“No. I have to call her. I haven’t — why?”
“Nothing.”
He was like a baby. Eric said, “Nothing,” just the way a petulant child does, a concealment so inept it might as well be a confession.
“Sounds like it’s something,” Luke said, his broad mouth smiling, his blue eyes shining love at his father.
Eric answered Luke with a confused look, as if he didn’t recognize him. “It does?”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Are you winning these days, Daddy?”
When Luke was two, he had asked Eric what he did at work. He had been told that buying and selling stock was like a game, that you won points or lost points each day. For a while, Luke would ask, “Did you win today, Daddy?” Lately, he hadn’t.
“No,” Eric said, but he looked at Nina. “I’m not winning.”
“Well”—Luke put out his hand, palm up, and shrugged his shoulders, an imitation of Eric’s cool manner about the pooping—“you’ll have to try harder.”
“I’m trying as hard as I can,” Eric said. Nina couldn’t tell if he understood the irony of this conversation.
“You can do it, Daddy. Maybe you need to do more of your reading things. After dinner, I could watch some cartoons and you could do your reading.”
Eric smiled a heartbroken smile. Something is terribly wrong, Nina admitted to herself. He must be losing a lot. He’s scared. “Okay,” he croaked in answer to Luke.
“That’ll help you, won’t it, Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“See?” Luke said with another broad smile to Nina. “I can help Daddy do his work.”
“That’s good,” she answered Luke, and leaned across the table to kiss his sweet skin. Her beautiful boy was good, so good and so beautiful that he could get his father to talk. So good and so beautiful that it hurt to think of it.
“WHO’S HE, DADDY?” Byron’s voice trumpeted out of the enforced silence of the audience toward the legal noise of the stage.
“Shhh,” Peter whispered. “Remember, it’s not television. Everyone can hear you.”
“Okay, okay,” Byron answered in his whisper, dramatic and high-pitched. Byron dug his nails into Peter’s arm. “But who is he?”
Peter explained that the man was the hero, but he looked different because time had passed and he was grown up.
“Oh,” Byron said, and his mouth stayed open, slack, astounded by the lights, the sounds, the restless movement of the actors. Peter watched their actions play on his son’s face, their sounds animate his short legs, dangling over the cliff of his center aisle seat. When they’d gone to their seats, Peter and his three-year-old son had gotten incredulous, scandalized looks at their appearance on the fifth-row center of a Friday-night performance on Broadway.
“You’re bringing a child to this?” one rude woman had the temerity to say to Peter.
Peter stared at her. He’ll probably get more out of it than you will, he wanted to answer. He promised himself he would — the next time. Of course, he never expected Byron to last even for the first act, but what did that matter? He could get house seats and charge them to the foundation anytime — this was his one accomplishment on earth. Why shouldn’t he lavish it on Byron? So what if it was Nicholas Nickleby? So what? This was a once-in-a-lifetime feast and Byron would have had at least a bite of the hors d’oeuvres.
Peter had to talk constantly, explicating everything. Byron held on to him, as if he were blind and needed Peter to keep him from stumbling. Byron was thrilled. Peter couldn’t believe it. He had expected impatient Byron, self-indulgent Byron, center-of-attention Byron to demand they leave after ten minutes. Peter would have thought that a success. But they were more than an hour in, and yet Byron, his eyes tired, fighting to stay awake, was still taking it in, his little body reverberating with every sound, thrilled—
Just like me, Peter thought.
Finally the little head, stuffed with sensation, nodded from the weight. Byron nestled into the cushioned chair like a cat and fell asleep. Peter waited for a well-lit scene to gather Byron in his arms and walk up the aisle. The spectacle — Byron snuggled against his chest — managed to distract the audience, draw smiles, silent exclamations, and pointed fingers.
For one brief moment, Peter had upstaged Broadway.
The car he had hired was ready for them. Byron’s eyes opened when Peter had to adjust his grip to get Byron in the car.
“Daddy?” he called.
“Yes, darling,” Peter heard himself say in a soft, loving voice.
Is that me?
“Home, Daddy?”
“Yes, honey, we’re going home. Close your eyes.”
It was quiet and dark in the car, making the city’s animation and brilliance into a silent film. Byron was warm and trusting in Peter’s lap. Peter could feel Byron’s contentment, tangible, aglow in the dark.
He would rather be out with me, uncomfortable, his mind called upon to absorb the difficult, than be at home without me, patronized by some sitter — it’s being with me that makes him happy.
Peter was crying. He noticed that with surprise. A tear hung at the bone of his jaw and then fell, splashed onto Byron’s sandy hair.
“I’m sleeping, Daddy,” Byron said, his eyes closed, but with a smile. He pressed his face into the crook of Peter’s arm.
“Good,” Peter said. He had considered arranging for a sitter to come and pick up Byron at the theater and then stay himself to see Nickleby again, but he had changed his mind at the last minute, and now he was glad.
Peter carried Byron into the lobby. Two old women, irritable, gossipy crones, peered at his package. One said, “Oh, he’s sleeping.”
“Happy in Daddy’s arms,” said the other.
They weren’t so bad. At least they understood the magic of children. Upstairs, he tried to pull Byron’s clothes off, but the attempt provoked groans and Peter finally put him in the bed still dressed.
Remember to have him pee before he goes to bed, Diane had told Peter, or they’ll be soaked in the morning.
Let him pee, Peter decided, and draped the covers over Byron. Let him ruin all the sheets in Christendom.
Peter felt solid back in his study, sipping a cognac. He tried to think of other shows, other plans. Maybe they could walk in on a couple of matinees, sneak Byron into a rehearsal or run-through here and there. In a few years there were theatrical camps. His mother had once mentioned something about public library events, readings or something.
Larry. He tried to summon Larry’s face. What did Larry look like? Kotkin had asked at their last session when Peter mentioned that he had become curious about Larry now. He felt an urge to see him, confront him.
Peter took out the telephone book and looked for a residential number for Larry. He didn’t find one.
What does he do? After all these years? Cruise the docks? Or is that scene dead now? Does he stop at touching? If I’d let him go on, would Larry have stopped at that?
He should have had the sitter come. He felt restless. It was still early, only ten, and he was stuck at home with Byron. What was the point of that? Byron was asleep, for God’s sakes. I could have stayed at Nickleby, could have called Rachel. Haven’t seen her in a long time.
He dialed Rachel’s number and got her machine. “Just Peter,” he said after the beep, and hung up.
“Daddy!” Byron called at midnight. “Daddy, I peed in my bed!” he shouted, panic in his voice.
What a disgusting mess. Byron’s underpants were glued by urine to his skin, the pants probably ruined from the extent of the saturation. And Byron wailed throughout as if he were the victim. No wonder it makes Diane crazy, Peter thought. But Diane had wanted him. She has no right to complain. Peter didn’t bother to change the sheets. He covered them with towels and put Byron back in.