, she couldn’t swallow or talk. He’s ready to divorce me, Diane thought so coldly that she chilled herself.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Peter said before she could answer. “I still don’t want to have another child. But I think it would be good for Byron if you were around more.”

  “Fine,” Diane said, and hung up without a good-bye. She waited for Peter to call back. He would have in the past. Even if he didn’t mean it, Peter would call back and say, “Are you angry?” listen to her bill of indictments, and then say, “I’m sorry, I’ve been bad. My mother’s driving me crazy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I love you. I’d fall apart without you.” Even if the words slid out of him too fast, soda cans dispensed indiscriminately, sugar bombs for a little girl, that effort of insincerity showed he still cared.

  Now he doesn’t even bother to lie, she thought coldly, and again shivered with dread.

  IT WAS GONE! It was gone!

  Luke’s belly was full of air again, his legs no longer heavy, and back there, though it stung and pinched, he was empty, he could breathe, he could move because it was all gone, pushed out—

  But the eye. He couldn’t get rid of the eye. He tried not to move it. Look still, don’t go fast to see.

  It hurt hot. It stabbed. Go away, please.

  “Don’t you feel better now?” Daddy said, coming with a new diaper.

  Don’t say no. They put things in it. “Yes.”

  “Did it hurt a lot?”

  “Yes,” he said softly. No! He moved it. The hot. The poke. Hurt! Hurt!

  “Do you have to go again? Do you want to go on the potty?”

  “No, no.” He pushed all the things away with the word, with his body. The potty, pooping, his eye, looking at it, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt. Go away, please. The soft, smooth water came in his eyes. Sting around the thing, burning, but making it soft, the hard spot in the eye, get soft, go away, go away.

  “All right, all right.” Daddy hugged him. “Forget the potty. Let me get your diaper on in case you have to do more.”

  I don’t, I don’t, but up he went, a pillow in the air, little in Daddy’s big hands.

  “Whee,” Daddy said, and made him fly. “Luke the jet, coming in for a landing.” Daddy’s face worked hard putting on the diaper. Then Daddy looked at Luke’s eyes, and woke up to Luke, smiling. “I love you, Luke,” Daddy said, and it was like walking out into the sunlight, everything bright and warm.

  “Whoosh!” He-Man raised his arm, his jets firing him up and down, big legs on the ground. “I have—” The thing was back in his eye. Stand still, don’t look at fast things.

  “Luke … ?” Daddy watched him.

  No, no.

  “You have to go again?”

  “I want to watch television.”

  Daddy sat quiet, a pigeon watching. His chest puffed and sank. His head lowered.

  “I won’t,” Luke said, and the tears came again, soft on the burning hurt, melting it away, go away, go away.

  “What’s bothering you?” Daddy said to the ground.

  “My eye,” Luke said, and he covered it. Don’t touch, Daddy, don’t look.

  “Okay, sit on the couch. I’ll put on the TV.” But Daddy carried him, gentle, and kissed him. Blankey covered the hurt eye. Dark and cool, he kept still. It’s okay. Don’t move.

  Don’t look at the fast things. Go away. Go away.

  “WE’RE GOING to go out,” Mommy said. Daddy too.

  “To Grandma’s?”

  “No, to a restaurant.”

  “Yah! Yah! Yah!” Byron danced like they liked. Daddy smiled. Mommy rubbed his head.

  “So you told Stoppard,” Daddy said; he kept talking all the time to Mommy. About the dumb work things. It was bright in the night. Only people’s faces were light. They flashed on and off. And greens and reds and yellows dripped and stretched on everything. Only big people were out, big boys like Byron, like Stupid poop head.

  “Luke got hurt.”

  “I’m amazed, Diane. I can’t believe you just went ahead.”

  “Luke got hurt! Luke got hurt!” Bounce up, bounce ball up. Too see me! See me!

  “What? Who got hurt? He-Man?”

  Daddy don’t know. “No! Luke got hurt!”

  “Shhh! Byron!” Mommy said hard. “We’re going into the restaurant now. Other people are eating. You have to be quiet. I want you to talk in a whisper.”

  “Talk in a whisper?” Daddy said, and laughed.

