In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Author:Dale Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Charles took a swig of beer. He scratched his head. Written out this way, they resembled equa—

“Charles—”

He looked up, startled.

Silva stood in the doorway, one arm draped over her daughter’s shoulder. “Lorna has a request.”

“What’s that?”

“Go ahead, Lorna.”

“I want you . . .” She turned away, burying her face against her mother’s hip.

“Lorna,” Silva said. “You can ask him. He’s a very nice man. You’re very nice, aren’t you, Charles?”

Charles had his doubts on that score. Sometimes he felt that he had nothing but doubts on that score. Yet he forced a smile all the same. “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m nice.”

Lorna stole a glance at him and then hid her face away again. “I want you to read me a story,” she whispered.

Something came unlashed within him. He felt weightless, cut adrift a hundred miles above the planet.

He swallowed. “Sure, I’d like that,” he said.

“I told you, silly,” Silva said. “All right, then. Come on.”

Lorna led them to her bedroom, a bower of purple and white. The lights had been draped in swaths of gauzy violet fabric, imparting to the air a cool, lavender glow. A tucking-in ritual involving much giggling and many kisses followed. “One book,” Silva said. “Understand?”

“Three.”

“Two,” Charles said, and that settled it. After a final set of air kisses and still more giggling, Silva left them to their own devices.

Charles perched on the edge of the bed. With much silliness—“Come on, mister,” she said—Lorna tugged him all the way aboard.

“Choose your book,” he said, and in the interest of delaying the inevitable, she chose, as Lissa would have chosen, the longest of the books fanned out across the comforter. This tactic had once annoyed Charles, who’d usually hastened through story time in order to get back to whatever task had otherwise been occupying his attention for the night. Grading papers or preparing for class. Reading. Whatever. Now he found himself tearing up. He’d let too many of the small moments slip by.

“Are you sad?” Lorna asked.

“A little bit, I guess. But I’m very happy, too,” he told her, and he realized that, in this fleeting instant anyway, he really was.

“You’re funny.”

“Am I?”

“You can’t be happy and sad at the same time.”

Sure you can, he thought. But aloud, “Okay, I’ll be happy, then.” As if you could choose. As if joy and sorrow didn’t select you at their whim.

Lorna snuggled in under his arm. She smelled of soap and shampoo. She smelled of little girl. She smelled like Lissa. “Read,” she said with a wiggle. “Read, read.”

Helpless to resist, Charles opened the book. “Once upon a time,” he said.

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