The First Bad Man

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

One Friday at ten o’clock there was a knock at the door and I thought, Well, what do you know, maybe she hasn’t completely forgotten us. I wiped Jack’s nose and tucked my hair behind my ears. My heart raced as I neared the door. Rachel had broken up with her. She had nowhere else to turn. I ran my fingers across my lips to make sure there was no gunk on them. She was probably a full-blown lesbian by now. If she tried to kiss me I would stop her and say Let’s consider this choice, what does it mean? What are we saying about who we are and who we want to be? Maybe she was more verbal now; Rachel might have brought that out in her. I couldn’t wait to talk to another adult, out loud.

It was a skinny, redheaded young man with a Ralphs name tag: DARREN. The bagger boy.

“Is Clee here?”

Jack tried to pull off the name tag.

“She’s not. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Really?” He looked past me into the house. I stepped aside so he could see she wasn’t in there.

“Just us.”

He regarded Jack and me, brushing his fingers along the white tops of the many tiny pimples that bearded his chin and pink cheeks. Fourth of July. He was the one who made Jack smile.

“Okay,” he said. “Bye, Jack, bye, Jack’s mom.” He darted off the porch, bounding past the TV on the curb. I watched him run down the street. Jack’s mom. No one had ever called me that before. But from Jack’s point of view no other person was more his mother. I looked at his small hand so confidently wrapped around my upper arm. It was a very ordinary thing to be but I felt suddenly breathless, like I had just made it to the top of something tall. Motherhood. He fussed; I went inside and gave him a plastic spatula. He slapped it on the counter, smack, smack, smack. I stood, holding his warm body, watching his concentrating face. It was too pink, he needed more sunblock. Smack, smack. And more reading — I read to him, but not every night. And we had only spent a few hours a day in the NICU with him. That wasn’t enough. It was enough for us at the time, but now it haunted me. Twenty hours a day he’d lain there alone. There would be other unpardonable crimes, I could feel them coming — things that in retrospect would become my greatest regrets. I’d always be catching up with my love. How terrible. Jack flung the spatula onto the ground and wailed. I picked it up, smack, smack. He laughed, I laughed. Terrible. I kissed him and he kissed me back with a wide-open drooly mouth. Terrible.

“Ah, my boy,” I said. “My boy, my boy. I love you so. This can only end in heartbreak and I’ll never recover.”

“Ba-ba-ba-ba,” he said.

“Yes. Ba-ba-ba-ba.”

TWO DAYS LATER DARREN BOUNCED on the top step of my porch like a runner stretching out his calf muscles.

“I thought I’d leave my number, for the next time you talk to her.”

I asked him to come in while I finished feeding Jack in his high chair.

“Have you tried calling her?”

“It’s okay,” he said too quickly. He had called her many times. I wondered if I should tell him about Rachel.

“Do you need a TV?” I pointed to the curb. “The trash people won’t take it.”

“I have a flat-screen. You should get a flat-screen.”

“I keep meaning to take it to Goodwill.”

He scrunched up his face. “I’ll take it to the Goodwill for you.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” He gestured to Jack in a way that made me feel uncouth, as if Goodwill were a house of ill repute.

He sat in the kitchen with Jack while I gathered a few more things for him to take. “Goo goo goo,” Darren said, making a silly face. “Ga ga ga.”

THE NEXT DAY HE BROUGHT me the receipt from Goodwill in a little envelope.

“For taxes. It was a tax-deductible donation.” He leaned on the door frame, waiting. I invited him in. The truth was, he explained while I did the dishes, he felt bad for me and Jack. “All alone and everything. If you want, I can check in on you. I don’t mind.”

“That’s very generous, Darren. But we’re really doing fine.”

Tuesdays were his usual day; he came after Rick left. He broke down boxes and put them in the recycling, he helped me reach tall things. He said I should see the top of his mom’s refrigerator — it was clean like a plate.

“You could eat off it. In fact, that’s a good idea — I’m gonna eat off it tonight. I’ll just put my spaghetti right on it.”

