“That’s natural enough,” she said. “But listen, you’re probably fine. You’ve been healthy for, what, over a year since the last time you and Erich…”
“It can incubate for at least five years,” I said. “Lately they’ve been thinking it could be as long as ten.”
She nodded. Something was wrong; she wasn’t responding the way I’d expected her to, with Clare-like grit and flippancy. She seemed to have fallen out of character.
Bobby lay in silence on my other side. He had barely spoken since dinner. “Bobby?” I said.
“Uh-huh?”
“What’s going on over there? You’re so damn quiet.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just thinking.”
Clare squeezed my elbow. I knew what she meant: leave him alone until he’s had time to settle into his own reaction. Bobby negotiated the world’s surprises with a deliberateness that was almost somnolent. Clare and I had decided privately that if the house caught fire, one of us would take responsibility for helping him decide which window to jump out of.
“I just feel so…strange,” I said. “How am I going to get through the days from now on without checking myself for symptoms every five minutes?”
“Honey, you’re probably fine,” Clare said, but her voice lacked conviction. By way of compensation, she patted my chest. Since the baby was born, Clare had become more prone to physical contact, though her caresses were still flighty and vague, as if she suspected the flesh of others might burn her hands.
“What do you think, Bobby?” I asked.
“I think you’re okay,” he answered.
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad you think so.”
Clare said, “I wonder how Erich is going to manage this. I have a feeling he hasn’t got a lot of friends.”
“He has friends,” I said. “What do you think, he lives in a vacuum? You think he’s just some sort of bit player with no life of his own?”
“How would I know?” Clare said.
I realized, from the sound of her voice, that she blamed me in some way for failing to love Erich. Since the baby was born she’d discarded a measure of her old cynicism, and held the world more accountable to standards of unfaltering affection.
“Please don’t get peevish with me,” I said. “Not now. You can get doubly peevish with me another time.”
“I’m not being peevish,” she said. It was a habit of hers to disavow her actions even as she performed them. I believed, at that moment, that by being herself she could do serious harm to the baby. How would it affect Rebecca to grow up with a mother who screamed, “I’m not screaming”?
“Right,” I said. “You’re not. You always know exactly what’s coming out of your own mouth, and whatever anybody else thinks he hears is an illusion.”
“We don’t need to have a fight right now,” she said. “Unless you really want to.”
“Maybe I do. You’re pissed off at me for not being in love with Erich, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m not. How could I be mad about something like that? Either you’re in love with somebody or you’re not.”
“Oh, we three are more used to ambiguity than that,” I said. “Aren’t we? Tell me this. Do you think I’ve fucked up my life? Do you think there’s been something wrong about my being in love with you and Bobby and having a strictly sexual relationship with Erich?”
“You’re saying that,” she said.
“But I want to hear what
“Stop this. You’re just upset, this isn’t a good time to try and talk.”
“This isn’t what I asked for,” I said. “It’s just what happened. I don’t want you turning on me all of a sudden because of it. Clare, for God’s sake, I’m too scared.”
She started to say, “I’m not—” but caught herself. “Oh, maybe I am,” she said. “I’m scared, too.”
“I don’t have to love Erich just because he’s sick,” I said. “I don’t have to suddenly take responsibility for him.”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
“Shit, why did I have to invite him?”
“Jonathan, honey,” she said. “Erich’s being here doesn’t make any difference. You sound as if you think he’s brought some sort of germ with him.”
“Hasn’t he? I could go a full day without thinking about it before. Now I’ve lost that.”
“You’re not making sense,” she said. “Well, you’re making crazy sense. I know what you’re saying. But don’t blame him. It isn’t his fault.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “I know that.”
My limitation was my own rationality. I was too balanced, too well behaved. Had I been a different sort of person I could have stormed through the house, shattering crockery and ripping pictures off the walls. It would not of course have solved anything, but there’d have been a voluptuous release in it—the only pleasure I could imagine just then. The idea of sex revolted me, as did the comfort of friends who knew their blood was sound. My one desire was to run screaming through the house, tearing down the curtains and splintering the furniture, smashing every pane of glass.
“Try to sleep,” Clare said. “There’s no point in staying up worrying about it.”
“I know. I’ll try.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Good night.”
She slipped her arm over my belly, and pulled me closer into her own nimbus of warmth and perfume. Bobby breathed softly on my other side. I knew I should have felt comforted and I almost did, but the actual sensation of comfort trembled just beyond my reach. I was in a remote place with people whose lives would continue unchanged if I died. I lay between Clare and Bobby, listening for Rebecca. If she awoke and cried, I’d go to her room and console her. I’d heat a bottle and hold her while she drank it. I lay listening for the first whimper, but she slept on.
BOBBY
IT WAS after midnight. The clouds had rolled past on their long journey to the Atlantic from the heart of the continent. The full moon blared freely through our bedroom window. As I crossed the moon- whitened floorboards I paused to look at Jonathan and Clare, asleep in the shadow of the dormer. She released her low snores, blowing soft, breathy bubbles. He lay with his head canted away from her, as if he was dreaming pure noise and didn’t want to disturb her sleep.
I went down the hall and tapped on the door, but I didn’t wait for an answer. That room was on the moonless side of the house—it maintained a deeper darkness. I stood for a moment by the door, then whispered, “Erich?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sleeping?”
“No. Well, no. I wasn’t, really.”
“I just, you know. I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”
“I am,” he said. “This is a good bed.”
His head was a spot of moving darkness at the edge of the bright quilt. I caught glints of him: his eyes, his domed forehead. The room didn’t smell of sickness.
“It was Clare’s old bed,” I said. “Well, Clare’s and mine, for a while. Now it’s Jonathan’s and we have, you know, this other one.”
“It’s a good bed. Not too soft. I always think they’re going to have soft beds in the country.”
