She was at fault for leaving the aspirin out, but she would not allow herself to feel guilty about her work. The last four days spent engrossed in her pages could not have undone all she did over the summer. For three months, she had been fully present, both sons had known she was right there with them, thinking of nothing else, most of the time, but them. Yes, she was back to work, but they didn’t know that—she had been there at breakfast, at school drop-offs and pick-ups, at after-school snack time, at dinner, at bath time, at bedtime. Had Eric sensed her waning attraction for motherhood, her desire to have gorgeous time without them? Why couldn’t Eric have devoured all those aspirins during one of the rare times Martin was on duty?
Seeing her husband with their youngest son, not taking him to task the way she thought Martin should, she imagined one of Daniel’s contests—which parent knew more about their children? She would win, hands down. Did Martin know that Eric was a boy who loved to take shortcuts, to simplify, to make things easy; that he preferred his room sparse and bare, could not abide Daniel’s room, with its towers of books, his collection of bound Henry stories that Joan was still making for him, his swim goggles and swim cap and baseball glove never put away, his swimsuits hanging from the knob of the closet door; that Eric liked puzzles, and building intricate LEGO constructions that he immediately dissasembled after showing Joan and Daniel his creations, all the pieces back in their plastic containers, neatly tucked under his bed; that he preferred to be on his own, could keep himself entertained, liked only math in school, doodled numbers that he could not explain to Joan, had no interest in athletics as Daniel did; that he spoke in full, well-made sentences and talked softly until he yelled; that once, he said he wished his name were Thomas; that he could be stingy with his hugs and his kisses, but every so often, he would seek Joan out and hug her so tight, she felt the air emptying out of her lungs; that an interest in reading had never kicked in, but he still allowed Daniel, every once in a while, to read him a Henry story at bedtime, leaning against Joan, allowing her arms around him, while Daniel sat at the bottom of the bed and read them the squirrel’s newest adventure, until Eric pushed free, and said, “Enough cuddling for one day. Enough reading.” No, Martin did not know these things, and despite never having wanted motherhood, despite the 250 aspirin Eric had ingested, she knew she was a goddamn great mother.
Eric had milked the escapade for sympathy, asking for ice cream for dinner, saying that his throat hurt, which it probably did, which she hoped it actually did, and Martin, yawning from jet lag, had spooned the ice cream into a big bowl.
“I don’t blame you at all,” Martin said later that night, after the boys were in bed.
And Joan thought, You’d better not.
Her husband was asleep in seconds, and Joan left their bed, threw on a light sweater, retrieved from the front closet another chunk of Words. She went out into the backyard and got to work at her old desk, wishing she were back in her old East Village apartment, when the table was still untarnished, and she was solely herself, a woman apart, a writer at work.
14
Way before dawn on Monday, Daniel tiptoed out of his bedroom, past his brother’s room, into the living room, where he slipped a book of short stories free from its place on the shelves, tiptoed back to his room, hid that book in his backpack, slept for another hour, got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and waved to his mother when she drove away from school. At nine, when the bell rang, when Daniel was supposed to be in homeroom with Miss Nilson, he was in the library, sitting behind the last stacks, opening his backpack, pulling out that book, and opening it to the first story called “Deep in the Valley.”
He read the first paragraph:
She rents the motel room for a few days. The clerk at the desk, a boy, is nice enough. He smiles but does not make dumb polite chatter. He does not ask to see her driver’s license. She is used to showing her license because she looks so young, older than a teenager, but not quite a woman. She knows she looks perpetually suspended, otherworldly, not fully grown, though she’s thirty-three. She signs the receipt in her cramped handwriting. The clerk’s silence seems right to her. She is near now. Probably no one ought to talk to her.
He read the second paragraph:
The room is sort of okay, beiges and pinks, with a flat king bed. It is a motel, but the mini-bar is stocked. There is a binder filled with information about tourist attractions, a Bible in one nightstand on sticky floral contact paper, a local phone book in the other. Neither is quite the Book of Life she thinks, and unpacks her bag. She walks down the quiet hall to fill the plastic ice bucket, hears the hum of the ice machine, aware that the hall is not fresh, the paint faded, stale smells of fear and desolation, but she has lived in much worse. She has lived in places she tries to forget. She plunges her hands into the ice when memories of those places squiggle her brain.
He read the third paragraph:
She knows where she is going because there is nowhere else to go, nothing else to try, no other beliefs to believe. She no longer imagines that she can be like everyone else, that she can live her life as they do. She is thinking clearly now—about how she has always been inside a box. Inside a little box that has no floors, no doors, no windows, only walls that are closing in on her, relentlessly pressing toward the center, where she stands, where she has long stood. It won’t be long before she is sealed up for good, and no one will ever know she was once here.
Unlike Daniel, who inhaled and read on and remained in the library where he was not supposed to be, Eric was where he was supposed to be, at his desk, in his classroom, with his teacher, Mr. John, at the blackboard, on which was written in large chalky letters, IQ TEST DAY.
Mr. John explained they would each be administered the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, a sixty-five-minute test that would generate a Full Scale IQ representing each child’s general intellectual ability. It would also provide primary index scores in verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed, that represented each child’s abilities in discrete cognitive domains.
None of what Mr. John said made any sense to Eric, or to his classmates, and everyone rolled their eyes at everyone else, but they cheered when Mr. John said they could draw or read or do whatever they wanted, quietly, very quietly, until it was their turn and their name was called.