Lullaby

Chapter 29

The police report doesn't say how warm my wife, Gina, felt when I woke up that morning. How soft and warm she felt under the covers. How when I turned next to her, she rolled onto her back, her hair fanned out on her pillow. Her head was tipped a little toward one shoulder. Her morning skin smelled warm, the way sunlight looks bouncing up off a white tablecloth in a nice restaurant near the beach on your honeymoon.

Sun came through the blue curtains, making her skin blue. Her lips blue. Her eyelashes were lying across each cheek. Her mouth was a loose smile.

Still half asleep, I cupped my hand behind her neck and tilted her face back and kissed her.

Her neck and shoulder were so easy and relaxed.

Still kissing her warm, relaxed mouth, I pulled her nightgown up around her waist.

Her legs seemed to roll apart, and my hand found her loose and wet inside.

Under the covers, my eyes closed, I worked my tongue inside. With my wet fingers, I peeled back the smooth pink edges of her and licked deeper. The tide of air going in and out of me. At the top of each breath, I drove my mouth up into her.

For once, Katrin had slept the whole night and wasn't crying.

My mouth climbed to Gina's belly button. It climbed to her breasts. With one wet finger in her mouth, my other fingers flick across her nipples. My mouth cups over her other breast and my tongue touches the nipple inside.

Gina's head rolled to one side, and I licked the back of her ear. My hips pressing her legs apart, I put myself inside.

The loose smile on her face, the way her mouth came open at the last moment and her head sunk deep into the pillow, she was so quiet. It was the best it had been since before Katrin was born.

A minute later, I slipped out of bed and took a shower. I tiptoed into my clothes and eased the bedroom door shut behind me. In the nursery, I kissed Katrin on the side of her head. I felt her diaper. The sun came through her yellow curtains. Her toys and books. She looked so perfect.

I felt so blessed.

No one in the world was as lucky as me that morning.

Here, driving Helen's car with her asleep in the front seat beside me. Tonight, we're in Ohio or Iowa or Idaho, with Mona asleep in the back. Helen's pink hair pillowed against my shoulder. Mona sprawled in the rearview mirror, sprawled in her colored pens and books. Oyster asleep. This is the life I have now. For better or for worse. For richer, for poorer.

That was my last really good day. It wasn't until I came home from work that I knew the truth.

Gina was still lying in the same position.

The police report would call it postmortem sexual intercourse.

Nash comes to mind.

Katrin was still quiet. The underside of her head had turned dark red.

Livor mortis. Oxygenated hemoglobin.

It wasn't until I came home that I knew what I'd done.

Here, parked in the leather smell of Helen's big Realtor car, the sun is just above the horizon. It's the same moment now as it was then. We're parked under a tree, on a treelined street in a neighborhood of little houses. It's some kind of flowering tree, and all night, pink flower petals have fallen on the car, sticking to the dew. Helen's car is pink as a parade float, covered in flowers, and I'm spying out through just a hole where the petals don't cover the windshield.

The morning light shining in through the layer of petals is pink.

Rose-colored. On Helen and Mona and Oyster, asleep.

Down the block, an old couple is working in the flower beds along their foundation. The old man fills a watering can at a spigot. The old woman kneels, pulling weeds.

I turn my pager back on, and it starts beeping right away.

Helen jerks awake.

The phone number on my pager, I don't recognize it.

Helen sits up, blinking, looking at me. She looks at the tiny sparkling watch on her wrist. On one side of her face are deep red pockmarks where she slept on her dangling emerald earrings. She looks at the layer of pink covering all the windows. She plunges the pink fingernails of both hands into her hair and fluffs it, saying, «Where are we now?»

Some people still think knowledge is power.

I tell her, I have no idea.