The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [71]
“Thirteen hours, normal to normal in thirteen hours.”
“That’s something, anyway.”
“Not a basis for confidence, though.”
She pursed her lips. “I wish you weren’t always so pessimistic.”
“As long as this lasts, why don’t we avoid talking about how we always are?”
“Okay, but no sarcasm, either.”
“A deal.” We shook hands. Lizzie threw up four more times before morning, then six times on Saturday. When I called the pediatrician for a little reassurance and told him she had thrown up twenty-two times, he said, “That’s impossible.”
Dana says that they are formed at birth, and that they spend their whole childhoods simply revealing themselves. With a sort of arrogance that you might say is typical of her, she says that she knew all this in advance, as soon as she laid her mother’s hands on them, that Lizzie did not care to snuggle, that Stephanie’s neonatal thoughts were elsewhere, that Leah wanted to melt into the warmth of Dana’s flesh. Some people cannot, will not be comforted. Lizzie is this way. She tosses off the covers and complains of the cold. Her joints ache, and she won’t take the medicine. A swallow of seltzer gives her mouth such cool pleasure that she won’t take another. She writhed about among the towels, needing and fighting sleep, and I sat near her, sometimes smoothing her forehead with the wrung-out washcloth and contemplating her doom in much the same way that you contemplate their future glory when they do well in school or learn to read at three and a half. Then she fell asleep about ten and slept all night, not doomed, but saved one more time.
Dana lay next to me in a snore, and I thought of the soul, nacreous protoplasm, ringed in the iron of the self, weak little translucent hands on the bars, pushing, yanking, desperate for release. The moonlight stood flat in the window glass, as if caught there, and I turned and pressed myself against the warmth of my disappearing wife. Leah awakened at four. She would consent to be held only by me, and there was no sitting down allowed, only walking. A torture, in the middle of the night, that could have been devised by the KGB.
That was Sunday, the resurrection of Lizzie and the marathon of Leah, kitchen, dining room, living room, an endless circle. Sometimes Dana handed me food and drink, as in the old Kingston Trio song about the fellow who got stuck on the MTA. Dana kept putting on records, to keep me occupied, and sometimes she took Leah from me, but the screams were unrelenting. Sometimes I put her down in her bed, when she seemed to be asleep, but she always woke up and called out for me. Sometimes I staggered under the weight. Sometimes I got so dizzy from the circling that I nearly fell down. I had a chant: Normal to normal in thirteen hours. Maybe it was a prayer.
For dinner Lizzie and Stephanie wanted pizza. I circled. Leah’s head rested back on her neck against my shoulder. Her mouth was open and her eyes were closed. One arm was tossed around my neck and her fingers hung in the collar of my shirt. From time to time I sat down in the rocking chair (this was always accompanied by a groan of protest from Leah) and rocked until the protests grew unbearable. The pizza came and Lizzie didn’t want any. Stephanie ate only a single piece, because Lizzie pointed out to her that mushrooms had been put on by mistake. Dana screamed at them, threw away all the rest of the pizza, said we would never order another one, and sent them to their rooms; then she flopped on the couch, ashamed and unhappy, and followed me with her gaze while I circled the downstairs.
She said, “You’re such a hero. I can’t believe it.”
“What else is there to do?”
“Yes, but you don’t even seem to want to strangle every one of them. I do. Put us all out of our misery.”
I headed for the kitchen and returned. “Are you