Child of my Heart by Alice McDermott

Author:Alice McDermott [McDermott, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I shrugged.

“And let her feast on St. Joseph’s aspirin.”

Behind me I could hear Flora calling softly from her crib.

“You gave her the aspirin,” I said.

He drank again. Now he heard her, too, his daughter; I saw his eyes register the sound. I heard Daisy sleepily responding. I thought of the surprised look she always wore when she first woke up, her features not yet fully her own.

He looked me up and down again, his head once more drawn back. Up and down from my ankles to my waist to my chest and neck and hair, the corners of his mouth drawn a little and that little bit of fear crossing his face.

“You’re some kid,” he said finally. And then he raised his chin toward the hallway and his daughter’s bedroom.

“Your charges are calling,” he said.

To my surprise, he went with me, walking just behind me down the narrow hallway to the bedrooms, following me right up to Flora’s crib, where Daisy was standing, stroking Flora’s plump wrist and saying, “Here she is. And here’s your daddy.”

Flora held her arms out to me, of course, and I lifted her onto the changing table. Behind me, he said to Daisy, “Come with me, won’t you?” And when I looked over my shoulder, he was walking hand in hand with her down the hallway. I heard the screen door close and followed with Flora as soon as I had changed her. They were both standing at the bottom of the steps when we got outside, both of them chewing aspirin between their back teeth. He was pointing out something to her in one of the high branches of the far trees—a jay’s nest, he said—and she was looking up, following his arm, still holding his hand.

I put Flora in her stroller, and she began to cry, asking for a bottle of red juice. I said, “No more bottles, Flora. You don’t want a bottle.” But she was cranky, still not fully awake, and her voice began to get shrill. I leaned over her.

“Mommy doesn’t want you to have a bottle, Flora,” I said softly.

“You’re such a big girl now, you don’t need a bottle.” She kicked her feet against the bars of the stroller, crying in earnest now. I put my hand on her arm.

“Oh, Flora,” I whispered.

That’s when he turned to us, still holding Daisy’s hand, and said, “Go ahead and give her one.”

I stood up straight, tossing my hair over my shoulder. Looking down at the two of them from the shade of the porch, I saw that they were both sun-washed and faded, Daisy still blurred from her nap, he, perhaps, blurred from the need for one. I was about to say either “your wife” or “her mother,” had probably hesitated simply to decide which was best, when he held up a hand.

“We’ve vanished,” he said.

He said it softly, under Flora’s crying, and so it was the word itself that made me start.

“We’re gone,” he said. He glanced down at Daisy for a moment, pleasantly, including her in the conversation.

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