Elaine shifted in her seat. “What’s bothering you,” she asked, startling Rudy. She rearranged the pillow behind her neck.
“Nothing. I thought you were sleeping.”
“Every time we go to see your mother, you’re like this. What’s the deal?”
“There is no deal.” He switched the radio on and fiddled with the tuner until an oldies station came in, the static making all the old crooners sound like they sang around mouthfuls of crushed glass.
When they pulled into Catherine’s driveway it was already dark, the maple trees lining the long driveway gaunt and brittle. Her house was a large old colonial, the porch lined with wicker chairs turned upside down. Even though it was early March, Christmas lights still hung from the gutters, the red blinking bulbs like tiny pinpricks in the light blue paint of the exterior. The forlorn silhouette of an artificial Christmas tree stood still and quiet in the living room window.
Rudy took a deep breath. “Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Rudy knocked first, then opened the door. This was the house he grew up in, and it always felt a little strange going back, as if all the years he’d spent as an adult were an illusion. It was like time was a cord that had twisted back upon itself.
Catherine hovered over the kitchen sink, her bony, wrinkled hands full of suds. She looked up from the dishes and cleared her throat. “Rudy. Elaine. I didn’t hear you come in.” She dried her hands on a dishtowel and hugged Elaine carefully around her protruding belly. “It’s so good to see the both of you.” She coughed lightly into her fist and frowned. “I have an apple pie in the oven,” she said, motioning them into the living room. “Make yourselves at home.”
Already, Rudy didn’t think he could handle this. Catherine kept the thermostat high and he felt he’d suffocate if he didn’t get some air. He jerked his thumb back toward the door. “I’ll get the bags.”
Outside, he leaned against the minivan and gasped, the air like cold nails hammered into his lungs. The urge to race back inside, grab Elaine and drag her the hell away from there nearly overwhelmed him. How could he tell her? Even while they said their vows less than a year ago, even as he leaned over to kiss his new bride, he knew this day would come. He’d have to tell her the truth about Catherine, about the secret he shared with his mother.
“You can do this,” he whispered, watching his words disappear into the raw night air like an apparition. “You can do this.”
He opened the van’s side door and grabbed hold of their luggage, yanking it out into the cold.
When he re-entered the warmth of the house, suitcases in tow, he felt better. Catherine kneeled in front of Elaine, patting her belly. She leaned forward and put her ear to it, her head bobbing with a slight tremor. “He’s coming along just fine.”
“He?” Elaine laughed hesitantly. “Is there something I don’t know about?”
“Oh. I thought—” Catherine looked up, her gaunt cheeks coloring slightly. “I’m just guessing, of course.” She rubbed Elaine’s belly in a soothing circle. “But everything is fine, yes?”
“So far, so good.”
Rudy watched his mother. Catherine glanced up at him and smiled. “It’s going to be fine,” she said, and Rudy knew she wasn’t talking about the child floating peacefully in Elaine’s womb.
“I’ll take these to our room,” he said.
Catherine slowly stood, her joints popping. “I’ll slice up some pie.”
Rudy placed the suitcases in the guest bedroom, then walked as quietly as he could up the stairs and over the creaky wooden floor to the room he’d occupied as a child. There was a single bed in the corner covered with a blue quilt Catherine made for him when he was five. The top of his old dresser served as a runway for numerous model airplanes. Maps of different countries hung on the walls, and an open closet door revealed a heap of dirty old sneakers, above which hung the stiff wool suit he wore at age eleven to his father’s funeral. Rudy remembered the way the collar had scratched unbearably at his neck.
Above the suit was a plain wooden shelf. He reached up and felt to the back of it. At first he thought perhaps his mother had moved it, feeling only clumps of dust and distressed wood, but then his fingers felt the small wooden box he was after. He pulled it out and blew dust off the top, revealing his name he’d carved long ago with a Swiss Army knife.
He lifted the lid; reached in and pulled out what looked like a thin delicate rope. He handled it gingerly, making sure not to break it, then gently placed it back in the box before closing the lid.
“What’s that?”
Rudy swirled around, his mouth gone dry. Elaine stood in the doorway, watching him.
“It’s nothing. Just something I made when I was a kid.”
“Can I see it?”
Rudy held the box out to Elaine but kept his fingers tight on the lid.
“I’m impressed.”
Rudy pulled it gently away from her. “We better go have some of Mom’s apple pie if we don’t want to upset her.”
“I wouldn’t want to upset her.”
Rudy didn’t catch the sarcasm in Elaine’s voice as his heart pounded in his ears. He set the box down carefully on the dresser among the bombers and fighter jets and let Elaine lead the way downstairs.
Shortly after they finished their pie, Catherine excused herself for bed and slowly climbed the stairs, the steps barely whispering with her slight weight. It was only nine o’clock. Elaine turned to Rudy and asked in a whisper, “How long has she been like this?”
“Like what?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. She looks so much older.”
“She does?”
“Oh, come on. Surely you see a difference since the last time we saw her.”
“Well, she is getting up there in age.”
“But it’s been less than a year.” Elaine shook her head. “Remember at our wedding reception how she danced until midnight? Now she looks like she needs a walker just to get around.”
Rudy almost lied, almost said, ‘It’s her arthritis acting up.’ But as the truth drew near, was in fact only hours away, he figured lying was a waste of breath. So instead, he just shrugged.
Elaine stared at the remains of her apple pie, the dried crust, the bits of filling coating the edges like baby spit. She pushed it away from her.
“Oh,” she said, putting her hand to her belly. “What a strong little kicker.”
Rudy slid his hand beneath her blouse, feeling the curve of her smooth, taut skin, the protrusion of her belly button. He had to tell her. He had to. He opened his mouth to speak, but found that he couldn’t. The words evaporated from his lips like water spilled on hot asphalt.
Elaine yawned. “I’m tired,” she said. “I guess I’m getting old, too.”
After Elaine fell asleep on the queen-sized bed in the guest room, her snores delicate and benign, Rudy crept to his childhood room. He picked the wooden box up and carried it to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He turned on the tap water, adjusted the temperature until it felt lukewarm, and let the sink fill. Last year, only a month before they had married, he’d come alone to visit his mother. Although Elaine had wanted to celebrate his birthday with him, she’d been too busy preparing for the wedding. And this year, when he’d said he had to go, Elaine had asked if perhaps they couldn’t wait until after the baby was born.
“Besides, we just saw your mother at Christmas.”
“I know, but it’s important,” was the only excuse Rudy had come up with.
Elaine had finally agreed to go.
And now Rudy opened the box’s lid, his fingers responding to the familiarity of his name carved carefully into the top. He lifted the dried cord from it and placed it carefully in the water. It reacted to its new environment,
