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Show Motherlunge a novel 202 I pictured my father at the 3Bee's, no one across from him in the booth. He was an old man watching the waitress moving from table to table with the coffee pot. "Dad," I said, my throat squeezing in. Then we were each just holding our respective phone receivers and making small human sounds. No words. The heavy plastic against my cheek felt greasy and warm; it was connected across two thousand miles to my father. Eli watched me, his fingers wiggling through the crib bars toward Xavier, waiting. "Well," I said finally. "I guess I can tell Pavia then." "Do that, Thea," he said, and then he hung up. I leaned down over the edge of the bed and opened Eli's camera bag. I lifted the camera out of its little foam coffin and took off the lens cap. I put the camera to my wet face and focused the lens. I took a picture of Eli and Xavier touching fingers through the bars of the crib; then I took another one. Three days passed in which Eli and I practiced co-parenting and the essential denial of self-reflection that this required. In other words, Eli went to work and I stayed home and together we cared for the baby and didn't talk about our relationship; we were busy. Jack called every day, his voice gradually sounding more steady. He gave what he called a status report: Pavia was doing better; her outlook was improving; they would soon be home. I never spoke to my sister and I was grateful that Jack did not suggest it. |