Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

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.

  “Are 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.

  CHAPTER 13

  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.

  “How about a cheese omelet?” Ivan asks.

  “Great,” Polly says. “Thanks.”

  Ivan beats eggs in a bowl they received as a wedding present, although they no longer remember from whom.

  “My father should have lived someplace where he could have had a lawn,” Polly says.

  “Why?” Ivan asks as he searches the refrigerator for cheddar cheese. “He probably would have cemented it over. Neater that way.”

  Polly laughs. “You’re right.”

  Ivan holds up a chunk of cheese dotted with green mold. “When is this from?” he teases Polly. “Nineteen thirty-four?”

  “Mold is good for you,” Polly tells him.

  “Oh, really?” Ivan says. “Why don’t we let your mother examine this? Let’s get her opinion on people who store moldy food.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Polly grins as she goes over to Ivan and tries to get the package of cheese away from him.

  “I’ll bet your mother cleans out the whole refrigerator when she sees this,” Ivan says.

  He’s holding the cheese in one hand way up over his head. He keeps Polly away with his free hand.

  “Over my dead body she will,” Polly says. “Give me that!”

  Polly jumps up and manages to get the cheese, then she collapses against Ivan, laughing. “You creep.”

  “How about scrambled eggs instead of an omelet?” Ivan says.

  Polly’s still trying to catch her breath. She nods her head. “You always made the best scrambled eggs.”

  “If you like burned food,” Ivan says.

  “Which I do,” Polly tells him.

  They’re standing close together, their shoulders touching.

  “Exactly why I married you,” Ivan says.

  Polly feels embarrassed; being in love seems an illicit thing, it’s not for them but for people who aren’t afraid of fevers, who don’t shudder in the dark.

  “The TV was still hot when I woke up this morning,” Ivan says.

  “David Letterman.” Polly nods. A show Charlie’s not allowed to watch.

  “Now he gets to sleep past ten,” Ivan says. “He’s not supposed to do that until he’s a teenager.”

  “I’ll get him,” Polly says.

  “That’s it, wake him up,” Ivan agrees. “He’s certainly done it to us enough times.”

  Polly goes upstairs. Through a hall window she can see her mother, down in the yard, hanging Ivan’s shirts on the line. There are still some purple asters along the fence, and, near the back door, a few October roses.

  “Time for breakfast,” Polly says as she knocks on Charlie’s door. She opens the door before Charlie can answer, then makes her way in the dark over the sneakers and socks and comic books on the floor. She snaps the shade up and opens the window. The smell of sneakers is strong in this room, and it’s mixed with the scent of cedar from a bag of wood chips Charlie’s supposed to keep downstairs, near his hamster cages.

  It feels like any other day, a normal day they might have had before August. For a moment, Polly allows herself to feel lucky. Her daughter is out at the mall buying cassettes, her husband is in the kitchen making breakfast, her parents are far enough away from the house so they can’t actually bother her. Polly smiles when she sees Charlie snuggle down under his quilt, but she goes over and pulls the quilt off him.

  “This is what you get for staying up late,” Polly says.

  Charlie reaches for the quilt and pulls it back over him. “I don’t want to get up,” he says. “It’s too cold in here.”

  Polly has begun to pick up some of the dirty clothes scattered on the floor. Now she dumps the pile she’s collected on the top of Charlie’s bureau. She goes over to the bed and leans down so she can touch Charlie’s forehead. He rolls away, but Polly can already tell. He has a fever. A bad one. Polly runs out to the bathroom and gets the thermometer down from the medicine cabinet. She sees the toothbrushes hanging from their rack and immediately thinks of what Ed Reardon said at the school board meeting. There have been siblings who used each other’s toothbrushes without contracting AIDS. Polly runs back to Charlie’s room and makes him sit up and open his mouth so she can take his temperature. His pajamas are soaked with sweat.

  “Oh, shit,” Polly says.

  She feels behind Charlie’s ears and along his neck. His glands are swollen. When she takes the thermometer out of his mouth it reads 102. She helps Charlie lie back down, covers him with a second blanket, then runs to the stairs.

  “Ivan,” she calls.

  “Breakfast,” Ivan shouts from the kitchen.

  “Ivan!” Polly screams.

  Ivan runs from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs, a spatula in his hand.

