just it because…” he pauses for effect, “Alan likes Cindy.”
“You mean likes?”
“He like, likes her. So that’s why he let her have his spot in line at tetherball and I don’t think it was any of Sarah’s business.”
Alison tries to focus. Exhaustion makes demands. Her mind hovers. She blinks her eyes forcefully and squints hoping to see Jimmy clearly but there is a film over her eyes she can’t clear. She puts on a fake smile and her eyes begin to close involuntarily.
Hank asks “I thought Alan like liked Jennifer and you like liked Cindy.”
“Gross, Dad, really.”
“Sorry.”
“I was telling Mrs. Davidson that English is definitely missing some words.”
“Like what?” Hank asks.
“”Cause if you like someone then you can like them, but if you like like someone you have to say like like because there’s no word between like and love. How’s a kid supposed to say they more than like but less than love a girl? ‘Cause love is for grown-ups, and is scary, you know? And it’s not like you just like her, and then you love her, there’s a lot of space in between and there aren’t any words for…” Jimmy stops. Both Hank and Jimmy notice as Alison’s head drops forward and slowly she crumbles over with her forehead landing in her dinner plate. She’s asleep. She sleeps only when she literally passes out and it never lasts, an hour here or there. Hank signals for Jimmy not to touch her. Two sets of compassionate eyes stare at her. And then they whisper.
“Dad, why won’t she get better?”
“She will. She had a different experience than we did.”
“It was bad for us.”
“Yes. Bad, very bad, but different. We need to be patient. Just think how patient she would be if it were you or me.”
“Yeah, but, I kinda need my mom.” Tears roll down his cheeks. “I want her back.”
“Me, too, buddy, me too.”
They finished their over-cooked hamburgers and limp asparagus in a sad silence. Alison didn’t move for forty minutes and then her head shot up! She looked around in bleary-eyed confusion. Hank had cleaned up dinner except for the plate she was lying in. Jimmy had gone off to do his homework. The anxiety of her husband’s face touched her in the place where she loved him. And for a brief second they exchanged an affectionate smile and Hank felt a palpable rise of hope thinking it might be the beginning of her road home. He dared not speak, but he could see it was her. It was definitely her. He sat down next to the wife he knew and loved and missed and with a clean napkin, he gently wiped the ketchup from her forehead. She rested inside his warm eyes and it felt so good. It felt like a sip of cold fresh water, like a soft down pillow. Then, her eyes clouded, and he knew he’d lost her again.
* * *
Jimmy finished his homework and Alison tucked him into bed. She said nothing except good night. Jimmy rolled over and slept soundly. The content of Jimmy’s dreams, which has been toxic with island memories, has been slowly changing. Instead of feeling vulnerable, thanks to the astonished reactions of his classmates he feels tough, cool, more like a survivor than a victim. Sharon Singler said he must be some kind of superhero. Relief and healing creep over him as he sleeps.
Alison stands stoically by the window. Dread stands with her. Sometimes it sits on her chest. Sometimes it stands right behind her. It always has a cold boney hand on her shoulder. The dread is a companion that presses down on her. Each day it accelerates with its full weight in a free fall toward her, and like the pull of gravity, it is inevitable and cannot be persuaded. She knows what she knows. Nothing can change that. She realizes that now she must keep her raw thoughts in a box, well wrapped, to ward off the scorn of those who do not understand, including Hank. So she stands lonely in the coal blackness and she waits for Ben.
At two a.m., the neighborhood goes dark. In an attempt to be conservation-smart the town elected to turn off all of the streetlights at two a.m. every night. The street outside the Kraft home sinks into black. All of the houses look like indistinct hulks.
The lamps on the nightstands in the master bedroom are off. Alison has plugged nightlights into every single electrical socket in the