Lincoln.
Families.
Noah was watching TV when Claire got home. As she hung up her coat in the hallway, she recognized the theme music from The Simpsons cartoon playing in the other room, and she heard Homer Simpson’s loud burp and Lisa Simpson’s mutter of disgust. Then she heard her son laugh, and she thought: I’m so glad my son still laughs at cartoons.
She went into the front parlor and saw Noah flopped back against the couch cushions, his face briefly lit up with laughter. He looked at her, but didn’t say anything.
She sat down beside him and propped her feet up on the coffee table, next to his. Big feet, little feet, she thought with quiet amusement. Noah’s feet had grown so huge, they almost looked like a clown’s beside hers.
On the TV, an enormously fat Homer was bouncing around in a flowery muumuu, and shoveling food into his mouth.
Noah laughed again, and so did Claire. This was exactly the way she wanted to spend the rest of the evening. They would watch TV together, and eat popcorn for dinner. She leaned toward him, and they affectionately bumped heads together.
‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ he said.
‘It’s okay, Honey. I’m sorry I was late picking you up.’
‘Grandma Elliot called. A little while ago.’
‘Oh? Does she want me to call her back?’
‘I guess.’ He watched the TV for a while, his silence stretching through the string of commercials. Then he said, ‘Grandma wanted to make sure we were okay tonight.’
Claire gave him a puzzled look. ‘Why?’
‘It’s Dad’s birthday.’
On the TV, Homer Simpson in his flowered muumuu had hijacked an ice cream truck and was driving it at breakneck speed, gobbling ice cream the whole way. Claire watched in stunned silence. Today was your birthday, she thought. You’ve been dead only two years, and already we’re losing bits and pieces of your memory.
‘Oh god, Noah,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t believe it. I completely forgot.’
She felt his head droop heavily against her shoulder. And he said, with quiet shame, ‘So did I.’
Sitting in her bedroom, Claire returned Margaret Elliot’s call. Claire had always liked her mother-in-law, and through the years, their affection had grown to the point that she felt far closer to Margaret than she ever had to her own coldly aloof parents. Sometimes it seemed to Claire that everything she knew about love, about passion, had been taught to her by the Elliot family.
‘Hi, Mom. It’s me,’ said Claire.
‘Sixty-two degrees and sunny in Baltimore today,’ Margaret replied, and Claire had to laugh. Ever since she’d moved to Tranquility, this had been the running joke between them, their comparison of weather reports. Margaret had not wanted her to leave Baltimore. ‘You have no idea what real cold is,’ she’d told Claire, ‘and I’m going to keep reminding you of what you’ve left behind.’
‘Thirty-five degrees here,’ Claire dutifully reported. She looked out her window. ‘It’s getting colder. Darker.’
‘Did Noah tell you I called earlier?’
‘Yes. And we’re doing fine. We really are.’
‘Are you?’
Claire said nothing. Margaret had the uncanny talent for reading emotions from just the simple inflection of one’s voice, and already she had sensed something amiss.
‘Noah told me he wants to come back here,’ said Margaret.
‘We just moved.’
‘You can always change your mind.’
‘Not now. I’ve made too many commitments here. To this new practice, the house.’
‘Those are commitments to things, Claire.’
‘No, they’re really commitments to Noah. I need to stay here, for him.’ She paused, suddenly aware that, as much as she loved Margaret, she was feeling a little irritated. She was also weary of the gentle but repeated hints that she should return to Baltimore. ‘It’s always hard for a kid to make a fresh start, but he’ll adjust. He’s too young to know what he wants.’
‘That’s true, I suppose. What about you? Do you still want to be there?’
‘Why are you asking, Mom?’
‘Because I know it would be hard for me, moving to a new place. Leaving behind my friends.’
Claire stared at the dresser mirror, at her own tired face. At the reflection of her bedroom, which still had few pictures on the wall. It was merely a collection of furniture, a place to sleep, not yet part of a real home.
‘A widow needs her friends, Claire,’ said Margaret.
‘Maybe that was one of the reasons I had to leave.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s what I was to everyone – the widow. I’d walk into my clinic, and people would give me those sad and sympathetic looks. They were all afraid to laugh or tell jokes when I was around. And no one, no one ever dared to talk about Peter. It’s as if they thought I’d break down in sobs if they just mentioned his name.’
There was silence on the line, and Claire suddenly regretted having spoken so frankly.
‘It doesn’t mean I ever stop missing him, Mom,’ she said softly. ‘I see him every time I look at Noah’s face. The resemblance is so amazing. It’s like watching Peter grow up.’
‘In more ways than one,’ Margaret said, and Claire was relieved to hear the warmth had not left her mother-in-law’s voice. ‘Peter wasn’t the easiest child to raise. I don’t think I ever told you about all the trouble he got into when he was Noah’s age. That’s where Noah gets his streak of mischief, you know. From Peter.’
Claire had to laugh. He certainly didn’t get it from me, his boringly scrupulous mother, whose most serious crime was neglecting to get that safety sticker.
‘Noah’s got a good heart, but he’s still only fourteen,’ said Margaret with a friendly note of warning. ‘Don’t be too terribly shocked if there’s more mischief on the way.’
Later, as Claire headed back downstairs, she smelled the odor of burning matches, and she thought: Well, here it comes, then. More mischief. He’s sneaking another cigarette. She followed the scent to the kitchen and came to a halt in the doorway.
Noah was holding a lit match. He glanced at her, and quickly shook it out. ‘It’s all the candles I could find,’ he said.
In silence she approached the kitchen table. Her vision suddenly blurred with tears as she gazed at the Sara Lee layer cake he had taken out of the freezer. Flames danced atop eleven candles.
Noah struck another match and lit the twelfth flame on the cake. ‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ he said softly.
Happy birthday, Peter, she thought, and blinked away her tears.
And she and her son blew out the candles.
Mrs Horatio was going to pith a frog.
‘It doesn’t hurt them a bit, once you’ve penetrated their brain stem,’ she explained. ‘The needle goes in at the base of the skull, and you wiggle it around a little to destroy all the sensory tracts running up to the brain. This paralyzes them, stops any conscious movement, but it keeps their spinal reflexes intact for study.’ She reached into the jar and picked up a squirming frog