  “Charlie’s sick,” Polly says.

  Ivan takes one look at her, then runs up the stairs. He goes past her, into Charlie’s room. Polly follows him so closely she bumps into him when he stops.

  “Are you okay?” Ivan says to Charlie.

  “I’m sick,” Charlie says.

  “I’ll get you some Tylenol,” Ivan tells him.

  Polly follows Ivan back into the hallway and grabs him.

  “He’s got it,” Polly says.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ivan says. He goes into the bathroom and gets the Children’s Tylenol. Polly comes up behind him as he bends over the sink to fill a paper cup with water.

  “He’s got it,” Polly says. Her voice breaks and she grabs Ivan so hard the paper cup falls into the sink. “He got it from her.”

  Polly sits down on the toilet and begins to wail. Ivan closes the bathroom door and sits down across from her, on the rim of the tub.

  “He has a cold,” Ivan says.

  “It’s just the way she was!” Polly cries.

  “Stop it,” Ivan says. “Do you want him to hear you?”

  “I should have sent him away,” Polly says. “Oh, God. I should have made him stay in New York.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Ivan says. “He has a fucking cold! He has the flu! What should we have done? Put Amanda in quarantine? You sound like all the rest of them.”

  Polly looks up at him, riveted.

  He’s right.

  She gets up and wipes her face with a towel, then goes into their bedroom. Her hands are shaking as she dials Ed Reardon. He tells her not to worry, he’ll be over in five minutes or less. Polly hangs up the phone. Then, afraid to go into Charlie’s room and let him see how scared she is, she stands in the hallway. Ivan has gone down to the kitchen. Now he returns with a tall glass of orange juice and some damp dishtowels to help cool Charlie off.

  “Go downstairs,” he tells Polly. “Relax. Eat your burned eggs.”

  Polly tries to laugh but her voice cracks in half.

  “Your mother’s in the kitchen all by herself. She knows something’s up.”

  “God,” Polly says. “I can’t talk to her.”

  It takes Ed Reardon four and a half minutes to get there. He
’s wearing old jeans and a gray sweater; he’s been out in his yard all morning, raking with the kids. This time Mary blew up; they’re expected at her sister’s for lunch, and if Ed’s not back by then, they’re leaving without him.

  “He has all the same symptoms,” Polly whispers to Ed in the hallway.

  “The flu’s going around,” Ed says. “Everyone I saw yesterday had it. Is he under 103?”

  Polly nods. Ed puts his arm around her for a moment, then goes into Charlie’s room.

  “Trying to get out of raking the lawn?” Polly hears Ed say to Charlie.

  When Ed starts to examine Charlie, Ivan comes out. Polly is sitting in the hall, her back against the wall.

  “You’re making it worse for yourself,” Ivan says. “Go downstairs.”

  Polly doesn’t answer him.

  “Or will you only do what he tells you to do?” Ivan says with real bitterness.

  “I’m not going to respond to that,” Polly says.

  Ivan sinks down next to her on the floor.

  “Don’t do this,” he says.

  “What am I doing wrong now?” Polly says.

  “You’re breaking us up,” Ivan says.

  Polly looks at the floor. “I’m not doing it,” she says. “It’s just happening.”

  “No,” Ivan tells her. “It doesn’t just happen. You have to help it along. You have to give up on it.”

  As soon as Ed Reardon comes out of Charlie’s room, Ivan and Polly both get to their feet.

  “The flu,” Ed says. “I’m going to run an AIDS test just for everyone’s peace of mind.”

  “Meaning I’m crazy,” Polly says.

  “Anyone would have had the same reaction,” Ed says. “I see these symptoms every day in kids, I have for years, only now the first thing I think is AIDS. It’s on our minds. You did the right thing to call me. I’m going to send a blood sample to the lab and try to rush them. I want you to know I’m a hundred percent certain it’ll turn up negative.”

  Polly nods, comforted. Before they go downstairs, Ed says, “I don’t want Amanda sleeping here tonight. I don’t want her exposed to the flu. I don’t want to risk another bout with pneumonia. Don’t get her worried. Act as if it’s a treat for her to spend the weekend with a friend. If there’s no one you trust for her to stay with, I’d just as soon have her in the hospital as here.”