Part 3 (2/2)
A weekend morning and the world was their lumpy, king-sized bed. Room happy in its disarray. Todds Van Eyck uniform flung over the door to the closest, a shed skin, while other things of all sizes-from a little girls shoe to a womans black stockings, strung out and runny on the windowsill-lay about. Comfort in the chaotic domesticity. Todd blinked his eyes, still somewhat sealed with sleep. He rolled over, slowly-his bladder full-and found Gennys hip with his palm. From this reference point he traveled northwest and found the beginning swell of her pregnant belly. Another baby on the way; a boy, Todd hoped.
”Quit it,” Genny said. She waved back with her left arm and hit him in the side.
”Oof.” A burning fullness swelled out from the impact. Todd hadnt peed the bed since he couldnt remember when, but just then, almost.
Genny leaned up, suddenly awake. ”Are you OK?”
”My teeth are floating is what.”
She laughed and lay her head back down. ”I almost popped the balloon?”
Todd got up and shuffled through the drifts of his adult life-dirty laundry, coffee mug, small stack of bills-toward the bathroom. ”It could have been bad for you, too.”
”At this point, I wouldnt care.”
The worst part of their house on Glasgow was that there was no bathroom attached to their bedroom. Todd had to scoot down a little hallway-always a chill here-and enter the bathroom via a swollen, likely to stick, impossible-to-keep-quiet door across from the pantry. It would take a miracle to use the bathroom without alerting the whole house that he was awake. And then it would be Suzie jumping up and down, singing whatever song shed picked up from the mornings cartoons, demanding a detailed itinerary of the days events. If not that then the Flying Finn would come in, probably just in his boxers, eating graham crackers or something, crumbs all over the place. They would be listening for the creak of that bathroom door, even if they didnt know they were. Todd had done the same thing when he was a kid and that room was Finns.
Out in the living room he heard the purring click of the Wheel of Fortune spinning on the TV in the living room. Todd was absolutely certain Wheel of Fortune didnt play at eight a.m. on a Sat.u.r.day. It had to be one of the Flying Finns tapes. Todd wondered how the old man had persuaded Suzie to switch away from Looney Tunes, or whatever.
Todd reached out and turned the k.n.o.b to the bathroom all of the way, antic.i.p.ating the latch clicking. Next he stepped forward and put his bare foot at the base of the doorway, so that when he pulled, the clear section, near the bottom, wouldnt come out before the swollen section nearer the top. Next he gave the door little jerks, easing it out centimeter by centimeter until, blessed be thee of wood and bra.s.s, it came away quietly. Todd stepped in, sat down for his p.i.s.s to minimize noise, and was back in the bedroom with no one the wiser.
The warmth around Genny was delicious, and the moment he settled in next to her he was able to regain the just-below-the-surface sleepiness that was the best part of waking up.
”Is the old goat watching Wheel of Fortune?” Genny asked.
”I think its one of his tapes.”
”Why would anyone watch a game show more than once?”
”His name is, legit I mean, the Flying Finn, so watching game shows on tape is basically par for the course.”
”Legit, like its legal?” She turned around to face him. She goosed his ribs so he shot out his arms and held her, brought her close, conformed to the curved shape of her body. ”In a court of law?”
”You know what I mean.”
Then the door burst open and Suzie came running in carrying something bleached white in each hand. ”Look it, look it, look it!” she yelled.
Genny pulled away from Todd-the successful coup of sneaking into the bathroom all for nothing-and smiled down at their daughter. Todd rolled away, arm draped over his eyes, trying to dunk himself back under the waterline. ”What is it?”
”Grandpa gave it to me if I didnt watch toons.”
”Jesus,” Genny said-and in this one word Todd heard the business end of his wife come out and was thrust onto dry land, totally awake. ”Todd?”
He sat up and looked at what his daughter held. It didnt correlate with anything he recognized until he tilted his head to the left and saw the grin. His little girl, sweet chickadee of summer and light, was holding the skull and separated jawbone of a long-dead cow. ”Whoa, Grandpa gave that to you?”
”Your father . . .” Genny was whispering savagely.
”Its for my white collection,” Suzie said-the ct in collection coming out as an sh sound.
”Thats great, baby, but do you know what that is?” His daughter, ever since she had been able to get around on her own, had gathered things together that caught her eye. This magpie tendency had become color-coded in the last six months and the habit only seemed on course to get more sophisticated going forward.
”Moo-cows head,” she said seriously. ”Hes dead now.”
Then the Flying Finn was in the doorway with a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter in one hand, scooping out the last bits with the other. Todd and Genny still in bed, people coming in, this felt like John and Yoko.
”Mori”-this was how his father always referred to his wife-”almost no peanut b.u.t.ter.”
”A cows skull, Finn?” Genny said.
”Oh, so you want shes playing with the pink dolls!” He was mock-outraged, peanut b.u.t.ter caught in his whiskers. It was a joke between them. Whenever they saw little girls around Suzies age, all trussed up in ribbon and lace, they conspired about where else a bow could conceivably be tied-around the knee, on each ear?
”Get your own peanut b.u.t.ter!” Genny yelled, halfway ready to laugh, but not there yet.
”Get out of our room, Dad.”
”This was my room one time!” he yelled back, already on his way out.
”Go watch your reruns!”
”Its practice for when Vannah calls. Then you see the laughing, and itll all be me!”
”Daddy, lets go to the beach! For collecting!”
Genny collapsed back into bed. ”Can you take her? Maybe I can sleep a bit more.”
”Yes, lets go, lets go!” his daughter said.
Todd kissed his wife on the cheek, tucked the sheets in around her. She smiled back, already sailing. ”Wash the d.a.m.n cow skull,” she whispered.
Beach was winter white. Bleached driftwood and white-capped waves. Blown-out sand sculptures formed around things washed up and forgotten. The littlest piece of trash, or stick, or turned-over cup grew in the drifts of sand until it seemed big enough to hide a creature. Some malformed thing waiting to scuttle forth and eat when the time was right. Pa.s.sing rain squalls dumped parts of their burden on their journey inland, patterns in many-cratered pointillism.
Todd watched Suzie run in the sand, so small she seemed unreal, collecting the things she found in the basket she made with the front of her T-s.h.i.+rt. She had her blue jacket unzipped and it flapped in the gusts. When she turned a certain way, the wind flipped it completely up, and it looked like his daughter was hanging by the armholes as her jacket tugged her into the heavens.
”You stay close,” Todd called out on that last day.
”OK, Daddy,” she yelled back, not even looking.
He chuckled to himself. Little, pretty, Suzanna. A startling thing he called Suzie Q. Baby girl born so cute n.o.body was safe. Even the most checked-out teenage boys stopped to coo at little Suzie.
It was the last day Todd was fully happy. Oh there would be other days of pleasantness, surges of positive feeling, but this was the final time he was filled all the way up. He lay back in the sand and crossed his ankles, a practice Genny Mori said would give him varicose veins. She was always saying things like this. It was how she told him she loved him. He crossed them anyway and sighed. What a luxury. The people of Columbia City had finally started seeing him for who he had become rather than what he could have. They asked him questions about little Suzie instead of rehab on his knee. There were no illusions of a basketball comeback. No pipe dreams of an NBA star hailing from their town. Not anymore.
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