Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“I’m not saying it’s your fault.”

“I know you’re not. But you could try and think of what Luke is feeling and can do, rather than what you feel and you do. You and Luke are different people.”

“Look.” Eric sighed, and glanced toward the hall, as if he were being summoned away. After a moment, Eric turned back, stared at Nina out of the dark hollows of his exhausted face, and sighed again.

“What is it? Say what’s on your mind.”

“You understand it better because you had the same problem—”

“I did not have the same problem!” Nina slapped the couch. He was impossibly stupid, a clumsy city car spinning its wheels in the mud of real life. “I was a little constipated. This is different.”

“There has to be something wrong with him.”

“He doesn’t like doing it!” Exasperation forced the truth out of her. “I can see him holding it in. So it gets harder and hurts more, so he holds it in more! And on and on, worse and worse.”

Eric frowned. He said timidly, “You’ve seen him hold it in?”

Nina stood and imitated Luke’s flexed buttocks squeezing closed the hole in his dam. “That’s what he does! Even Pearl sees him do it. He does it in front of you.”

“Jesus,” Eric said, and sagged back down into the chair. He looked shot, his arms limp, his head forward on his chest, his face still and solemn. “Jesus,” he mumbled again. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m not doing anything about it, Eric,” Nina said. “Everything I’ve tried makes it worse. I’ve talked to him, explained to him, but he won’t let go. I’ve taken him to the doctor — I’ve done everything. It’s up to Luke. He’s suffering. It’s up to him to get out of it.”

Absorbing this news, Eric looked a little bit like the Lincoln Memorial. His great body was squared by the chair, his legs and arms massive, his head quiescent, his eyes mournful, seeing ahead to the future.

“He’ll be fine,” she tried to reassure Lincoln.

“You can’t leave it up to him,” Eric intoned. A house divided against itself cannot stand. “He can’t deal with it. He’s a three-year-old baby.” Deep and grave. A severe judgment of history.

“There are some things people learn on their own. It’s his body. He has to be comfortable with it—”

“That’s the goy in you,” Abe Lincoln said.

“Goddammit!” Nina thought him so ridiculous she gave up being gentle. “How would you like it if every time something didn’t go perfectly with Luke, I called you a kike?”

“Oh, come on!” Eric complained. At least that broke his marble pose.

“It’s the same thing!” Nina said. “Goy! That’s an insult. This isn’t my fault! It’s not because I’m a goy! Maybe it’s your fault! You never challenge Luke to do anything on his own. When you take him to the park, you still stand by the slide and catch him.”

“He won’t go down unless—” Eric protested.

“He goes down the slide with no one catching him all week. On the weekends, with you, he has to be caught. You’re a patsy for him. He knows you’ll do anything. So he asks. He’s manipulating you!”

Eric was her boy again, sagging in his suit, his big face opened by pain and amazement. Help me, Nina, his eyes seemed to call out. She felt sorry for him. Unless he was puffed up, pursuing money, he really didn’t know anything about life.

“You know, Eric,” she said, seeing her chance to get through. “You have to stop making everything ugly. Fag, goy. You’re really a sweet man.” She felt her love for Eric waken from its overtired sleep. Maybe she could restore him, restore them—

“What are you talking about!” Eric said. “Is that what this is about? ’Cause I called your boss a fag?”

“No,” she said sadly. He was slipping away; the connection was loose.

“You’re not gonna help Luke ’cause I called your boss a fag?” Eric was a peacock again, still tired, but swelling, confident in his silly fan of colors. “Is that why you won’t ask him about his stock?”

“I told you I would. You’re—”

“You won’t. You were lying.”

“I was not!” she lied. She had to get away. “I’m going to bed—”

“No!” Eric reached for her. “No, don’t go to bed angry. Please. That’s the worst. I can’t sit here alone, worrying about Luke, with you pissed off at me.”

If only she could stay and he would stop badgering, but he would never let go of his troubles, never let Luke work his own way out of something, never leave her alone to succeed or fail in the world, always wanting himself there, helping, bragging, nagging, like some massive overcoat, sweltering, tripping her, its heavy cloth blocking her mouth. “Don’t worry about Luke,” she said to him. “I’ll call, I’ll try to get another doctor—”

“Who?”

“Something. Let’s go to sleep now,” she said with motherly sternness.

Little boy Eric turned away, his frame expanding in the chair, still and great, Lincoln again. His jaw set. “I had a bad day. I got to read some stuff. Pick new stocks.”

So that was it. Money. He hadn’t made money today. So he had to fix her. Fix Luke. Fix something.

“Good night,” she said, and put him out of her mind.

DIANE CARRIED the envelopes to the mailbox.

“Let me! Let me!” Byron barked up at her.

She groaned at the effort of lifting Byron, her arms trembling from his weight while he lowered the lid and put the letters in. She had filled them out, the school applications for Byron to begin his life on the New York assembly line, so he could get a reservation at Orso, so he could pass the co-op board at the San Remo, so he would know which beach to lie on in the Hamptons, and finally so he would know to pretend that none of that knowledge mattered.

I’m being unfair. She smiled into the sun. What a pretty day. This Saturday was made by a god in love. The city glowed. The air was mild. Beautiful pedestrians ambled on the concrete river in a gentle flow, passing the cliff walls of iridescent, sandblasted buildings capped by blue sky, occasionally fishing at the sidewalk stands of food, art, clothing, and incomprehensible souvenirs.

Peter had done the job for her, written the page describing Byron’s abilities and accomplishments to send to Hunter. Diane understood Peter’s success as an arts funder from the fluent, quite convincing bullshit that he had streamed onto the page. She read it over several times and wished she had a son like the one Peter described. There wasn’t a lie in it, that was the amazing thing, not a single falsehood, and yet there wasn’t any truth in it, just facts garbed in sentimental adjectives — well, maybe it was true, after all. Bright children. Didn’t they always seem to be brats to anyone but their relatives? Weren’t men like Brian Stoppard really grown-up brats? What’s Peter if not a spoiled, articulate manipulator? Look at me, thousands spent on my education, and I sit at home, with a woman to clean and keep my child occupied, surrounded by services, dry cleaners, restaurants that deliver, taxis—

“Hello!” It was Luke’s father, Eric.

“Luke!” Byron shouted into Luke’s face, pulling at his hand. “Come to the park with me!”

“We’re going to the park,” Diane said.

“So are we,” Eric said.

Diane felt self-conscious. She brushed a stray hair off her forehead. I look crazy, she thought, regretting that she hadn’t put on makeup, or dressed in something interesting. She had a closet full of clothes! She tried to smile (remember how ugly you look when you’re serious) to hide the fatigue, the sluggish despair. Eric seemed so energetic, especially for ten in the morning. He had a copy of Barron’s , already wrinkled, under his arm. He asked if she wanted a cup of coffee. She said yes. They stopped and got the boys chocolate doughnuts — Byron couldn’t believe his luck, but Luke seemed to take it as a matter of course — and Eric convinced Diane to get a Linzer torte.