Eric’s body ached. It told him: you can’t keep this up.
I will.
You will lose your clients.
I won’t.
You will get killed on your bike.
I won’t.
This will make no difference. Your son will always be like this.
He won’t.
Out of the corner of his eye, Eric saw Luke’s eyes begin to close, the lids rocking open and shut with the motion, each time, shutting tighter, opening less.
No matter what it does to me, Eric said to the fate that tormented him, I will fight to make this work. I will give every drop of my soul to rescue my son from your evil.
Eric vowed to himself: he will never cry again. I will rock him even if I drop dead doing it. He will never cry again.
In the silence of the room, he rested his thoughts, his worries. He felt his son’s warmth and relaxation. From time to time Luke started in his sleep. Eric yearned to let go of him, to be free to sleep himself. Eric’s stomach cringed for food. The sun went down, darkness seeping into the apartment. There were no sounds from Nina’s room. Luke’s body finally went so limp that his head slid gradually down into the crook of Eric’s arm.
It was night. Hours had passed.
Eventually Nina began to make noises. He heard sheets rustling. Then footsteps. Dishes loaded into the machine. The garbage can being lifted, a bag tied, the front door opening. Finally she appeared at the doorway, peering cautiously into the dark room.
“Is he asleep?” she asked.
Eric couldn’t speak to her. He nodded.
“Why don’t you lay him down?”
“You know why,” he said.
“I can’t handle it,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m going to need some help.”
“Fine. Hire someone.”
“We have the money?”
“No. But I’ll get the money.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Maybe my parents—”
“I’ll get the money.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No.”
Nina stood there. Eric felt nothing but rage at her. “Are you angry?” she asked.
“Don’t ever let him cry like that again.”
“I just couldn’t—”
“Don’t!” he shouted. Luke started in his arms. Eric began to rock again. “Don’t!” he whispered from the darkness to his wife. “Call me if you have to. But don’t ever let him cry and be alone again. Don’t ever leave him alone and unhappy.”
Nina covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God,” she said.
“That’s all I ask. You can get help, you don’t have to cook. You don’t have to even think about me. But he must never be left to cry.”
In the night of their apartment Eric continued to rock his son. Nina slumped to her knees slowly. He heard her sob.
He didn’t care.
PETER LAY on the couch in his study, the book for a new musical in his lap, and listened to his just purchased compact disk player, a clever machine hardly larger than the disk itself, through his new earphones. He had on a recording of the Follies concert and was enthralled.
There was so much genius in the world.
Writers, actors, composers, designers, painters, dancers, directors — geniuses everywhere, it seemed to Peter (at least sometimes), even though the arts were dying financially, even though serious work was rarely popular. But that sad fact was what made Peter necessary. And important. And worthwhile.
Peter was today’s commissioning Borgia, today’s Pope ordering Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, today’s Theo supporting Vincent. He stood, like a breaker wall, against the surf of mediocrity, the foam of vulgar nonsense. If Peter hadn’t funded The Titan, its brilliant score might never have been heard, certainly not on Broadway, and then there would have been no Pulitzer, no big-budget movie. That gem, that work of genius, would never have shone so bright without Peter’s quiet support. Quiet? Invisible, rather. Oh, to be sure, there was a little note in the program: the producers thank the Stillman Foundation for its help, blah, blah. But no Peter Hummel was identified as having talked the foundation into writing the check. Among his colleagues, Peter was credited. To the theater producers, to the major artists of today, Peter was known to be an angel, a true angel, his money not a lien against future success, nor an unthinking pretension of a rich widow. But of course — and recent cutbacks had made Peter feel this fact keenly — the money wasn’t Peter’s.
Diane had promised sex. Peter glanced at the clock. She had wanted to take a bath first. Time was up.
Peter had come home hungry for Diane. But now, after dinner, after Byron’s and Diane’s baths, Peter was hours away from the titillation of the Harlequin Theater’s cocktail party. There, along with the sour wine and dry cheese, were the female hors d’oeuvres that had whetted his appetite. Blond, brunette, black, and red-haired; full-breasted and languorous, small-breasted and energetic; long-limbed and shy, small-boned and bold; wide shoulders and long necks, tiny wrists and red nails; big eyes, warm browns, bright blues, glistening greens; dark skin, white skin, freckles, pimples, shaved armpits, downy arms, the menagerie of women, so various, each reinventing her sex so that they seemed unrelated, loose from their cages, free in the wild to dazzle men. Peter had come home horny, wanting to go out, to seduce Diane, to taste her long-haired vagina and the dark meat of her skin.
That appetite hadn’t survived the tepid pizza and the dinner conversation, an hour of Diane’s complaint that Byron hadn’t greeted her when she came home. The sexual hunger had cramped in his belly and been forgotten.
While they ate the thick-crusted and tasteless pizza, Byron ignored Diane’s sporadic and irritated “Hello, Byron!” to coo at Peter. Finally Peter held out his hand to quiet Byron. Byron gripped his father’s pinkie in his soft, padded fist and squeezed with an impressive but harmless might.
“He loves everybody but me,” Diane said.
“Nonsense,” Peter answered. “It’s just the opposite. Punishing you for deserting him proves how much he loves you.”
“He’s four months old! How could he know to single me out?”
“We learn early, my dear,” Peter said, and laughed, shaking his pinkie and, with it, Byron’s hand. “Right?” he asked his son. Byron opened his toothless mouth and chortled. The baby feet kicked with pleasure.
“Come here,” Diane said, and grabbed her laughing son. This time, held aloft, while Diane buried her face into Byron’s belly, kissing his chest and then the round pearl of his face, this time, this Byron giggled and smiled at Diane with pleasure. Relieved, Diane squeezed Byron to her, madly kissing his skull, his ear, his brow, his eyes, his dollop of a nose, and then she pursed her lips in front of his rounded, puffy lips and kissed him on the mouth.
The sight was obscene to Peter. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You’re gonna turn him into a fag.”
“Oh, that’s disgusting!” Diane said. Byron kicked, reached for her, pulling at the long black hair, latching onto her big nose, digging at the mystery of his mother. “You know, we’re very lucky with Byron.”
“We are?” Peter asked. Peter liked Byron, even loved him when they communed for a half hour each night before dinner, but he couldn’t quite feel that having any son, no matter how charming, meant he was lucky.
“He’s a very good baby.”
“Why? Are other babies his age stealing cars and dealing drugs?”
“No!” Diane barely smiled. “I know from talking to Betty, from Francine, from my mother, for God’s sake. He sleeps through the night, he doesn’t fuss—”
“Just like you,” Peter said.
Again she ignored his joke. “He’s an easy baby.”
“Well … we get the credit, don’t we? They’re our genes.”