twenty-some years: “In the park, in the dark, what do I now hear, hark, hark? Is it really leprechauns and have they come back to rock ‘n’ roll?” Finn was oblivious to the song – dip and pour – but James kept going, pleased with himself, repeating the chorus: “Ba-doom ba da da da da, da da …” James reached for Ana’s shampoo, also French, with the price tag still on it.
He said to Finn: “Twenty-two dollars? Who pays twenty-two dollars for shampoo?” He made Finn’s foamy hair into a gigantic spike, still chanting. At the end of the song, Finn splashed a gentle sprinkle on James’s face, and looked at him expectantly. James reached into the tub and flicked a bit at Finn, and for a moment, it looked like the boy was going to cry; his face gathered, as if preparing to come apart – oh God no, thought James. Oh no. But it suddenly ceased, and Finn laughed, picking up the blue cup, dipping and pouring.
Ana returned with a green fluffy towel that she sniffed before handing it over; lilac. James lifted him out (in Ana’s mind’s eye: drops him, cracks his head on the bathtub, the white tile veined with red blood). Both of them scanned his body for cuts and bruises, markers of what had befallen his family. He was perfectly clear, just as the doctor at the hospital had said. Not a freckle, not a mole. No evidence.
James wrapped him in the towel.
“I’m a burrito!” cried Finn. “Tighter! Like mama make it!” The words knocked James. He looked into the little-boy face, his little teeth far apart, all of him without mourning. James tightened the towel until Finn resembled a long green onion, blond hair spiking through the top. Finn giggled at his immobility, trying to walk and falling on his back, laughing and laughing.
James scooped him up, carried him to the guest room. Ana had made up the bed with honey coloured linens. It isn’t a child’s room, thought James, dropping the towel on the leather love seat. There was no whimsy anywhere in the house. They didn’t speak of this guest room as a future nursery anymore, though a nursery with a view of the garden had been a selling point, hadn’t it? He was sure it had.
“Help me,” said Ana. James looked at her, and realized she meant the bed. Together, they moved it to the wall.
“Watch TV!” cried Finn, jumping on the bed, while James tried to pull a pyjama top over his head. Blue, with a monster’s face: “Veddy Scary!” The fabric was nubby and worn, another item from Mrs. Bailey’s. James tried not to imagine what horrors had been witnessed by all the foster children who had worn these pyjamas.
“No TV. We’ll do a book,” said James, then looked at Ana, who hovered again in the doorframe. “Wait, do we have any books?”
“We left the bus book in the car,” said Ana, watching James expertly stick the diaper, pull on the monster pants.
About the absence of books, James said: “Shit.”
Finn went still. “You say shit,” he whispered.
Ana, roused to James’ defence, said: “You said it, too.”
“I know. You’re right. It’s a bad word,” said James. He turned to Ana: “Can you see if there’s anything for him to read? Maybe a graphic novel or something.”
“I don’t know if Robert Crumb is appropriate,” said Ana, but she headed toward their bedroom and the basket of magazines next to her bedside table.
Finn folded into James’s lap, letting James brush his hair, his face turning sleepy.
“Maybe the cartoons in here?” Ana asked, returning with Sarah’s old New Yorker in her hand. James laughed. Ana sat down on the bed next to James, as if she, too, was awaiting story time. He flipped through the magazine, James asking Finn what animals were in the cartoons, what sounds they made; James telling him stories about vultures and dogs. Both Ana and James were acutely aware of what this looked like from a distance. James pulled the quilt up to Finn’s chin.
Ana placed throw cushions on the floor at the side of the bed, a circumference, like a ring of lye outside a village hut used to keep away the witches. James leaned down and small hands circled his neck. Ana patted Finn’s leg, his body a tiny bump, lost on the big bed.
“Sing light,” said Finn.
“Leave the light on?” asked James.
“No! Sing it! Sing it!”
Ana raised a single finger to her temple and