Boy, Snow, Bird(37)

I don’t set too much store by dreams, but it’s probably unwise to ignore this kind. These are the kind of dreams that show you you’re not doing so well, that you haven’t accepted what you thought you’d accepted, that you’re a mess, lying there like you’ve been hit by a bus, your heart and mind standing over you tutting and trying to figure out what even happened, never mind fixing it. This doesn’t feel like my life, it feels like somebody else’s. I’m standing here holding somebody else’s life for them, trying to keep it steady while it bobs up and down like a ferocious balloon. Make this little girl let me go—I don’t know if I want her. Can’t I start over?

The snake bracelet Arturo gave me lies in its box for now, but soon I’ll be ready to wear it again. I’ve missed the feel of cold scales around my wrist. I can’t discount the possibility that the bracelet’s been molding me into the wearer it wants. There was an afternoon that I raised my hand to Snow, fully intending to swat her like a fly. She’d asked me if she could lift Bird out of her crib and walk around with her. She’d asked this a few times, and I’d told her no. She was too small and too clumsy to walk around with a baby. I didn’t tell her this; I just said no. Snow said she’d be very careful. She said please please please please. She leaned over Bird’s crib and pressed the side of her face against the side of her sister’s face as if showcasing the contrast between their features, and she gave me a look of radiant, innocent virtue that made my skin crawl. Somehow it was spontaneous and calculated at exactly the same time. My hand came up to knock that look off her face, and I think if she’d looked fearful or piteous or anything like that I’d probably have hit her. I was gray-skinned with exhaustion, fat around the middle, my eyes were smaller than the bags beneath them, and Snow’s daintiness grew day by day, to menacing proportions. I would’ve hit her and decided it was self-defense. I wouldn’t have seen the rat catcher (or the snake bracelet) in my actions until much later. But Snow noted that split-second jerk of my arm with an expression that mixed incomprehension and curiosity—she had no idea what I was about to do, but she had a feeling it was going to be new to her and therefore interesting—I settled my hand on the nearest crib post and spoke to her gently: Your sister’s sleepy, Snow. Go play outside. She left, looking back at me, still curious. Maybe there is no Snow, but only the work of smoke and mirrors. The Whitmans need someone to love, and have found too much to hate in each other, and so this lifelike little projection walks around and around a reel, untouchable.

In the middle of another night of mirror dreams I got up and checked on Bird, who seemed to be having herself a highly satisfactory sleep; she was smacking her lips. Next I went into the bathroom, where I turned on both taps and held on to the edge of the sink with a feeling of terror. I didn’t switch on any lights. It didn’t seem impossible for the rat catcher to be right behind me, ready to dunk my head into the water and hold it down until I drowned this time.

I heard myself saying I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. But I was saying that only to divert my attention from what I was about to do.

I washed my face, then went into the parlor, picked up the phone, and tried Clara Baxter’s number. This time she answered immediately, which threw me a little bit. I mean, I gave the operator her number, and the next thing I knew Clara said, “Hello?”

“Hello, Clara. This is Boy—you sent me some flowers a while ago, and—”

“Hello, Boy. How are you?” Her voice was clear and gentle, and it sounded to me as if she was smiling.

“I’m fine, Clara. Thank you for the flowers,” I said. Then I held my hand over the receiver and tried to finish crying without making any noise.

“How’s the little girl? Arturo told me her name’s Bird. It’s a pretty name.”

She waited for me to answer, then she said: “Don’t you worry ’bout a thing, Boy. When Bird starts eating solid food, you bring her over here. She can stay with me. I won’t blame you. No one will blame you, and you can come visit her whenever you want.”

“Clara.”

“Yes?”

“Your mother sent you away?”

“Yes, she sent me to Mississippi, to live with my aunt Effie.”

“And you’re not . . . you’re not mad at her?”

“No, Boy. I don’t like her much, but I’m not mad at her. Aunt Effie did right by me. And now I’m living how I want to live. Wouldn’t have been able to do that under Ma’s thumb, don’t you know. You didn’t have a mother yourself, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And you’re all right, aren’t you? We turn out all right.”

(Do we?)

“Let Bird start on solid food before you come see me,” Clara said. “And don’t be too hard on Arturo. He doesn’t mean any harm, couldn’t do any if he tried.”

“I want you to take Snow,” I said. “Just for a little while. Please.”

—

just for a little while. Just for a little while. It was Arturo who took her to Boston. She was wearing a straw boater and had her pockets stuffed full of cookies, just as she had the first time I ever saw her. She gave Bird three hundred kisses and said: “That oughta hold ya ’til I’m home again.” Agnes Miller took ill; I knew it was because Snow was going away from her. She waved her handkerchief from her bedroom window by way of saying farewell. Up until then I hadn’t realized she lived in Olivia and Gerald’s house, that a room in that house was all she had to call home.