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Bounce up at Daddy. “Whisper! Whisper!”

  “Shhh!” Mommy pulled him down. Like the elevator sinking, sinking. “Here we are. Now be quiet. Or we’ll go right home”

  “I want go home!” Byron pushed, pushed at Mommy’s leg, fall on her, to give.

  “Okay.” Mommy pulled away from the glass door, from the stretching lights.

  “Diane—” Daddy called.

  “No!” Byron pulled back to the door, to the fun. “No! No! I be quiet.”

  “Byron’ll be a good boy and be quiet?”

  “Yeeeesss.” The noise spun and tickled in his mouth. “Yeeeessss,” he sounded.

  “Want to sit next to me, Byron?” Daddy had the glass door open. Balls of light bounced over the tables. There were men with doormen buttons.

  “Who are you?” Byron asked a big one.

  “Marry O—bats you name?”

  The chairs had red behinds and black backs! There was a cake on the windowsill!

  “What’s your name?” Mommy shouted in his ear.

  “You know,” Byron said, and got his ear away from her hot noise.

  Daddy laughed. He was happy. Daddy put him up, up over the black backs, and down on a red bottom. In a grown-up chair!

  “Byron,” Mommy said to the big stomach man with buttons.

  “Hat name?”

  “Byron,” she said again.

  “Surrey?” Stomach mumbled.

  “Byron,” she kept saying.

  “I’m Byron!” he shouted to stop them. “Me!”

  “Like the great poet!” happy Daddy said. His cool fingers squeezed Byron’s neck.

  Stomach had a little chair, a baby chair.

  “Pick him up,” Mommy said to Daddy.

  “No! Wanna sit here.”

  “Shhh!” Mommy said hard. “It’s a booster seat. To make you taller.”

  “No! Don’t want!”

  “How are you going to reach the table?” Daddy asked.

  Knees are feet. Byron showed them. He could get everything now. “See!” He picked up the salt. “What’s that!”

  “Pepper,” Daddy said.

  “Okay,” Mommy said to Stomach. “We don’t need it.” Baby chair go away.

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Byron laugh like Skeletor.

  “Byron,” Mommy said, angry.

  “Okay, okay.” Lean against Daddy. Daddy’s soft hand touched him, cool tips, like water, down the face. “What’s pepper for?”

  “Food,” said happy Daddy. “To add flavor when the food is yucchy.”

  “Yucchy food!” Byron choked loud. Grown-up laughed over there. “Yucchy food!”

  “Peter, don’t encourage him.”

  “Hey, Byron,” Daddy said, so happy. “I’m very good at going to restaurants. Did you know that?”

  “Good?” Daddy must be good.

  “Restaurants love me. Know why?”

  “You quiet?”

  “Yes, I’m very quiet while I put pepper on my yucchy food.”

  Byron laughed. The lights squeezed, Mommy got bright, her mouth wide and white, Daddy’s arms shook with happy bounces, an
d Byron put his head, shaking and laughing, into Daddy’s chest and let himself be held.

  “I love yucchy food,” Byron said.

  Mommy looked so bright, her face white under the dancing lights. “You’re so cute, Byron,” she said, and kissed the air. Daddy caught her kiss and placed the cool love on Byron’s happy hot cheek.

  HE’S FINE, Eric abused himself. Why did I call Nina and tell her to come home? She’s going to think I’m an idiot. Or worse, that I wanted to mess up her work.

  He was desperate not to interfere. FIT and this part-time evening job had made Nina happier than Eric could remember. Her short temper with Luke—well, it wasn’t so short—but that buildup of resentment, culminating in a sudden switch from tolerance to shouting, no longer happened. Nina tired more easily, but she seemed to remember her gratitude at having Luke, not to feel as put-upon. Eric knew why. He shared that reaction, even though he was exhausted coming home from work, his body reluctant, his mind fainting at the prospect of an hour’s play the minute he was through the door. But after the roughhousing was over, even though his skin was boned and his muscles unstrung, the fatigue was housed in satisfaction. He knew why he was tired. The happy face he kissed good night told him why. Luke made the reason he worked clear, made everything in life immediate. Important. Aimed.

