Rebecca Coleman - The Kingdom of Childhood

Upstairs in the studio, visible through the sliding glass doors, his mother moved through the asanas. She was an exotic bird in their small town, lithe and small with her swinging black ponytail, managing at once to be outgoing and above it all. People were always surprised to discover her husband was the big blond carpenter, and that the little boy with the bare wet feet belonged to her. She looked like the type of woman who could drop everything in a moment and jump on a plane for a backpacking trip through some remote country. And she would, were it not for the blond carpenter and the small boy.

He wondered if her restlessness was what had caused the problem. If she felt the need for an adventure, which he could understand. He wished he knew when her affair had ended, although he tried not to think about it, really. Because the child’s looks, somewhere along the sliding scale between Chinese and Caucasian, would keep the secret; and in any case he would love her, because he already did.

Despite his effort not to, he thought about this as he scraped the dishes and loaded them into the washer, wiped down the counters, and heated water for her cup of tea. While it steeped he took the fruit peels and coffee grounds out to the compost heap and picked the last few late tomatoes from the garden. When he brought her the mug he found her sitting up in bed reading Loving Hands: The Traditional Art of Baby Massage.

“How old is that book?” he asked.

She gave him a sly smile and wrapped her hands around the mug. “Oh, about sixteen years, give or take.”

“You never got rid of it?”

“I couldn’t bear to. The pictures are so pretty.” She looked wistfully at the cover and took a sip of tea. “I guess I always hoped I’d have another one, deep down.”

“You got your wish.”

She drank deeply and handed him the mug. With a sigh, she lay back against the pillows, her hand on her belly. Her tank top hiked up above her navel, exposing a wide band of skin. He watched as something beneath the surface, a foot perhaps, drew a path across her abdomen. Laying his palm against the opposite side, he waited until the bony little nub bumped against his hand.

“Gotcha,” he said.

She laughed. They sat in silence for a few moments, Zach poking at the baby’s foot, studiously ignoring his mother’s loving gaze. Finally she asked, “How’s Fairen?”

He chuckled with embarrassment at the question. “She’s fine, I guess.”

“I haven’t asked you much about your life lately.”

“It’s cool.”

“Are you involved with her?”

Involved with her. So that was how mothers asked the question. He tried to get the baby to move again and said, “No.”

“ Were you?”

He felt his face start to burn. Letting his hand retreat, he stared down at the quilt and answered, “Yeah.”

Her smile was spontaneous. “Well,” she said. “I’m sorry I missed asking about all that while it was going on.”

“There wasn’t much to tell.”

“Are you brokenhearted?”

He shook his head.

“Am I embarrassing you?”

“Kinda.”

She patted his cheek. “Do you remember, when you were little, how I used to carry you around on my back like a little spider monkey?”

“Not really.”

“They have some nice slings now for that,” she said vaguely. “But back then you just climbed up and I put my arms under your little tush and I carried you everywhere. You were the most affectionate child ever there was. I hope this baby will be like that.”

“I just hope it sleeps .”

“Well, then, she’d be nothing like you,” she said, and he laughed. She asked, “Where are you off to tonight?”

“Scott’s having some people over.”

A shadow of worry crossed her face. “Will his mother be there?”

“I guess. I dunno.”

“Zach… you know how I feel about unsupervised parties.”

“It’s not a party. It’s just some people at his house. But I’ll double-check, okay?”

She looked satisfied with the answer. “Will Fairen be there?”

“ Mom . I don’t know.”

“Tell me just one thing,” she coaxed. “Did it end badly?”

He gave a small laugh that sounded more like a sigh. “I don’t know where any of that stuff starts or where it ends.”

She nodded, her expression serious, thoughtful. “That’s very wise of you to see it that way.”

“I didn’t handle it all that wise.” He bent forward and rested his forehead against her knee. Her soft hands stroked his hair. Closing his eyes, he emptied his mind of everything but the way her hands felt, how gentle, how warm.

“There is nothing lost or wasted in this life,” she quoted in a whisper. “What is real always was and cannot be destroyed.”

He breathed a sigh against her calf and felt the warmth of his breath double back to him. Hearing the words of the Bhagavad Gita calmed him. All his life she had doled out its wisdom to her students for meditation, and word by word he had absorbed it. Now it knitted together, ever so little, the edges of the wound Fairen had opened in him.

She said, “You’ll learn, Zachary Xiang.”

Russ left for Iceland at the beginning of November, carrying with him the large black suitcase that had caused so much trouble not long before. Two other professors from his department went with him, and so there was no ceremonial send-off at the airport; instead, I came home from work and found his bags gone from the foyer. In the past I would have felt slighted at the lack of a proper goodbye, but now I only felt numb. Later in the week, as I tidied up from dinner and prepared to head out to the open house Dan had scheduled, Scott casually mentioned he would be spending the night at Zach’s. As soon as the words left his mouth I knew he was lying. Zach had been in my classroom only hours before. It was the sort of thing he would have mentioned.

At the open house I spotted Zach sitting on the stage with Temple, his colorful eurythmy robe still on, biding time after the evening’s performance. It amused me that his teachers had recruited him for the demonstration of the technique—the “art of expressive movement” he had been learning, like all of his classmates, since grade school. Most likely they had singled him out because he was a new student and thus an easy target for what most of his classmates would avoid at all costs. But, too, he was probably good at the dancelike movements it required. His body moved with a leonine grace, that I knew well; it was one of the most attractive qualities he possessed.

I beckoned to him from my place near the entrance, and he hopped off the stage. When he was near enough not to be overheard, I asked, “Would you like a ride home?”

“Sure.”

“Well, isn’t that a little strange,” I teased. “I was told Scott is spending the night at your house.”

His eyes darkened with confusion. “No, he isn’t.”

“I know.” The corner of my mouth twitched upward. “I assume he’ll be at Tally’s, or in a motel, or something. Who knows. He’s eighteen now, and don’t you forget it. But what he told me was that he would be at your place.”

Zach shook his head, not catching on. As if speaking to a child I enunciated, “He won’t be home.”

“What about Russ?”

“In Iceland until Tuesday. I told you that yesterday.”

“No, you didn’t.”

I tipped my head, feeling the hunger in my eyes barely contained. “You can call your folks from my place,” I whispered. “Tell them you’re spending the night at Scott’s.”

He winced. “I hate to lie to them, Judy. You know that.”

“It’s not a lie at all.”