discovery. In the place of undoings, where things came apart, your children changed to cadavers, you spun your wife in wheelies, no mirrors. The joke was on you but you did not have to watch yourself.
When they were in the room she said, "I fell carrying him. He was by the garden fence—I fell in the snow." He could picture her carrying Paul up from the garden, tripping, slipping, stumbling. He took her icy hand but she withdrew it. "He was so cold."
"Lie down," he said. "Can you?"
"No, it hurts."
He stood and rang for the nurse.
Kristin took up the Bible as though she were entranced and began to read aloud.
"'Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge.'"
Closing his eyes, he tried to hold on to the words. Listening to her read in her mother's strange featureless tone, he could imagine Luther's Bible the way her mother out on the plains must have heard it from her own parents. A psalm for fools in the snow. Really expecting nothing but cold and death in the shadow of those wings. Odin's raven.
"'Until these calamities be overpast, I will cry unto God most high.'"
Michael sat listening, despising the leaden resignation of his wife's prayer, its acceptance, surrender.
"'My soul is among lions,'" she read, "'and I lie even among them that are set on fire.'"
His impulse was flight. He sat there burning until the nurse came in. For some reason, she looked merry, confidential.
"I think we turned a corner," she said. "Michael! Kristin! I think we turned a corner."
Then the doctor entered quietly and they got Kristin into bed and she went under the medication. Even unconscious, her eyes were half open.
The doctor said you responded or you didn't, and Paul had responded. His temperature was going up. He was coming up. He would even get his fingers and toes back and his ethical little Christian brain going, it appeared. The doctor looked so relieved.
"You can have a minute while we get the gurney. We've gotta get her x-rayed pronto because she's got a broken leg there."
"You can see Paul," the nurse said. "He's sleeping. Real sleep now."
The doctor laughed. "It's very exhausting to half freeze to death."
"It would be," Michael said.
While they got the gurney, he looked into Kristin's half-open, tortured, long-lashed blue eyes and brushed the slightly graying black hair from them. With her long face and buck teeth she looked like the Christus on a Viking crucifix. Given her, he thought, given me, why didn't he die? Maybe he still will, Michael thought. The notion terrified him. He had stood up to make his escape when the orderlies came in to take Kristin away. Michael rubbed her cold hand.
The chapel was down at the end of the corridor. It had a kind of altar, stained-glass windows that opened on nothing, that were inlaid with clouds and doves and other fine inspirational things.
Michael had been afraid, for a while, that there was something out there, at the beginning and end of consciousness. An alpha and an omega to things. He had believed it for years on and off. And that night, he had felt certain, the fire would be visited on him. His boy would be taken away and he would know, know absolutely, the power of the most high. Its horrible providence. Its mysteries, its hide-and-seek, and lessons, and redefined top-secret mercies to be understood through prayer and meditation. But only at really special moments of rhapsody and ecstasy and O, wondrous clarity. Behold now behemoth. Who can draw Leviathan? Et cetera.
But now his son's life was saved. And the great thing had come of nothing, of absolutely nothing, out of a kaleidoscope, out of a Cracker Jack box. Every day its own flower, to every day its own stink and savor. Good old random singularity and you could exercise a proper revulsion for life's rank overabundance and everybody could have their rights and be happy.
And he could be a serious person, a grownup at last,
When they were in the room she said, "I fell carrying him. He was by the garden fence—I fell in the snow." He could picture her carrying Paul up from the garden, tripping, slipping, stumbling. He took her icy hand but she withdrew it. "He was so cold."
"Lie down," he said. "Can you?"
"No, it hurts."
He stood and rang for the nurse.
Kristin took up the Bible as though she were entranced and began to read aloud.
"'Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge.'"
Closing his eyes, he tried to hold on to the words. Listening to her read in her mother's strange featureless tone, he could imagine Luther's Bible the way her mother out on the plains must have heard it from her own parents. A psalm for fools in the snow. Really expecting nothing but cold and death in the shadow of those wings. Odin's raven.
"'Until these calamities be overpast, I will cry unto God most high.'"
Michael sat listening, despising the leaden resignation of his wife's prayer, its acceptance, surrender.
"'My soul is among lions,'" she read, "'and I lie even among them that are set on fire.'"
His impulse was flight. He sat there burning until the nurse came in. For some reason, she looked merry, confidential.
"I think we turned a corner," she said. "Michael! Kristin! I think we turned a corner."
Then the doctor entered quietly and they got Kristin into bed and she went under the medication. Even unconscious, her eyes were half open.
The doctor said you responded or you didn't, and Paul had responded. His temperature was going up. He was coming up. He would even get his fingers and toes back and his ethical little Christian brain going, it appeared. The doctor looked so relieved.
"You can have a minute while we get the gurney. We've gotta get her x-rayed pronto because she's got a broken leg there."
"You can see Paul," the nurse said. "He's sleeping. Real sleep now."
The doctor laughed. "It's very exhausting to half freeze to death."
"It would be," Michael said.
While they got the gurney, he looked into Kristin's half-open, tortured, long-lashed blue eyes and brushed the slightly graying black hair from them. With her long face and buck teeth she looked like the Christus on a Viking crucifix. Given her, he thought, given me, why didn't he die? Maybe he still will, Michael thought. The notion terrified him. He had stood up to make his escape when the orderlies came in to take Kristin away. Michael rubbed her cold hand.
The chapel was down at the end of the corridor. It had a kind of altar, stained-glass windows that opened on nothing, that were inlaid with clouds and doves and other fine inspirational things.
Michael had been afraid, for a while, that there was something out there, at the beginning and end of consciousness. An alpha and an omega to things. He had believed it for years on and off. And that night, he had felt certain, the fire would be visited on him. His boy would be taken away and he would know, know absolutely, the power of the most high. Its horrible providence. Its mysteries, its hide-and-seek, and lessons, and redefined top-secret mercies to be understood through prayer and meditation. But only at really special moments of rhapsody and ecstasy and O, wondrous clarity. Behold now behemoth. Who can draw Leviathan? Et cetera.
But now his son's life was saved. And the great thing had come of nothing, of absolutely nothing, out of a kaleidoscope, out of a Cracker Jack box. Every day its own flower, to every day its own stink and savor. Good old random singularity and you could exercise a proper revulsion for life's rank overabundance and everybody could have their rights and be happy.
And he could be a serious person, a grownup at last,
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