I must clean this out when I have a minute. I push aside old cough syrup, disposable razors, nail scissors, Irving’s diabetes medicine, my birth control pills, a water pick we never use, painkillers, a broken powder compact. Here are the crowded shelves of a busy family with two children. I PUT ANNIE to bed and go to the bathroom cabinet. I sometimes confuse my children’s bodies with my own. I find that I am scratching my own arm in sympathy. “That will make it worse, my little beet.” Both are warm-too warm.Īnnie scratches at the rash and I enclose her hand in mine. I put my hand on her forehead, on her back. Annie obeys and as she does I see it: a red mark on her upper arm. I don’t know what it’s like for other people but love and nausea are often indistinguishable to me. The sight of her vulnerable spine, the dark paint-licks of hair clinging to her neck-these things make my throat close up hot. We always have the best time at the Goodwins’.Īnnie bends over and whispers to the rubber duck in her lap. It’s the one occasion in the year our whole family looks forward to. Their two smart sons Sam and Nathan are near Callie’s age they have interesting friends as well as great taste in wine and food and art. They call it their “blues banishing bash.” They’re a perky family who live next door on the left. The party is the Goodwins’ January tradition. Annie is small for nine and people often assume she is younger. I worry about her physically, my fragile second child, in a way I don’t about Callie.
She doesn’t like things too salty or sweet or sour, and her favorite stories are ones in which nothing happens.
Annie won’t bathe at a temperature warmer than blood. Her lips move, some secret song only for the plastic animals that bob around her. Annie sits cross-legged in the tepid water.
The shadows of bare sycamore branches lie sharp across the white tile. She is in the bath and the window is a blue square of winter sky. I find the first blister on Annie the morning of the Goodwins’ party. IT’S THE CHICKEN pox that makes me sure-my husband is having another affair.
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