“Ian,” Thomas said, “why don’t you come over anymore?”
“Now we got no one,” Agatha said, “and Mama called Mrs. Myrdal and begged and pleaded but Mrs. Myrdal hung up on her.”
“Are you mad on account of I beat you at Parcheesi last time?” Thomas asked.
“Beat me!” Ian said. “That was just a fluke. The merest coincidence. Bring on the board and I’ll prove it, you young upstart.”
Thomas tittered and went off for the Parcheesi board.
While the two children were setting up the game on the rug, Ian phoned Cicely. “Hello?” she said, out of breath.
“Hi,” he said. He shifted Daphne to his hip.
“Oh, Ian. Hi.”
“I’m over baby-sitting at Lucy’s. Just thought I’d let you know, in case you find yourself desperate for the sound of my voice or something.”
“Baby-sitting! When will you be done?”
“It shouldn’t take long. Lucy promised—”
“I have to go,” Cicely broke in. “I’m following this recipe that says Simmer covered, stirring constantly. Can you figure that out? I mean, am I supposed to keep popping the cover off and popping it back on, or what? Do you suppose—”
She hung up, perhaps still talking. Ian sat down on the rug and settled Daphne on his knee.
It was true he liked all games, but Thomas and Agatha were not very challenging opponents. They employed a strategy of avoidance, fearfully clinging to the safety squares and deliberating whole minutes before venturing into open territory. Also, Thomas couldn’t add. Each toss of the dice remained two separate numbers, laboriously counted out one by one. “A two and a four. One, two. One, two, three—”
“Six,” Ian said impatiently. He scooped up the dice and flung them so they skittered across the board. “Eight,” he said. “Ha!” Eight was what he needed to capture Agatha’s man.
“No fair,” she told him. “One douse went on the carpet.”
“Die,” he said.
Her jaw dropped.
“One die went on the carpet,” he said. He picked up his own man.
“No fair if they don’t land on the board!” she said. “You have to take your turn over.”
“I should worry, I should care, only babies cry no fair,” Ian singsonged. He pounded his man down the board triumphantly. “Five, six, seven—”
The phone rang.
“—eight,” he said, nudging aside Agatha’s man. He hoisted Daphne to his shoulder and reached up for the phone on the plastic cube table. “Hello?”
“Ian?”
“Hi, Cicely.”
“On your way over, could you pick up some butter? My white sauce didn’t thicken and I had to throw it out and start again, and now I don’t have enough butter for the rolls.”
“Sure thing,” Ian said. “So how’s our friend Stevie?”
“Stevie?”
“Is he getting ready for bed yet?”
“Not now, it’s a quarter past seven.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Oops!” she said.
She hung up.
Ian hoped she wasn’t losing sight of the important issues here. White sauce, rolls, what did he care? He just wanted to get that brother of hers out of the picture.
Daphne breathed damply into his left ear. He boosted her higher on his shoulder and turned back to the game.
They finished Parcheesi and started Old Maid. Old Maid was sort of pointless, though, because Thomas couldn’t bluff. He had that sallow kind of skin that reveals every emotion; whenever he grew anxious, bruiselike shadows deepened beneath his eyes.
The game went on forever and Daphne started fussing. “She wants her bottle,” Agatha said, not lifting her gaze from her cards. Ian went out to the kitchen to take her bottle from the refrigerator, and while he waited for it to warm he jounced Daphne up and down. It didn’t do any good, though; he seemed to have lost his charm. All she did was fuss harder and climb higher on his shoulder, working her nosy, sharp little toes irritatingly between his ribs.
When he returned to the living room, the other two had abandoned the card game and were watching TV. He sat between them on the couch and fed Daphne while a barefoot woman sang a folk song about hammering in railroad ties. Thomas sucked his thumb. Agatha wound a strand of hair around her index finger. Daphne fell asleep halfway through her bottle and Ian rose cautiously and carried her to her crib.
