The Cradle Read Online Free PDF Page B

would ever write it.
     But there it was on the board, interestingly enough.
    Right now the poem was only a feeling—not a single image attached to it. She knew it fit into the whole somewhere, but she
     wasn’t ready to ask how, to sit down and try to see. When she imagined the poem, she only felt worried; a cold wind, a dark,
     lost feeling. Herself, or someone, in a cave. Nothing to do but wait and hope.
    She knew, as she knew every single day of her life, what the apology was for. She hadn’t made herself that blind, not yet.
     It was for what she had done. For Jonathan, long dead. But there were other questions. Who would see it? Who would overhear
     it, and what would that mean? Could it be told? Who would know it was there, and what would that do? Would she then have to
     go out and deliver it? And if it ever became more than only a card, what then? Even seeing how the
A
and the
O
s and the
G
and the
Y
fit together as they did made her stomach drop. She knew the power and could feel it. She knew it was bigger than she was,
     that it could destroy her as easily as a crashing wave could lift a healthy human body and drop it and batter it against the
     sand and the coral and be done with it, then recede, all in one second, leaving a wet corpse behind.
    She was terrified of it.
    However, there was the card.
    She expected to find Bill asleep on the couch downstairs. When she came into the living room, she saw that he was still awake,
     sitting upright in front of the television. No more
Mystery!
He was watching the news.
    “Hi,” he said, looking up. “Bedtime for the old people?”
    “Yes,” she said, coming to the couch. “I’m absolutely exhausted.” She flopped down beside him. His arm came instinctively
     around her. With his other hand, Bill adjusted his glasses. The weather was on, and he said, “They think more snow tomorrow.”
    “Maybe it will just snow permanently,” she said. “Forever.”
    “For that,” he said, “we may have to get a new snowblower.”
    She breathed out, looked up at the ceiling. “You are so calm,” she said.
    “I’m not calm,” he said. “I look calm. I’m scared, too, Renee.”
    “I don’t even look calm,” she said.
    “Well,” Bill said, “you’re the mother. Something would be wrong if you looked calm.”
    “He chose it. Of all the things that make no sense about this. He
chose
it. This is
our
child.”
    Bill didn’t react to this. She wanted to make it seem like it was impossible that their child would become this. Obviously
     it wasn’t. She had her thoughts about children choosing other paths and finding their own ways, but there was also this: Bill
     was Bill. Bill had never said a thing to indicate he was against war in general, or against this one in particular. What if
     he had been firm? He was diplomatic and not aggressive. He had a balanced opinion on the subject and saw merits here and there.
     He was patriotic when it was convenient and he didn’t get tired, ever, of making fun of Hillary Clinton. He was a fungible
     man and hadn’t pushed Adam hard one way or the other.
    She wanted to hate him for it and to see this way he had as weakness, and yet here, now, beside him, she felt no resentment.
     Only loss, and fear. Love for him, love for the years of life they had together. She thought of the apology card.
    Maybe it was for him, after all. Maybe she’d guessed wrong. How was it possible to live with one man for this many years and
     never, ever mention to him the central truth of your history, the one most important thing? He knew about Jonathan, of course.
     Some old boyfriend, a tragic story. But he didn’t know everything. She dreaded what he would feel if he ever knew. He would
     feel like he didn’t know her. He would look at the same face she’d studied in the mirror this morning and it would go from
     familiar to alien in a flash. She would see it as it happened, and it would be unbearable. For most of their marriage, she
     had