A Ship Made of Paper

“You can make the bed when I’m snowed in at your house,”she says.

She speaks softly, as ifcalming an excited animal.

And then, because he cannot let anything stand with her, nothing is enough, he says,“We’re not really snowed in, we’retreedin.”

But she doesn’t volley back, she ends the exchange with a smile, brief, insubstantial, that could be weighed but wouldn’t register on any scale.She finishes her work.She has strong, useful hands;she smoothes her palm over the sheet and every wrinkle disappears.

“I don’t even know what time it is,”Daniel says.He tilts the flashlight beam toward his watch;a circle ofbright golden light appears on hiswrist.

“It’s too cold to stay awake,”she says.“Anyhow, when Nelson goes to sleep, as far as I’m concerned the night’s over.”

As best as he can make out, the sheets she has placed on his bed are dark blue.Surely, as in most households, these sheets have traveled from bed to bed, surely, then, Iris and Hampton have lain upon them in their own bedroom down the hall.He imagines Iris and Hampton on those sheets, their beautiful dark skin on the deep evening blue.

Iris steps back from the sofa bed and lays two fingers on Daniel’s wrist.The tenderness ofthis gesture overwhelms him, it is as ifshe has kissed him.But all she is doing is redirecting the beam ofthe flashlight.

She points it at the closet, where she finds extra blankets.“You’re going to be nice and cozy,”she says, dropping the blankets at the foot ofthe bed, and the proclamation, delivered in a throaty, good-natured voice, devastates him.He takes her to mean:Stay in your own bed.Don’t come creeping into my room.You are here, these are your blankets and stay be-neath them, be a good boy, nice doggie, stay.

“Do you have enough blankets in your room?”Daniel asks, bleating it, as ifasking for mercy.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

There are so many possibilities for speech or action;he could take her wrist, he could pull her toward him, he could say,“No, I want to sleep with you,”he could sigh, he could say,“I think we both know what’s going on here,”he could play it cool and just say good night, he could place his hand over his heart, he could—somehow this, too, seems possible—burst into tears, yes, yes, he could try to boo-hoo her into bed.It’s been done, what hasn’t happened in the history ofseduction? But finally Daniel can do nothing.He watches her as she moves toward the door.Then, a miracle.The bingo parlor ofhis mind comes up with a clear thought.

“I’ll light your way,”he says.

”Okay,”she says.“You can be like a watchman, those guys who carried a lantern and saw people home.”

“Useful work,”Daniel says, with a kind ofmanic encouragement in his voice, one that borders on hysteria, and then to himself:Shut the fuck up.

He points the beam up and the light bounces offthe ceiling and casts a pale gray glow.He walks behind her;her silhouette has put him into a kind offugue state.

They have arrived at their destination:the master bedroom.He waits at the threshold, shining the light into the bedroom while Iris goes to the night table, opens a drawer, finds a book ofmatches, and lights a bedside candle.

He can no longer wait there for the impossible to occur.She is not going to ask him to lie with her in that bed.In fact, the quality ofher si-lence now is pushing him away.She seems to have regained her balance.

The drug ofthe storm is wearing off, she is coming to.

“Why don’t I leave this flashlight with you,”he says.

”It’s okay.I’ve got one in here.”

He forces himself to smile, not certain she can see his face.“Sleep well, Iris.”

Here he is, standing practically in her bedroom, saying good night to her.It’s enough,he tells himself.He’s saidSleep well, Iris,he’s always wanted to say that.

