Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Okay, Ma,” Diane said, feeling her pretense about to collapse, unable to keep up the calm and strength on her face that was expected. She stroked Lily’s hand. “Go to sleep now.” Soothing a baby. “Go to sleep now.”

NINA WAS ready for Eric when he came out of Luke’s room, finished with the bedtime ritual. “I’ve got great news.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been promoted again.” Eric said this pleasantly. He hadn’t objected to her job as Tad’s assistant, but Nina was convinced that Eric’s reserve over his own worries had evolved into deviousness. Ever since her mother had called and asked a lot of pointless, atypical questions about the well-being of Nina’s marriage, Nina thought something had to be up. Something more than Eric’s “I’m having a bad run of luck. That’s why I’m in such a shitty mood. I just gotta reposition stuff, then I’ll be okay,” something more than that was up.

“No,” Nina said, excited. Here was a great present for Eric.

She couldn’t say it in front of Luke and the wait had been almost unbearable. “I got the results of Luke’s IQ test. Well, not the results, they don’t give that out. But they tell you what’s on it. Here— I knew I couldn’t remember it exactly — I made some notes.” Nina took out the paper she had kept in her purse since morning. She had always known that Luke was bright, but the tester’s comments had astonished her anyway. “They do it by age levels. His vocabulary is at the top of the range, a nine — it goes no higher than nine.”

“Nine?” Eric was shot with excitement, standing in the middle of the living room, going up on his toes, and then down on his heels, hands in his pocket, jiggling keys and money.

“Nine years old that means. Vocabulary, his language was at the top. Nine. His math skills were eight. Then, in a category, I forget what she called it, abstract reasoning, cognitive something, anyway, she told me it’s very important because it measures ability, rather than acquired knowledge, was also at the very top, nine. Also orientation was nine.”

“Orientation?”

“Knowing his name, his address—”

“Right, right,” Eric said. “Diane, Byron’s mother, told me that was something they did. So I taught him our phone number, our address. Even taught him our zip code.”

Nina was amazed. “You’re kidding.”

Eric smiled. He rocked on his heels and beamed. “I thought I should teach him more than just how to take a crap. Didn’t he do badly on anything?”

Of course. Eric wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t be happy if there weren’t something a little wrong. “Well, his motor skills were only between five and six.”

Sure enough, that shot Eric down from his floatation up to the heavens. He took his hands out of his pockets, from his excited rattling, and he sank into a chair. “What the hell are motor skills?”

“Folding a triangle, drawing a circle. She said boys are always a little behind girls in that area.”

“Folding a triangle! What the hell is the point of that!”

Nina wanted him to be satisfied, to be happy, to know that he was a good man, that he was a successful father. She tried to smooth disapproval out of her answer: “Eric, he was still two to three years ahead of his chronological age. And listen to this.” She read from her notes: “ ‘Luke will make an excellent student. His ability to concentrate and complete a task is well-developed beyond his years. He is in the upper quarter of the 99th percentile of his age-group. He would thrive in a competitive, challenging academic environment.’ ”

Eric looked off, toward their windows. His mouth hung open and his face softened. “Good for him,” he said, and then cleared his throat loudly. “You did a great job.”

“So did you,” Nina said, although she didn’t think it had been a job, didn’t think they had done anything, except love Luke.

“No, I mean, you must have done a great job of keeping him relaxed when you took him to the test. I knew I shouldn’t take him. He would have sensed how nervous I was about it. Well, now we’re in great shape. Every one of those fucking schools will want him!” Eric leaned back and he smiled. “I was scared. You know? I was really scared I would fuck him up with my stupid genes.”

No. He can’t mean this, he can’t be this crazy. “What are you talking about, Eric? You’re not stupid.”

“Well, everyone is always telling me I am. But not Luke. They can all go fuck themselves now, for all I care.” He let out air, not a sigh, but an explosive release. “Your parents will always pay for Luke’s schooling, right?” Eric asked abruptly. His face was back to that mask of rigid worry. “I mean, no matter what. They’ll always pay for him to go to good schools?”

Nina studied Eric. He wanted to tell her. “What’s wrong, Eric? Are you losing everything?”

“No!” Eric was disgusted. He shook his head at the floor, sighed, leaned back, and shook his head at the ceiling. “That’s what’s so fucking crazy about it. I’ve given back some of the profits, that’s all. Tom’s still way ahead. His friends are still way ahead. These guys. They’ve never known what it is not to have money. And yet they’re so greedy.” Eric looked at her, with reproach. “You never told me your father was so greedy.”

“So if you’re not losing, what’s the problem?” Nina wanted to stay in pursuit of the disease, not be distracted by all these symptoms.

“Joe has called up your father and the others. He’s told them he can’t stand behind my investment decisions.” Eric mocked Joe’s voice — prissy, pompous, Henry Kissinger on Vietnam: “ ‘We disagree on the kind of stocks, not the direction of the market. And I no longer wish to associate the firm with Eric’s selections. Of course, he’s still here. I simply wish to give you the option of changing the current management philosophy without going to the extreme of taking your funds elsewhere.’ ” Eric cackled. He jumped up from the chair, ejected back into the furious pace of his thoughts. “Funds! Joe can’t even say the word ‘money’! For God’s sakes. Money!”

Nina had never understood Eric’s relationship to Joe. She had concluded after many years that Eric’s complaints must be pro forma, that the stories had to be exaggerations. No sensible person would continue to work with the Joe Eric described. “That’s disgusting,” she said. She felt it too, Joe’s betrayal was conjured as a dark cloud of villainy, an incomprehensible force of nature; when she thought of it, it had no context in her experience. “Father told you Joe said all this?”

“Joe said it in front of me!” Eric’s voice squealed. Eric got up on his tiptoes; his forehead crinkled; his hands spread out and arched to the ceiling in agony. “He made the call right in front of me, in front of the entire office!”

And now, the nameless dread was hers. What was Father’s answer? He had her husband’s self-respect in his hands, maybe the happiness of her marriage, probably the future of her son. She waited for Eric to volunteer the information.

But Eric said nothing. He brought his agonized fingers to his rumpled forehead. He massaged the skin, as if the tips could push something back into his leaking brain.

Help him, Nina. Help him. He’s like Luke, he has no real weapons to fight with.

But Nina had lived to be free of her family. She had married Eric and lived in New York to be away from them. Now, like some nightmare, everything in her life depended on the one thing she had never been able to count on: her father’s love.

WHAT IS he thinking? that he should come out and meet me here, in the reception area? That he’d be safer in public? But not if I start talking. What is he thinking?