As soon as we got to our room, I started making calls: Karen, Mary, Sally, then Karen again and then again, but got nothing but voice mail. I briefly considered calling the Jaw, but then cooled down and decided to wait for someone to call me back instead.
So we spent the rest of the afternoon killing time, watching baseball at the bar, swimming in the outdoor pool, and briefly touring the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, which was conveniently located right across the street and featured, much to Ethan’s delight, a huge basketball at its entrance.
As the day progressed, I grew increasingly agitated about Karen. Why was no one calling? Was this by design? Was I being punished for not being there? Or was I simply not important enough anymore, my place in the family dynamic forever diminished? I didn’t know. What I did know was that the silence was worrisome.
I considered, but decided against exploring Knoxville, choosing instead to stay at the hotel for dinner. One of the many Ethan Rules I strictly adhered to was when things are going well, don’t press your luck. So it was cheeseburgers and fries and pickles at the bar, then back to our room.
After a final attempt to reach Karen and Mary, I brushed Ethan’s teeth and helped him into bed. It was just past eight, but I could tell he was tired.
“You were really a good guy today,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Leave. Now.”
“Really good.”
“Leave. Now.”
“As you wish.” I turned the lights off and waited for the sound of his heavy breathing, which usually commenced soon after his head hit the pillow. Sure enough, a minute or two later, I heard it, soft and sweet.
I relaxed. Even in the most turbulent times, the depths of the War Years, once Ethan was down, he was down. So nights were our salvation, a chance to pay the bills, run a few late errands, wash all the surfaces Ethan had licked, and try to fix all the things he had broken that day. As the girls got older, we gradually became nocturnal, staying up later and later. We played board games, ordered pizza, watched movies. Mindy once said that at eight thirty every night we became a normal family. It was a painfully accurate observation.
The nights were also when I used to write, or at least try to. I had published a novel in my thirties: a short, funny, pathos-filled coming-of-age story about a young man in the Reagan eighties working at an accounting firm who steals inside stock information and plays the market. I had written the bulk of it in the evenings right before and after Ethan was born, before the troubles. It had been published by a local university press—then, after some pretty good reviews, later by a larger, New York house. The New York publisher, encouraged by solid, if not exactly spectacular sales, offered me a contract for a second book.
Despite dozens of attempts, false starts, first chapters, titles, outlines, extended deadlines, and more false starts, that book never came. Ethan’s issues soon surfaced, and the ensuing chaos made it impossible to find the time, energy, or solitude to work. At least that was what I told myself, as well as my publisher and my newly acquired agent, both of whom eventually left me.
I lay on the bed and wondered about Ethan’s irregular ninth chromosome. I wondered, not for the first time, if that chromosome was normal, if it didn’t appear more times than it should, if I would have gone on to write other books. I then wondered if that extra cell was a convenient excuse for my literary failings—maybe all my failings.
I got out of bed, booted up my laptop. I was too tired to beat myself up that night.
Nothing much to report on the school front. Football practice began in five weeks. The boys cross-country team would be looking to defend its state championship this season. The first faculty meeting was set for August 19. Time to do all that again. I uttered an interior groan and returned to bed. No relief here.
The school year, nine and a-half months of purgatory, was barreling toward me like a runaway freight, and I looked to it with trepidation, if not outright dread.