A nurse appeared. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave in five minutes.”
“Can’t they make up a bed for you here?” Lily whispered to Diane. She knew that had already been refused.
“I’m going to get you something to help you sleep,” the nurse said. She had overheard.
“Drugs. That’s their answer to everything,” Lily said.
When the nurse returned with a sleeping pill, Diane said, “I’m going to stay fifteen minutes until she’s drowsy.”
“I’m sorry,” the nurse answered, eyes blank, her voice mechanical, “but it’s against hospital procedures.”
“Just fifteen minutes.”
“I’m sorry, it’s a rule. You wouldn’t want anyone to say later that we had done things wrong. That’s the kind of thing—”
“I’m a lawyer,” Diane answered. This is my mom, after all. I can be obnoxious. “And I certainly wouldn’t want to have to waste my professional time on any of this. So I’m going to stay here for fifteen minutes as a visitor. Thank you.” Diane didn’t look at the nurse to judge her effect. She kept her eyes on Lily. The nurse remained for a moment, then left.
Lily’s face was transformed. “You told her!” she said with a delighted smile, a Byron-smile of mischief and power. “You should have seen the look on her face!”
“I was bluffing. There’s nothing I can do about her wanting to kick me out.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re a professional person. They respect that.” Lily seemed to have forgotten all her worries and self-pity. She smoothed the blanket down and pursed her lips. “My daughter. You told her.”
I’ve sat here holding her hand and talking softly and she got more scared by the minute. Two sentences of bullshit and she’s happy. She wants me, after all the years of talk about my marriage, having children, worrying over my femininity, after all that, she really does want me to be in control, to be another Daddy, to be strong.
“When the doctor comes out and tells you about the operation, I want you to get the truth out of him. Threaten him if you have to. I know he’s lying. Doctors don’t feel important unless they lie to you.”
Diane wanted to say, You’re crazy, he’s not lying, but Diane knew now that wasn’t what her mother wanted. “Don’t worry, Ma.” This was her revised speech, her conditional good-bye. “I love you, you’re my mother. If they don’t take good care of you, I’ll sue them for every penny they’ve got.”
Lily smiled. She put her head back on the pillow. She closed her eyes. She looked dead. She spoke in that pose. The sight of her, still, her head aloft on the pillows, was eerie. “I was very lucky to have you. If you had been a boy, you couldn’t have helped me and I couldn’t have helped you. If you had been like me, weak and scared and silly, I couldn’t have made it through your daddy’s death. You didn’t need help. You gave it. My strong little girl.” Lily opened her eyes and they were swimming with love, with her easy tears of unhappiness, her eyes big and old and, like always, not seeing very clearly.
“Okay, Ma,” Diane said, feeling her pretense about to collapse, unable to keep up the calm and strength on her face that was expected. She stroked Lily’s hand. “Go to sleep now.” Soothing a baby. “Go to sleep now.”
NINA WAS ready for Eric when he came out of Luke’s room, finished with the bedtime ritual. “I’ve got great news.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been promoted again.” Eric said this pleasantly. He hadn’t objected to her job as Tad’s assistant, but Nina was convinced that Eric’s reserve over his own worries had evolved into deviousness. Ever since her mother had called and asked a lot of pointless, atypical questions about the well-being of Nina’s marriage, Nina thought something had to be up. Something more than Eric’s “I’m having a bad run of luck. That’s why I’m in such a shitty mood. I just gotta reposition stuff, then I’ll be okay,” something more than that was up.
“No,” Nina said, excited. Here was a great present for Eric.
She couldn’t say it in front of Luke and the wait had been almost unbearable. “I got the results of Luke’s IQ test. Well, not the results, they don’t give that out. But they tell you what’s on it. Here— I knew I couldn’t remember it exactly — I made some notes.” Nina took out the paper she had kept in her purse since morning. She had always known that Luke was bright, but the tester’s comments had astonished her anyway. “They do it by age levels. His vocabulary is at the top of the range, a nine — it goes no higher than nine.”
“Nine?” Eric was shot with excitement, standing in the middle of the living room, going up on his toes, and then down on his heels, hands in his pocket, jiggling keys and money.
“Nine years old that means. Vocabulary, his language was at the top. Nine. His math skills were eight. Then, in a category, I forget what she called it, abstract reasoning, cognitive something, anyway, she told me it’s very important because it measures ability, rather than acquired knowledge, was also at the very top, nine. Also orientation was nine.”
“Orientation?”
“Knowing his name, his address—”
“Right, right,” Eric said. “Diane, Byron’s mother, told me that was something they did. So I taught him our phone number, our address. Even taught him our zip code.”
Nina was amazed. “You’re kidding.”
Eric smiled. He rocked on his heels and beamed. “I thought I should teach him more than just how to take a crap. Didn’t he do badly on anything?”
Of course. Eric wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t be happy if there weren’t something a little wrong. “Well, his motor skills were only between five and six.”
Sure enough, that shot Eric down from his floatation up to the heavens. He took his hands out of his pockets, from his excited rattling, and he sank into a chair. “What the hell are motor skills?”
“Folding a triangle, drawing a circle. She said boys are always a little behind girls in that area.”
“Folding a triangle! What the hell is the point of that!”
Nina wanted him to be satisfied, to be happy, to know that he was a good man, that he was a successful father. She tried to smooth disapproval out of her answer: “Eric, he was still two to three years ahead of his chronological age. And listen to this.” She read from her notes: “ ‘Luke will make an excellent student. His ability to concentrate and complete a task is well-developed beyond his years. He is in the upper quarter of the 99th percentile of his age-group. He would thrive in a competitive, challenging academic environment.’ ”
Eric looked off, toward their windows. His mouth hung open and his face softened. “Good for him,” he said, and then cleared his throat loudly. “You did a great job.”
“So did you,” Nina said, although she didn’t think it had been a job, didn’t think they had done anything, except love Luke.
“No, I mean, you must have done a great job of keeping him relaxed when you took him to the test. I knew I shouldn’t take him. He would have sensed how nervous I was about it. Well, now we’re in great shape. Every one of those fucking schools will want him!” Eric leaned back and he smiled. “I was scared. You know? I was really scared I would fuck him up with my stupid genes.”
No. He can’t mean this, he can’t be this crazy. “What are you talking about, Eric? You’re not stupid.”
“Well, everyone is always telling me I am. But not Luke. They can all go fuck themselves now, for all I care.” He let out air, not a sigh, but an explosive release. “Your parents will always pay for Luke’s schooling, right?” Eric asked abruptly. His face was back to that mask of rigid worry. “I mean, no matter what. They’ll always pay for him to go to good schools?”
Nina studied Eric. He wanted to tell her. “What’s wrong, Eric? Are you losing everything?”