With a wide grin and a slow nod, his son dismissed him.
Curlicues of steam rose from the sink as he lathered his cheeks with shaving cream. He dipped the razor into the stream of hot water and began to shave in confident strokes. Just as he scraped the last bit of foam, the dull blade nicked his skin and a bright red berry of blood appeared on his throat. A short agitated cough escaped his lips, for he could not remember the last time he had cut himself shaving. He pressed his thumb to the spot on his neck below his left ear, and in a moment, the bleeding stopped. The hot water had fogged the mirror, and behind him, a cold breeze fluttered the curtain. Someone had left the window open, so he forced it shut. The snow had given way to pale sunshine. He shrugged out of his robe and stripped to the skin.
The room was freezing, so he let the water run till great clouds of smoke rose, and then he slipped into the shower and closed the glass door behind him. The heat and humidity unkinked his muscles and relaxed his joints as readily as a sauna. Working shampoo into his hair, he massaged his scalp. Images of Nell on the beach crossed his mind, how she leaned toward him close enough to touch. A line of perspiration runs between her breasts, and the fine hairs at her nape glisten in the sunlight. He cupped his scrotum in his free hand. Where are the boys? She was the first to notice, springing to her feet, casting a shadow over him as he turned on his belly. Shampoo began to drip in his eyes. The temperature dropped suddenly as though someone had opened the door, and when he strained to focus his stinging eyes, he thought he saw her enter the room. Just as abruptly, the sensation vanished, and he saw on the glass shower door, now visible in the condensation, a crude drawing of a naked woman, stylized and slightly misshapen, long curly hair, contours of breasts, the thumbprints of two nipples. He rubbed at the drawing, only to discover that it had been traced on the outside surface. “Jip,” he bellowed, but of course, the boy was too far away to hear, and besides, why would he have drawn such a thing? Surely, he is too young to be thinking of naked women. For all Tim knew, his son never thought of sex at all, or at least he had never said a word about it. The fog from the shower rose and bumped into the ceiling, billowing across the room and settling into every corner. He rinsed his hair and stepped from the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist.
Slowly swiping his hand, Tim erased the image on the glass, leaving behind a beaded trail. He felt like a criminal destroying evidence and could not shake the sensation that there was a conspirator in the room, just behind him. As he turned, a face in the mirror leapt into view. Finger-drawn on the surface was another face, a woman’s surely, but more haggard and distorted than the other. The hair was just a suggestion on a high and prominent forehead, and one eye drooped, its iris clouded and vacant as the blind gaze of a Roman statue. As he smeared the drawing, Tim wondered momentarily how he had not noticed it earlier when he shaved. “That kid,” he muttered to himself. “He’s drawing everywhere.” Just beyond his reflection, he thought he saw the one-eyed woman again, and in the glass of the shower door, the memory of the naked woman seemed to rearrange itself from the constellation of water drops. He quickly combed his hair and dressed in a pullover and sweatpants, anxious to be out of there. The mist followed him into the hallway, and he raced down the stairs.
The kitchen was cold as a morgue, but the boys were just where he had left them, busy at the table with a pile of papers. Around their heads they had fitted the hoods of their sweatshirts, so they resembled a pair of medieval scribes illuminating a manuscript. In a frigid cell without a fire. He shivered and found the problem at once: an open window funneled winter into the room. Hurrying to close it, he barked at his son. “What’s wrong with you, Jip? Why are you leaving all these windows open in the dead of winter? The bathroom was as cold as a witch’s tit, and now this. And the heat has been on all day.”
Jack Peter stopped his drawing in the middle of a line. The point of his pencil hung an inch above the surface, and he sat still and expressionless, as his father stormed around the room looking for other open windows. Nick followed with his gaze, waiting for the chance to answer the charge.
“We didn’t do it.” A line of clear mucus escaped from his nose, and he sniffed and wiped it with his sleeve.
With grave concentration, Jack Peter tapped his pencil on the tabletop, slowly at first, but then with greater speed and force.
“Don’t,” his father said. “You’ll ruin it, J.P.” But the boy kept tapping.
“Stop, Jip. I said stop.”
He was more frantic and forceful. The point left small marks in the soft wood.