Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

Brandon let his head back and laughed to the ceiling. “You love money, Eric. ‘Six million, six million dollars,’ ” Brandon imitated Eric, exaggerating the rapid delivery into a breathless, lustful pant.

Eric cringed. Brandon had a knack for seeing through people’s little social hypocrisies and enjoyed rudely announcing his insights. The more Eric tried to camouflage his true nature, the more naked he was to Brandon’s eyes. Eric understood this, but the instinct to attempt concealment was too powerful to fight.

“Money’s his business,” Nina said, not ashamed. “Eric hears six million dollars and he starts thinking of investments.” Somehow she made it sound natural and harmless.

“That’s why I brought it up,” Brandon said. “I told Father to get Eric’s advice.”

“Isn’t he handled by someone at First Boston?” Eric said, in a rapid, almost hostile tone, as if he were conducting a verbal ambush.

Brandon answered, but he spoke to Nina. “Old Puffer died last year—”

“He did?” Nina sounded puzzled.

“Cancer. Father doesn’t like the man they turned him over to. Anyway, Puffer was awful. Obvious stuff. ‘Good solid returns,’ ” Brandon imitated, his chin thrust forward, his teeth clenched. “In fact, old conservative Puffer lost tons of Father’s dough. This six million is the lion’s share of what’s left of our inheritance. I’d like to make sure Father doesn’t blow it. That’s why I told him to talk to Eric. If he doesn’t, you should bring it up.” Brandon finished this by leaning forward and tapping Eric’s knee, the first time he had looked at Eric during the speech.

“He can’t,” Nina answered, pushing Luke off her breast. His little face was slack, the mouth open, his limbs collapsed. “Daddy has to bring it up.”

“I’ll remind him,” Brandon said.

Luke startled awake and immediately wailed. He was angry, inconsolable, his stomach tight, his legs pulled up to his belly, his mouth screeching with complaint.

“I’ll take him.” Eric was furious. Everything had been messed up. “You should go to sleep,” he said to Nina while gathering Luke.

“All right!” she snapped.

Eric carried his unhappy son back to the small dark nursery, chilled by the damp Maine night. The treads of the rocker squealed at Eric’s weight and the floor groaned when he began the motion. Luke sighed and nestled into Eric’s chest. He sucked on the pacifier with desperate insistence.

Eric watched him. This nervous, fragile baby — could Luke stand the fight to make money? With that six million, Eric knew he could make a fortune for his son. He felt the stock market growling, ready to awaken. It had been monotonously ticking up and down, a timid metronome, without a decisive move either way for almost a decade, but interest rates were falling, foreign money was pouring in, average volume on the exchange had doubled in the last two years. Even with fairly conservative buys, if the trend kept on (and he knew it would, knew it as if he were in spiritual contact with the gods of money), Eric could double the six million. Then play with the winnings, play looser, and maybe triple that.

He rocked his baby in the night and watched his numbers, incandescent, glow about his head. Bright, bright numbers — fireflies enchanting the gloom with magic. He kissed Luke’s sweet, soft forehead.

The staring eyes closed.

He kissed their lids.

Eric Gold, the Wizard of Wall Street, rich beyond fear, held his heir with hope, eager for his in-laws’ arrival.

TWO THINGS belonged to Nina: Eric and Luke. They were all she possessed of her own making. All her other attempts, her painting, her photography, all her aborted careers, had ended in her boredom or worldly failure. She felt this keenly on her parents’ arrival. Her pride pushed her forward, holding Luke in her arms, serving a spectacular platter, and heard in her head, thumping in rhythm, See what I’ve made, Mom and Dad. She looked at her husband’s tall, powerful body, striding ahead of Brandon, shrinking him by contrast, and felt her accomplishment. See my husband, see my baby, see what I’ve made. She knew her mom had never expected this success. At their wedding, Nina had felt her mother’s unexpressed skepticism of her marriage, her mother’s doubt that it would last and produce. Nina’s older sister had disappointed thoroughly, living with a series of radicals, never marrying, and had aborted three “accidents,” not only without guilt but with political pride. Her younger sister had satisfied, for a time, wedding a Harvard classmate, moving to Ohio, joining the country club, but that had ended in divorce, and hints of drink and beatings. Quiet Nina, never first at anything, married to a Jew (not even a particularly successful Jew at that), had managed to find happiness and provide the first heir.

Nina felt all this, but didn’t think it. She would have been embarrassed to discover competition in her love. She had been dazzled by her sisters, had felt puny beside them, an indecisive flickering yellow in between the elder’s fierce red and the younger’s warm green. As her mother and father and Brandon and Wendy gathered around the mute, watchful Luke, Nina, for the very first time, was at the center of her family. That was all she knew of her pleasure.

“Hello, beautiful,” her father, a man who usually didn’t bestow adjectives on his children, said to Nina.

Her mother took Luke. Joan didn’t even ask for her grandchild. She opened her arms and Luke seemed to float into them. Luke’s brilliant blue eyes beamed light, cracking the frozen surface of his grandmother’s thin face and rejuvenating her pale eyes. Joan closed her hands on the little body and brought her face close to the new skin, to the puffed and open red lips.

Luke screamed. He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, and complained from his soul with all his might. His disorganized arms reached out for rescue, his legs went stiff with resistance, and his mouth blared protest.

Nina took Luke from Joan quickly, too quickly, she realized when she glanced at her mother. Joan seemed disappointed and offended. “You frightened him,” Joan said.

“Other way around, I think,” Brandon said with a laugh.

“He had a bad night,” Eric mumbled. Nina noticed he looked mortified.

“Is he colicky?” Joan asked.

“No!” Nina said. Eric had begun to nod yes and got stuck in mid-motion by Nina’s vehement denial. Meanwhile, at the energy of Nina’s answer, Luke cried louder, his legs kicking, his beautiful features demolished by the elastic expansion of his toothless well of sorrow.

“Let’s get the bags,” her father said, and walked away. Eric hustled after him (like a bellboy, Nina couldn’t help thinking), Brandon grinned as if it were all a practical joke, Wendy stared at Luke, and her mother frowned at her.

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Joan said, with no love in the word “he.” The pronoun was said coolly; she might have used “it” for all the warmth in her tone. Luke had failed to please her, so Joan’s love had retracted behind her country-club leathery face, lost to view.

Nina cringed for a moment, ready to apologize or resist sullenly. The instincts were familiar, although Nina couldn’t place them. But she resisted the reactions they urged. “How was your trip?”

“After forty years, it’s pretty boring,” Joan said. She was again drawn to the beautiful form of her grandson. Luke sat stolidly in Nina’s arms, his great blue eyes evaluating Joan, the trees, Wendy, the men unloading the luggage, each scanned with a deliberate scrutiny that seemed masterful and dispassionate.

“Unnn,” Luke commented, and made a gesture with his hand at Joan.

“That’s Grandmother Joan,” Nina said.