Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Peter! Will you please get the thermometer?”

“No,” Peter said, backing away, her request a tangible menace stalking him.

Diane peered at Peter in amazement. Byron’s hand swiped across her mouth. Byron moaned and squawked. “Why not?”

“Okay,” he said, and walked to the bathroom quickly, found another plastic case (with that horrible word “rectal” written on it), and brought it to her, tossing the thing on the couch. He turned to leave.

“Where are you going? I need some Vaseline.”

He remembered that as well, the cold, slimy feel of it, the ooze afterward, and Gary’s continual talk about the residue of the sensation. In school, a few weeks later, Gary told their classmates. Why he exposed them both to ridicule Peter never understood. As he told the story to their classmates, Gary giggled with mean delight while he described the look on Peter’s face as the thermometer was inser — Peter closed his eyes, as again his mind was overcome by the clarity of the memory, Gary laughing, Gary’s mother saying, “You’re such babies,” the whole horrible—

“Peter, I’m going to need your help, all right? He’s getting hotter. Get some Vaseline and a towel.”

“I’m not having any part of this,” Peter said firmly, and left the living room. He went to his study and closed the door. He sat at his desk. He was trembling.

I’m an adult. He’s my son. I must defend him. Women like to destroy our pride, to make us into babies.

Peter shook his head, physically trying to free his mind from the strange mesh that had captured his reason. Byron is a baby. He tried to cut through to common sense. He’s not an eight-year-old. Diane’s perfectly correct. What other choice does she have?

But I don’t have to participate. I told her. I won’t help.

But the issue here wasn’t help; it was intercession.

I can’t allow Diane to do anything she wants. He’s my son. One day, he will turn to me, grown to equality, and ask me why.

Will I pretend I didn’t hear?

Through the closed door, Peter heard wailing, dreadful wailing.

“Goddammit!” A faint version of Diane’s voice carried in.

Byron’s outrage, Diane’s frustration — they stood beside Peter, mocking sentinels. Aren’t you going to do something? they asked.

“Peter! Peter!” Diane’s shouts for help were both desperate and furious.

Peter covered his ears for a moment, but the raging voices of his wife and son reached him anyway. He surrendered, rose, opened his study door, and marched back to the living room.

Peter glanced briefly at the spectacle on the rug. Apparently Diane had been unable to keep Byron still enough to put the thermometer in. “Hold him!” Diane said. Peter maneuvered himself so he was beside Byron. Peter put his hands on the little shoulders, flexing to gain mobility, and held his son down.

For a second, Byron stopped fussing. Peter looked into his son’s brown eyes, warm and curious at Peter’s appearance; light glinted through them and their color shimmered from hue to hue.

A big smile reversed the angry sorrow. “Da, Da! Da, Da!” Byron claimed triumphantly.

“That’s right,” Peter said.

“Okay,” Diane said. “Here we go.”

Byron was about to reach for his father’s mouth, to play with the spectacle of his Da, Da. But the thing went in — and Byron s eyes shut, his head bucked forward, his shoulders fought to get up. Peter held him down. Byron screeched his complaints. Peter laid his head next to Byron’s and kissed his cheek.

“Only take a second,” he apologized.

Byron tried to fight again, but as he lost, his complaints became cries, cries of frustration, cries of defeat.

Afterward, Peter held Byron while Diane cleaned up and went to the bedroom to call the doctor. “A hundred and three,” she told Peter. Byron still tried to move, to play, but sighed and relaxed in Peter’s arms after a minute of Peter’s resistance. Byron’s body was hot. The soft, plump thighs radiated his body’s distress. The white skin took on a pink hue. The usually restless Byron leaned his sweaty head against his father’s shoulder and looked into Peter’s eyes with mournful contemplation. There seemed to be no memory of Peter’s collaboration in the outrage, no grudge borne.

Diane appeared, her coat on, with a sweater for Byron. “The doctor’s still in the office. He’ll see Byron if I take him right now.”

Byron peeped as Peter handed him over. Byron’s fantastic energy, evident only an hour ago, was gone.

He’s dying, Peter thought. The heat from Byron’s body had made a wet circle on his shirt. The hard candle of his life-force was melting.

“Are you coming?” Diane asked, finished with dressing Byron. He thought about that, remembering Diane’s description of taking Byron to the doctor — the wait in a room full of crying children, the pompous posturing of the doctor, the brutal need to restrain Byron for examination.

“Are you coming? I have to hurry.”

Peter shook his head no, scared, ready to give in if she insisted.

“Fine,” she said, and left, carrying Byron, who lay limply in her arms, his eyes almost closed, whimpering pitifully.

Peter sat for a long time after they were gone, not moving, unable really to think of what to do. He should be hungry. He wasn’t. He could use a drink. He considered opening the champagne. Took too much effort.

He felt sorry for Byron.

Peter tried to imagine what it would be like if Byron died.

Diane would mouth for a while. Would she want another?

Peter tried hard to convince himself Diane would not. The pain of one loss might make her shy of a second creation.

But he knew Diane would never accept defeat. She would go right back and do it again, even more determined.

Peter touched his cheek, where the feverish Byron had rested against him, gazing sadly, giving up the struggle, moaning and peeping from the hot ache. The wet of Byron’s sweat had dried; the warmth of his body had cooled. But touching there, Peter felt his son return.

He wanted to cry. The feeling was unfamiliar — a slab of loss; incomprehensible, impossible to chop up into manageable pieces.

Of course, Byron was going to go on living. And growing. And of course, time and time again Peter would fail him, collaborate in his oppression, and have nothing but an apology as an explanation.

He was still in the chair when Diane and Byron returned. Byron was asleep in Diane’s arms, his head lolled back, his lips parted, breathing heavily. She put Byron in his crib and returned to say that the doctor had diagnosed Byron as having an ear infection. Peter was to go out and get a prescription for liquid penicillin filled and she thought they ought to have extra baby Tylenol.

Peter listened, saying nothing. When she finished, he got up. She peered at him for a moment and said, “What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, I think you’d better find out,” she snapped, so angry that she had to turn away and pretend to be interested in something on the rug.

He thought for a while about answering. What could he say? He hated her as a mother, wanted her as a wife? He loved and pitied Byron, but wished Byron didn’t exist at all? That something awful in the corner of his mind had come to life, some shadow had been cast, and now seemed animate — a terrible lurking monster which no night-light could dissipate?

“I think I’d better see a shrink,” he said finally.

“You’d better do something,” she said harshly, but cut herself off, interrupting a longer exposition of criticism. After a moment, she sighed, and spoke quietly. “You acted really weird. He was sick. I have to take his temperature.”