He nods. "That in the year 2001 it's archaic to assume the Church is such a large part of your life it could offer you comfort at a time like this. But it can, Nina. God wants you to turn to Him."
I stare right at the priest. "These days I'm not too high on God," I say bluntly.
"I know. It doesn't make much sense, sometimes, God's will." Father Szyszynski shrugs. "There have been times I've doubted Him myself."
"You've obviously gotten over it." I wipe the corner of my eyes; why am I crying? "I'm not even really a Catholic."
"Sure you are. You keep coming back, don't you?"
But that's guilt, not faith.
"Things happen for a reason, Nina."
"Oh, yeah? Then do me a favor and ask God what reason there could possibly be for letting a child get hurt like this. "
"You ask Him," the priest says. "And when you're talking, you might want to remember you have something in common-He watched His son suffer, too."
He hands me a picture book-David and Goliath, watered down for a five-year-old. "If Nathaniel ever comes out," he pitches his voice extra loud, "you tell him that Father Glen left a present." That's what they call him, all the kids at St. Anne's, since they can't pronounce his last name. Heck, the priest has said, after a few tall ones, I can't pronounce it myself. "Nathaniel particularly enjoyed this story when I read it last year. He wanted to know if we could all make slingshots." Father Szyszynski stands up, leads the way to the door. "If you want to talk, Nina, you know where to find me. You take care."
He starts down the path, the stone steps that Caleb placed with his own hands. As I watch him go I clutch the book to my chest. I think of the weak defeating giants.
Nathaniel is playing with a boat, sinking it, then watching it bob to the surface again. I suppose I should be grateful that he's in this tub at all. But he has been better, today. He has been talking with his hands.
And he agreed to this bath, on the condition that he take off his own clothes. Of course I let him, struggling not to run to his aid when he couldn't work a button through a hole. I try to remember what Dr. Robichaud told us about power: Nathaniel was made helpless; he needs to feel like he's gaining control of himself again.
I sit on the lip of the tub, watching his back rise and fall with his breathing. The soap shimmers like a fish near the drain. "Need help?" I ask, lifting one hand up with the other, a sign. Nathaniel shakes his head vigorously. He picks up the bar of Ivory and runs it over his shoulder, his chest, his belly. He hesitates, then plunges it between his legs.
A thin white film covers him, making him otherworldly, an angel. Nathaniel lifts his face to mine, hands me the soap to put back. For a moment, our fingers touch-in our new language, these are our lips . . . does that make this a kiss?
I let the soap drop with a splash, then circle my pursed mouth with a finger. I move my index fingers back and forth, touching and retreating. I point to Nathaniel.
Who hurt you?
But my son doesn't know these signs. Instead, he flings his hands out to the sides, proud to show off his new word. Done. He rises like a sea nymph, water sluicing down the sides of his beautiful body. As I towel off each limb and pull pajamas over Nathaniel, I silently ask myself if I am the only person who has touched him at this place, at that one, until every inch of him is covered again.
In the middle of the night Caleb hears a hitch in his wife's breathing.
"Nina?" he whispers, but she doesn't answer. He rolls onto his side, curls her closer. She's awake, he can feel it coming from her pores. "Are you all right?" he asks.
She turns to him, her eyes flat in the dark. "Art you?"
He pulls her into his arms and buries his face in the side of her neck.
Breathing her calms Caleb; she is his own oxygen. His lips trace her skin, hold over her collarbone. He tilts his head so that he can hear her heart.
He is looking for a place to lose himself.
So his hand moves from the valley of her waist to the rise of a hip, slips beneath the thin strip of her panty. Nina draws in her breath. She is feeling it too, then. She needs to get away from here, from this.
Caleb slides lower and rocks his palm against her. Nina grabs tighter at his hair, almost to the point of pain. "Caleb."
He is hard now, heavy and pressed into the mattress. "I know," he murmurs, and he goes to slide a finger inside.
She is dry as a bone.
Nina yanks at his hair, and this time he rolls off her, which is what she's wanted all along. "What is the matter with you!" she cries. "I don't want to do this. I can't, now." She throws back the covers and pads out of the bedroom into the dark.
Caleb looks down, sees the small drop of semen he's left on the sheets. He gets out of bed and covers it up, so that he will not have to look at it. Then he follows Nina, searching her out by sheer instinct. For long moments, he stands in the doorway of his son's bedroom, watching her watch Nathaniel.
