All the Time in the World (31 page)

“About Mommy?”

“I think dreaming about Mommy would be a good dream, not a nightmare, so maybe it was something else. You can ask him in the morning.”

“Were you giving him a hug?”

“Yes.” I dump the sheets into a pile on the floor and grab another set from his closet.

“I don't want to go back to bed. I want to play.”

“I'll read you a book before you go back to bed.”

“I don't want a book.” Matt's volume is increasing. “I want to play.”

“What do you want to play?”

“I don't want to go to bed!”

“I heard you say that. I'm asking, what do you want to do instead?”

“I want to play with Daddy.”

I shake his pillow out of the case. “Matty, you can't. Daddy is sleeping.”

“I want to give him a hug.”

“How about in the morning?”

“NOW.”

I don't say anything as I finish making up his bed. He is watching me, waiting for my response.

“I want to give Daddy a hug NOW.”

“I hear you, Matt.”

He watches me check all the stuffed animals for wetness. “I want to—”

“Matt, I heard you the first time. I said no already, and I know you heard me. I'm not changing my mind, so there's no need to keep talking about it.”

For a second I think he's going to start screaming, but instead he furrows his brow and climbs up onto his bed. He turns over to face the wall and puts his nose in the pillow so I can't kiss him. I turn off his lamp and stand there for a minute, wondering whether to respect his five-year-old boundaries or ignore his wishes and kiss him anyway. While I mull it over, I hear a muffled voice in the darkness.

“I don't want to dream about Mommy.”

I lean my knee on the edge of his bed. “Why not, pal?”

“Because then I want to sleep forever.”

I ignore his boundaries and kiss the back of his head. “See you in the morning.”

I hear him sigh and flip over as I close the door.

I tiptoe into the kitchen and try not to make too much noise while I get out a pan to grill myself a cheese sandwich. I'm wide awake, but I want Scotty to sleep—because he needs it and because I don't want to face him awake yet. I need some time to convince myself that I was mistaken in my earlier impression, that he just needed to cry, and I happened to be there when it came out.

There's a voice in my brain that is insisting I pay attention to my own well-being, a nasty little nagger of a voice that says it's okay to hold, to be held, to receive a little comfort in exchange for what I'm giving out. This is the part of me that wants to defend myself, that wants to deny impropriety, that wants to ignore the connotations of our actions because this is an unusual situation. There's nothing
usual
about finding our way through this much suffering. Scotty's crying on my shoulder doesn't mean what it might usually mean, I want to say to Lila and Everett and all the other skeptics. I flip my grilled cheese and think to myself, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine, it's all fine.

The couch creaks as Scotty gets up, and I force myself to keep moving at a regular pace. He appears in the doorway to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes like a little kid, and I reach for normalcy with every faculty I possess.

“Want a sandwich?” I ask.

“Yes. Thanks.” He starts to pull his shirt off, which is stained with sweat and probably tears, and I keep my eyes on the frying pan. I know that taking off his shirt is a natural gesture, devoid of connotation, but the part of me that isn't ruled by logic is afraid of what his next move will be, or won't be, so I hold out a hand for the shirt without looking.

“I'll throw it in with Matt's sheets. He wet the bed.”

Scotty lets me take the shirt. “A horrible nightmare, and now a wet bed?”

I take my sandwich off the pan and put it on a plate, cut it in half, and hand it to him. “He came out here and told me he spilled his water.”

“That's not what happened?”

“It smelled like pee.”

He eats for a minute while I put cheese on the new sandwich. “Did he see us?”

I mush down the top piece of bread until my sandwich looks more like a cheese pancake. “What?”

“Did he come out while we were sleeping?”

I have to look at him this time, or I won't be able to make him understand what I mean. “I told him you had a nightmare, and I gave you a hug.” I take my sandwich to the table.

He sits down with me a moment later. “Hey, you. I'm sorry.”

“Please don't apologize. It's really okay.”

