Skylight Confessions Page 5

  “I don’t know if it will live,” Arlyn said. “It needs its mother.”

  A man sitting nearby said to feed it bread softened with milk and keep it warm. They ordered a sandwich and some milk, mixed it up, and when they offered it to the baby squirrel, it ate a bit. After that, Arlie wrapped her scarf loosely around the squirrel. Their car was parked in the ferry lot, but instead of getting into it right away and heading home, Arlyn took Sam into the café for a treat. The squirrel was asleep in his pocket.

  “You would be a good big brother,” Arlyn said.

  “I don’t think so.” Sam was serious. It wouldn’t suit him.

  “I know you would be,” Arlyn insisted.

  They were the only customers in the café. For once, Sam didn’t have the feeling he had when he had to stick the pin into his finger to chase his bad thoughts away. He felt happy in the café, drinking hot chocolate while his mother had a cup of tea. When he got home, he would put the baby squirrel in a big box used for his blocks. He would listen all night long, willing it to stay alive.

  “Maybe I would be good at it,” he said to please his mother.

  “But you’ll always be everything to me,” Arlyn said. “Even if I have twenty more children, you will always be first.”

  A man had come in and ordered some food and the cook was heating up the griddle. The cook broke three eggs, easy as that, crack, crack, crack. They weren’t the only people there anymore.

  “Are you going to have twenty children?” Sam asked.

  He wondered where his father thought they were. If he’d called the school, or the police, or their neighbor Cynthia, whom Sam despised. Cynthia thought children couldn’t hear conversations that weren’t directly addressed to them, but Sam heard everything.

  “Just one more,” Arlyn said. “I think it will be a girl.”

  “What will we call her?” Sam had been thinking about names for the squirrel as well. Nuts, Baby, Good Boy, Sam Junior.

  “Blanca,” Arlyn said.

  Sam looked up at his mother. She had already decided. He loved the sound of that name, how mysterious it was. “Why Blanca?”

  “Because it means white as snow,” Arlyn said. “She’ll be a winter baby.”

  On the drive home, Sam thought about snow falling. By winter his squirrel would be healthy and all grown up and Sam would take him back across the sound on the ferryboat, back to the field where the grass was so tall, and he would say, Run away. Run as fast as you can. Go back home where you belong.

  SHE NEVER THANKED GEORGE FOR THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT he’d left behind, but she kept the pearls around her throat constantly, a testament to what they’d once had, and what, unbeknownst to George, they were about to have. As Arlie wore the pearls, their color changed to a pale oyster yellow in the first days of her pregnancy, when she was so anxious about being found out that she couldn’t eat or sleep.

  As for John Moody, he had no reason to doubt her; he believed the child they were about to have was his. When Arlie stopped worrying, the pearls then became a pure Egyptian white. All the same, it was a difficult pregnancy. Arlyn was often sick to her stomach, tired, on the brink of tears. But in her ninth month, she became less haggard, robust almost, and the pearls blushed faintly. Pink as the inside of an ear, pink as winter light. It was January, a harsh, frozen season, but Arlyn’s presence was now so warm she seemed to heat whatever room she entered. Her hair turned darker, a deep blood red. The freckles she hated faded into nothingness. People in the shops in town stopped to tell her she looked radiant; she laughed and thanked them.

  Shouldn’t she be guilt-ridden over what she had done? Well, she wasn’t. She surprised herself with the way she felt. At night when John was asleep, Arlyn sat beside the windows to watch snow drift down and she thought, I am happy.

  It was a moment made of glass, this happiness; it was the easiest thing in the world to break. Every minute was a world, every hour a universe. Arlie tried to slow her breathing, thinking it might slow time, but she knew they were all hurtling forward no matter what. At night she read stories to Sam. She lay down beside him in his bed and felt his body next to her, the shape of his hipbone, his leg, his wiggly little feet. He smelled like glue and loyalty. By now Arlyn knew he wasn’t like other children. There were more problems at school — he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t behave; he often seemed to be in his own world, disconnected, missing homework assignments, ignoring party invitations. There were no friends who came to play. No after-school sports. No positive teacher’s reports. All the same, at night when Arlie read to him, Sam was happy as well. They both were. The squirrel had indeed lived, and had been named William. He was now at home in the closet, nesting among a mess of torn-up newspapers and rags and peanut shells, tearing up the Sheet-rock, chomping on the wooden floor, coming out to play in the afternoons after school.

