Fourteen

Mask over her face, she counted backwards till she forgot to count, forgot to tense her knees. Then—at last!—they didn’t hurt anymore and she thought of Jerry, so small that he fit between the bars of the tiger cage. Malcolm waving his arms. “My God, how did he get through?” The tiger approaching, tail rising and jerking, stripes rippling. The jaws opened, exposing pink. “Oh my God!”

The tongue licked round little Jerry’s ice-cream-stained chin, then around the side of his neck and on his elbow when he lifted his arm for protection. He looked back over his shoulder, giggling. “Gee, it’s sandpapery.”

Barbara was thinking of Mrs Renfrow at the hospital as she held Reggie in her arms and made a mental note to send her flowers in the morning, probably gladiolus if she could find some, for she knew that Mrs Renfrow was fond of gladiolus. Then she could tell Jerry what she’d done.

Reggie was so close she could feel his breathing, the slow marking of seconds. She pulled him tighter still. Chin on his shoulder, she was glad he couldn’t see her eyes. She didn’t believe, in her heart, that it was necessarily wrong to love two people. Such things happened. But she also suspected that she wasn’t a person who could do it well, that at the end of the day she was someone whose love wanted and needed focus. That’s the way I am. Suddenly she let out a choking cry, for she could not hold it in and when he tried to pull back, asking, “What’s the matter? What is it?” she resisted, struggling to hold on tight, refusing to let him see her face. What’s going to happen to Jerry? she thought. She was a practical person. She told herself: My heart does not have room for two.

When Irene awoke, the white sheets, white walls drifted first closer, then away; then closer again. Eventually she remembered where she was. She did not hurt but she felt vaguely ill. Not herself. Eventually her vision focused better till she could see the room was flooded with daylight. Suddenly she could think of tomorrow.

She dreaded talking with Jerry and Barbara. She wanted to protect them. Why must they know? Why?

No longer was it a question of sheltering them from the world. All kinds of bad things might befall them, and some already had. But with her own age, and weakness, and sickness—it was above all age—the desire to shelter them had taken on another form.

She threw her head back hard on her pillow, tossing left, then right; she began to weep. Her hand beat at the blanket at her side. She wanted to protect them from seeing what the world was doing to her.