PRACTICE
Sure—girls are fun, but boys are sturdy, which is something that I've come to appreciate. Tom is home on the bus at four. He has blood stains scattered across his polo shirt, although the blood isn't his, he says. It's from another boy. Tom sits on a stool at the kitchen counter, devouring crackers and ignoring my advice about talking while his mouth is full. Today at school, a boy took a baseball pitch right in the face. Tom was behind him, playing catcher, when the boy spewed blood all over home plate. I ask Tom what happened to the boy. Was he okay? Tom tears open a second sleeve of crackers and says that he has no idea. The boy is in a different grade.
I'm on my knees, fishing the Crockpot out of the low cupboard. That's where I store all the big kitchen items, the sort of things we asked for when we got married, but never seem to use. A stand mixer, the stupid double-burner griddle, an electric juicer still in its original packaging. Tom is reciting facts about astronomy he learned this afternoon. Where does light go at night? Tom has an answer for that. His friend Luther's birthday party is on Saturday. Can we buy a present for Luther? I remind Tom to say please, and Tom says, Please, Mom, so I say yes. Luther's parents are fussy church people. They have more money than anyone else we know. Luther's father drives all the way to Portland for work, and he makes a big deal about having one of those cell phones. Luther's mother is aggressively pleasant when I run into her at the Hannaford. She'll sniff at whatever I buy for Luther, because she likes presents wrapped and tied with a bow, not tossed onto the sideboard in a plastic bag.
I was on my knees, holding the Crockpot, staring at the Crockpot. Then I was nineteen again, lying in bed at my parents' house, on the phone with the man who had become, just recently, Tom's father. He was so enthusiastic about the wedding registry. For him, it was a gold mine. He listed off all the things he wanted. A stock pot that could make gallons of soup, a double-burner griddle to cook ten pancakes at a time, and other items to feed large groups of people. He paused. "Are you writing this down?" he asked. I was in my room at my parents' house, realizing what was going to happen. I would be feeding an army. I would produce his army.
After chopping vegetables into bits and browning the beef, I drag Tom out to the car with his cleats, shin guards, and jersey. He asks me if the Crockpot can short out and burn the house down. I tell him not to worry about it, and he doesn't, really. Tom isn't much of a worrier, although he's begun to understand that sudden catastrophes are a possibility. Our dog died last year, and there was the bombing in Oklahoma City. The idea of it got into him. He's experimenting with the potential for disaster. The world around him might be unreliable.
I glance over at Tom, who is watching the trees rush past us along the highway.
He catches me looking at him. "What?" he says.
This little pain inside me is new, bright, and raw.
His father likes to get sentimental. He'll say, "Tom, you're the best thing that ever happened to us. You're what brought us together."
I ask Tom what we should buy for Luther's birthday. Tom is no help at all. I suggest Nintendo games, basketballs, dolls with miniature guns.
Does Tom notice anything? I don't think he does.
I won't ever see Luther's parents again. This Saturday, standing around with a stale cup of coffee, then never again.
Tom is playing with the volume knob on the stereo, turning the radio up until the car vibrates. He's being annoying because he wants to be annoying.
I smack his hand. He laughs at me.
Tom wonders what would happen if he yanked on the handbrake. Would we stop instantly? Slam forward like we hit a wall?
"Don't ever touch the handbrake," I tell him.
Tom isn't the careful type. He runs headlong into other boys on the soccer field. His coach praises him. Calls Tom "aggressive" with the pride that comes from years of deliberate cultivation. Tom likes the praise, and he likes being aggressive. He's practicing it off the field now, too.
The mist settles into a light drizzle. I stay in the car while droplets of water swell and chase each other down the windshield. There's Tom on the field, circling another boy, then darting at the ball and stealing it away. His jersey is soaked through, and his shin-high socks are covered in torn grass and mud.
I was nineteen, lying in bed at my parents' house, on the phone with Tom's father, listening to him make grand promises while Tom performed cell division inside of me.
I told myself: You will find a way to endure this for as long as you can.
Okay, I said to myself. I felt brave.
I felt brave for ten seconds, and then I wondered how long I could hold out. For how many years? How many years were less than forever?
The coach blows a whistle. A few of the parents scream. Some of them are happy and some of them are unhappy, depending upon which direction the ball goes on the field. I watch Tom take a shove from another boy, and then shove the boy back.
That's good, I think. It's good.
We're toughening ourselves up.
Phillip Grady writes in Boston, where he is currently revising a stubborn novel that refuses to sit still, be quiet, and behave.