“You've been unbelievable with the kids. I don't know what we would do without you right now.” What he means to say is please don't leave, and what I want to say back is I promise that I will not. We have just been so close, and now no one knows what to say, especially not me.

“I want to help.” I get up to dig through the freezer, and I find some ice cream buried underneath two plastic bags containing frozen chicken breasts, labeled with the date in Gretchen's precise handwriting. I'm not sure that chicken will ever get eaten. “I want to be there for you. For them.” Scotty and I slide the ice cream container back and forth, not bothering with bowls. I'll have to get groceries right after I drop them at school in the morning. George will have a fit if he realizes that someone ate all his ice cream.

“Do you want to go to bed?” I'm not sure how Scotty means that, and it must show on my face, because he clarifies. “I think I'll probably stay up for a while, but don't feel like you have to stay up with me. It's fine if you want to go to bed.” I sort of think he didn't know how he meant the question either, until he heard it out loud.

“Pretty soon.” I put our spoons in the dishwasher. “Did you see the flier that Matt's teachers sent home?”

“I think I saw it on the counter. A green half sheet?”

“Yes, that one. You didn't read it?”

“No.”

“The kids are about to start their Mother's Day projects. They need to bring in some materials from home. One shoebox. As many egg cartons, mason jars, or glass bottles as they can find. I think they're going to convert them into planters and build seed gardens, or something to that effect.”

“Do you need me to pick up some eggs?” Scotty pulls the empty ice cream container toward him and compresses it until it's folded into the smallest version of itself. He gets up to put it in the recycling bin, which is already too full.

“No.” I sit back down at the table, thinking he'll sit with me to have this discussion, but he remains standing. “I can help him get the materials together. I think we can get through enough pickles in the next week to make a worthwhile jar contribution.”

“What are you asking me?” Scotty tries to push the ice cream container farther down into the bin, but it won't budge. He pulls a plastic bag out from underneath the sink and empties the recycling into it.

“I think we should decide who Matt will make his present for.” My face feels too hot on one side, the side that was pressed against the arm of the couch while we slept. “Miss Leslie hinted that they would like that information so that she and his other teachers can be, ah, prepared.”

“What do you think the options are?”

I want him to stop letting me make all the decisions. He's their father, and I don't want to be the one with the responsibility for their entire states of being, even though I know that's the way he prefers it.

“Well. He could still make it for her, I guess. He could make it for Mae, or you.”

“Or you.”

I look at the clock above the stove. It's 2:47. Tomorrow is going to be unbearable. “We could keep him out of school for a few days.”

“If you think that would be easiest, then that's what we should do,” he says.

“I don't know what I think is easiest. I just—I don't know.”

“Would his teachers have any insights?”

“Maybe.”

“Will you copy me on your communication with them?”

I stand up. “I can ask them at pickup or drop-off if they have any suggestions. I don't usually communicate formally with them.” Because they want to hear from parents, not babysitters.

“Thank you, Charlotte. Good night,” he says, and I'm confused by the dismissal, when only a few minutes earlier I'd been alarmed at the possibility of an invitation. I have to walk away before I can start to fixate on Scotty's mental state, because I've just seen him retreat, right before my eyes, watched him go back to a place that I can't imagine, with walls made of paper and no door to be found. All I can do is hope that it's not possible I have anything to do with sending him back there.

*   *   *

I HAVE A
long succession of dreams that night, the kind that make the night feel arduous, like I'm having another daytime within my unconscious mind. First, there is Gretchen. We push two strollers side by side. I never think to look around at the front of either stroller to make sure Matt and George are really there. I trust that they are because their mother is here, and she takes care of everything. In the next dream, Gretchen and I are on a balcony overlooking the reservoir, and Patrick is with us. We smoke cigarettes together, and I pay close attention to the chemistry between them, to the chemistry between Patrick and me, but it is impossible to discern either energy. Another dream comes. I am in Scotty and Gretchen's apartment. Scotty is away on business. I'm not sure how I know that. It's one of those dream-givens, a fact established not in words over the course of the dream but rather a known circumstance. Gretchen is in the kitchen making dinner. I am in the bathtub, and I don't want to get out. I want dinner, of course, but getting up and out of the bath, drying off, putting on clothes, and wringing out my hair—these things all seem like too much effort.