But lying in that sofa bed, pinioned by the cold and the darkness, he finds that the miracle ofsaying good night to Iris isnotenough.Desire blooms in the darkness, he is choking on its scent.He is tormented by her nearness—how can he be letting this chance go by? He tries to force himself to sleep, but sleep gets further from him the more desperately he pursues it.Sleep has never eluded him as maddeningly since the months directly preceding his fall down the stairs, an assault that left him with a whole new vocabulary ofpain— searing, metallic, throbbing, dizzying, freezing, burning, electric—and an enduring dependence on painkillers.Percocet and Lortab didn’t really kill the pain, or signifi-cantly lessen it, but seemed to create a little chemical pavilion within his consciousness, a semipleasant place to which he could retreat and let the pain go on without him.It had not taken him long to increase his con-sumption from four pills a day to sixteen, and the number could have in-creased from there had he not, in a burst ofself-preservation, stopped taking them altogether, leaving his body not only without its customary supply ofsynthetic endorphins but unable to recall how to make its own, as ifthe supply ofopiates had lulled his body into a state ofmetabolic amnesia.At first, parts ofhis body that were not even injured began to throb and ache;he felt as ifhe had been dragged out ofsome weightless chamber and condemned to suffer the agonies ofgravity.Then the wrist, the jaw, the ankles, the back—which never really got better—and throughout it all he was unable to sleep.

Which brought him to a couple ofmonths ofnightly sleeping pills and which bring him right now to remembering that Iris has sleeping pills, though ofthe over-the-counter variety.Daniel slips out ofbed, steps through the darkness ofthe guest bedroom, and his foot lands on something furry and alive.He jumps back, frightened.He hears a low groan, and he turns on the flashlight.Scarecrow.She has been curled next to him all this time.She rubs against his legs, and when he bends to pat her she wiggles her hindquarters.

He finds his way to the bathroom.It’s small.Cold.White-walled, tiled, strictly utilitarian.Tub, toilet, sink.He is as careful and quiet as possible.To the right ofthe sink is one ofthose novelty gift mirrors meant to look like the cover ofTimemagazine, with the wordsHAMPTON WELLESMANOFTHEYEARembossed on the glass.To the left ofthe sink, a toothbrush holder affixed to the wall, with two brushes in it.A large and a small.He pulls out the one that is clearly Iris’s.It has a zebra-striped handle, pigeon-pink rubber gum massager at the end, unusually full head ofbristles.He touches it against his lips.

Daniel props the flashlight onto the side ofthe sink and opens the medicine chest.Hampton’s shaving gear, four different kinds ofchil-dren’s cough medicine, liquid aspirin.Sominex.He pries offthe cap, only to find the foil safety seal still intact.He peels it back without really considering the audacity ofwhat he is doing.He shakes two tablets out and then realizes he must take them without water.Fine, whatever.

Just then, the ring ofa telephone.He switches offthe flashlight, holds his breath, as ifhe were not an overnight guest making a trip to the john but a thiefabout to be discovered.A second ring.And then he hears Iris’s voice.

“Hello?”

Daniel grips the edge ofthe sink for stability.

”I was asleep,”Iris says.

In the darkness and stillness ofthe house, her voice is everywhere, it is close, it is right next to him.“You know more about it than I do and I’m right here,”Iris says.And then, a little later, she says,“Okay, ifthe power’s still not on, we’ll get to the train station and come and stay with you down there.”And then, finally,“Me too, bye.”

Daniel knows what“me too”means.

Iris hangs the phone up and a moment later Daniel sees the glow from her flashlight as she comes out ofher bedroom and down the hall.

Her footsteps are silent;the only way he can gauge her approach is by the brightening ofthe light.Should he pretend he was having a pee, quickly stand over the toilet? But what about the door—how can he be doing that with the door wide open? He could be washing his hands—but what sort oflunatic would be washing his hands in the middle ofthe night? Not to mention there is no electricity, no pump, no water.

Iris walks into the bathroom and captures him in the beam ofher flashlight.She is wearing sweatpants and a turtleneck sweater, slipper socks, and a brightly colored Egyptian cap.“Are you all right?”she says.

She reaches down to ruffle her fingers through the fur on top ofScare-crow’s upturned head.

“Yes.I’m fine,”Daniel says.

”I heard you in here,”she says.

”I’m okay.”

“I was going to check on the kids,”she says.A little exhaust comes out ofher mouth as she speaks.