Part 26 (1/2)

”536.” She turned and left.

Harry Benjamin waved to her as she went down the stairs, stepping carefully because her knees were shaky after the great exertion of talking to Clayton.

Grace and Moreland were still there when she got back, even though she'd stopped for groceries. They were always out of milk, and it had sounded like diapers might be a good idea.

Grace had already saved that day, with a huge multi-pack from the bulk warehouse store. She'd made shepherd's pie for supper, and was sliding it into the oven when Clary came in. Clary crossed the kitchen and hugged her, a rare thing between them.

”What's with you?” Grace asked, suspicious.

”I met a guy who used to know my dad,” she said. ”I miss him, don't you, Grace?”

”I do. You need a coffee and a bite of cake,” Grace said. The remedy for any spiritual distress.

Clary sat down and drank her coffee, listening to Moreland playing Lego with the children in the living room. Fern was folding laundry on the dining room table, talking away to Pearce, who was talking back to her, la la la. How could anyone have children without a family around them to help? What on earth had Lorraine done with n.o.body? Clary put her head down on her arms for a minute, wondering how Darwin was, and Lorraine, and whether Clayton would actually go in. But mostly just resting.

When Grace brought her a piece of cake she ruffled up Clary's hair and said, ”Moreland and me are at Auntie Ann's, and we'll stay a week or so, till all this excitement is done.”

Clary lifted her head to say thank you, but Grace was already off to the living room to nag at Moreland about the mess. In a peaceful way.

36. Leaning on the sky.

It was a relief to pile Dolly and Trevor into the car and head off down the street with no other adults to alter the balance. Moreland and Grace had gone Christmas shopping, taking Pearce, and Fern was spending the afternoon at the dentist with Mrs. Pell. Lucky Fern, Clary thought, gliding along down snowy c.u.mberland Avenue to pick up Darwin, being released at noon.

In the back seat Trevor began to sing in a high, thoughtful drone, at first wordless, then adding a chorus to it. ”I can fly, like an eagle,” he sang, staring out the window. Driving felt like that to Clary, a release, an eagle in air, a good skater on big ice.

”I can fly high...” he sang. ”I'm dreaming of the sky, I'm leaning on the sky.”

They loved their mother. Seeing her often was better for them, Clary thought. And who could count how many more visits there would be? When she got very bad they would not be able to go. She could not bear to think of Trevor and Dolly watching their mother die as she had watched her own. Not so soon. She prayed, please, G.o.d, make her better-please. Every muscle straining to ask it, to beg it. Trevor's reedy song sharpened her desire, her will. Please. The prayer went out of her and drifted away, like a message had been successfully sent.

The children clattered along the hall, not spooked this time, first to Darwin's party room where the old guy was holding court with four cronies, wheezing and laughing. Darwin had clothes on! Dolly felt her heart skip, up in the air-he was not going to die! She clutched him until he squawked, ”Hey! Watch the nose! I'm delicate!” Trevor piled on too, but Darwin said, ”Wait, you don't want to get infected-I've got lice! Get back!”

Clary said, ”Oh, stop, don't even-” and couldn't stop herself from scratching her head.

Dolly loved it when Clary was funny. Her stomach felt so good! She was not worried in this room, and when Darwin said they should wander down and see her mom, she could stand it.

Her mother was sitting up awake, looking see-through, but not actually dead. She smiled that little apologetic smile that Dolly was so sorry for. Why were they all being sorry? G.o.d should be sorry.

Lorraine told Clary they'd said that the engraftment was looking good, good counts. Her voice was mostly air, but her mind was with them, as it hadn't always been lately. She looked at Clary steadily and her gaze was painful to bear; and the children: Trevor leaning over the bed so he could rest his cheek on her leg, Dolly's hand motionless on the pillow.

Please G.o.d, please, Clary said again. Please. She went into the bathroom and leaned back against the door and cried, buckets of tears was.h.i.+ng out of her eyes and mouth and nose, making no sound. She washed her face in cold water and went back out.

Paul turned up at the house that evening with three big white bags of take-out food. Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full, Clary sang to herself. One for my master, one for my dame. The bags were balanced on an old cardboard box marked Xmas.