I dream that my arms and legs are made of beanbags, and I can't move them of my own volition. I call for Scotty and he comes to me, and I tell him how to move my arms, where I want my legs to go, and he moves them for me. I dream that I am lying underneath a lead blanket in the park, and I can't move it off me because I'm not sure whether or not I have clothes on. I watch Scotty in the distance. He trips over something that I can't see and goes down hard. I can feel the stinging in his palms as he scrapes the ground. I dream of terrible struggles for Scotty, over and over; the boys asking him unanswerable questions, the train he rides to work derailing, buildings collapsing and leaving him the only survivor in a pile of rubble.

*   *   *

“BERLIN
?
” I SAY
to Scotty. A few days have passed since we discussed Matt's Mother's Day project, with no further mention of how the problem might be resolved. I hold the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I attempt to unfold the stroller. I want to do this quickly, before Miss Leslie spots me, but it's an illogical process. Whoever designs these things must be a sadistic bastard. “When are you leaving?”

“First it's D.C., then Istanbul, then Berlin for nine days,” Scotty says. The stroller unsnaps, and the kickback makes me drop my phone.

“C-R-A-P,” I mutter. Georgie scrambles over and picks up my phone. “Sorry, I dropped my phone,” I call as George puts the phone to his ear and says, “Daddy?”

“Hi, baby George,” Scotty's faint, tinny voice says from the phone. “How are you?”

“Tahr-lette not unhook the troller,” George says. He'd like to inform anyone who will listen of my delightful incompetence. “She drop her phone.”

“Are you still at school?”

“Not leave until the troller unhook.”

“Okay. What are you and Charlotte getting up to today?”

“We going to the party tore, and Matt and me going to the widdle playground. We gonna play Batman versus pie-derman.”

“Sounds like fun, honey. May I speak to Charlotte when she gets the stroller unfolded?”

“She all done.” George hands the phone to me, plopping himself into the stroller, which straightens it out the rest of the way.

“Hi,” I say. “So how long will you go for? Two weeks?”

“Twelve days. I have one meeting in D.C., and from there I'll take the red-eye and meet the clients in Istanbul, and we'll go to Berlin together,” Scotty says.

“When are you leaving?” I strap George in and stuff my purse underneath his seat.

“I'm flying out two weeks from Saturday. Early in the morning.”

“Will you be back in time for Matt's birthday?” I push the stroller into the elevator.

“If all goes well, I should be back the day before, the morning of June fifth,” says Scotty. “Is that why you're going to the party store?”

“Yes,” I say. “It kind of snuck up on me. I think it would be cool to do it outside, like maybe at the boat basin? But I'm afraid it will rain.”

“Maybe you can put a rain plan on the bottom of the invitation. I think I've seen that,” he says.

“We can make a plan tonight when you get home, if you want to.” I push backward through the front doors of North-Mad and pull the stroller out. “I can do a lot of the shopping and stuff.”

“We also need to talk about what you want to do while I'm gone,” he says. “I can call my parents and see if they can come for a few weeks. Or Mae, if you want. Lila can probably check in once in a while.”

I stop in front of Dean and Deluca. “Let's talk about it when you get home.”

“Sure. See you later. Say good-bye to George for me.”

I hang up. “Georgie, Dad says bye.” No response. I look around the front of the stroller, and he is sleeping. Not exactly time for a nap yet, but I'll take it.

I wander into Dean and Deluca and pick out several things that Gretchen would never want the boys to see me eating. It's a beautiful day outside, so I find a spot on the edge of the park to sit and eat, and I dial up Claudia.