“Honey, I’m sorry, I—”
But her voice is lost in another gagging hack as he doubles over again. When the nausea lets up enough for him to flush and wipe his mouth clean, he leans in the doorway, not looking at where she rests in bed but at the crumpled bag on the floor, at what lies inside.
He moves forward, his feet full of lead, his head throbbing in time with the pulse running like a jackrabbit in his chest.
“Goddamn you,” he says, still not looking at her.
He bends, feeling the urge to throw up again, and grasps the bottle, pulling it free. Its contents rattle in his shaking hand. When he looks up, Elle is gone.
Instead of her bed, the clock lies on its back upon the floor. Its three glass doors are different; they are rounded and made of the same polished mahogany as the rest of its body. The three cases look like coffins. His mouth falls open, and the pill bottle slips from his hand as he takes a step back— —and watches the middle lid rise, pushed from inside.
Evan cried out, his arm spasming as he rolled off the daybed. His fist struck Shaun’s recliner, pain blossoming in each knuckle. Shaun’s eyes leapt open, and he made a frightened sound, something between a shriek and a moan. Evan landed on his hands and knees, panting, his stomach roiling with sick. Sweat hung in beads from his hair and rolled down his forehead. His arms threatened to drop him, and he pushed himself back onto the bed with enormous effort.
“Da?” Shaun asked, his eyes wide as he struggled to sit up.
“I’m okay, buddy, I’m okay. It was a dream.” He spoke more to himself than to Shaun, and when he looked up, he saw an expression of concern on the boy’s features. “I’m fine, honey, just a dream.”
“’Kay?”
Evan’s brow creased and his throat constricted. He stood and then sat on Shaun’s chair, holding his son’s hand in his own.
“Yep, Dad’s okay.” He summoned a smile, shoving the residue of the dream away, praying that it would fade further. “Are you hungry?” Shaun nodded. “Okay, let’s rustle up some food.”
~
They ate on the porch, Shaun downing his roast-beef sandwich in wild bites while Evan nudged his around and picked at the few potato chips on his plate.
After lunch they ventured down to the dock, Evan carrying a frying pan, an ice-cream-pail lid, some bubble solution, and a small bottle of dish soap. He set Shaun in his chair beside the beach and began to work, talking to him as he did so.
“You have to be careful not to cut yourself, but you also have to make sure these edges are smooth,” Evan said, carving the center out of the ice-cream lid with his pocketknife.
After a few minutes, the lid was only a thin ring, the flat center lying discarded on the dock. “Now, this next part is the real art.” Evan poured the entire container of bubble mixture into the frying pan. “You can’t put too much or too little dish soap in with it, it’s got to be just enough.” He squirted the blue soap into the pan, swishing his fingers through it to mix it in. “Then we check it,” he said, standing.
Evan set the plastic ring into the pan, submerging it in the substance. After a second he withdrew it, letting some of the liquid drain off. A transparent skin hung in the center of the ring, reflecting the afternoon light in swirling, oil-slick colors.
“Now we see if we did it right.”
He checked the breeze, then gently pulled the ring through the air with both hands. A huge iridescent bubble expanded from the hollow cover. It grew and grew until it became the size of a large beach ball. With a deft downward motion, Evan cut the bubble off and set it free. It drifted in a lazy motion toward the lake, its sides wobbling so much that he thought it might burst, but it didn’t. It kept moving out over the water, dipping and then rising like a confused bird.
Shaun’s face was a portrait of wonderment. His mouth was open an inch, his eyes wider than when Evan had awoken him earlier with his cry. A low breeze ruffled his light hair, and he pointed toward the lake.
Evan had completely forgotten about the bubble, his gaze fixated on the beautiful expression on Shaun’s face. When he turned his head, he saw the bubble floated only inches above the water’s surface. A particularly high wave rolled toward the island and grazed the bubble’s lower half, instantly bursting it.
That was our life before the accident. Then something came along and tore it apart for no reason.
Shaun’s mouth opened wider, and for a second Evan feared he might cry, but then his eyes shifted to Evan’s.
“More!”
Shaun placed his fingertips together in the accompanying sign, the one Elle had taught him, the only one he knew by heart, and then Evan bit his lip to ward off tears.
“More?”
“More!”
“Okay, here we go.”
They blew bubbles for hours. When the solution in the pan ran low, he refilled it, to Shaun’s happy sounds. The wind changed and began to come from the east, which helped the bubbles travel farther before disappearing. Evan lost himself in the moment, his hands slippery to the wrists. He couldn’t make the bubbles fast enough; Shaun’s laughter was the ultimate payoff whenever he achieved a truly giant orb. Evan wished the afternoon could last forever—the wind speaking in the pines, Shaun laughing, a smile almost constant on his own face. He wished ... and stopped himself, unwilling to break the spell that surrounded them, an invisible bubble of its own.
Finally, the bottle of bubbles became empty, and a curled line of clouds advanced in a steady wall from the west. The blue sky turned overcast, and the sun hid within the churning, gray folds.
“Time to go in, Shaun,” he said, and waited for a reaction.
Shaun frowned, kicking his legs once so that they banged into his chair. Evan tilted the pan toward him so that he could see its emptiness.