While he installed my tiny new flat-screen he told a long story about his cousin’s car. He didn’t seem at all worried that the story would bore me; he just went on and on, not even utilizing basic storytelling skills to make it interesting. Sometimes he played with Jack while I went to the bathroom or made food for us. He had to be careful because the baby was fascinated by his pimples. Once his grabbing little hand knocked the top off a ripe whitehead and puss and blood spurted out. Underneath the acne were good bones. Not great bones, but perfectly fine, serviceable bones. Tall too.

I remembered exactly where Ruth-Anne had put the card: the center drawer of the receptionist’s desk. If she was seeing a patient I could possibly slip in and get it without her even knowing. Jack looked at himself in the mirrored ceiling of the elevator, leaning his head back in the carrier. My heart was skipping beats as we made our way down the long familiar hallway. Ruth-Anne, I would say, can we put the past behind us? Better not to phrase it as a question. The past is behind us. That was good. Who could argue with that?

I swung open the door. The front desk was empty. I went straight for the middle drawer; it was an awkward reach with Jack in the carrier and the card wasn’t where I thought it was. And suddenly I realized I wasn’t alone — a young woman was reading a magazine in the corner. She smiled at us and said the receptionist had just stepped out. “I think she went to the bathroom. Dr. Broyard might be running late.” I nodded thank you and chastely sat down as if I hadn’t just tried to rob the place. Dr. Broyard. Had I unconsciously timed my visit to avoid Ruth-Anne? Ruth-Anne would say I had. I stared over Jack’s head at a new painting of a Native American weaver. Maybe it was by Helge Thomasson. The weaver was weaving a rug. Or unweaving it. She might have been taking the rug apart as a nonviolent act of resistance. I wondered if the new receptionist was very pretty. Poor Helge.

The young woman slowly turned the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. She kept glancing up at Jack in a way that reminded me of me — as if they shared a special understanding. It was sort of sickening. She put the magazine down and picked up another one.

It had taken a moment.

But now I recognized her.

She wasn’t wearing the shirt with the Rasta alligator on it, but the fluorescent lights were glinting off her John Lennon — style glasses, and her hair, though longer than in the photo, was blond and stringy. I wondered who she was — a friend’s daughter? His niece?

“Kirsten.” I said it to Jack, just in case it wasn’t even her name.

She whipped her head around. For a moment it seemed miraculous, like a doll or a cartoon come to life.

“We might have a friend in common,” I said. “Phillip?”

She wrinkled her forehead.

“Phil? Phil Bettelheim?”

“Oh. Phil. Yeah.”

Her face slowly tightened and she looked me up and down.

“Are you… Cheryl?”

I nodded.

She tilted her face up to the ceiling and took a long, dramatic breath. “I can’t believe I’m really meeting you.”

I smiled politely. “I guess we both learned about this place from Phillip. Phil.”

“I told him about Dr. Broyard,” she said. I rubbed Jack’s back to let her know I didn’t really care. She seemed like a very bitter and unappealing young lady.

“Phil didn’t say you had a baby, but I guess I haven’t seen him in a while. Not since you-know-what, actually.” She grinned a little, like she had a mean secret.

“I don’t think I do know what.”

“Not since you told him to”—she made a tube with her fingers and jammed another finger into it—“me.”

My eyes widened and I glanced around to be sure we were alone.

“I was so surprised”—she leaned forward—“that you did that. What woman would tell an old man to have sex with a child?”

It was like being accused of a crime committed in a dream.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t think you were real.” Or I did. And then I didn’t.

“Well”—she extended both her arms—“I am.”

It was hard to know what to say to this. Surely the receptionist would be back any moment. Kirsten quietly bumped the back of her head against the wall a few times.

“I hope it wasn’t too awful,” I said, finally.

“It wasn’t a big deal. He had to watch something first, on his phone. That took a long time.”

I had no idea what this meant, but I nodded knowingly.

“Hey.” She snapped her fingers. “Let’s send him a picture of us together. It’ll freak him out.”

