Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,128

hunch,” she said.

“Have you seen anything? I mean, anything—substantial?”

“Of course not. I would have told you.”

“What do I do? Do I fire her? Do I confront him?”

She dried the last dish and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “You do nothing. I doubt anything has even happened yet, knowing that boy. These things work themselves out.”

I nodded. “We could be wrong.”

“We’re not,” she said. “We are lucky, you and me,” she said, and though I hadn’t been feeling particularly lucky, I knew she was right.

The following Saturday, at water aerobics, I struggled through the cycles until we reached the ending ritual, in which I’d learned to close my eyes and lose myself in the shorthand meditation. I always wished that this part lasted longer, but this time, instead of letting Cynthia’s calming voice lull me into that feeling of peace I’d come to cherish, I opened my eyes partway through and looked over at my daughter. She did not look peaceful. Her eyes were closed, but they were closed as if she were shutting them against something she didn’t want to see, and her face was tight. I nudged her, and she looked over at me. “What?” she whispered, and I said, “Are you OK?” I felt Cynthia giving us a look. Margo started to cry. I held her in the water while the ladies dispersed, and before she left, Cynthia patted Margo on the back and said, “It’s cathartic, exercise. It will heal what ails you.”

Not this, I thought.

It was around this time that we had a lift installed on the downstairs toilet, along with grab bars on the wall and in the shower. I asked Dennis if we might want to ask Paul to build a railing on the pier—I lived in fear that Dennis might lost control of his wheelchair and plummet into the water—but he just smiled and said, sloppily, “Silly goose.”

The summer had ended, but I hadn’t really noticed. In November, Dr. Auerbach told us that Dennis’s progression was faster than he’d hoped it would be. This came as a surprise—I’d had nothing to compare it with. Then one afternoon in December I came home from work to find Stuart sitting on the raised toilet in the guest room bath. Dennis was in the tub. The water had drained.

“We’re waiting,” said Stuart when he saw me in the doorway.

“For what? Are you OK?” I said to Dennis.

“We tried to get out, but it didn’t quite work,” said Stuart. “We’re resting.”

“I’m fine,” said Dennis. The word fine was one elongated vowel, with hardly a hint of a consonant.

“I brought this,” said Stuart, holding up a dry-erase board the size of a placemat. There was a blue marker affixed to its side with Velcro. This was something I’d asked him to pick up after Lola and Dr. Auerbach had recommended it. Dennis’s speech had been getting worse. Within a month, he would be writing more often than speaking.

“Hate . . . writing,” said Dennis. Long hard a, long hard i, short soft i.

“I know, baby. But I like reading.” To Stuart, I said, “You can go. I’ll help him out.”

“No,” said Dennis.

“It’s difficult,” said Stuart. “I think I should stay.”

“I have to be able to do it,” I said, looking back and forth between them. I’d been helping Dennis into and out of the tub when Lola and Stuart were not around; the last time I’d done it, however, had been weeks before, and I admit it had hurt my back. I figured there was a trick I was missing, a stronger posture. Lola was such a little thing—surely she wasn’t more capable of lifting my husband than I was?

“Trust me,” said Stuart. To Dennis, he said, “Try again?”

Dennis nodded and Stuart braced himself against the tub, then reached down and put both arms under Dennis’s armpits and stepped into the tub between Dennis’s legs. He was confident and sturdy, and I knew that even if this attempt failed, he would be able to put Dennis down gracefully. I trusted him. This was, I suppose, as good a reason as any for not somehow forcing his flirtation with the therapist to end: what would I do without him? It was shameful.

When Dennis was standing, he could help a bit by getting his legs under himself, and Stuart reached down to bend Dennis’s leg from behind and help him step over the side of the tub. He wrapped a towel around Dennis’s shoulders and supported his weight