At 8:15, he started getting angry. How was he supposed to make it to Cicely’s by 8:30? Also he had to stop off at home beforehand—change clothes, filch some wine from the pantry. Damn, he should have seen to all that before he came here. He jiggled a foot across his knee and watched a housewife in high heels explaining that bacteria cause odors.
At 8:35, the phone rang. He sprang for it, already preparing his response. (No, you can’t stay out longer.) “Ian?” Cicely asked. “When you come, could you bring some gravy mix?”
“Gravy mix.”
“I just can’t understand where I went wrong.”
Ian said, “Did Stevie get to bed all right?”
“I’m going to see to that in a minute, but first this gravy! I pick up the spoon and everything in the pan comes with it, all in a clump.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” Ian told her. “I’ll bring the mix. Meanwhile, you get Stevie into bed.”
“Well …” Cicely said, trailing off.
“Dad’s old rocker dull and gray?” two girls sang on TV. “Stain it, wax it, the Wood-Witch way!”
After he’d hung up, Ian turned to the children and asked, “Did your mother say where she was going?”
“No,” Agatha said.
“Was it someplace she could walk to?”
“I don’t know.”
He rose and went to the front window. Beyond the gauzy curtains he saw street lamps glinting faintly and squares of soft yellow light from the neighboring houses.
There was a wet, uncorking sound behind him—Thomas’s thumb popping out of his mouth. “She went in a car,” Thomas said distinctly.
Ian turned.
“She went in a car with Dot,” Thomas told him. “Dot lives down the block a ways and Mama went over to her house and got herself a ride.” He replaced his thumb.
A wail floated from the children’s room. Ian glanced at Agatha. A second wail, more assured.
“You didn’t burp her,” Agatha said serenely.
Thomas merely sent him the drugged, veiled gaze of a dedicated thumb-sucker.
From 8:40 to 9:15 Ian walked Daphne around and around the living room. Thomas and Agatha quarreled over the afghan. Thomas kicked Agatha in the shin and she started crying—unconvincingly, it seemed to Ian. She rolled her knee sock down to her thick white ankle and pointed out, “See? See there what he did?”
Ian patted the baby more rapidly and revised his plans. He would not go home first after all; they would do without the wine and butter and whatever. He would simply explain to Cicely when he got there. “I don’t care about dinner,” he would say, drawing her into his arms. “I care about you.” And they would climb the stairs together, tiptoeing past her brother’s door and into—
Oh-oh.
The one thing he could not do without—the three things, in their linked foil packets—lay in the toe of his left gym shoe at the very back of his closet. There was no way he could avoid going by his house.
The phone rang again and Ian picked up the receiver and barked, “What!”
Cicely said, “Ian, where are you?”
“This goddamn Lucy,” he said, not caring if the children heard. “I’ve a good mind to just walk on out of here.”
Agatha looked up from her shin and said, “You wouldn’t!”
“Everything’s stone cold,” Cicely said.
“Well, don’t worry. The dinner’s not important—”
“Not important! I’ve been slaving all day over this dinner! We’re having flank steak stuffed with mushrooms, and baked potatoes stuffed with cheese
, and green peppers stuffed with—”
“But how about Stevie? Did Stevie get to bed all right?”
“He got to bed hours ago.” Ian groaned.
“Is that all you care about?” Cicely asked. “Don’t you care about my cooking?”
“Oh! Yes! Your cooking,” Ian said. “I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
“No, don’t say that! I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
“Cicely,” Ian said. “Listen. I’ll be over soon no matter what. Just wait for me.”
He hung up to find Thomas and Agatha eyeing him reproachfully. “What’re you going to do? Leave us on our own?” Thomas asked.
“You’re not babies anymore,” Ian said. “You can take care of yourselves.”
“Mama never lets us. She worries we’d get into the matches.”
“Well, would you?” Ian asked him.
Thomas considered awhile. Finally he said, “We might.”
Ian sighed and went back to walking Daphne.