  I am a father, he would catch himself thinking at odd moments, an announcement of worth that nothing could diminish.

  He could look at Joe and feel superior to him, despite the gap in their knowledge of the market. My son is loved, his is not.

  He could look at Sammy and care less about his insults, because he knew what a terrible thing had been withheld from Sammy.

  On every street, in the park, on the television, in the papers, everywhere there were fatherless men or, worse, failed fathers. Everywhere, everywhere, were abandoned sons, neglected sons, misunderstood sons; everywhere there were failures. Not Eric. He loved Luke. And Luke loved him. And they were going to endure.

  That’s why the constipation bothered Eric so. He couldn’t handle it, couldn’t really help. What was Eric going to do when Luke was sixteen? Run Luke around the apartment so he could take a crap? And the eye. Eric should have called the doctor and gone. Instead, like a baby, he phoned Nina, interrupted her work, and begged her to come home.

  And now Luke seemed fine. Sure, he was quiet, sitting in the corner of the couch, holding the blankey to his eye, but he talked and laughed. He even got up and ate his slice of pizza. Luke was very sensitive; that’s why he still worried over his eye. Eric was convinced that by morning it would be forgotten.

  Nina came home, dashing in from the hallway. Eric expected resentment, but she stopped at the living room and looked at them with pleasure. “How are my boys?” she said.

  “Mommy,” Luke said softly, but the relief was loud in his tone.

  Nina kissed Eric quickly and, with her coat still on, went right to Luke. “Put your head back, I won’t touch your eye, I just want to look at it.”

  Luke’s eyes watered immediately. “Okay,” he said, almost blubbering the words.

  Nina did as she promised. She rolled her eye and told Luke to do the same. He yelped when he tried. “Do you still feel like something’s in there?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Probably nothing is. But does it feel like something is? Not telling me won’t make the hurt go away, Luke. I spoke to the doctor and he said sometimes sand can scratch an eye, and even though it’s not there, the scratch can hurt. It’ll heal itself. You’ll be fine. But I have to know. Does it feel like there’s still something in it?”

  Luke covered his face with his blanket, like a criminal broken down, and he confessed, “Yes! It hurts a lot!” And he bawled with relief, collapsed by pain.

  My God, Eric thought. I’ve been here for two hours. He’s been in terrible pain. And I thought it was the constipation. For two hours Luke’s suffered, and I thought he was fine. My God, I’m an idiot. I’m not even a good father.

  DIANE was amazed by the response. All her enemies were confounded. Stoppard, who had become progressively cooler and irritating since the birth of Byron, increasingly picky and dissatisfied with her work, almost pleaded with her to reconsider.

  “Diane, you’re a superb lawyer. Don’t do this. You’ll regret it later. Byron’s going to grow up and leave home to date girls with paisley hair. I can ease your caseload for a while.”

  “I’m a superb lawyer?”

  Stoppard frowned. “Of course you are.”

  “I haven’t had a compliment out of you in a year.”

  “Your work hasn’t been good.”

  “Then you should be happy I’m leaving.”

  She was delighted to see Stoppard squirm, compliments wrung from the sponge he had used to soak up her talent and energy. Give me more, she said, and he twisted and squeezed out praise. “I can guarantee you you’ll make partner this year,” he said with a final squirt, his hands out as if to say: there, I’m dry now.

  “Thank you,” she said graciously. She meant it too; the acknowledgment of her abilities was what she had always wanted. She knew now that was the important value to her, not the money, or the public prestige. She didn’t like to fail. She liked to be the best. “Partnership would mean even more work. I have a family. I want to take care of them.”

  Stoppard then appealed to Diane’s duty to her sex, asserting that her sudden departure because of children would only confirm the chauvinist partners’ worst fears about women. God, that was funny.

  Of course, Diane’s mother was delighted. “Oh, that’s so much better for Byron. And for you, dear. I’m so happy!” Yeah, I won’t be topping you anymore, right, Mom? Now you don’t look like such an unaccomplished, spoiled woman. “I’m coming up this weekend to celebrate,” Lily insisted. Diane couldn’t talk her out of it. To celebrate. Diane’s quitting made Lily want to party.

