“Then why don’t you?” I say as I sift through a pile of mismatched socks.
He shrugs again. Ethan enters the room. “We’ll start doing it, okay?” He pulls on Noah, “Let’s go jump.”
Because Dani was often home with the boys, she always did the laundry. Even before we had kids, it was her thing. She never asked me to do it and she’d fly off the handle when I’d start a load and not finish it, or forget clothes in the dryer. She’d say, “Either do it right, or just leave it and I’ll do it.” She always folded the clothes when they were still warm, and I thought she was an anal-retentive maniac because of it. Now, as I’m hanging wrinkled clothes on hangers and unable to find a single matching pair of socks, I get it.
I can hear the boys arguing again about something. For a moment it occurs to me that they sound like Oscar and Felix fromThe Odd Couple,and then I realize, no, they sound like me and Dani.
“Shut up, Noah,” I hear Ethan say. A moment later there’s a very loud, piercing scream but I can’t tell who it’s coming from.
Running as fast as I can, I make it downstairs, then go slidingthrough a puddle of water on the kitchen floor before falling on my ass. It’s Noah; I can now hear him screaming, “Ow, ow, ow!”
I pick myself up and dart into the backyard, where Noah is lying on the ground and Ethan is kneeling next to him.
Ethan looks up. “I think he broke his arm,” he says. I notice the trampoline, including the safety net, is on its side. “See, Dad, Mom was right. The leg is unhinged on the trampoline or something.”
“Oh my god,” I say under my breath. Noah is crying on the ground. “What is it, Noah? What hurts?”
“My arm,” he cries.
I’m frozen.What do I do?I’m examining his arm and trying not to move it. Ethan is staring at me, waiting for me to save the day. His eyebrows are arched like he’s just asked me a question and is waiting for the answer.
“What, Ethan? Jesus!”
“Want me to call Mom?”
“No!” I bark. “Sit up, Noah.”
Noah sits up while I hold his arm in place. I move it just a little and he screams, “Ow!”
“Calm down.” Just by looking at it I know that it’s broken, somewhere around his elbow, but I won’t tell him that. I’m a physical therapist, for god’s sake, and I’m kneeling on the ground looking like a deer in headlights.
“It hurts,” he whines.
“I know, Noah, I’m sorry. Ethan, go get the ACE bandage. I’ll wrap it up and we’ll take him to the ER. So, what actually happened?”
Noah stops crying abruptly and looks up at me, “Obviously, the trampoline is broken!” He looks exactly like Dani in thismoment. His expression derisive and demeaning. The implication is that I’m afucking moron,clearly.
“I’m sorry.” I do feel horrible. Ethan returns with the bandage. I wrap up Noah’s arm to stabilize it to his chest. We stand and I guide Noah inside onto the couch. “Where’s the insurance cards and stuff?” They both look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. “I need to call your doctor. I need to figure out where to take you. Where did Mom take you, Ethan, when you got the stitches on your ear?”
“Verdugo. Remember, you were there?”
When you don’thave toremember things, you don’t try to. Dani is going to blow a gasket. “Ethan, call your mom and ask her where the insurance cards are.”
“She’s gonna freak out!”
“I know, just call her,” I say.
“There goes baseball,” Noah says to himself. He’s calmed down a lot. It looks like he’s not in as much pain, so much as he’s just disappointed in me.
I can hear Ethan talking in the kitchen, but there’s a wall blocking him, so it’s difficult to understand what he’s saying. Lip-reading has become a talent of mine since I lost my hearing in one ear. If Dani knew how much I relied on lip-reading…Who am I kidding? Dani knows. When we were still together, she told me once that intimacy between us was hard because she felt like she couldn’t speak softly, be soft, when she was talking to me. I wonder for a second if that’s true or if she just liked pouring salt in my wounds. The deafness isn’t my fault anyway, and it’s just cruel of her to criticize it.
“Dad!”
“What?” I say to Ethan, who has come into the room.
“Mom wants to talk to you.” He holds the phone out.
I hesitate. “Hello?”
