“I gotta go,” Diane said. The sentence came out as a single slurred word. I’m high, she thought.
“I’ll walk you to the car,” Stoppard said, and by God, he took her arm, as if she might not be able to walk.
Stoppard held her elbow as they walked down the gloomy Century Club staircase to its gloomier lobby. The old black men who took the coats, stood guard at the front desk, and opened the door seemed funereal, only recently freed by the Civil War, still mourning President Lincoln’s loss. The thought made her giddy. She turned to Stoppard. “Are Didi and I gonna make partner?”
He smiled. “You’re drunk,” he said cheerfully.
“Be responsive. I don’t care anymore. I’d just like to get over the suspense. I hate suspense.”
Stoppard just smiled, that fucking poker smile, slight, ironic, tasting some future delight, contemplating some past triumph. He went to get her coat. Diane tried to make eye contact with one of the black retainers. Her glance made him uncomfortable.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he said at last, somewhat desperately.
Stoppard helped her on with her Burberry. She was so tired of it and the rest of her lawyer uniform. She missed the frayed oversized army coat she had worn in college. Inside, the army had felt like a comfortable blanket, but she looked tough in the mirror. “No answer, huh?” she said when Stoppard took her outside to his limousine.
Stoppard paused this time, his face dark and aged, his eyes glowing black in the amber haze of the street lights. “Are you seeing a therapist?”
“No!” She was insulted that he would think she might. Therapists were for people like Peter, for all those spoiled princesses. Therapists were there to console people after their defeats.
“I think you should.”
“Huh?” I must have heard him wrong. Stoppard recommending a therapist? Would he make someone a partner who had cracked as an associate?
“Before you had your baby, you would never have blundered and asked me a question like that. And then I give you a chance to think it over, and you repeat the mistake. You never would have shown that you had any doubt you’d make partner in the old days. That’s the kind of insecurity I expect from Didi. If you doubt it, maybe I’ll start to doubt it. I don’t know if it’s motherhood or your marriage or what, but something’s got you off-balance.”
She felt her stomach contract on the day’s emptiness. Taking Byron to the test had been her lunch, the cocktails her only sustenance. Her mouth went dry. She tried to replay Stoppard’s speech even as he was finishing; she tried to calculate whether he was advising, admonishing, or dismissing. Was he friend or foe now? “I think you’re overreacting,” she said quickly, knowing, from somewhere, that that response was the perfect camouflage for confusion.
Stoppard surprised her. He lifted his chin and laughed up at the buildings. When he was finished with this exhibition of hilarity, Stoppard looked at her with pity. “Go home, dear. Think about what I said.”
She was baffled and found herself inside the car, without remembering getting inside. She sat stupefied, her brain stuck on the last exchange. Why did he laugh? “I think you’re overreacting.” What’s funny about that?
DADDY HOME. Daddy home. Daddy home.
Luke was free of gravity again. He twirled in the air, the long wait over.
“Look, Luke, I brought you something.” Daddy pulled out a shiny package, a toy in a bubble, with bright-colored letters all around.
It was He-Man!
“Do you know what this is?” Daddy said. “Byron’s mommy told me about it.”
“Is that one of those action figures?” Mommy said.
“Yes, it’s He-Man!” Luke said. She didn’t know, couldn’t know. “That’s He-Man!” Luke said loud, very loud, so she would know.
“He’s pretty special, huh?” Mommy said.
“It has a story with it,” Daddy said, holding a bright square of still cartoons in his hand.
“Read it to me,” Luke said, worried it was too soon. Daddy still had his coat on.
“Sure. Let’s see, ‘He-Man meets Ram Man.’ ”
“Why don’t you take your coat off first?” Mommy said.
Daddy looked at Mommy.
“Hello,” Mommy said to Daddy, as if they’d just met.
Luke laughed. Mommy knows Daddy.
“Hi. How was your day?” Daddy said to Mommy.
“A little tiring,” Mommy said.
Mommy didn’t tiring. She didn’t sleep. “Sorry,” Daddy said.
He began to bump and shake. He-Man danced in Luke’s hands. He-Man’s body moved! Just like Byron’s He-Man. It was the same!
“Look.” Luke showed them. The arms punched. The legs walked. The stomach twisted. He-Man was the same as Byron’s, but brighter, his colors everywhere, not missing like Byron’s.
“I think you’d better hang it up,” Mommy said.
Luke clutched He-Man. He wanted to keep it. “It’s okay here,” Daddy said, and pushed his coat away. How did he get it off?
Daddy read about He-Man. He could smash walls. He made friends with Ram Man, who had a metal head and legs that jumped. And there was an evil, which means bad, man made of bones. When Daddy finished, he said, “He-Man has his own TV show. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” Luke said. But what is a show?
“It’s on in the morning. We can watch it together.” Daddy looked at Mommy. She nodded at him. “Did Mommy tell you about Pearl coming tomorrow to play with you?”
“No.” Why here? Why not in the park?
“Pearl’s gonna come here and play and help Mommy.”
“Help Mommy?”
“You know, clean. And stay here with you if Mommy has to go out.”
Luke looked at Mommy. She had her sad mouth, her chin smashed in, her eyes sideways.
“You know how Francine sometimes stays with Byron,” Mommy said.
“She always stays with him,” Luke said. Daddy’s body got hard. Byron’s mommy was never there, Luke wanted to say, but Daddy’s body got too hard, Mommy’s mouth too broken.
“Not like that,” Mommy said. “Not all the time.”
“Just for part of each day,” Daddy said.
“Each day!” Luke knew now. Mommy was leaving him, like the other mommies. Pearl wasn’t Mommy. She wouldn’t know how to do things.
“Nothing’s gonna happen for a while,” Mommy said fast. “Pearl and I are both gonna be here for a long time. I won’t go away until Pearl knows everything about you and how you like things. Okay?”
Mommy was leaving. Her broken chin told him the truth. She was leaving.
“Look at what He-Man can do!” Daddy said, and made the tan body twist and punch.
Luke closed his eyes to escape them, Daddy’s toy, Mommy’s worried face.
Daddy’s body got soft, his arms hard, and he squeezed.
Luke cried. He let his worries go into the shake of his chest and the wet of his eyes.
“Don’t worry, Luke,” Mommy said.
“Let’s play with He-Man,” Daddy said.
“No!” He wanted to be away from their leaving. He shut his eyes and wept. He wanted to be free from their going.
“Don’t worry, Luke,” Mommy said.
“Everything’s all right,” Daddy said.
“No!” Luke tried to yell, to break away, but they wouldn’t let him go — go away from their going.
THE WATER loves me, Byron thought. The thunderous fall from the faucet blasted the bubbles. He looked into the hole.