“Really?”

She held her phone out at arm’s length and leaned stiffly toward me. Her hair smelled like chlorine. Jack lurched toward the lens with his wet mouth, blocking both of us.

The flash popped, the door opened, and the receptionist returned to the front desk. It was Ruth-Anne. She froze when she saw me, just briefly.

“The doctor is ready for you, Kirsten.”

Kirsten swept past me without a glance.

We were alone.

“Hi, Ruth-Anne.” I stood up and went to the counter.

She raised her eyebrows, as if she wasn’t going to deny that was her name but she wasn’t going to confirm it either.

“I’m just here for that card. Remember? The one with the name.” I pointed at Jack and she blinked, seeming to notice him for the first time.

“Do you mean a business card?” She gestured to Dr. Broyard’s cards in their Lucite display, right beside her own.

“No, the card I asked you to keep. You put it in there.” I pointed to the middle desk drawer.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you, but you’re more than welcome to take several business cards.”

Her big-boned androgyny was gone. She had carefully tipped a million tiny details in the girlish direction. The long hair was pulled back by a tartan headband. Her tight-fitting blouse was designed to minimize her broad shoulders and it did. Her whole body appeared shrunken. Sitting down, she actually seemed to be petite, a delicate woman.

Dr. Broyard popped out holding a file folder. As she looked up at him her whole bearing shifted; she became luminous. Not with the light of life, but like a husk lit electrically from within. She reached for the folder and he let it go — just shy of her fingers. It floated to the ground. Ruth-Anne hesitated and then awkwardly bent over to pick it up. When her face reappeared it was smiling with the hope that he had enjoyed the rear view, but he turned and went back into his office. Her smile widened with pain, and seeing her teeth I could also see the jawbone that held them, and her skull with its empty sockets and the whole of her clickety-clack skeleton. I could see right into her brain; it was shaking with fixation.

Just his name on a piece of paper could set her off. Even a word like Broyard—barnyard, backyard—sent her into an exhausted loop of fantasies. Everything else in her life, including her own therapy practice, was faked. The spell consumed 95 percent of her energy but she was surprised to see that no one noticed; the wafer-thin 5 percent version of her sufficed. She kept a list on her desk of all the things that used to make her happy:

Zydeco music

Dogs

My work

Rainy days

Thai food

Body surfing

My friends

But she couldn’t generate enough sadness and regret to free herself. She lived for the three days a year he replaced her in her office and she worked beneath him. Through sheer force of will she became what he once said he wished his wife was: small, feminine, with a slightly conservative elegance. Being this woman, this receptionist, was her one joy. Joy is the wrong word: it fueled the spell and so the spell could continue, which is the only thing a spell wants to do.

Ruth-Anne filed the folder. Looking at her expansive back it was easier to remember my therapist who was so daring and so helpful, even at 5 percent. I owed her.

It took a while to get it going, but after a few seconds of rocking on my heels I began to sway to the twangy rhythm. Ruth-Anne raised her eyebrows, hoping I was just stretching my legs. I began hoarsely, unmelodically but with great force.

“Will you stay in our Lovers’ Story

“If you stay you won’t be sorry”

She looked up, or rather the spell looked up, slowly, with revulsion. The spell, in its tartan headband, was fuming. It looked from me to Dr. Broyard’s door to its own monstrous hands and back to me as I raised my voice in volume:

“’Cause weeeee believe in youuuu”

Jack liked this; he bounced up and down in his sling.

