HOURS, IF NOT DAYS Friday, December 24, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35)

HOURS, IF NOT DAYS


Friday, December 24, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is 35)

HENRY: I wake up early, so early that the bedroom is blue in the almost-dawn light. I
lie in bed, listening to Clare’s deep breathing, listening to the sporadic noise of traffic
on Lincoln Avenue, crows calling to each other, the furnace shutting off. My legs
ache. I prop myself up on my pillows and find the bottle of Vicodin on my bedside
table. I take two, wash them down with flat Coke.

I slide back into the blankets and turn onto my side. Clare is sleeping face down,
with her arms wrapped protectively around her head. Her hair is hidden under the
covers. Clare seems smaller without her ambiance of hair. She reminds me of herself
as a child, sleeping with the simplicity she had when she was little. I try to remember
if I have ever seen Clare as a child, sleeping. I realize that I never have. It’s Alba that
I am thinking of. The light is changing. Clare stirs, turns toward me, onto her side. I
study her face. There are a few faint lines, at the corners of her eyes and mouth, that
are the merest suggestion of the beginnings of Clare’s face in middle age. I will never
see that face of hers, and I regret it bitterly, the face with which Clare will go on
without me, which will never be kissed by me, which will belong to a world that I
won’t know, except as a memory of Clare’s, relegated finally to a definite past.

Today is the thirty-seventh anniversary of my mother’s death. I have thought of
her, longed for her, every day of those thirty-seven years, and my father has, I think,
thought of her almost without stopping. If fervent memory could raise the dead, she
would be our Eurydice, she would rise like Lady Lazarus from her stubborn death to
solace us. But all of our laments could not add a single second to her life, not one
additional beat of the heart, nor a breath. The only thing my need could do was bring
me to her. What will Clare have when I am gone? How can I leave her?

I hear Alba talking in her bed. “Hey,” says Alba. “Hey, Teddy! Shh, go to sleep
now.” Silence. “Daddy?” I watch Clare, to see if she will wake up. She is still, asleep.
“Daddy!” I gingerly turn, carefully extricate myself from the blankets, maneuver


myself to the floor. I crawl out of our bedroom, down the hall and into Alba’s room.
She giggles when she sees me. I make a growling noise, and Alba pats my head as
though I am a dog. She is sitting up in bed, in the midst of every stuffed animal she
has. “Move over, Red Riding Hood.” Alba scoots aside and I lift myself onto the bed.
She fussily arranges some of the toys around me. I put my arm around her and lean
back and she holds out Blue Teddy to me. “He wants to eat marshmallows.”

“It’s a little early for marshmallows, Blue Teddy. How about some poached eggs
and toast?”

Alba makes a face. She does it by squinching together her mouth and eyebrows
and nose. “Teddy doesn’t like eggs,” she announces.

“Shhhh. Mama’s sleeping.”

“Okay” Alba whispers, loudly. “Teddy wants blue Jell-O.” I hear Clare groan and
start to get up in the other room.

“Cream of Wheat?” I cajole. Alba considers. “With brown sugar?” Okay.

“You want to make it?” I slide off the bed.

“Yeah. Can I have a ride?”

I hesitate. My legs really hurt, and Alba has gotten a little too big to do this
painlessly, but I can deny her nothing now. “Sure. Hop on.” I am on my hands and
knees. Alba climbs onto my back, and we make our way into the kitchen. Clare is
standing sleepily by the sink, watching coffee drip into the pot. I clamber up to her
and butt my head against her knees and she grabs Alba’s arms and hoists her up, Alba
giggling madly all the while. I crawl into my chair. Clare smiles and says, “What’s
for breakfast, cooks?”

“Jell-O!” Alba shrieks.

“Mmm. What kind of Jell-O? Cornflake Jell-O?”

“Nooooo!”

“Bacon Jell-O?”

“Ick!” Alba wraps herself around Clare, pulls on her hair.

“Ouch. Don’t, sweetie. Well, it must be oatmeal Jell-O, then.”

“Cream of Wheat!”

“Cream of Wheat Jell-O, yum.” Clare gets out the brown sugar and the milk and
the Cream of Wheat package. She sets them on the counter and looks at me
inquiringly. “How ‘bout you? Omelet Jell-O?”

“If you’re making it, yeah.” I marvel at Clare’s efficiency, moving around the
kitchen as though she’s Betty Crocker, as though she’s been doing this for years.
She’ll be okay without me, I think as I watch her, but I know that she will not. I
watch Alba mix the water and the wheat together, and I think of Alba at ten, at fifteen,


at twenty. It is not nearly enough, yet. I am not done, yet. I want to be here. I want to
see them, I want to gather them in my arms, I want to live—

“Daddy’s crying” Alba whispers to Clare.

“That’s because he has to eat my cooking” Clare tells her, and winks at me, and I
have to laugh.