Page 25 of Nightwatching

She helped her daughter take off the diaper when she was done. Took off her own underwear. Cringing, she held the diaper’s clamminess against her.

Well, well. Here’s an advantage to being small. Here’s a good thing about it. Able to use a kid’s diaper, hooray. And not nearly as terrible or disgusting as you thought it would be. Hardly used. Bigger fish to fry, larger worries.

It was difficult to put her underwear back on, her body still slicked with sweat. But she struggled into them, shooing aside thoughts of why it mattered to her so much to have them on.

She put a light hand on his shoulder, then on her daughter’s, settling them back down on the blanket. The girl’s arm circled over her brother.

One small hurdle dealt with. One little problem addressed.

Her breathing had evened. Her blood pulsed something close to normal. Her hands had shed some of their shake.

It had calmed her, having a physical thing to cope with, asolvable problem to capably dispatch. The second-guessing, the critical voice of her husband—cold edged and crueler than he’d ever be in reality—quieted.

She closed her eyes and watched the distant lights behind her eyelids, just for something to see. Some relief from the deep black. Listened for anything that might help indicate where the Corner was. She rested the back of her head against the chimney brick. The only sound was the rustling and breathing of the children and the wheezing of the storm through the house.

You’re falling asleep, she realized.You can’t fall asleep. You need to get that fire poker. Or get help. Or at least watch over them. Bar the door.

But sitting cross-legged, feet tucked into the hollows behind her knees to warm them, she was finally thawing. The relief of the empty bladder made her feel in control of her own body for the first time in what seemed like weeks. And descending from those great heights of fear brought a sinking, unfightable drowsiness in this dark pool that felt like safety.

It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.

As she faded into her exhaustion, she felt something like a breath on her cheek, something like the drift of a cobweb.

Delicious, hissed the voice of the Corner directly in her ear, and she gasped aloud, choking on a panicked inhale of rottenair.

10

Mama! Are you okay?”

She could barely speak, her throat tightening as though an invisible hand were pinching her windpipe.

Her little girl’s hand gripped her knee. She hugged her daughter close, pressed her head to the tiny shoulder.

“It’s all right, Mommy, it’s all right!”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry. I fell asleep. Just for a second.”

Her son whimpered.

“Come here,” she whispered low. “Come here, my guy. I’m sorry. I’m okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The little boy reached out, touched her arm, crawled into her lap. As usual, his body melted into hers.

Here you are worried about their behavior, about them making noise, and you do this? Call out like that? What’s wrong with you? If he gets you, gets them, it will be your fault.

Her son nuzzled her neck. She exhaled, breathed again, absorbing the reassurance of the boy’s animal love.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

Her son put his small, warm palms on her cheeks. She pictured his heavy-lidded black eyes looking straight into hers through the darkness.

“It’s okay, Mama,” he said seriously.

“What are we going to do,” her husband would say, “when he gets bigger?”

They’d look at each other, horrified. Each imagining how their son’s clean love, his constant need for their arms around him, would vanish. Because of course it would. It had to. That particular type of sensitivity, affection that straightforward, couldn’t survive. The natural order was to hide the depth of your love, for fear that others might see it as weakness. And if that didn’t happen on its own, didn’t evolve organically, people like her father-in-law would work hard to shame him so that the boy hid his feelings, not just from them but from everyone, quick as slamming shut a book.

She held her little boy tight.

---