he and Dad will work things out.”
“Oh, I know. I know that. These are just growing pains, every boy goes through it. I'm going to let you get back to your dinner, Todd must be starving.”
“Okay. Mom?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Nothing. Daddy's not home now, is he?”
“Your father? Oh no, he's still working. You know him. He and Todd are two of a kind, a pair of workhorses. When you come home for Christmas, don't let him bring any books with him.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
“I can't wait to see you, honey. Christmas can't come soon enough. Give Todd my love.”
“Okay. Bye, Mom.”
“Bye. Nice talking to you, sweetheart.”
Susan hung up and stood for a while. She waited for time to pass. She would not cry, not tonight. She finished tearing up the lettuce, got a tomato from the refrigerator. She waited, and returned to her life, its regular motions, the unhaunted brightness of her temporary kitchen. This is my life, she thought, and I'm standing right here in the middle of it. She sliced the tomato. She didn't think of anything.
That night, she and Todd made love. She knew he was exhausted. He'd happily have given her one brief dry kiss and slipped away. But it was one of her nights. She ran her palms down his broad back, kissed him lingeringly, and he understood. He cupped her breasts, worked his mouth along the nape of her neck. He moved up under her nightgown, touched her gently between the legs. She moaned over his simple probing. Marriage had diminished and deepened the mystery. She'd seen him on the toilet. She'd known him rank and sour. She'd caught him looking so empty and stupid and self-satisfied that she'd thought, This is the end of my interest. He can't return from this. But at the same time his flesh expanded with familiarity. His particulars—the cross-stitch of fine hairs on his abdomen, the single thick vein that slumbered along his biceps—had become hers as well, so that the sight of them inspired a wash of mournful tenderness she'd neither known nor imagined, a careening sensation of possibility and loss. She believed, now, that no one was ever sure about love. Love arrived obliquely, at angles, but even when it lay dormant a boundary had been crossed, a sanctity relinquished. All her certainty, the sameness of her days, was infiltrated now with the fear that something might happen to Todd. If he was hurt or grew ill, if he died, some part of her would be set free but another part, a part that weighed more, that had more of Susan about it, would be silenced forever.
“Oh,” she whispered. There it was, the tip, pushing against her, pushing itself in. Todd was tired. This would be especially short. She ran her hands up and down the muscles of his back. The strength of him still impressed her. The flesh that lay under his skin was so knotted, so continually tense. She imagined Todd living in a state of ongoing physical pain that only released its hold when he slept and when he made love. She believed a body so large and muscled must hurt, and as she touched him she thought of smoothing him out, untangling him.
“Oh,” she said again, louder. She usually made more noise than he did, which embarrassed her. She worried that she took too much pleasure in this, that she was too lascivious and greedy. She told herself, It's for the baby. As Todd worked his way into her she thought of the baby, waiting. Maybe this would be the night. She knew so much. She knew he'd be dark, like her. She knew he'd be serious, and kind, and never tempted by weakness. Todd pumped in her and she felt the hard painful muscles of his back with her hands. Poor thing, she thought. His breath tickled her ear. Poor thing. He pumped with steadfast concentration, silent except for his breathing, and the sensation grew. She kept opening and opening. With every thrust she opened wider, until she heard herself gasping and moaning and felt the sweat pop out along Todd's spine. Here it comes. She thought about the baby, waiting, and this might be the time, this, now. There was the high tingling, the bright inner nowhere. She thought of the baby and she thought of Todd, and as he emptied himself with a single surprised exhalation the two were momentarily mixed up in her mind, Todd and the baby, the