  Peter? That surprised her. He got loving. He got passionate. Ran his finger over her body, shaping, dancing, scratching, squeezing, molding. Put his mouth on her, swallowed her sex.

  I cut off my balls, so now his are bigger.

  But she didn’t feel the bitterness implied by her intellectual observations. She knew she hadn’t failed, even if those closest to her were relieved that she had given up. She could have kept going, made partner, raised Byron, blown them all out, Supermom caped and flying onto the pages of New York Magazine. She chose not to. She could have climbed the wall. She had decided to turn away.

  There was something secretive in her pride that she had rejected her work, a closely held mirror in which she could peek without being observed and see herself superior, a nun renouncing the pleasures of the world, an artist spurning celebrity, a purist, choosing life over ego, choosing her family over vanity.

  When Diane told Didi, at first she wasn’t believed. Then once Diane convinced her, amazingly enough, Didi began to cry. Diane held her. Didi sobbed like a girl. “What is this?” Diane said.

  “I feel so alone,” Didi said.

  The world is nuts, Diane thought. Nobody knows what they want. She invited Didi to dinner, something she had never done before. “I couldn’t,” Didi said. “I’d go home later and want to slash my wrists.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’d go home and thank God.” I’ve guaranteed her partnership, Diane thought. I’ve changed four lives: mine, Byron’s, Peter’s, and Didi’s.

  They had a great time that night, Peter and Byron and Diane. Something terrible had left the house, something that had had them by the throat. That was obvious. Peter was her lover again, Byron obeyed her, got sweet and loving, and she could breathe. All that, all that, all that—just for killing her career.

  “WE’RE GOING to go see a doctor,” Mommy said.

  He cried. His head, heavy and sad, fell forward. Couldn’t stop it. Mommy, her body swishing in her blanket coat, touched his face.

  “He’s just going to see if there’s anything there and give you something to feel better. I
t won’t hurt so much. Now, we’re not seeing your regular doctor—”

  Help. His nose ached from the tears. “Why? Why?” The water washed in his throat. Help me. “Daddy!” Help, Daddy. “I don’t want to!” He called to them, he screamed to them to be Mommy and Daddy again. “I’m okay!”

  “Are you sure?” Daddy said.

  “Eric!” Mommy yelled at Daddy.

  Cover up. Hide in her. He pushed against the swish coat. The eye! Don’t yell. They take you if you yell.

  “Okay. Where is it?” Daddy said, scared. Why is Daddy scared?

  “Fourteenth Street and First.”

  “And First!” Daddy worry, Daddy don’t want to go.

  “The Eye and Ear Infirmary. At night you go to the Fourteenth Street entrance.”

  “Jesus, we might have to walk back, I don’t think there’ll be cabs—”

  “Then we’ll walk back, Eric. Get his jacket. Let’s go.”

  Don’t look. Stay in, Mommy. Eyes closed, he was nowhere. No doctors, no poking. Nothing in the eye. Go to sleep.

  They had his arms. Take my hands off. Take my leg, take me away, I stay here in Mommy.

  “Come on, baby,” Daddy said.

  No! He pulled for Mommy, swim to her. “I’ll carry him,” Mommy said.

  Face on her, press against the eye. Go away. Go away before the doctor.

  Mommy pulled, pulled on his head. “Luke, look at me. Look at me, Luke.”

  Can’t look. Close on the burning hurt. Be away, away.

  Mommy came inside his eyes, a huge doll. “Luke, don’t be so scared. We’re going to a different place than your regular doctor, but they’re nice there. And we’ll be with you the whole time. They just need to look in your eye.”

  Don’t want my eye. Don’t want to see. Let me sleep, let me go away.

  “Okay? Shhh.” Soft kisses. Daddy, in his coat, turns on the light. The hall glows.

  “The elevator’s here.”

  Sleep. Sleep. He leaned on Mommy and held the worry in, poking in his chest to get out. In, in. Good-bye, home.

  GET READY to be a man.

  Eric Gold, Wizard of Wall Street, walks boldly, people moving out of his way at the mere sight of his imposing body.

  In the street, his long arm signaled for a taxi. A couple on the other corner dropped their competing hands when Nina appeared behind Eric, Luke loose in her arms.