“Isn’t that what Pookachoo does?” he said, causing Kate to click her tongue in amused irritation. “Isn’t Claptrap a chocolate type? Or is it a popcorn type, with attacks like saltypop, and deadly kernel?”
Kate burst into giggles. “Daddy, there is no such thing as a popcorn type, and you know that! You watched the show with me THIS MORNING before school.”
“Was that what that was?” Charlie sounded incredulous. “I thought that was an educational show about Japanese animals.”
“They’re made up!”
“They are?”
Anne used to find these exchanges endlessly touching. She’d fallen in love with Charlie for his whimsy, as much as his charming good looks. He seemed like a proper grown-up on the outside: well dressed, whip smart, a successful patent attorney and partner in his firm. But he was secretly about nine years old and still found farts, slipping on things, and silly hats hilarious. He loved to play with the kids, which was good because Anne had always had a hard time relaxing enough to enjoy it. She had found having small children utterly terrifying, convinced they were going to choke to death on something or drown in the bathtub or spontaneously develop dengue fever. Now that they were bigger and a little more robust she could relax more, but she still found herself contemplating their loss far more than she would have liked.
The affair had proved to be an effective antidote to fear, which was unexpected and, of course, ironic. When she found herself thinking about the pain of losing her children, the fear of making a mistake that led to their harm, the overwhelming sense of misplaced responsibility, she would just think about Richard. Think about his hands, his hair, his eyes, his desire, and let the physical arousal she felt blow right through her panic. She knew where she was with him; she was being naughty, she was being selfish, she was risking it all, and it confirmed her secret belief that she was a very bad person who never should have been given children in the first place.
She washed her face carefully, mixing water with some special cleansing grains she bought at the one store that carried them, the scent of roses and chalk signaling the end of the day. She enjoyed the feeling of them under her fingers, the way they held their hard edges in the water for a moment before succumbing and blooming into solution. She rinsed her face, looking for stray molecules of clay with her eyes closed, the contours of her face reassuring her. Still alive, then. Toner, again with the scent of roses, then moisturizer, firm strokes up her throat. She felt a tiny sore spot and tipped her head; the merest hint of beard burn, right under the edge of her jawline. She looked at it coldly, why couldn’t young men shave properly, then pulled her heavy pale pink dressing gown from its hook and went to help Charlie with the kids.
Charlie looked at his wife as she came out of the bathroom, bringing the scent of roses with her, the smell he associated with her, and with her being his. He loved this Anne, the one that emerged without a scrap of makeup, without her elegant outfits and cool eyes, her pauses in conversation, her judgment. She was wearing the cashmere and satin dressing gown he’d bought her for Valentine’s Day the previous year, the cost of which had made him pause for a moment before the memory of her skin against his blew his reservations away. He thought of this as the real Anne, the one that only he knew. Her eyes met his and they both smiled.
“Are you ready for bed, pumpkin?” she asked Kate, who ignored her and snuggled into her dad. He shrugged over her head, and Anne went to see what Theo was up to.
Unsurprisingly, he was on his computer, playing Minecraft. She sat on his bed, making a small stack of paperbacks slither to the floor, their irregular thuds on the rug reminding her suddenly of the sound of apples dropping at night, back when she was a child in Yakima County. Her children’s childhood was so different from hers, she wondered what sounds would pull them back—sirens and helicopters were their nightingales and falling fruit. She asked her son what he was building.
Theo looked at her with bright eyes, happy to tell her about it. “A fortress, right now, but I just finished the gardens. Do you want to see?”
“Sure.” Anne didn’t really understand Minecraft, but she loved it when the kids shared their ideas and projects with her. Her own mother had never been in the least bit interested in sharing her thoughts with her children and their opinion was utterly irrelevant to her. She’d expected them to love her and follow her instructions, and they did. It never occurred to her they might want more, and they had given up waiting for more to be offered. Maybe she’d had nothing to give.
Theo navigated through the half-finished structure he was building and outside, coasting above what were apparently acres of farmland. There were serried rows of plants, separated by mere pixels, fields of digital corduroy.
Theo was listing, “Carrots, wheat, sunflowers, potatoes . . . and over here we have chickens, cows, and ocelots.”
Anne raised her eyebrows. “Ocelots?”
He shrugged. “I like them.”
She smiled. “Who doesn’t?” She stood up. “It’s time to get off now though, and go to sleep.”
He looked at her, surprised. “But I still have homework.”
“You’re supposed to do it before you go online, you know that.” Her stomach sank; she didn’t have time to get angry now. “How much do you have?”
Theo looked worried and pulled his backpack closer across the floor. “I don’t know. Sorry, Mom, I only meant to go on for ten minutes after dinner and lost track of time.” His mom said nothing, and he found his homework quickly. “A math sheet and a chapter
