The Kingdom of Childhood

She looked calm and even-tempered, but he shook his head, for the first time ever feeling frightened of her. “I’ll deal with it on my own.”

25

It began to enter my mind that I should see a doctor.

The reason was Bobbie. I had managed to stay composed for so long, but now my grief over her loss came in thundering waves. All day long tears welled up at unexpected moments; the cuffs of my sweater were constantly damp. The more perceptive of my students gazed at me with serious faces, their brows tightened by worry. I found that intolerable. My job was to shelter them from the fraught world of adulthood, not to wander among them trailing it like noxious fumes. I took to drinking glasses of apricot juice dribbled with Bach’s Rescue Remedy. The five homeopathic flower essences didn’t seem to be enough for whatever ailed me, and I envied Russ his stash of meds.

You can talk to me about her, Sandy had said. She had offered herself up as a new friend, one who could be the rock for me that Bobbie had been. But what would I tell her? That I was afraid my sixteen-year-old lover was growing tired of me? Haunted by the characters in children’s tales? Anxious that I often looked at the silvery-eared blonde who, at five, had been nicknamed Fairygirl by her mother, and pondered how much more pleasant my life would be without her?

It could be worse. I knew, because it was getting there.

Inexplicably, Russ canceled his Friday night class the week before finals. He stayed home, and instead of locking himself in his office upstairs, he sat in front of the television and watched old episodes of Three’s Company.

From the kitchen, I stared at the back of his head. I drummed my fingertips on the counter. Earlier I had snagged Zach in the parking lot and told him I would meet him in the church lot at seven; when Russ changed his plans, I’d been forced to make a dangerous phone call which fortunately Zach, and not either of his parents, had picked up. The longer Russ sat in front of Three’s Company, the more I seethed. What right did he have to cancel the class they paid him to teach, for no reason at all, and throw all my plans for a loop? And so what if those plans weren’t exactly kosher? It wasn’t as though he planned to spend time with me, ever, or consider that I might deserve a husband who did more than take up space. Were it not for the fact that my lover was sixteen years old, I might rub the fact of him in Russ’s face just to make the point that my life as a woman hadn’t ended the day he fell in love with his thesis.

I headed upstairs to the master bathroom and began drawing myself a nice hot bath. If I couldn’t have Zach, I could at least have that. Then I noticed the pill bottles cluttering the sink: the Nembutal, the Xanax. These days he took them by the handful, right in front of me. The quantities were appalling. I was sure he was in imminent danger of an overdose, but nothing ever happened.

I picked up the bottle of Nembutal. This was the one he took in the evening, to counteract whatever the Dexedrine had been doing all day. I shook three capsules into my hand, then four. Then six.

The water had filled the tub halfway. I shut it off, let it drain and returned to the kitchen. Russ was still watching television. The laugh track rose and fell in waves, although Russ sat mute, his stocking feet perched on the coffee table. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table with the newspaper. When the first cup was finished, I poured myself another.

Eventually the sound of a commercial came on: an arthritis remedy, targeted depressingly at people our age. Russ got up and went to the bathroom. Very quickly I slipped into the living room and, one two three, dumped out all six caplets into his soda can. By the time the toilet flushed, I was back at the kitchen table reading the articles of impeachment against President Clinton.

Six might have been too many. Or, it might have been too few. I didn’t know. Also, I didn’t particularly care. As long as he fell asleep long enough to serve my purposes, I couldn’t bring myself to care when he woke up, or if.

When Zach picked up the phone, he heard Judy’s voice on the line for the second time that evening.

“Can you come over?” she asked. “Right now, or very soon?”

He sighed hard against the phone. “You already told me we were off for tonight.”

“I know, but the house is clear after all.”

“Judy…” He gritted his teeth together hard enough to send a needle of pain through his jaw. “We talked about how we’re taking a break, remember?”

She answered with a scoffing laugh. “Oh yes, I seem to remember you told me that right before you got in bed with me.”

He had been afraid she would point that out. “Well, I’ve got plans,” he countered. “I’m meeting Scott and people in an hour.”

“Oh?” asked Judy. “Where are you going?”

Zach bristled. “I dunno. Hang out. It’s to finish up our history project.”

“An hour is plenty of time,” Judy said. Her voice turned husky. “There’s a lot you and I can do with just fifteen minutes.”

He slid his back down the kitchen wall and rested on his haunches. “I dunno,” he said again. He craned his neck to look for his mother and then dropped his voice. “You know I feel weird hanging out with Scott right after we screw.”

“Oh, you can work past it. You have before.”

“I don’t know if I’m in the right mood.”

“Zach,” said Judy, her voice starting to take on the wheedling note he hated, “please just come by. I promise I’ll make it worth your while. I’ve been thinking about you since the minute I got up this morning. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I went to to get the house clear.”

He rested his forehead against his hand and breathed out a slow sigh. This was the obstacle he had faced for weeks. As with any destructive habit, kicking sex with Judy was fraught with moments of almost evangelical determination, periods of refreshing apathy toward her, and then worming little slivers of weakness where he thought, what’s one more going to hurt? It had almost gotten him that afternoon; after school she had grabbed his upper arm in the parking lot and all but ordered him to show up at nineteen-hundred hours. He had grunted a reply but not exactly agreed. Temple’s warning had forced him to view his actions through a new lens, and the wider angle showed a Zach who made dumb mistakes, failed to see around corners, planned for the hypothetical but not the obvious. Even so, the temptation stalked him. He told himself he would stand her up, but his inner voice didn’t sound as convinced as he wished it did.