“Soon you’ll grow so take a chance

“With a couple of Kooks

“Hung up on romaaancing”

I only knew the chorus, so I immediately began again,

“Will you stay in our Lovers’ Story”

Something strange was happening with Ruth-Anne. It didn’t seem good. She was sweating; big damp rings were rapidly expanding from the sides of her blouse. She was dissolving. If this was the wrong thing to do, then it was very wrong. I shut my eyes, wrapped my arms around Jack, and chanted,

“If you stay you won’t be sorry

“’Cause weeeee believe in youuuu”

The “in you” part sounded stronger than the rest, full-voiced and resonant. I cracked my eyes. Sweat was streaming down her face and her mouth was pointed heavenward, as if she were singing to the gods, begging them to intercede on this matter, to release her from her spell. We crooned together:

“Soon you’ll grow so take a chance

“With a couple of Kooks

“Hung up on romaaancing”

But they do not exist, the gods. The only way to break the spell is to break the spell. So now she hooked her thumbs under her soggy armpits, trying to ride the twang, embody it. We came around the bend and headed back into the start of the chorus:

“Will you stay in our Lovers’ Story

“If you stay you won’t be sorry”

Her shoulders were broadening, almost ripping her blouse. Makeup melted into the wrinkles around her eyes and her jaw galloped as she sang. Dr. Broyard opened his door, adjusting his spectacles and watching us with a bemused smile — Kirsten peeked out behind him. Too late, doctor! Too late! The spell has been shattered into ten million pieces, too dispersed to flock together.

But I was wrong. Seeing my triumphant face, Ruth-Anne realized who was watching; her croon immediately withered to nothing. For a split second she looked devastated, her eyes wild with disappointment. Then the spell descended and she cozily tucked herself back in, almost relieved, it seemed. She sat down and rolled forward to her computer. I stood before her, my arms hanging, chest heaving, but her eyes stayed locked on the screen. As she repositioned her headband I turned to leave.

“Your card, miss.”

“What?”

“Your appointment card.”

Without a blink she handed me a card for an appointment I didn’t have.

I put it in the glove compartment. Now that I had it I didn’t want to look. Of course it was Darren. Why break a promise to learn something I already knew? This feeling carried me all the way home. I calmly gave Jack his bottle and put him down for his one o’clock nap. But the moment I shut the nursery door the equanimity ended and I could not get to the glove compartment quickly enough. I carried it inside in my fist and sat on the couch. I opened my fingers, smoothed the card and turned it over.

It wasn’t Darren.

I ripped the card to shreds before remembering, too late, the old trick for getting someone to call by tearing their name up.

The phone rang almost immediately.

“You look the same,” he said. “Kirsten looks much older but you look the same. And the little guy in front — what’s his name?”

“Jack,” I whispered. I sank to my knees, keeling over a throw pillow.

“Jack. He’s a sweetheart — how old is he?”

“Ten months.”

He coughed — he already knew that, he had done the math. My forehead had a fever, I was burning up. Oxygen. With the pillow under one arm I crawled to an open window and pointed my mouth at the screen.

“It’s great to hear your voice, Cheryl. It’s been a long time.”

Phillip and Clee.

How had they met? How was it even possible? But why not? If one young woman, why not another?

“I think I owe you an apology,” he continued. “I was in a difficult place when we last spoke.”

“No need,” I choked out. I couldn’t remember what we were talking about.

“No,” he said, “I want to apologize. I should have called when I heard she was… but of course I didn’t know for sure. And then when I saw his picture—” His voice cracked. I inhaled wetly and he gasped a sob of relief, as if my tears allowed his tears. This wasn’t the time for one of his long cries; I hoped he knew that. I blew my nose sharply on a sock. It was quiet for a minute. The curtain blew against my face.

“Here’s an idea,” he said finally. “I come over.”

AT THE DOOR WE JUST stared at each other. He looked much older; there were heavy bags under his eyes. I felt like a wife who had waited in vain for her husband to return from war, and now, twenty years later, here he was. Ancient, but home. He stepped inside and looked around.

“Where is he?”

“Napping. He should be up soon, though.”

I offered him something to drink. Lemonade? Water?

“Could I just have some hot water?” He pulled a packet of tea bags out of his back pocket. “I’d offer you one but this is a special formulation, made by my acupuncturist. For my lungs.”

We sat on the couch holding our mugs, waiting. He kept glancing at me, trying to weigh my mood or show me how receptive he was. As if I would want to talk about it.

