Three

Carrie was more observant now. She stood outside her son’s room, the door open six inches. Wide open was too sad. Closed tight, even sadder. So she left it slightly ajar always, like an invitation. John had finally learned not to touch anything, not to change anything else, lest it alter his wife irreparably.

No more babbling. Had she imagined it? No view of the crib through the opening. The Where the Wild Things Are poster on the wall. The pale-green rocking chair. The pastel wool alphabet rug that cost so much and never mattered to Ben, who never grew old enough to learn the ABCs, to spell, to put together sentences. Just handfuls of words, juxtaposed. Light me, he’d say when it got dark in his room. Light me.

Those words could have become a touchstone for her and John, a catchphrase to illuminate their path back to each other. But when she held them out to John once, in the dark of their bedroom, he hadn’t said them back to her and hadn’t turned on the light. He had simply hugged her a little harder, almost grimly. And that wasn’t enough. No, not nearly enough. She was more observant now, but John was less.

“Ben,” she whispered into the room from the safety of the hallway. Did she dare open the door wider?

No response. She felt silly, her cheeks flushed. Probably heard a child out back, on the walking path to the pond below her house. The sound carried sometimes, depending on the wind. She turned to go back downstairs, and then she heard it.

Squeaking. The sound of a small mattress when little feet bounce up and down.

“Ben!” she cried as she opened the door.

“Mama!”

She would never forget the sight of him, the width of his smile, the sparkle of his green eyes, as he stood in his crib. The same delight whether she had presents in her hands, or food, or nothing. A smile for a smile, always. The equation that children bring, that adults forget. She didn’t need a snapshot to capture the way his golden hair stuck to his forehead on one side from being asleep. His cheeks were flushed because he was too hot in his clothes. She would never forget, because he looked precisely as she remembered him.

The same smile.

The same clothes.

The same pair of yellow socks.

Not one centimeter taller. Not one ounce heavier.

Fifteen months later.