The Forgetting Time(10)

“Mom, if you drink coffee now you’ll be up ’til dawn.”

She laughed; it was like something a grown-up might say. “You’re right, Noey. I’ll have a decaf. Okay?”

“And can I have a decaf corn muffin?”

“All right.” It was too close to his dinnertime, of course, but what the hell?

“And a decaf smoothie?”

She ruffled his hair. “Decaf water for you, my friend.”

The coffee was fragrant as they finally settled down with their bounty on their stoop. The sun was setting beyond the buildings. The light, rosy and tender, brought out the blush in the brick town houses and the brownstones, glancing on the loosening leaves of the trees. The gas lamp out front was flickering. It had been the deciding factor convincing her to rent the place, despite the fact that it was expensive, on the garden level, and had no direct sunlight. But the mahogany woodwork inside and the pleasant hedges and gas lamp out front made her feel cozy, as if she and Noah could burrow together there safely, apart from the world, apart from time. She hadn’t counted on the fact that the always-flickering flame out the front window would catch her gaze at odd times during the day and reflect itself in the back kitchen windows at night, making her startle more than once with the feeling that the house was on fire.

She cleaned Noah’s grimy hands with an antibacterial wipe and handed him his muffin.

“You know, they’re making muffins tomorrow in school. How about it?”

He took a bite, triggering a cascade of crumbs.

“Will I have to wash up after?”

“Well, cooking is messy. There is flour and raw eggs.…”

“Oh.” He licked his fingers. “Then, no.”

“We can’t keep doing it this way forever, bug.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t bother answering him—they’d been around and around this, and she had other things she needed to say.

“Hey.” She nudged him gently.

He was busy, working away at his corn muffin. How could she have let him order that? The thing was enormous. “Listen, I’m going out tonight.”

He stared at her. He put down the muffin. “No, you’re not.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

A wild light shone in his eyes. “But I don’t want you to go.”

“I know, but Mommy has to go out sometimes, Noah.”

“So take me with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Because it wouldn’t kill Mommy to get laid at least once before you go off to college. “It’s a grown-up thing.”

He blitzed her with a desperate, crooked smile. “But I’m precocious.”

“Good try, buddy, but no. It’ll be fine. You like Annie. Remember? She came over to Mommy’s office last weekend and played Legos with you?”

“What if I have a nightmare?”

She’d considered this. His nightmares were frequent. He’d had one once while she was out networking at an industry event; she’d returned to find him glassy-eyed and shaking in front of a Dora the Explorer video while the sitter (who had seemed so high-spirited! Who had brought homemade brownies!) lifted a few fingers in a limp wave from where she lay, haggard and shell-shocked, on the couch. That one had never come back, either.

“Then Annie will wake you up and hug you and call Mommy. But you won’t.”

“What if I have an asthma attack?”

“Then Annie will give you your nebulizer and I’ll come home right away. But you haven’t had one in a long time.”

“Please don’t go.” But his voice wavered, as if he knew the jig was up.

*

She was already dressed, fussing with her hair while half-following a YouTube video of a giggling teenager showing the correct way to put on eye shadow—which was surprisingly helpful, actually—when she heard Noah’s high voice summoning her from the living room.

“Mommy-Mom! Come here!”

Was SpongeBob over already? Didn’t they play those shows in an endless loop?

She padded to the room in black stockinged feet. All was as she’d left it, the bowl of baby carrots untouched on the leather coffee table, SpongeBob bellowing as he ambled on his weird bowlegs across the screen, but Noah was nowhere in sight. Something flashed in the pass-through to the kitchen. Was it the reflection of the flickering gas lamp?

“Hey, look at this!”

It wasn’t the flickering gas lamp.

As she rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of him, standing by the kitchen counter next to an open carton of organic omega-3-enhanced brown eggs, smashing one after the other over his springy blond head, she felt the night slipping away from her.

No; she wouldn’t let it. Anger rose from nowhere: her life, her life, her only life, and couldn’t she have a little bit of fun, just one night? Was that really too much to ask?

“See, Mommy?” he said, sweetly enough, but there was no mistaking the willfulness glowing on his face. “I’m making egg-Noah. Get it? Like eggnog?”

How did he even know what eggnog was? Why did he always know things that nobody had told him about?

“Watch.” He picked up another egg, swung his arm back, and hurled it at the center of the wall, whooping as it splattered. “Fastball!”