“Why did you step down from the board?” I said finally.

He leapt on this, launching into a lengthy description of his poor health and a recent trip to Thailand, how it really took him out of himself. Each word he said was boring, but collectively the melody of them lulled me. I tried to resist, but just the weight of him, in pounds and ounces, was a relief. Always being the heaviest person in the house had been exhausting. I sipped my tea and leaned back into the couch. When he left I would have to shift the weight back onto my own shoulders again, but that was a problem for later.

“I feel strangely at home here,” Phillip said. He peered at my bookshelf and the coasters on the coffee table as if each thing contained a memory. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack beginning to wiggle on the baby monitor. I had a sudden wish to prolong this moment, or delay the next one, but a high and certain squawk echoed out.

“I’ll go get him,” I said.

“I’ll come.”

He followed me to the nursery, his breath on my neck. Would there be an unmistakable resemblance?

“Rise and shine, sweet potato,” I said. They had no single feature in common but the likeness could be felt; it was waiting in the wings. I laid Jack on the changing table. He had a messy poop, many wipes were needed. Phillip watched from the corner.

“You have a special connection to him, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“It’s beautiful to watch. Age just kind of slips away, doesn’t it?”

His anus was red. I dabbed it with diaper cream.

“You’re just a man and a woman,” Phillip mused, “like any other couple.”

I seemed to be putting the diaper on in slow motion; I couldn’t get the tabs to stick, it kept opening.

“I’m more like his mother.”

“Okay.” He shrugged agreeably. “I wasn’t sure how you were approaching it.”

The pants weren’t going on easily; two legs slipped into one hole. Phillip peered over my shoulder, watching the struggle.

“I heard there were some… complications. Right? A rough start?”

“It was nothing. He’s fine.”

“Oh good, that’s good to hear. So he’ll be able to run, play sports, all that?” He was nodding yes, so I nodded with him.

The moment I pulled up Jack’s elastic band, Phillip swept him off the changing table, right out from under my hand and up toward the ceiling with an airplane noise. Jack squealed, not with glee. Phillip coughed and quickly brought him down again.

“Heavier than he looks.” When he was safely on my hip Jack stared at the bearded old man.

“That’s Phillip,” I said.

Phillip reached out and shook Jack’s soft hand, waggling his noodley arm.

“Hi, little man. I’m an old friend of your grandparents.”

It took me a moment to understand who he meant.

“I’m not sure they think of themselves that way.”

“Understandably. Last thing I heard she was giving it up for adoption. And no one knew who the father was.”

There was a question hidden in his voice — he was 98 percent sure but he wasn’t certain. She might have slept around.

“That was the plan initially,” I said.

“Sounds like she had lots of partners.”

I didn’t answer that.

WE SAT IN THE BACKYARD while Jack ate a mashed-up banana. Phillip lay on his back in the grass and inhaled the warm air, saying, Ah, ah. Jack experimentally put a rock in his mouth; I pulled it out. We moved into the shade; I described my plans for a pergola to block the sun.

“I have a great person for that,” said Phillip. “I’ll have him come next week. Monday?”

I laughed and he said, “She laughs! I made her laugh!”

I tried to frown.

“If you don’t like him, just tell him, ‘I don’t know why you’re here, Phillip is crazy.’ ”

“Phillip is crazy.”

“That’s it.”

I KEPT THINKING HE WAS about to leave, but he kept staying. He played with Jack in the living room while I made dinner. I moved quietly, trying to hear them, but they made no noise. When I poked my head out Jack was gnawing on a rubber hamburger with Phillip sitting on the floor a few feet away, his stiff knees awkwardly angled. He gave me a thumbs-up.

“Dinner’s ready, but I have to put Jack down.”

I gave Jack his puree, bath, bottle.

Phillip watched me as I sang the night-night song and settled Jack in his crib. We smiled down on the baby and then at each other until I looked away.

I apologized for the dinner. “It’s just leftovers.”

“That’s what I love about it. How ordinary it is. This is how people eat! And why not?”

