Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [65]
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” she asked, resorting to a default tactic familiar to parents and schoolteachers.
“I think because … umm … because the mommy has a headache. The mommy is sleeping.”
nobody, not even the rain …
“Yes, she’s sleeping,” Alison said. She looked at the boy settled beanbaglike in her lap, staring up at her, and she thought about how dependent and trusting he was, how aware and yet blessedly ignorant. This boy, here, now, in her lap, breathing with his entire body, like a puppy, every fiber of him quivering with life—this child who needed her.
“Big hug,” she said in a Teletubbie voice. He reached up and sang, “B-i-i-ig hug,” holding her as tightly as a three-year-old could, his hot sweet breath on her neck, his fingers in her hair.
“SO HOW ARE things with Charlie?” her mother asked the next day. She and Alison were at a local park with Noah, sitting on a park bench watching him go down a tall slide, run around to the steps, scamper up the narrow staircase and go down again. Charlie had been up and out of the house before anyone else was awake that morning. By now he was probably on a plane to Atlanta; he’d taken a taxi to the airport from work.
“Oh, you know.” Alison shrugged. “Careful, Noah!” she called, half rising off the bench.
“I am,” Noah grunted as he slid to the bottom and trudged around the slide to the stairs.
Her mother, looking intently at Alison, didn’t even glance over at Noah. “Actually, I don’t.”
“Things are—fine. As well as can be … ” expected. Everything she could think of to say sounded trite. It’s a hard time for both of us, but we’ll get through it. “He’s been very supportive,” she said finally. And hadn’t he? He’d gone to the boy’s funeral, held her in his arms while she cried, let her crawl into bed as soon as he got home from work. Twice he’d brought her Sleepy Time tea in bed. He’d rubbed her shoulders. They’d only had sex once since the accident, but he seemed to be following her cues, and except for that one time she had been uninterested, unresponsive.
But last night, before he left, in a rare moment of clarity Alison had suddenly realized—what?—that he wasn’t fully present. Over the course of the evening she had watched him, talking to her parents with the least amount of effort or interest possible not to seem rude, dealing with the kids on a superficial level. It seemed as if he was biding his time, waiting for something. For what?
So how were things with Charlie? Fine, good, okay. She really had no idea. How long had it been since they’d engaged in a real conversation? In the evenings, preparing food together in the kitchen or watching TV, they made small talk, or didn’t talk at all. Now that she focused on it, she remembered little things: Charlie’s quick impatience that rose seemingly out of nowhere and disappeared as suddenly, a Loch Ness monster of emotion, its appearance fleeting enough that Alison thought she might have imagined it. Alison had never been suspicious, but something about his behavior was off-kilter. Or was it? How would she know?
“Maybe it’s none of my business,” her mother said, “but he seems—I don’t know. Out of it.”
“The accident has been a lot to deal with,” Alison said.
“Yes it has,” her mother agreed. She was silent for a moment, as if considering how to proceed. “But it seems like there’s something more. I don’t really know Charlie that well, Alison, so this could just be—I don’t know—the way he is. But.” She took a deep breath.
“Mommy, look a’ me!” Noah yelled. He had hauled himself up on top of the molded plastic sunshade covering the slide and was balanced there on his stomach like a surfer.
“Ohmigod, Noah,” Alison said, jumping up. She ran over to the slide. Other mothers and grandmothers and babysitters looked over with concern. Bad mother. “Noah, stay right where you are. I’m coming up.” She sprinted up the steep steps to the slide, holding on to both metal railings, and grabbed his feet. “Okay, back up,” she said.
“No!” He tried to inch forward, and she grasped his legs harder. “Mommy,