in one’s belly. Probably Roscoe (because it was Roscoe she had heard; poor Roscoe) hadn’t even known what was happening to him. Maybe a little bit, at the end. One minute he was snuffling down the street, searching for something to eat—Lila recalled the floppy thing she’d seen in his mouth that morning, instantly pushing this unpleasant memory aside—and the next: well, there was no next. Roscoe was sailing into oblivion.
And now there was this man. This Lawrence Grey. About whom, Lila realized, she knew exactly nothing. He was a janitor. He cleaned. What did he clean? Probably David would have a conniption if he knew she’d let a total stranger into the house. She would have liked to see the look on David’s face. Lila supposed it was possible she’d misjudged the man, this Lawrence Grey, but she didn’t think so. She’d always been a good judge of character. Granted, Lawrence had said some disturbing things in the kitchen—very disturbing. About the lights being out and people missing and all the rest. (Dead, dead, everyone was dead.) He’d certainly gotten her upset. But to be fair, he’d done a wonderful job with the nursery, and she could tell just by looking at him that his heart was in the right place. Which was another of her father’s favorite expressions. What did it mean, exactly? Could the heart be anywhere else? Daddy, I’m a doctor, she’d told him once, laughing; I can tell you for a fact, the heart is where it is.
Lila heard herself sigh. Such an effort, just to keep everything straight in her mind. Because that was what you had to do; you had to look at things in a certain light and no other, and no matter what happened, you couldn’t break your gaze away. The world could overwhelm you otherwise, it could drown you like a wave, and then where would you be? The house itself was nothing she would miss; she had secretly hated it from the moment she’d stepped inside, its show-offy dimensions and too-many rooms and gaseous yellow light. It wasn’t at all like the one that she and Brad had lived in on Maribel Street—snug, homey, full of the things they’d loved—but how could it be? What was a house but the life it contained? This pompous monstrosity, this museum of nothing. It had been David’s idea, of course. The House of David: wasn’t that something from the Bible? The Bible was full of houses, the house of so-and-so and the house of such-and-such. Lila remembered being a little girl, snuggled up on the sofa to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas—she’d loved Snoopy almost as much as Peter Rabbit—and the moment when Linus, the smart one, the one who was really just a man pretending to be a boy with his blanket, stepped downstage to tell Charlie Brown what Christmas was all about. And there were in that same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
City of David, House of David.
But the baby, Lila thought. The baby was where her thoughts belonged. Not with the house, or noises from outside (there were monsters), or David not coming home (dead David), or any of the rest. All the literature had clearly shown, indisputably shown, that negative emotions affected the fetus. It thought as you thought, it felt as you felt, and if you were frightened all the time, what then? Those upsetting things Lawrence had said in the kitchen: the man meant well, he was only trying to do what he thought was best for her and Eva (Eva?), but did these things have to be true, simply because he’d said them? They were theories. They were just his opinions. Which wasn’t to say she disagreed. Probably it was time to go. It had gotten awfully quiet around this place. (Poor Roscoe.) If Brad were here, that’s what he would have said to her. Lila, it’s time to go.
Because sometimes, lots of times, all the time, it felt to Lila Kyle as if the baby growing inside her