After dinner we watched 60 Minutes on the new flat-screen TV.

“This is the only real show left,” he said, putting his arm around the back of the couch, grazing my shoulders. I tried to relax and get into the program. It was about how counterinsurgency tactics could be used against gangs. When the commercials came Phillip muted it. We watched a woman wash her hair in silence.

“Look at us,” he said. “We’re like an old married couple.” He patted my shoulder. “I was thinking about that on the drive over here, about all our lifetimes together.” He glanced at me sideways. “You still think that?”

“I guess I do,” I said. But I was thinking about Clee. I’d been her enemy, then her mother, then her girlfriend. That was three lifetimes right there. He unmuted the TV. We watched police officers going door-to-door to embed themselves in the community. At the next commercial break he went into detail about his lungs; they were hardening. It was called pulmonary fibrosis. “When your health goes, this kind of stuff really matters.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“This.” He waved his hand across me and the living room. “Security. Friends you can trust who are in it for the long haul.” I didn’t say anything and he looked at me nervously. “I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?”

I looked at my thighs; it was impossible to think with him right next to me, waiting.

“Of course I’m here for you,” I said. It was a relief; being angry at him was hard work. He took my hand, clasping it quickly in three different ways, like a gang member. We had just watched two men on TV do this.

“I knew you would be. I don’t want to point fingers or name names, but let’s just say young people don’t have the same values as people of our generation.”

My mouth opened to remind him I was only forty-three but then I remembered I was forty-four now. Nearly forty-five. Too old to be making a point out of it.

After 60 Minutes he went to his car and got his electric toothbrush. “It’s the one I keep in my car.” He didn’t have night blindness per se, but he was less and less comfortable driving at night.

“It’s not an imposition?” he asked from the porch, taking off his shoes.

“No, no, not at all.”

We brushed our teeth side by side. He spit, then I spit, then he spit. He plugged the charger into the socket above the counter; it had brownish gunk calcified in all its grooves and ridges.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll get you one.” I took a long time to dry my hands while he peed loudly, sitting down.

Was it okay if he slept in his boxer shorts? Of course. I put my nightgown on in the closet, wondering which one of us should sleep on the couch. When I came out he was in my bed. He patted the place next to him. For a moment I felt butterflies, then I remembered about our being an old married couple. We were past all that, and his lungs were hardening. I got us each a glass of water from the kitchen and set them on the bedside tables.

“Should we get sex out of the way?” he said.

“What?”

“A man and a woman… sleeping together. I don’t want it to be an issue.”

My heart hammered. This wasn’t at all the way I had once pictured it, but maybe there was something very beautiful about it. Or honest. Or, in any case, we were going to have sex.

“Okay,” I said.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“I am!”

“Terrific. Hold on.”

He jogged to the living room and came back with his cell phone and a tiny tube of pink lotion; he propped the phone up against my vitamin bottles. I was having trouble regulating my breath and my jaw was shaking with nervous energy. Phillip stared at my floral nightgown and scratched his beard a few times. Then he slapped his hands together.

“So. The deal is if you want to watch me, you can, but you don’t have to — it doesn’t do anything for me. I just need for you to be on your back and ready when I say now.” He handed me one of my pillows. “If you could put that under your hips that’d be great.” He filled his cheeks with air and released it. “Okay?”

“Okay!” I said brightly. I felt terrible for him except he didn’t seem embarrassed. He tapped the phone. Shrieks and grunts jumped out before he quickly muted the sound and hunched over himself. The bed shook, all was quiet. This is what Kirsten meant when she said he had to look at his phone for a long time. How long was long? I quietly rolled up my nightgown over my hips. I got the pillow ready under me in case he said now. I thought about caressing his back. It had many tiny pits in it, a sprinkling of gray hair and freckles and red dots. I laid my palm between his shoulder blades; it shook with his body. I took it off. After a few minutes he picked up the phone, did some scrolling and tapping, and got set up again. I looked at the baby monitor; Jack was sweetly splayed with his arms over his head. Would it be easy or hard to sleep after this? Maybe I would have to secretly take some of my homeopathic sleeping pills. I shut my eyes to test how near sleep was.

