“Kinda odd, don’t you think, that he doesn’t look like his parents?”
At sunset my mother, Charlie, and I sat on the porch watching the moths dance, and the matter of Edward’s appearance arose again.
“Don’t listen to those two,” my mother said. “He’s the spit and image of you, with maybe a little Tess around the eyes.”
Uncle Charlie sucked on a pop bottle, burped softly. “The boy looks exactly like me. All my grandchildren do.” Eddie tottered across the floorboards and threw himself at Charlie’s legs, and finding his balance, he roared like a tiger.
As he grew older, Edward looked more like an Ungerland than a Day, but I did my best to hide the truth. Maybe I should have explained all to Tess, and perhaps that would have been the end of my torment. But she bore the snide remarks about her son with grace. Days after his second birthday, we had Oscar Love and Jimmy Cummings over for dinner. After the meal, we fooled around with an arrangement that I had written hoping to interest a chamber-music quartet in the city. Of course, we were one player short, with George long gone in California. But playing with them again after a few years was easy and comfortable. Tess excused herself to go to the kitchen to check on a lemon meringue pie. When Edward noticed she was gone, he wailed from his playpen, banging his fists against the slats.
“Don’t you think he’s getting a bit too big for that?” Oscar asked.
“He can be a bit of trouble after dinner. Besides, he likes it there. Makes him feel safe.”
Oscar shook his head and fished Edward from behind the bars, bounced him on his knees, and let him finger the keys of the clarinet. Seeing my single friends react to my son, I couldn’t help but feel that they were weighing their freedom against the allure of family. They loved the boy but were slightly frightened of him and all he represented.
“Drawn to the stick,” Oscar said. “That’s one cool kid. You’ll want to stay away from the piano. Too heavy to carry around.”
“Sure he’s yours?” Cummings asked. “He looks nothing like you, or Tess, for that matter.”
Oscar joined the fun. “Now that you mention it . . . look at that split chin and those big eyes.”
“C’mon guys, cut it out.”
“Chill out,” Oscar whispered. “Here comes the old lady.”
Tess delivered the dessert, oblivious to the turns of our conversation. I should have brought up my festering doubt, made a joke of it, said something in front of her, but I didn’t.
“So, Tess,” Jimmy said, balancing his pie plate on his knee, “who do you think Eddie takes after?”
“You have a speck of meringue at the corner of your mouth.” She picked up our son and held him in her lap, stroked his hair, and pressed his head against her breast. “How’s my little man?”
Edward stuck his hand straight into the pie, pulled up a clump of yellow goo, and crammed it in his mouth.
She laughed. “Just like his daddy.”
Thank you, my love. She returned my smile.
After the boys said good night and Edward lay sleeping in his crib, Tess and I washed the dishes together, staring out the kitchen window. The stars shone like pinpricks in the cold black sky, and the hot water in the sink, along with the roaring furnace, gave the room a steamy languor. I put down the tea towel and, from behind, wrapped my arms around her, kissed her damp warm nape, and she shivered.
“I hope you didn’t get too mad about Jimmy going on about how Eddie doesn’t look so much like either one of us.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s creepy.”
For a split second, I thought she suspected something was awry, but she spun herself around to face me and grabbed my face with her rubber gloves. “You worry about the strangest things.” She kissed me, and the conversation went elsewhere.
A few nights later, Tess and I were asleep in bed, Edward down the hall in his room. She woke me by shaking my shoulder and speaking harshly in a sort of shouted whisper. “Henry, Henry, wake up. I heard noises downstairs.”
“What is it?”
“Would you listen? Someone’s down there.”
I grumbled that it was nothing.
“And I’m telling you, someone is in the house. Would you go check?”