  William was their shared secret — John Moody had no idea the squirrel existed. That was how little he knew of their domestic life. Why, his wife and son could have had a tiger in a cage, a fox in the basement, a bald eagle nesting beside the washing machine and John would have been none the wiser. Arlyn could not remember the last time John had come into the child’s bedroom to say good night, or the last time he had spoken to her other than to ask where his briefcase was or if she might fix him some breakfast. As for the pregnancy, it seemed to mean no more than that day’s weather, a fact of their life, neither good nor bad, joyful nor regrettable.

  John was busy, far too busy for the likes of them, fools who wasted their time on squirrels and books and happiness. He was at work on a huge project in Cleveland — a tower of glass, thirty stories, bigger and better than the Glass Slipper or any of his father’s other buildings. John spent most of the week in Ohio, exhausted when he flew back for the weekend, wanting only peace and quiet.

  “He’ll come around,” Arlyn’s mother-in-law told her when she phoned. “The Moody men are better fathers to teenagers than they are to small children.”

  Arlyn laughed and said, “You always defend him.”

  “Wouldn’t you do the same?” Diana asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Of course Arlyn would defend her own child no matter what. This was most likely the reason Diana had liked her daughter-in-law from the moment they met, when Arlie had knocked on the back door, an uninvited girl of seventeen. Arlyn might look placid, but there was a fierceness there, one Diana appreciated.

  “How is my brilliant grandson?” Diana always asked when they spoke.

  “Still brilliant,” Arlie would inform her.

  On this they always agreed. Arlyn was now reading the entire Edward Eager series to Sam, stories that had all taken place in Connecticut. They were up to Half Magic, in which the wishes made never worked out as planned. William the squirrel, which had been to the vet in town for all the proper shots, perched on the bedpost and listened, making occasional chattering noises, turning the bedpost to wood dust with his gnawing.

  “Do you mind being fat?” Sam asked one night when he was being tucked into bed.

  “Not at all,” Arlyn said. So much the better; John Moody didn’t come near her. She laughed to herself.

  “I don’t feel the way the children in those books do. They’re hopeful. I feel that something bad is about to happen.”

  Sam had lovely big eyes. When he was tucked into bed, you wouldn’t think he was the terror his teachers said he was, the one who locked himself in a coat closet or drew on the walls with crayons and ink.

  “Well, you’re a real-life child and they’re fictional.” Arlyn tested Sam’s forehead for fever.

  “I wish I was fictional,” Sam said.

  “Well, I want you just the way you are.” Arlyn hugged him good night.

  “What about William?” Sam said.

  Arlyn laughed and patted the squirrel, then put him in his box for the night.

  “Sweet dreams to you both,” she called.

  Arlyn wore the pearls to bed, enjoying the heat of them
around her neck. Pearls were made of living matter, and so they continued to live. She had heard that George Snow was working in New Haven, that he and his brother had disbanded the business after the run-in with John Moody. As it happened, the new window washers weren’t reliable; they were rather cowardly and refused to come and perch atop the Glass Slipper when there was inclement weather. The windows in the house were foggy on the outside, streaked with sleet. When Diana came up to help out as the time for the baby grew near, she complained about how dingy the house had become. The rooms were too big, the house too much for Arlyn to clean. As for Sam’s room, it smelled of peanuts and dirt. Even worse, the toddler Diana had so adored was now a sullen six-year-old. Sam would not speak to his grandmother. He was withdrawn and shy.

  “What’s wrong with him? I hear him talking to himself when I pass by his room.”

  “He’s perfectly fine,” Arlie said. “He’s just not like everyone else.”

  “Good lord,” Diana said. “These are real behavior problems. That poor darling boy. Where is John in all this?”

  “Cleveland.”

  “I see,” Diana said.

