A Ship Made of Paper

”What’s this?”she says, looking at the screen.

”Nothing,”he says, hitting the offbutton.“It’s time for bed.”

“What was that?”

“A movie.”

“Can I watch it?”

“You won’t like it, honey.It’s not for kids.”He sits next to her.“Are you feeling okay?”

She hates to admit it—mainly because she doesn’t want him to use it as an argument against her watching theTV.Nevertheless, she would like some sympathy, the occasional magic ofan adult’s commiserating voice.

”My stomach hurts.”

“Still?”he asks.

She nods.She detects alarm in his voice and it brings tears to her eyes—the strange kind, the kind she knows will not be shed.

“Where does it hurt?”

“My stomach.”

“But where?”

She moves her hand in an indistinct circle around her abdomen, as if waxing a tabletop.

“Does it feel more throw-uppy, or more poopy?”

She shrugs, looks away, suddenly delicate.He has the feeling ofhaving misspoken on a date.

“How long have you had it?”he asks.“Since dinner?”

“Every day,”she says.She reaches for the remote control;Daniel pulls it away from her, but she persists, and he gives it to her.She presses the on button and the set comes on just as one ofthe soldiers inPlatoon catches a bullet in the back.Her face is so impassive, Daniel can’t tell if she has registered the image.She begins to scroll through the channels, one after the next, looking for a station showing cartoons.

“Where’s Cartoon Network?”she asks.

They have had a satellite receiver on their rooffor months now, but with hundreds ofchannels to choose from, Daniel is still the only one who knows where the various networks and cable stations are on the scroll.

Even Kate, a hard-core aficionado ofCNN, often asks Daniel for her show’s three-digit address.He is the one who brings the groceries home, who lugs them from the car, he is the one who mows the lawn, rakes the leaves, shovels the snow, salts the icy sidewalk, carries the firewood in from the shed and stacks it next to the hearth, he is the one who opens the flue in November and yanks it shut again in May, he is the one who pushes the reset button on the boiler when it inexplicably shuts down, who sets the Havahart traps for the squirrels in the kitchen, who traps the milk snakes in the dirt-floor cellar, who opens the windows so that the occa-sional bat can escape, he is the one who changes the batteries in the smoke detectors—what in the world will they do without him?

“It’s too late for cartoons,”he says to Ruby.

”What time is it?”A note ofdesperation in her voice—she knows what’s coming.

“Almost ten,”he answers, yawning.

”Where’s Mom?”she asks.

”She’s sleeping, too.Come on.”Daniel stands.He grips her by her armpits, the heat comes straight through the fabric ofher cotton turtle-neck.He lifts her, she grips his ribs with her knees.What ifthis is the last time he ever lifts her into his arms? Ofcourse it’s not, he tells himself.

But he also knows that day will come.In the end, she may come to love him again, but first there will be hurdles to jump in a long steeplechase ofhate.

The usual bedtime ritual for Ruby—the washing, the brushing, the stories, the back scratching—usually runs close to an hour, but tonight she allows herselfto be put to sleep in twenty minutes, after which Daniel checks in on Kate again, and after that he goes downstairs, puts on his overcoat, and leaves.The night air is cold and tastes ofwood smoke.The stars pulsate like wounds.He slides into his car, starts the en-gine, and backs away from the house without putting on his headlights.

When he is safely away from the house he switches on his lights and sur-prises two deer who have been standing on the side ofthe road.He won-ders ifhe is making a terrible mistake—the kind you can never live down, the kind that defines your life, that creates a before and an after—byleaving Ruby alone in the house with her mother.But he comforts himself:Isn’t that how the world goes?Aren’t there at this very moment millions ofkids in their little beds, with their drunken parents right down the hall?

When he has put that proverbial country mile between himself and his house, Daniel realizes that once again he has no destination.The Bistro is closed for the holiday—though surely halfits clientele could use a place to repair to—and he neither wishes nor dares to drive by Iris’s house.He finds his cell phone in the glove compartment and dials her number.One ofDaniel’s clients, a postmarital stalker, from whom Daniel has unconsciously learned certain desperate techniques ofinfor-mation gathering and track covering, has told Daniel that ifyou want to make a phone call and don’t want your number to show up on caller-identification hardware, or to have your number retrievable by the re-cipient’s pressing*69,then you can block your number from coming up bydialing*67before making the call, which Daniel does now before di-aling Iris’s number.His plan:IfIris answers, ask her to meet him at his office;ifanyone else picks up, simply terminate the call.

The call is answered on the second ring.A man’s voice.Hampton.

Fucking hell.Daniel hits the offbutton on his phone, tosses it aside, and steps on the accelerator, plunging the car deeper into the night.

Guided only by the logic and habits ofdriving, he speeds through the village and turns onto a little two-block stretch offrame houses, given the grandiose nameVanderbilt Drive;from there, he takes a left onto Hammersmith, to his office.IrmaThomas is playing on his tape deck:It’s raining so hard I can scarcely catch my breath…He pulls into the driveway that leads to the parking area behind the building, which is just an un-lighted patch ofblacktop, with amateurishly drawn yellow lines indicat-ing the parking space for each ofthe building’s clients, and he doesn’t notice Iris’s car until he is turning into his own slot and the outer edge ofhis headlights sweeps against the side doors ofher blueVolvo.

He bangs his fist against the steering wheel, rocks back in his seat.

Iris has gotten out ofher car, she is walking toward him.He opens the door.He hurries toward her, takes her in his arms.

“It’s you,”he says, talking and kissing her at the same time.

”I was just going to leave,”she says.

”Do you have time?”

She shakes her head no.“Do you?”

“Kate’s asleep.Passed out, actually.”It strikes him as a terrible thing to say, but even as he realizes that he proceeds to make it worse.“I actu-ally feel nervous leaving Ruby alone with her.”

“You should go back.We both should.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”Daniel asks.

“I didn’t.I just had to get out ofthe house and I decided to come here.Hampton’s brothers Jordan and James —”

“I met James,”Daniel interjects.

”And his sisterVictoria are completely obsessed with this fucking video game James brought over.All that brotherly competition, it’s re-ally exhausting.And they’ve got Nelson all gooned up over it.It’s the worst kind ofviolent fantasy game for a kid like Nelson, but try telling that to Hampton.He just laughs, like there’s something cute and naive about my concerns.”

“Leave him then, live with me.”

Without any particular change ofexpression, the look offrustration and anger on her face changes to melancholy, it’s like moving a radio dial the breadth ofone cricket leg and hearing completely different music.

”Don’t,”she says.“It’s not funny.”

“Am I laughing?Am I even smiling?”

“Where were you all my life?”she says.“Why weren’t you there when it was time to get married?Where were you?What were you doing?”

“I don’t remember,”he says, pulling her close.“Let’s go upstairs,”he murmurs into her ear.

They have already been at each other a few times in his office;they have made love on the floor, with Iris on