”You weren't coming to me, so I thought I'd better-” he said, quickly, as if he was shy with her. ”I don't know if you like Vietnamese, but I thought the children would, it's plain and fresh-tasting. And Frank Rich brought me two trees, so I have one outside, and a few decorations...”

Clary helped him put the bags on the kitchen table, and put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him. He was foolishly happy to have done the right thing. Pearce staggered in and Paul caught him around the chest and whirled him into the air.

The children unpacked the white boxes and tubs. They loved the little rolls, the fried ones and the rice-paper plastic-glove ones. Dolly gave Trevor the shrimps out of hers. Vietnamese was Fern's favourite, it turned out. Grace sat by Pearce and kept a weather eye out for choking while he had a great time sucking rice noodles, draping his head with a select few.

Moreland went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to get the decorations, and rummaged out a few beers from the cold room he had carefully retained during the renovations. When the children had eaten they drifted off into the living room, tired but peaceful. The adults sat on at the table, talking about complications and other horrors. They could hear Trevor singing around the corner: I'm dreaming of the sky, I'm dreaming of the sky, I'm leaning on the sky, I'm dreaming of the sky...

Dolly sang it with him, and when Trevor trailed out she added a chorus, boola boola boola boola BOOLA. Pearce ran into the living room where there was room to really dance. They loved their mother.

After they'd put the tree up, Clary went down to get more beer. In the cold room she found her mother's Persian carpet, rolled tight as always, but stood on end during the renovation. That would do it no good. She took the beer up, and since Paul and Moreland were deep in a theological discussion, borrowed Fern to help her carry the heavy carpet upstairs.

”To replace the one we ruined with the torte,” Clary told Paul. ”Please, please take it, it's crowding up the bas.e.m.e.nt and has been for thirty years.”

”It's too good a carpet,” he protested, but only formally. He wanted part of her in his house. She had peeled back a corner to show him the jewel colours, the golden antelope and leaves curling around a dark blue ground.

Moreland offered to put it in the truck, but Grace, coming after him into the hall, said, ”Don't be silly, Moreland. Clary can run it over there with her back windows open.”

Grace usually a.s.signed all the delivering to him, but Moreland shut his mouth.

”Paul will need a little help rearranging things, I'm sure,” Grace said, putting Clary's coat on her.

Shunted, Clary and Paul walked out into the night at either end of the carpet, their boots creaking on the snow.

”Is this all right with you?” Clary asked. Paul slid back down the length of the carpet to kiss her, the sudden heat of his mouth and face reviving her in the cold air.

Unwrapped and unrolled, the carpet changed Paul's living room completely, transporting the barren chapel to a Persian garden. He had never seen one with that arch-shape-inside the night-blue arch a golden tree, and above the tree, within the arch, birds cavorting in air.

”But this is-this is valuable,” he said. It almost filled the bare wood floor. ”It's been rolled up all my life. Better to be used.”

”A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse,” he said. ”I think it's silk.”

”Is it?” She was slipping the b.u.t.tons of her blouse through their loops.

”It's probably 19th century.”

”Probably.”

He turned off the light, rather than draw the heavy Jacobean curtains and shut out the moon. She unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt. All the b.u.t.tons in the world still lay between them, too many things to pull off, to shrug out of. The beloved should come into his garden. She leaned into him, pulled him down.

”Do you think we need to talk about what we are doing?” he asked her. She put her mouth and her hands on him. He said, ”We are talking.”

Finally then their skins were the only barrier, and they knelt on the Turkey carpet. The silk pile caught the skin on her knees like tiny knives, and stray moon or street light flayed the skin on his shoulders, his chest, his stomach.

”It's never been this valuable before,” she said.

37. Whale eye.

Clary looked out her bedroom window and there was Clayton, turning up too early on a cold Sat.u.r.day. She yanked the sweater over her head and ran to look out the front door. He had parked over toward the Brents, as if he might keep going, and was still sitting in the car, looking mulish. Had he been in to see Lorraine yet?

Bradley Brent came bustling down his walkway and headed over to the car. Oh, no! She wondered if Clayton had a weapon of some kind, and tried to dismiss that thought as she stuffed her feet into boots. It must be forty below. The insides of her nose stuck together as she ran down the steps.