  The Moody men, Diana assured her daughter-in-law, could be detached, busy, in a world of their own. Well, maybe Sam was merely following that pattern, or maybe it was something more. Certainly, all was not well in this house. It was clear that the marriage was unhappy. Several times, Diana noticed a truck driving slowly by, late at night, headlights turned off. Once a man had gotten out to stand in the snow. Diana had watched from the kitchen window. The fellow disappeared soon enough, and there were no tire tracks when Diana went to look in the morning. Maybe he hadn’t been there at all. Maybe she’d seen only the shadows the boxwoods cast along the road.

  It was snowing on the night of the birth. John was in Cleveland and so Arlyn called a taxi service. “You don’t mind, do you?” Arlie said when she woke her mother-in-law to watch over Sam. Arlyn was already wearing her coat; her packed overnight bag was by the door. “And don’t be upset if Sam doesn’t talk to you when you send him to school. He’s not a morning person.”

  “Don’t worry,” Diana said. She was furious with her son, off working, leaving this poor girl to fend for herself. “I’ll take care of everything here.”

  Blanca was born at eight minutes after midnight, a beautiful pale child who looked exactly like George Snow. She calmly let herself be held and cradled and nursed. She was cool to the touch and she smelled sweet. John Moody was called in Cleveland. Though the nurses were shocked that he was away working, leaving the new mother on her own, Arlie herself was grateful. She would have felt guilty if John had been standing by.

  “My snow girl,” she said to the baby in such a pure voice that the infant turned her head to hear more. “My darling, my daughter, my pearl.”

  When Arlie brought the baby home, Sam was waiting in the driveway. The taxi stopped and Arlie got out and there he was, waiting, no coat, no hat. Diana came running out.

  “He refuses to come inside. He’s been standing here all day. I was about to call the police. I thought he’d freeze to death!”

  Arlyn smiled at her little boy. Snow was falling onto his shoulders. His lips were blue with cold.

  “Is that her?” Sam asked.

  Arlie nodded and brought the baby over.

  “Blanca,” Sam said. “She’s beautiful.”

  Diana had had enough. She’d seen to it that John was taking the evening flight from Cleveland. Mother, this is business, he’d said when she’d phoned to tell him to get home. Diana had made a lot of excuses in her time; she was an expert, really, but she wasn’t making excuses now. As a husband and a father, John was lacking. Diana looked at Arlyn and her children and she remembered how lonely she’d been as a young mother in this same house. She wanted to say, Run away. Run as fast as you can. Instead she reached for the baby. “I’ll bring Blanca inside.”

  Arlyn and Sam stayed in the driveway a while longer.

  “Now we’re all here,” Arlyn said. “My dreams came true. I wanted a son just like you and a daughter just like Blanca.”

  It was getting even colder and they needed to go inside. They walked along the driveway toward the door, but at the last moment Arlyn pulled on Sam’s sleeve, holding him back. Arlyn lay down in the drive; she flapped her arms, making a snow angel. He watched her for a moment, then followed suit. They were so cold and wet, it no longer mattered how much snow they got into.

  They stood up and studied their angels. “There,” Arlie said, sounding satisfied. “That’s for good luck.”

  Sam was shivering now. He went up to his room. He was supposed to take off his wet clothes, but he let the damp sink into his bones. The angels they’d made in the driveway were beautiful, but they were sad, too. They made Sam think of heaven and of the end of the world. He couldn’t bear to think of anything bad happening to his mother or to Blanca. He had a bad feeling, as though he were sinking. The truth was, Sam had a secret, one he hadn’t told. His mother had been so excited about the baby; she was too happy for him to tell her why he’d been standing outside in the driveway in the snow, refusing to come inside.

  It wasn’t because Blanca was coming home. He’d been out there all day because William had died. That morning Sam had opened the closet to give the squirrel his favorite meal — an apple with peanut butter — and there William had been, curled up in his nest, unmoving. Sam closed the door and went out to the driveway. He kept a pin in his pocket and stabbed at his fingertips, but that sort of pain wasn’t enough to get rid of what he felt. When he went to bed that night, instead of crying, he counted to a hundred. One, nothing could touch him. Two, he was miles away. Three, he was flying high above houses and treetops, one of those rare Connecticut people his mother told him about, people who belonged to a strange and little-known race. He might be one of them; a boy who could fly away from danger and heartbreak and never feel a thing.

