an implacable hunger. Somewhere, buried, was repose and satisfaction, the golden moment, but to get there he had to eat his way through miles of printed pages. He had to write his way to it, to answer every question fully and correctly, to so thoroughly understand the concepts that the concepts themselves were remade in his stern, laboring image.
“Hi,” she said from the doorway.
“Hi.” He looked up, smiled, pushed his glasses higher on his nose. His forearms were heavy and powerful, lush with bright blond hair.
She went to him, rubbed his shoulders. “How's it going?” she asked.
“Okay,” he said. “International finance is a monster.”
“I'm sure.” Now that he was an upperclassman, the subjects he studied were vast and remote as the rumors of mountain ranges in Asia. During the first two years, Susan had kept track. She could imagine twentieth-century literature; she could imagine cellular biology. But now he studied invisible laws of commerce, the history of ideas. She watched him grow denser, older, with what he knew. She thought about babies, who would need her to teach them goodness. Who would require goodness of her, every hour.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Fine. Same as always. I'm going to put dinner together.”
“Okay.”
She gave his shoulders a final squeeze, and went into the kitchen. The apartment was snug and unremarkable. It was their first home together but Susan couldn't seem to make it mean anything. It was so obviously temporary, like her job. She kept it clean, bought flowers occasionally. Every morning, she knew what she would fix for dinner that night. Each day spawned the next and at odd hopeful moments she felt something struggling to come through her, a gentle but insistent pushing on the fabric of her skin.
The telephone rang while she was rinsing lettuce.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Am I calling at a bad time?”
“No. I'm just starting dinner. How are you?”
“Oh, we're okay.”
Susan heard it, and knew. She knew, from the buzz that lingered on the wire.
“What's happened?” she asked. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing big. Billy just called from school and told me he's not coming home for Christmas, it's no big deal.”
“Where's he going?”
“Some friend of his. Someone with a cabin somewhere. Vermont. A cabin in Vermont.”
“Well, that sounds like fun,” Susan said. “Mom, Billy's got his own life now. He's not necessarily going to be coming home every holiday.”
“Oh, I know that. Don't you think I know that? He's got to do his own thing. I want him to.”
“But?” Susan said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“But what? I know you're not happy about this.”
“Well, honey, of course I'm not happy about it. What mother doesn't want her children to come home for Christmas?”
Susan held the headpiece to her ear with her shoulder and started tearing up lettuce for the salad. “It's something else,” she said. “What is it?”
“Oh, honey, you know.”
“Tell me.”
“You and I know perfectly well that Billy doesn't want to come home for Christmas because of your father. I knew this would happen. I've been expecting it. Do you remember last Christmas?”
“I'll never forget it.”
Susan heard her mother take a breath. She heard the thickness in her mother's throat,
“Your father's driving Billy away,” her mother said. “It makes me so darn mad.”
“No one's driving Billy away, Mom. He's in college, his life is changing. He'll be back.”
“Sometimes I could murder your father. I mean, why is he so stubborn? Do you have any idea? I watch him pick these fights and I beg him to stop but he won't. He won't stop. He can't stop, he's like a bull.”
“Well, Mom.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean, well, you married him, didn't you?”
“What kind of thing is that to say? I married a boy, twenty-two years ago. People change. You don't know that yet. Not that I think Todd will change. Todd is different.”
“I don't believe anybody changes that much,” Susan said. “If Dad can be a bully now, he must have been a bully then.”
“He's not a bully. Honey, I never said he was a bully. I said he was like a bull”
“Oh, come off it. He can be terrible. He's—”
“Honey, I love your father. Your father is my whole life.”
“I didn't say you didn't love him.”
“I'd do anything for your father.”
“Mom, listen—”
“So, tell me. How's Todd?”
“Todd's fine. Working hard, as always.”
“That's great,” her mother said. “He's a real workhorse, that Todd. And what about you, honey? That job of yours isn't getting you down, is it?”
“No, the job's fine. Listen, it'll be okay, about Billy. He'll grow up and