For the next half hour or so, they played I Spy. That was the most Ian could manage with Daphne fretting in his arms. Agatha said, “I spy, with my little eye …” and her gaze roamed the room. Ian was conscious all at once of the mess that had grown up around them—the playing cards, the twisted afghan, the strewn Parcheesi pieces.
“… with my little eye, as clear as the sky …” Agatha said, drawing it out.
“Will you just for God’s sake get on with it?” Ian snapped.
“Well, I’m trying, Ian, if you wouldn’t keep interrupting.”
Then she had to start over again. “I spy, with my little eye …”
Ian thought of Lucy’s gray eyes and her perfect, lipsticked mouth. The red of her lipstick was a bitter red, with something burnt in it. She had had things her own way every minute of her life, he suspected. Women who looked like that never needed to consider other people.
Daphne finally unknotted and fell asleep, and Ian carried her to the children’s room. He lowered her into the crib by inches and then waited, holding his breath. At that moment he heard the front door open.
His first concern was that the noise would disturb Daphne. That was how thoroughly he’d been sidetracked. Then he realized he was free to go, and he headed out to tell Lucy what he thought of her.
But it wasn’t Lucy; it was Danny, standing just inside the living room door and screwing up his face against the light. Ian could tell he’d had a couple of beers. He wore a loose, goofy smile that was familiar from past occasions. “Ian, fellow!” he said. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m going out of my mind,” Ian told him.
“Ah.”
“Your wife was due back ages ago, and anyhow I didn’t want to come in the first place.”
“Thomas!” Danny said fervently, peering toward the couch. “And Agatha!” He seemed surprised to see them, too. He told Ian, “You sure did miss a great party. Good old Bucky Hargrove!”
“Look,” Ian said. “I am running late as hell and I need you to give me a lift to Cicely’s house.”
“Huh? Oh. Why, sure,” Danny said. “Sure, Ian. Except—” He pondered. “Except how about the kids?” he asked finally.
“How about them?”
“We can’t just leave them.”
“Take them along, then,” Ian said, exasperated. “Let’s just go.”
“Take Daphne, too? Where’s Daphne?”
Ian gritted his teeth. The Kent cigarette song sailed out from the TV, mindless and jaunty. He turned to Agatha and said, “Agatha, you and Thomas will have to stay here and baby-sit.”
She stared at him.
“Seven minutes, tops,” Ian said. “Don’t open the front door no matter who knocks, and don’t answer the phone. Understand?”
She nodded. Thomas’s eyes were ringed like a raccoon’s.
“Let’s go,” Ian told Danny.
Danny was swaying slightly on his feet and watching Ian with mild, detached interest. “Well …” he said.
“Come on, Danny!”
Ian snatched up his jacket and gave Danny a push in the right direction. As they walked out he felt a weight slipping blessedly from his shoulders. He wondered how people endured children on a long-term basis—the monotony and irritation and confinement of them.
Outside it was much colder than before, and wonderfully quiet.
Danny bumped his head getting into the car, and he had some trouble determining which key to use. After that, though, he started the engine easily, checked sensibly for traffic, and pulled into the street. “So!” he said. “Cicely lives on Lang Avenue, right?”
“Right,” Ian said. “Stop by home first, though.”
“Stop by home first,” Danny repeated meekly.
Ian tapped a foot against the floorboards. He felt commanding and energetic, charged up by righteous anger.
Dimly lit houses slid past them, and a dog chased the car a block or so before giving up. Danny started whistling a tune, something sort of jazzy and hootchy-kootchy. Probably they’d had a stripper at Bucky Hargrove’s party, and waitresses in fishnet stockings and girls popping out of cakes and such. And Ian, meanwhile, had been warming baby bottles. He swung toward Danny sharply and said, “I might as well inform you right now that you have lost your favorite sitter for all eternity.”
“Huh? What say?” Danny asked.
“I had a huge, important engagement at eight-thirty. I’m talking crucial. Lucy knew that. She swore on a stack of Bibles she’d be back in time.”
“Where is she, anyhow?” Danny asked, flicking his turn signal.
“Drinking with a girlfriend. So she says.”
