water. “Duh-key,” he said slowly, his first word after “Mama” and “Dada.” He grabbed her hand, wanting her to touch it too; he always wanted her to share his experiences, as if to maintain the closeness they had when he was part of her body. “Duh-key.”
She’d been finishing up her dissertation then; really it was all finished except for the formatting, and she was home with him constantly. Everything he did was miraculous and amazing to her, because he was her first. Then Moira came and did the exact same miraculous things at nearly the same rate (or faster) and Elm simply couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.
Her guilt was so repressed—she couldn’t bear even to think about her children in this manner. But the truth was that Ronan had been her child, while Moira was Colin’s. Colin had had little to do with Ronan’s first months—the processes by which he might have bonded with the infant were opaque to him, plus it was a particularly busy time at work. Colin would stare at Ronan, the baby’s legs windmilling while Colin changed his diaper, as if he were looking at an exhibit in a museum. Maybe Elm had made it difficult for him to spend time with Ronan; she was so protective. By the time Moira was born, the bond between Ronan and Elm had been cemented, and babies were a known quantity: Colin wouldn’t inadvertently drop her, or do some irrevocable damage with his neophyte parenting skills. Since then Moira had been Daddy’s little girl.
While Elm never speculated or wished that Ronan had survived and Moira had been taken from them, she did admit to her psychiatrist that she felt it wasn’t fair that “her child” had been taken, while “Colin’s child” remained. She refused to elaborate on this line of thought, though Dr. Schultz had prodded and pried. Some things said in the throes of grief should not be reuttered.
Now she asked Moira, “Do you miss your brother?”
“Yes,” Moira answered automatically. She rang out a washcloth over her head and blinked to get the water out of her eyes.
“Do you remember him?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Yup,” Moira said. “His name was Ronan and he died in the su-mommy.”
“Tsunami. But do you remember anything else?”
Moira thought. “Umm, no?” she asked, not sure if this was the right answer to Elm’s question.
Elm sat back. She wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer out of a kindergartner. Today Moira might not remember, tomorrow she would, twenty years from now, who knew?
“Time to get out, Mo,” Elm said, smiling to prevent tears.
“Noooo,” Moira wailed.
“Yes, come on, the water’s cold.” She reached in to pick Moira up under her arms. Moira began to squirm.
“Careful, Mo, you’re slippery.”
Moira splashed Elm with her feet.
“Goddammit, Moira. Can you just please for once behave?” And Elm, surprising herself, began to cry.
Moira was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean it.” I didn’t mean it was child talk for Now that I’m in trouble I wish I hadn’t done it. But still Elm cried, out of frustration, exhaustion, residual grief.
Moira was not as upset as another child might have been; she’d seen her parents cry innumerable times—so much there couldn’t possibly be any liquid left in their eyes, their bodies. They should be sacks of skin like dehydrated cartoon characters.
Elm sat back down on the toilet, and Moira wrapped her towel around herself, then hugged her mother around the middle. “It’s okay, Mom,” she said. “I remember Ronan. I promise.”
The phone rang twice before Elm picked it up, though it was next to her. She had told Colin she was expecting a call from overseas. “Is anyone awake in Europe?” he asked.
“Asia,” she said.
She walked into the bedroom with the phone to her ear, waiting to say hello until she was out of Colin’s earshot.
“Ms. Howells?” said the voice. Had she given her name? Elm wondered.
“Yes,” she said.
“I am glad we can speak further. You are interested in seeing Ronan again, am I right?”
His name, so unexpected, took her breath away. She gasped. “How did—?”
“The Internet, Madame, is a powerful tool. There is much information about you; for instance, that you took Inside the Slidy Diner out of the public library on Ninety-sixth Street last weekend.”
“That’s a little disturbing.”
“That’s the world we live in,” the voice said. He seemed willing to make small talk, speaking rhythmically, hypnotically. “We live in technology. There is no reason to fight the inevitable; it is dissecting clouds.”
“This seems completely unbelievable,” Elm