“Now.”

My eyes jumped open; I quickly spread my legs and adjusted the pillow as he swung around and on top of me, his penis red and shiny with rose-scented lotion. He jabbed it a couple times before he found the hole. He thrust very quickly, in and out, then slowed down. A little painful, but the burning warmed away. He inhaled and exhaled in long measured breaths.

“Good to go,” he said, after a minute. He leaned down and pressed his thick lips into mine. It was a little difficult with the beard. He stopped and pushed the bristly hairs away from his mouth. Our teeth knocked.

“I’m thinking of that folk song about the old hen and old rooster,” he whispered, thrusting. “How’s that go?”

“I don’t know.” I wiped my mouth.

“ ‘Cluck, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo and they tapped their beaks together…’ Something like that. Do you want to be on top?”

His eyes were on my breasts. Maybe it was better if they hung rather than puddled. But I shook my head no. I wouldn’t be able to think about my thing in that position.

I pulled my legs together and shut my eyes. It should have been easy but it took fierce concentration to imagine that he was on top of me. I had to erase him completely and reconstitute him, focusing on his imaginary weight as opposed to his actual heft. As always he was very encouraging; again and again he told me to think about my thing. I was nearing peak exhaustion when the real Phillip interrupted.

“Open your eyes.”

To appease him I peeked for a split second and saw his mouth puckered in a tight ring; he was forcing air in and out of it. I quickly shut my eyes again.

Everything was scattered now so I gave up on my thing and tried to imagine the penis in me was my own version of Phillip’s member and that I was doing the thrusting, into Clee. Once I got a hold on it, the scene felt very real. Like a memory.

“Where did you meet her?” I panted.

“Who?” He paused his exertions for a moment and then continued. “In a doctor’s office. A waiting room.”

“Dr. Broyard.”

“Right. Jens.”

She’s reading a magazine and he sits down. He tells her a bit of trivia about the doctor’s wife, how she’s a famous painter. He doesn’t recognize her until he asks for her name.

“Clee.”

He smiles, putting it all together, looking her up and down. What are the odds of them running into each other like this? High. In this waiting room they are higher than average. That’s why I sent her here. He says he thinks he knows her parents.

“You’re staying with Cheryl Glickman? From their office?”

She winces at my name. I’m the woman who just told her her feet smell; I could still see her enormous smile and how it fell. She wanted me and I gave her a referral. Her leg begins to shake with anger; Phillip puts his big hand on it. She looks up at his gray beard, his tufty eyebrows. “What did you say your name was again?”

Even from her desk Ruth-Anne can see what will happen next. Spermatozoon enters the uterus, fertilizes egg, zygote, blastula, and so forth. Jack’s consciousness begins on this day.

I didn’t make him, but I did each thing right so he would be made.

That’s how much I wanted you.

Looking at the baby monitor, I marveled at the web of people that had spun him into being and proud tears swelled behind my eyelids. My son.

“Everything fine?”

I nodded, tucking my joy under my face. Phillip rolled off of and out of me.

“It’s okay,” he wheezed. “I can’t climax either anymore. And it’s probably safer if I don’t try — although what a way to go, right?” He rubbed my sweaty thigh a few times. “I want you to know I’m not afraid of it, but…” He swallowed. “No, that’s not true. I’m very afraid of it. But I’m not afraid of being afraid.”

I nodded. What were we talking about? Jack rolled over onto his side and then back again.

“I’ve kept my eyes on it this whole time, ever since I was young — so it can’t sneak up on me. I want to know it’s coming, I want to greet it.”

Death is what we were talking about.

“Oh hello, I’ll say. Do come in. Let me get my things before we go. But instead of getting anything I’ll just let go of everything. Goodbye home, goodbye money, goodbye being a grand and wonderful man. Goodbye Cheryl.”

“Goodbye.”