  ARLIE FELT THE LUMP WHEN BLANCA WAS THREE MONTHS old, while she was breast-feeding. Her breasts had been bumpy and engorged with milk, but this was something else entirely. Just what she’d always feared. Something in the shape of a stone.

  John Moody had finished his building in Cleveland — it had been dubbed the Glass Mountain and people in that city were highly critical of its height. Now John was back. The baby had softened him a bit; maybe it was all right to coo and fuss over a daughter if not over a son, or maybe he’d actually heard his mother when she told him how disappointed she was.

  John was in the kitchen having coffee on the day Arlie found the lump. He’d actually poured Arlyn a cup. He was trying to be considerate. When he looked up to see Arlie standing there in her nightgown, her hair uncombed, he forgot about the coffee.

  “I think something’s wrong,” Arlie said.

  John Moody knew his was not the happiest of marriages. He felt he’d been trapped; his youth had been taken from him. He had still never been to Italy, although he’d taken several courses and could now converse in halting Italian, a Venetian dialect, with his teacher, a lovely young woman he’d made love to twice. Three times would be an affair, he told himself. Once was only an experiment, since he’d been so young when he’d married. Twice was simply to be polite so as not to hurt the poor woman’s feelings. When he started working on the building in Cleveland he’d stopped the classes; he had received several messages at his office from his Italian teacher, but he hadn’t returned them. Frankly, he was settled into his marriage; his wife no longer expected him to be anything he wasn’t. She knew him.

  “Look, everyone has problems,” he said to Arlie. He’d thought she was a free spirit, but she was a worrier, really. “You can’t let difficulties stop you. You can’t just give up, can you?”

  Arlie came to the table. She stood in front of him and took his hand. His true impulse was to pull it away, but he didn’t. He wanted to read the paper, but he forced himself to be there for her. On the evening before his mother had left, she pulled him aside to say, Be kin
der. So that was what he was trying to do. Arlie had just had a baby, after all, and couldn’t be held responsible for her actions or her moods. Or so Jack Gallagher next door had told him when John complained about how erratic Arlyn was. But then Jack had no children, and in a matter of weeks he’d have no wife. Cynthia had made it clear to John Moody that she was available; she had filed for divorce and Jack would soon be moving out. So much for his neighbor’s advice. As a matter of fact, John had known about the divorce before Jack himself had. One night soon after Arlie came home with the baby, Cynthia had been waiting for John in the driveway, desperate for someone to talk to, someone who would understand.

  He could deal with his own wife, surely. The newspaper could wait. But instead of wanting to talk, Arlie did something that completely surprised John. She placed his hand on her breast. He felt the lump right away; all at once he realized how long it had been since he’d touched her. And now this, a stone.

  “Maybe this is normal. Maybe you should stop breast-feeding and it will go away.”

  That was the way he thought about life. He believed in logic and denial in equal parts, but Arlie knew better. She thought about the instants in time she’d had. Standing on the porch waiting for John, giving birth to her babies, racing along the beach with George Snow while he threw stones at the sea, the snow angels in the driveway, the way Sam reached for her hand. This moment was the dividing line between the before and the after. No more hanging globes of time. No more forevers. Sitting in the doctor’s office, dozens of mammograms, making dinner for Sam and John, rocking Blanca to sleep, calling Diana to ask if she would come back up from Florida to help out with the children after Arlie had her surgery. It all happened so fast; the past hung above Arlyn as though imprinted on air. She thought of it as a ceiling she walked beneath. She tried her best to remember her own mother. Arlie had been three years old when her mother became ill, with what, Arlie had never been told. If she’d known it was the same cancer she herself now had, she would have known to check herself and be checked, but people didn’t talk about such things. Cancer was a spell with evil effects; said aloud, the very word was capable of putting a curse on the speaker.