Part 9 (1/2)
”Where's your dad?”
”He left,” says Sophie.
”Oh,” says Beth, strangely disappointed that he didn't come in. Must be the vodka talking.
”How was camp today?”
”Lame,” says Sophie.
”Can you please change your att.i.tude and not wreck it for your sisters? You loved it when you were their age.”
”Fine. It was delightful!” says Sophie, delivering the word delightful in a high-pitched squeal, her face stretched and dimpled in a too-sugary-to-be-real, s.h.i.+rley Temple smile.
”Okay, okay. How was dinner?”
Sophie says nothing and looks to Jessica.
”It was delightful!” says Jessica in the same tone and manner as her older sister.
”It totally sucked,” says Sophie.
”Hey! Language,” says Beth.
”She was there,” says Sophie.
”Oh,” says Beth.
”I don't like her,” says Sophie.
”Me either,” says Jessica.
Beth tries to summon some kind of maternal wisdom or politically correct advice or at least something positive for her girls, but the Pa.s.sion a la Beths are working against her, and so she goes with something honest. ”I don't like her either.”
”Yeah, but you don't have to spend time with her like we do. I wish we didn't have to see her,” says Sophie.
”I wish Dad would come home,” says Jessica.
Beth's heart breaks.
”He's not going to, is he?” asks Sophie.
”No, I don't think so,” says Beth.
Tears pool in Jessica's eyes, fury in Sophie's.
”I'm sorry, sweeties. I'm so sorry. This does totally suck.”
”I miss him, Mom,” says Jessica.
”I miss him, too,” says Beth.
”I thought you hated him,” says Sophie. ”I thought that's why you ripped up the pictures.”
”That wasn't why, and sometimes I do hate him. I miss and hate him at the same time. It's complicated.”
”Do you hate him more or miss him more?” asks Jessica with big, wet, hopeful eyes. Beth wipes Jessica's face with her hand and kisses her cheek.
”Miss,” says Beth, having compa.s.sion for her sensitive middle child.
”Well, I hate him,” says Sophie.
”Soph,” says Beth in the tone that typically begins one of her lectures.
”Why do you get to hate him and I don't?”
It's a good question, but Beth doesn't say anything. She doesn't say because even if he's no longer her husband, he'll always be Sophie's father. She doesn't say because it's not good to hate anyone. But is it okay for Sophie to hate her father if that's how she feels? It can't be healthy to stuff those honest feelings down. Beth should probably make appointments with the school's guidance counselor for all three girls to talk about all this stuff.
”Because I'm the mother,” she says finally, waving that irritatingly vague, all-powerful parental wand over the whole discussion, ending it. ”It's getting late. Go get ready for bed.”
Sophie rolls her eyes and walks back into the house. Her younger sister follows. Before Beth goes into the house to see how Gracie's doing and to direct the process of going to bed, she reads just a few more pages.
SHORTLY AFTER THE girls go to sleep, Beth brings her book with her to bed, more tired than she has any reason to be after such a luxuriously free day. She hopes to finish the next chapter, maybe even the whole book, but her eyes close before she turns a single page.
As she falls into a deep sleep, unprocessed thoughts about the autistic girl in the book she's reading search out similar elements learned some months ago about the main character in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Detached from people. Bewildered by emotions. Enthralled by repet.i.tion. An uncelebrated intelligence. A primal need for order. A row of blocks. A series of numbers. A sensitivity to sound and touch. Persistent. Silent. Honest. Brave. Misunderstood.
These elements combine while she sleeps, blending into something new, something that can no longer be distinguished as belonging to either the girl in The Siege or the boy in The Curious Incident. It is a prethought, a shadow of an idea forming.
The shadow travels through her mind, gathering energy, weaving through the short story she once wrote about a peculiar boy's imaginary world, merging with the image of a spinning pinwheel and the sound of a scream, absorbing the memory of a small boy and the joy in his eyes as he lined up rocks on the beach. And now, having collected the elements and the power they needed, through a neurological alchemy not yet described in any book, these many images and sounds within the shadow in her mind a.s.semble, first into a chorus, and then, finally, into a single voice. The shadow is no longer a shadow. It has become inspiration.
That night, a brown-haired, brown-eyed boy inhabits her dreams, a boy who sees and hears and feels the world in a unique and almost unimaginable way. She doesn't know him, yet her mind does. She sees him clearly. He is vivid and real. She understands him. She's still dreaming about this boy when she is awakened in the morning by her alarm clock.
At nine, she drops the girls off at the community center and tells them to have a great day, and Sophie slams the car door. Beth then drives directly to the library.
She goes upstairs and looks up at the clock. It's nine fifteen. Sitting in the same seat she sat in yesterday, she opens her notebook, uncaps her pen, takes a deep breath, and begins to write in the voice of the boy in her dream.
CHAPTER 12.
I am lying on the deck in the backyard, looking up at the sky. Looking up at the sky is one of my favorite things to do, especially on a no-cloud day. On a no-cloud day, I stare at the blue sky, and I love it. I stare at the blue sky for so long, and I love it so much, that I leave my skin and scatter out into it, the way rain puddles return to the sky on a hot day.
I leave the boy lying on the deck, and I become the blue sky. I am blue sky, and I am high above the earth and the boy lying on the deck, and I am floating and free. I am blue sky, and I am air, gliding on waves of wind, swirling and blowing, weightless and warm under the sun, above the earth and the boy on the deck.
I am blue sky, and I am air. I am everywhere.