“And then I’ll go out the door, so to speak.”

I could see the door, me locking it behind him. The bedroom felt strangely cold, almost cryptlike. Jack was on his stomach now.

“I have a will and funeral plan and so forth, but if you don’t mind—”

Suddenly Jack screamed; it blasted from the monitor, ripping through the night.

“—if you don’t mind,” Phillip raised his voice to be heard over the cries, “I’ll tell you some of the details. Have you heard of EcoPods? I’d like to be buried in one of those.”

“I have to—” I pointed at the monitor. Phillip held up one finger.

“They aren’t legal but if you—”

Jack sobbed; I rose to my knees. Phillip looked up at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “This is only the second time I’ve ever told anyone this.”

The baby wailed in disbelief. I had never not come when he cried. I leapt out of bed and ran from the room.

HE WAS CUTTING A TOOTH. A bottle didn’t calm him so I walked him around the house. That didn’t work, so I put the carrier on over my nightgown and strapped him in. I slipped a jacket on and crept out to the porch. My shoes were right there, waiting.

The sky seemed to lighten as we walked. But dawn was hours away; it could only be the moon, or my eyes adjusting. Instead of walking in big circles as I usually did, we covered new ground, block by block. On Monday the man would come about the pergola. Phillip and I would have matching electric toothbrushes. The thing with the phone and his saying now would soon be normal. So would watching 60 Minutes. Jack looked straight up, suddenly calm, his eyes on a pair of blinking lights.

“Airplane.” I rubbed his back. “One day you’ll go on an airplane.” It disappeared, out of sight. The world felt warm and enclosed, as if we were safely inside a vast room. He craned his neck this way and that. I stroked his head.

“All the other babies in the world are asleep,” I whispered.

My legs were hungry to move, almost bouncing with each step. I could go forever, my arms wrapped around the only thing that really mattered, a full bottle in one pocket and my wallet in the other. We had everything we needed. How far would I walk? Could I reach that mountain range in the distance? I’d never really noticed the enormous peaks; they seemed to have risen up just now, lit up by the city. I walked for an hour without thinking a single thought, Jack long asleep against my chest. Most homes were completely dark or lit only by a TV. A man put his sprinkler out. Otherwise just cats, everywhere. The mountains stayed the same size for hours, as if I was pushing them ahead of me with each step. Then suddenly they were right there; I was at the foot of one. Would I feel compelled to scale it? It was hard to see the top now; I leaned back, one hand on Jack’s warm bottom. It couldn’t be seen from this close. I turned around and walked home.

AT FIVE A.M. PHILLIP STIRRED. He started when he saw me dressed, brushing my hair.

“I don’t know if you drink caffeine. I made some oolong,” I said.

His head bobbled over to the steaming cup on the bedside table. His clothes were neatly folded beside it, the electric toothbrush on top. I’d wrapped the cord into a little bundle. It took him a moment to absorb each of these things. Then he slowly stood up and began to dress in the dark. I leaned against the opposite wall and sipped my tea, watching him.

“I imagine the climate in Thailand is great for the lungs. Maybe that’s home?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I have a lot of options.”

“Just an idea.”

He buttoned and tucked in his shirt, pulled on his black socks.

“Your shoes are on the porch.”

“That’s right.”

We walked to the living room, our mugs from yesterday sitting in the dark on the coffee table.

“He’s sound asleep but if you want to have one last peek at him…” I held out the monitor. Phillip took it but hesitated before looking at the screen.

“Did he seem standoffish to you?” he asked.

“Standoffish? Jack?”

“Maybe I misread him. I felt a chilly reception.” He squinted intently at the sleeping shape. Suddenly he straightened up and handed the monitor back.

“I doubt he’s mine. You know how I know? I don’t feel anything here.” He jabbed his chest with stiff fingers; it made a hollow sound.

I stood in the doorway and watched him put his shoes on; he gave me a small salute from the porch then stumbled down the stairs. I shut the front door, very quietly, and lay down on the couch. Best to try to sleep a little before the day began.