says. “Maybe she was just hungry, maybe I’m out of milk.”
“How could that be, you’ve been like footballs.”
She looks at him squinting, sensing what’s up. “Well don’t think you’re going to play.” But he thinks he spies a smile there.
Nelson goes to bed as he does when he’s sick, willingly, whimpering. His sister was a drain on him today. Sunk in the pillow, Nelson’s brown head looks demure and compact. As the child hungrily roots the bottle in his mouth, Rabbit hovers, seeking what you never find, the expression with which to communicate, to transfer, those fleeting burdens, ominous and affectionate, that are placed upon us and as quickly lifted, like the touch of a brush. Obscure repentance clouds his mouth, a repentance out of time and action, a mourning simply that he exists in a world where the brown heads of little boys sink gratefully into narrow beds sucking bottles of rubber and glass. He cups his hand over the bulge of Nelson’s forehead. The boy drowsily tries to brush it off, waggles his head with irritation, and Harry takes it away and goes into the other room.
He persuades Janice to have a drink. He makes it—he doesn’t know much about alcoholic things—of half whisky and half water. She says it tastes hateful. But after a while consumes it.
In bed he imagines that he can feel its difference in her flesh. There is that feeling of her body coming into his hand, of fitting his palm, that makes a welcome texture. All under her nightie up to the pit of her throat her body is still for him. They lie sideways, facing each other. He rubs her back, first lightly, then toughly, pushing her chest against his, and gathers such a feel of strength from her pliancy that he gets up on an elbow to be above her. He kisses her dark hard face scented with alcohol. She does not turn her head, but he reads no rejection in this small refusal of motion, that lets him peck away awkwardly at a profile. He stifles his tide of resentment, reschooling himself in her slowness. Proud of his patience, he resumes rubbing her back. Her skin keeps its secret, as does her tongue; is she feeling it? She is mysterious against him, a sullen weight whose chemistry is impervious to ideas, impregnable to their penetration. Is he kindling the spark? His wrist aches. He dares undo the two buttons of her nightie front and lifts the leaf of cloth so a long arc is exposed in the rich gloom of the bed, and her warm breast flattens against the bare skin of his chest. She submits to this maneuver and he is filled with the joyful thought that he has brought her to this fullness. He is a good lover. He relaxes into the warmth of the bed and pulls the bow on his pajama waist. She has been shaved and scratches; he settles lower, on the cotton patch. This unnaturalness, this reminder of her wound makes his confidence delicate, so he is totally destroyed when her voice—her thin, rasping, dumb-girl’s voice—says by his ear, “Harry. Don’t you know I want to go to sleep?”
“Well why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
“I didn’t know what you were doing. I thought you were just being nice.”
“So this isn’t nice.”
“Well, it’s not nice when I can’t do anything.”
“You can do something.”
“No I can’t. Even if I wasn’t all tired and confused from Rebecca’s crying all day I can’t. Not for six weeks. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know, but I thought—” He’s terribly embarrassed.
“What did you think?”
“I thought you might love me anyway.”
After a pause she says, “I do love you.”
“Just a touch, Jan. Just let me touch you.”
“Can’t you go to sleep?”
“No I can’t. I can’t. I love you too much. Just hold still.”
It would have been easy a minute ago to get it over with but all this talk has taken the fine point off. It’s a bad contact and her stubborn limpness makes it worse; she’s killing it by making him feel sorry for her and ashamed and foolish. The whole sweet thing is just sweat and work and his ridiculous inability to finish it against the dead hot wall of her belly. She pushes him back. “You’re just using me,” she says. “It feels horrible.”
“Please, baby. I’m almost there.”
“It feels so cheap.”
Her daring to say this infuriates him; he realizes she hasn’t had