Bewilderment

-

ON MONDAY MORNING I had to go into his bedroom to rouse him for breakfast. I’d made his favorite tofu scramble, but when I tried to tickle him awake, he shouted at me. His own volume startled him. Dad! I’m sorry. I’m really tired. I didn’t sleep so good.

“Was it too warm in here?”

He closed his eyes, watching some remnant animation on the inside of his lids. There weren’t any more birds. That’s what happened. In my dream.

He rallied and got up. We had breakfast and enjoyed a reasonable day, although his homework, as always now, took longer than before. We played bocce in the park and he won. Coming home, we saw an eagle take a mourning dove, and though Robbie flinched at the sight of the tearing beak, he still drew it from memory when we got back to the house.

I’d fallen so behind in my teaching that I was in danger of having my tenure revoked. But after dinner I took him by the shoulders and said, “How do you want to spend the evening? Name your galaxy.”

He knew his answer. With one admonitory finger, he commanded me to sit on the couch. He poured me a glass of pomegranate juice—the closest thing to wine available—and went to the bookshelf to retrieve a beaten-up anthology. He put it in my hands.

Read me Chester’s favorite poem. I laughed. He kicked my shins. Serious.

“I’m not sure which one was his favorite. Should I read you your mom’s?”

He didn’t even bother to shrug—just a flick of his small hands. I read him Yeats’s “A Prayer for My Daughter.” Maybe it wasn’t Aly’s favorite. Maybe it was just the one I remember her reading to me. It’s a long poem. It was long for me back then, in my thirties. For Robin, it must have felt geological. But he sat still for it. He still had some concentration left. I was tempted to skip to the end, but I didn’t want him to discover, twenty years later, that I’d cheated him.

I was fine until stanza nine. That one had some long pauses in it, as I read.

Robin sat still for the whole long trip. He didn’t even twitch until I finished. Even then, he stayed curled against my flank. In that clear soprano voice, he said, I didn’t get it, Dad. Chester probably got more of it than I did.

I had promised him months ago that we’d talk about getting another dog. Nothing had kept me from following through but selfish cowardice. I nudged him with my flank. “We still need to get you a birthday present, Robbie. Should we look for a new Chester?”

I thought the words would galvanize him. He didn’t even lift his head. Maybe, Dad. It might help.