on the back of Charlotte’s neck, gathering her head to his, tangling in the gloss of her hair. It looked to him like a brute hand, too strong and clumsy in its gesture, too insistent. His eyes were open, too, as if he’d surprised even himself with the pressure of his ardor. Charlotte’s eyes were closed. She looked pliable, acquiescent. Like a movie bride, disappearing into her joy.
It’s nice, Charlotte said.
It was a nice picture. Bruce agreed. But there was something about it that shamed him, too, that left him exposed. He wanted her to turn the page. When she didn’t, and kept looking, he glanced around and commented on the new bricks they would need to order for the patio, come next summer.
THEY LANDED at Teterboro. Just Knox, her mother, her father; they had left Robbie at the back door, waving, the magazine still in his hand. Knox had a moment of regret walking away from him, away from the house; how appealing it would be to sink into the couch in the den beside Robbie, to watch, as he cruised the movie channels with the remote control whose intricacies only he fully understood, opening windows on the television screen that revealed other shows in progress, small worlds enclosed in boxes over the actors’ shoulders that reminded Knox of the thought bubbles in cartoons. There would be salty chips, and beer, and warm lamplight, and no need for talk, where Robbie was. But Knox had chosen. Of course she had chosen the flight, which had been smooth until right at the descent, during which Knox allowed herself to feel heroic for an indulgent moment—to imagine, as the interior of the small plane rattled and the digital altimeter over her mother’s head subtracted from itself, that she was rushing to Charlotte’s side in her time of need. That she was that kind of sister: the Jane Austen kind.
Now that they were inside the small terminal, waiting for the car her father had ordered to take them into the city, Knox’s mother looked at her and said, “Do you think we should call the hospital?”
“How soon will we be there?”
Her mother smiled and rolled her eyes. “I know,” she said. It was the face she made when she reached for a second helping of pie, or took one of the cigarettes that Robbie had offered her on his first weekend home, having invited her onto the back porch and baited her with a declared desire for “Mom time.” “But could you call again? Here’s Bruce’s cell number.” She handed Knox a piece of cream-colored paper that Knox recognized as having come from a pad she kept on her desk in the library.
Knox took the cell phone her mother handed her and dialed the number on the piece of paper. After nine rings, she was prompted by a mechanical voice to leave a message.
“He’s not answering,” Knox called across the terminal lobby. “Should I leave a message?”
Knox’s mother blinked. “I guess so. Go ahead.”
Knox kept her eyes on her mother as she spoke into the phone: “Bruce. Hi. We just landed. We’ll call you again in a few minutes. Or we’ll see you first. Hope everything is going well.” She licked her lips, which felt dry. Her mother looked girlish, sitting prim on a huge piece of modular furniture by the window. Knox sometimes thought that, as her mother aged, she could see her returning to who she had been physically as a child—to the soft smoothness, the eager glow, that children worked so hard to shed. She sat down beside her mother.
“You’re going to be good,” Knox said. “A grand grandmother.” She sounded effortful, saccharine, to herself, and wondered if she should pretend to be teasing. She turned her mouth up at the corners.
But her mother didn’t look up and began rummaging for something at the bottom of her purse.
“Thanks, darling,” she said. She put her free hand on Knox’s leg. “I’m really glad you came.”
Knox’s father strode in through a pair of automatic doors, which chirred closed behind him.
“Car’s out front,” he said. Warm air from outside seemed to swirl invisibly in. Knox thought that her father looked imposing, sure. He walked with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders pushed a bit forward, the way her own tended to be. “There’s a phone in it. I just called the hospital and they told me that Charlotte’s still in the operating room.”