The Paper Palace(108)

Their light is still on.

“Where were you?” Maddy says. “You were supposed to come back for ice cream.”

“Daddy wasn’t feeling well. I had to find him some aspirin and get him into bed.”

“Right,” Jack says without raising his eyes from the bare-bulb glow of his computer screen.

Maddy has been reading aloud to Finn. They are snuggled up together on her bed. She’s holding a heavy, tattered book, its olive-green cover mildewed and time-stained.

“What are you reading?”

“I found it on the bathroom bookshelf,” Maddy says, and holds it up for me to see.

“That book has been on the bathroom shelf since before I was born. I don’t think anyone has ever read it.” I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Make room for me.”

Maddy moves closer to the wall. Finn makes a space, rests his head against my arm. “It’s about a crow named Johnny,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “That’s why no one’s ever read it.”

“There are spiders in here.” He points to a web in a high corner. Next to it, peeking out above the edge of the beam, I notice a small ragged mouse hole in the cardboard ceiling. I’ll have to get Peter to patch it. A fine-legged spider fusses around her web, preparing a dead fly. Five heavy brown eggs are suspended below her, held in a hammock of filament.

“Can you kill it?” Finn says.

“Spiders are good,” I say. “We like spiders. They catch mosquitoes.”

“I don’t like them,” he says.

“Don’t be a pussy,” Jack says.

“That’s not nice, Jack.” Another night I would get into it with him, but not tonight. Tonight I want to be here with my beautiful children—warm and happy, believing this will last forever. “You were terrified of spiders when you were Finn’s age.”

“Whatever.”

“Not whatever. Apologize to your brother and then come over here and snuggle with us, please. I need a massive cuddle right this second. Non-negotiable.”

Jack sighs, puts his computer down, comes over, and lies down in the narrow bit of space that’s left.

I wrap my arm around him, pull him close to me. “That’s better.” The four of us lie there, squished like sardines.

“Now what?” Jack says.

“You guys are suffocating me,” Maddy moans. “I can’t breathe.”

“Did I ever tell you the story about the hamster my sister Anna squashed between the bed and the wall?”

“On purpose?” Finn asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “It’s possible. Anna could be hard to read. But I don’t think she meant to kill it.”

“Well, either she did or she didn’t,” Jack says.

“Right. Lights out.” I take the book from Maddy. “Johnny Crow will still be here tomorrow.” I scoop Finn up off Maddy’s bed, tuck him under his covers, and kiss him all over his beautiful sweet face until he pushes me away.

Maddy puts her arms up for a final hug. “Me,” she says.

I hold her tight in my arms. “You didn’t brush your teeth. Your breath smells like creamed corn.”

“I did,” she says, but we both know she’s not telling the truth. “I did!” she says again.

“Corn is delicious,” I whisper in her ear, and she smiles.

“Okay, fine. I didn’t. But I’ll brush double in the morning.”

“I’m coming for you next,” I say to Jack.

“Whatever,” he says, but he’s smiling.

11:00 P.M.

Mum is sitting on the porch sofa in the dark.

“You’re still up,” I say.

“All those peanuts I ate at Dixon’s are repeating on me.”

“I’m getting a glass of wine. Do you want anything?”

“I’m headed for bed in a minute. There’s an open rosé.”

I pour myself a glass of wine and sit down beside her. “I’m exhausted.”

“I don’t know how you do it. All these people you take care of.”

“My husband and children?” I laugh.

“You coddle them far too much. I barely paid attention to you and Anna, and look how well you turned out.”

In a way, her blindness—her total lack of self-examination—is a gift.

“They can’t even put their own dishes in the sink. I barely survived while you and Peter were in Memphis. Though Finn did give me a nice foot rub.”

“You asked Finn to rub your feet?”

“His hands seem a bit small for his age.”

I shake my head in despair. My mother is who she is. But a piece of her has been in the wrong place for far too long and I have to set it right.

“You know how I was trying to tell you this afternoon? About Leo?”

My mother yawns. “You told me. He went back to his first wife, God help her. I should have written to her—told her what he did to you.”

“Mum.” My heart starts beating so fast I can see its tremoring on the surface of my chest. “It wasn’t Leo.”

“What wasn’t?”

“It wasn’t Leo,” I say again, my voice barely more than a whisper. “It happened, but it wasn’t Leo.”