“I didn’t even know she was planning to go out.”
“Her waitress friend, Dot. Is what she claims.”
“Dot from the Fill ’Er Up Café,” Danny agreed.
“Goddamnit, Danny, are you blind?” Ian shouted.
Danny’s eyes widened and he looked frantically in all directions. “Blind?” he asked. “What?”
“She’s out more often than she’s in! Don’t you ever wonder who she’s with?”
“Why, no, I …”
“And how about that baby?”
“Baby?”
“Premature baby? Get serious. Premature baby with dimples?”
Danny opened his mouth.
“Two months early and breathing on her own, no incubator, no problems?”
“She was—”
“She was somebody else’s,” Ian said.
“Come again?”
“I just want to know how long you intend to be a fall guy,” Ian said.
Danny turned onto Waverly and drew up in front of the house. He cut the engine and looked over at Ian. He seemed entirely sober now. He said, “What are you trying to tell me, Ian?”
“She’s out all afternoon any time she can get a sitter,” Ian said. “She comes back perfumed and laughing and wearing clothes she can’t afford. That white knit dress. Haven’t you ever seen her white dress? Where’d she get it? How’d she pay for it? How come she married you quick as a flash and then had a baby just seven months later?”
“You’re talking about that dress with the kind of like crisscrossed middle,” Danny said.
“That’s the one.”
Danny started rubbing his right temple with his fingertips. When it didn’t seem he meant to say anything further, Ian got out of the car.
Inside the house, only the hall lamp was lit. His parents must still be at the Finches’. Beastie rose from the rug, yawning, and followed him up the stairs, which he climbed two steps at a time. He went directly to his room, fell to his knees in front of the closet, and rooted through the clutter for his gym shoes. Once he’d located the foil strip, he slid it into his rear pocket and stood up. Then he ducked into the bathroom. The biggest night of his life and he couldn’t even stop to shower. He wet his fingers at the sink and ran them through his hair. He bared his teeth to the mirror and debated whether to brush th
em.
In the street below, an engine roared up. What on earth? He drew aside the curtain and peered out. It was Danny’s Chevy, all right. The headlights were two yellow ribbons swinging away from the curb. The car took off abruptly, peeling rubber. Ian dropped the curtain. He turned to confront his own stunned face in the mirror.
Near the stone wall at the end of the block the brakes should have squealed, but instead the roaring sound grew louder. It grew until something had to happen, and then there was a gigantic, explosive, complicated crash and then a delicate tinkle and then silence. Ian went on staring into his own eyes. He couldn’t seem to look away. He couldn’t even blink, couldn’t move, because once he moved then time would start rolling forward again, and he already knew that nothing in his life would ever be the same.
2
The Department of Reality
When the baby woke from her afternoon nap, she made a noise like singing. “La!” she called. But the only ones who heard were Thomas and Agatha. They were coloring at the kitchen table. Their crayons slowed and they looked at each other. Then they looked toward their mother’s room. Nowadays their mother took naps too. She said it was the heat. She said if they would just let her be she would stay in bed from spring till fall, sleeping away this whole hot, muggy summer.
“La!” Daphne called again.
They couldn’t pick her up themselves because last week Thomas had dropped her. He’d been trying to feed her a bottle and she had somehow tumbled to the floor and bumped her head. After that their mother said neither one of them could hold her anymore, which wasn’t at all fair to Agatha. Agatha had turned seven this past April and she was big for her age besides. She would never have allowed Daphne to wiggle away like that.
Now Daphne was talking to herself in a questioning tone of voice, like, Where is everybody? Have they all gone off and left me?
Agatha’s page of the coloring book had an outline of an undressed man full of veins and arteries. You were supposed to color the veins blue and the arteries red. A tiny B and R started you off and from then on you were on your own, boy. Tough luck if you slipped over onto the wrong branch accidentally and started coloring the red parts blue. It was just about the most boring picture in the world but Agatha kept at it, even when the veins narrowed to black threads and she didn’t have a hope of staying inside the lines.