was perennially available. He never invited Jonathan to his house, which sat all right with me, but still I began to wonder. One night I asked him, “Bobby, what does your father do?”
We were eating dinner, he sopping up the last of his beurre blanc with his third piece of homemade bread seemingly before Jonathan or Ned or I had started to eat.
“He’s a teacher” was the answer. “Not our school. Over at Roosevelt.”
“And your mother?”
“She died. About a year ago.”
He stuffed the bread into his mouth and reached for another piece.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“You shouldn’t be sorry,” he told me. “You didn’t even know her.”
“I meant it in a more general way. I meant I’m sorry about your loss.”
Gorging, he looked at me as if I had just spoken in Sanskrit. After a moment he said, “How do you make this sauce?”
“Butter and vinegar,” I said. “Lemon, a little vermouth. Nothing to it, really.”
“I never had sauce like this,” he said. “You made this bread?”
“Bread’s a hobby of mine,” I said. “I just about do it in my sleep.”
“Yow,” he said. Shaking his head in astonishment, he reached for his fourth slice.
After dinner the boys went up to Jonathan’s room. In a moment we heard the stereo, an unfamiliar drumbeat that thumped through the floorboards. Bobby had brought some of his records over.
Ned said, “My God, the kid’s an orphan.”
“He’s not an orphan,” I said. “His father is alive.”
“You know what I mean. That kid’s in a bad way.”
I got up to clear the dishes. When I was a girl there had been parts of town we never went near. They were dark spots, blank areas on the map. I said, “Yes, and that’s why Jonathan is so taken with him. If he were lame on top of it, we’d have him here every night instead of every other.”
“Whoa there,” Ned said. “This doesn’t sound like you.”
I stacked Bobby’s empty plate on top of Jonathan’s. Jonathan had artfully distributed his food around the edges of his plate, so it would appear to have been consumed. He was so thin you could just about see through him in a strong light. Bobby’s plate was spotless, as if he had scoured it with his tongue. Nary a crumb was left on the cloth where he’d sat.
“I know it doesn’t,” I said. “I’m sorry about all that’s happened to him, I really am. But something about that boy frightens me.”
“He’s wild, is what he is. He’s a boy with no one but a father, growing up half wild. We have resources enough to give some shelter to a wild boy, don’t you think?”
“Of course we do.”
I carried the plates into the kitchen. I was sullen, bone-hard Alice, married to Ned the Good.
He followed, bringing dishes. “Don’t worry,” he said from behind me. “Every kid brings home a few wild friends. Jonathan will grow up fine, regardless.”
“But I do worry about him,” I said, running water. “He’s thirteen. This is like—oh, I don’t know. It’s almost like seeing some hidden quality of Jonathan’s come suddenly to light. Something he’s been harboring all along that we never knew about.”
“You’re overplaying the scene.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. If I had the time I’d tell you all about Robby Cole. He was my best friend in grade school. I was devoted to him because he could set off caps with his teeth. Among other things.”
“And look how you turned out.”
“Well, I married you,” he said.
“A laudable accomplishment. Perhaps less than a life’s purpose, though.”
“I married you and I run the best movie theater in Greater Cleveland. And I’ve got to go.”
“Goodbye.”
He put his hands around my waist, kissed me loudly on the neck. I was visited briefly by his smell, the particular odor of his skin mingled with citrus after-shave. It was like entering his sphere of inhabited air, and as long as I stood within that sphere I could share his belief that bad things passed away of their own accord, that the world conspired toward good outcomes. I turned and lightly kissed his rough cheek.
“Worry less,” he said.
I promised to try. While he was in the house, it seemed possible. But as soon as he left, the possibility receded like light from a lantern he carried. I watched