Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

THE LIGHTS of the car shone against the lead-glass windows and glared into white circles on their distorting surface. The chug of the engine sounded loud against the country silence. Eric worried that Nina and Luke would be wakened by it. He turned on the driveway floods and went out the door.

“Hey!” called Brandon, Nina’s older brother. “How ya doing!” Beside Brandon, in the passenger seat, was his second wife, Wendy. She sat staring ahead in a daze.

“Shhh,” Eric said.

“Ah, il bambino .” Brandon remembered. He shut off the engine. “Asleep?”

Eric nodded. “Probably not for long. Where are your parents?”

“They stayed over in Ogunquit. Be here tomorrow.”

From the house they heard Luke’s unhappy squawks. “Excuse me,” Eric said, and dashed for the door.

“My nephew! That’s my nephew!” Brandon called out.

While he rocked Luke, Eric heard Brandon and Wendy enter, find their room, talk in whispers so dramatic they were somehow louder than low voices, until finally Nina’s sleepy talk joined them.

Go to sleep, Eric said to Nina in his head. Luke was restless in his arms, the eyes closing with each rock back and opening with each rock forward, a doll perversely designed for suspense, never completely awake or asleep. In Maine, Eric and Nina alternated night duty, to allow the swing shifter to make up the rest in the morning. If Nina stayed up to chat with Brandon and Wendy, she wouldn’t be able to handle her morning child care. When, because of exhaustion, she lost control, Eric couldn’t sleep. He’d hear her yell or allow Luke to cry, and Eric would get up, take Luke, and order her back to bed. He’d learned that much: Nina was a fine mother as long as she had energy. They would need a housekeeper. How much would that cost? Two hundred? Two fifty?

The whispers got closer. “Eric?” Nina called from outside the door. “Is Luke asleep?”

Luke peeped and arched his back, a hand clawing the air.

“No,” Eric admitted.

They came into the cramped nursery, an invasion of giants. Brandon insisted on taking Luke.

“Hey, fella, how ya doing!” Uncle Brandon shouted into the miniature eleven-week-old face.

Luke’s eyes shut in horror, his mouth gaped, and then he wailed.

“Great lungs!” Brandon said to Wendy. She stood beside him, her shoulders slumped, her eyes blank.

She’s stoned, Eric decided. “Oh, baby,” Nina said, and took Luke from his uncle.

“God, look at those feet! He’s got your dogs, Eric. They’re huge.”

“Aren’t they!” Nina said, excited. She had been alone with Eric and Luke in Maine for a month. Before that Nina had been dead to happy sensation. This was her first exhibition of maternal pride. Dammed up for so long, a flood of anatomical praise burst from her while she showed Luke off: his long fingers, his straight black hair, his almond-shaped eyes, his strong chin, his soft white skin. Nina looked beautiful as well, her thick brown hair flowing wildly down to her broad shoulders, her pale blue eyes soft from sleep, her skin as white as Luke’s. She carried her baby into the living room — he squinted and mewed at the light — and raved about him to an enthusiastic Brandon and an impassive Wendy.

“And he’s smart,” she said while Eric tried to make a fire, worried that Luke was cold. “I talk to him and he listens.”

“We should have a baby,” Brandon said to Wendy.

“Yeah,” she said to the floor. She looked over at Eric. “Do you have any cigarettes?”

“I don’t think you should smoke around the baby,” Brandon commented.

“It’s okay, Brandy,” Nina said. “I smoke around him all the time. I’m terrible.”

“Hey, let me,” Brandon said to Eric, going over to the fireplace. He removed an unsplit pine log from the top of the smoking pile. “This is choking it.”

“It’s almost going,” Eric protested.

“Let Brandy,” Nina said. “He’s the champ firemaker.”

“Family arsonist,” Brandon said. “You know how to make money, I know how to make things burn.” Brandon pushed the remaining split birchwood apart and blew gently on the smoldering mass of newspaper and kindling beneath. They burst into flame. “Gotta breathe to burn,” Brandon commented. He took more newspaper from a pile and started to roll it into a tight twist. “Lasts longer this way.” He nodded at the sooty pine log. “We’ll dump her on when she’s going good.”

“Cigarettes?” Wendy said to Eric.

Eric rushed to get them, even though he felt Wendy’s tone was arrogant, an order to a waiter. She didn’t thank him. “You want something to drink?” Eric offered.

“I know where it is,” Brandon said. “You want any?”

“No,” Eric said. He felt reproved, convinced Brandon had meant to remind Eric that he , not Brandon, was the guest. The slight hadn’t been in his brother-in-law’s tone, however. Eric sat down on the couch beside Nina and Luke. He told himself to relax. He felt like a big awkward Jew with Nina’s family — ungainly, at war with himself, his emotions either hostilely squelched or naïvely blared, never expressed with their even, self-confident voices. For them, life was an easy chair; for Eric, a hard bench.

Brandon poured two big glasses of Rémy Martin, giving one to Wendy. Although she hadn’t asked for it, she took it greedily. “You breast-feeding?” Wendy asked, and swigged the Rémy like soda.

“Of course,” Nina said. “I think they passed a law that you have to.”

Brandon laughed. “Everything in nature is good.”

Luke squirmed in Nina’s arms, hiding his face in her bosom, his hands reaching blindly into the air. “Maybe he’s hungry,” Nina said.

“He’s sleepy,” Eric snapped.

Nina seemed to miss the point. “I’ll feed him. That’ll put him to sleep.”

“It’s not the schedule!” Eric protested.

“Give my nephew a break,” Brandon said casually. “He’s not an airline.”

“Eric’s right,” Nina said quickly. She must have guessed how provoked Eric would be by Brandon’s comment. “Just to relax him.” She excused herself to Eric. “He won’t really eat.” She unbuttoned her nightshirt.

Brandon and Wendy both stared at her blimp of a breast, the spreading purple of her areola, the chubby projection of her nipple. Nina revealed it unselfconsciously; they watched without shame. Eric was appalled by both attitudes.

Luke latched on eagerly. “What a deal, kid,” Brandon said.

There was a silence while they intently watched Luke’s absorption and satisfaction. The little hand reached up to Nina, yearning for something to hold. She lowered her chin and the fingers caressed it.

Brandon took another long drink from his glass and belched. “Sorry, Mom,” he said to the beams.

Nina laughed with girlish pleasure. It annoyed Eric that he hadn’t gotten that good a laugh out of her since Luke’s birth.

“Did you hear about Earner’s windfall?” Brandon asked.

Nina shook her head no. Eric was alert. The family money had never been discussed in his presence.

“Grandpa’s land in California. Someone bought the whole six hundred acres to develop. Father made a killing.”

“Grandpa’s land?” Nina wondered. “I thought he sold that years ago.”

“You mean the Virginia stuff. That was peanuts. This is six hundred acres. Sold for ten thousand an acre.”

“You’re kidding!” Eric said in an explosive challenge, sitting forward, apparently ready to pounce on Brandon if he confessed it was a joke.

“Thought that’d get your attention.”

“How much is that?” Nina asked, very calmly, just curious.

“Six million,” Eric spat out, staccato. “Six million dollars.”