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Show Motherlunge a novel 195 30. A Cleansing Breath On the seventh day I had just put Xavier down for a nap when the phone rang. "It's okay," Jack said as soon as I picked up. "I've got her. Pavia." I couldn't say anything. The faint music-theme from Doctor Zhivago- from Xavier's mobile wound down on the other side of the closed door like a bad actor in a death scene. I put one hand up against the wall and listened. Jack went on: Pavia had been staying at a hotel at an Indian casino outside of the city. She had used the pool a lot, ate at the buffet. She had watched a lot of TV. The static on the upper channels, the empty ones-channels eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two- brought back to her the rasping nothingness of the baby monitor, and milk would wet her shirt painfully. Finally she had called Jack. "Help," he said she said. "I'm going to bring her home," he said, ridiculously. By then I knew that this is the sort of thing one might say when one is responsible for someone else -the obvious, the technically unnecessary-a remark akin to I'm right here, Xavier, which I myself had just completed saying, so I forgave Jack. "I'm going to bring her home," he repeated. "But can you stay with Xavier for another couple of days? We need-we need some time. All right?" |
