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naked on top of her bed, her body strewn about in comfort that seemed everlasting. He thought he would see the boy next, but he saw the boy and his mother together, the boy almost as relaxed as his sister, but the woman tense and pathetic. He stood staring at them, and then the woman opened her eyes. For a moment she didn’t remember, then did, and sat up quickly, nakedly. Her face twisted, she began to cry silently, her head falling limp, her hair covering her swollen breasts. She got out of bed, hugged him, and whispered something that wasn’t words of any kind. He moved with her to their own room and drew back the coverings of her bed. She got in, sobbing, and he sat down to wait, although he couldn’t imagine what he could possibly be waiting for now.

Chapter 8
    He sat in the room in deadly stupor, staring at the floor, his eyes open but blind, listening to the poor woman, not thinking anything and not speaking. It was more than an hour until their daughter, finding them, flung herself into his arms, as if she were her mother absolved. He hugged her, putting his lips to her neck, keeping them there in the same deadly stupor, still unable to think or understand. The woman stopped sobbing when the girl appeared, for she knew she must.
    â€œYou’re up before
me
, Papa,” the girl said, “and I’m
always
first.” She turned to the woman. “Mama!” she said.
“You’re
awake, too.”
    The woman tried to smile. The girl went to the woman and got in bed beside her, moving swiftly to get as close to her as possible.
    â€œPapa,” she said, “what’s the matter with your face?”
    â€œI stumbled.”
    â€œPapa!” the girl said with absolute disbelief.
“You
don’t stumble! Red stumbles! I stumble! You
never
stumble, Papa.”
    â€œI stumbled.”
    â€œDid you
fall
, Papa?”
    â€œOn my face.”
    â€œOh, Papa!” the girl said, getting out of bed.
    She ran to kiss him. He watched the woman, and when he saw her face twisting to cry, he shook his head, and she stopped.
    â€œPoor Papa,” the girl said. “Did you stumble like a little boy?”
    â€œNo,” he said, and then
had
to go on, speaking to both of them. “I stumbled like a husband, like a father.” He hugged the girl suddenly, bitterly angry at himself, and then, speaking almost with laughter,
“Anybody
can stumble.”
    â€œDoes it
hurt
, Papa?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMama,” the girl said, “next time Papa’s going to stumble, you help him.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCan I go tell Red, Papa?”
    â€œSure.”
    The girl ran out of the room. After a moment the woman whispered the man’s name again, as if she were the girl herself.
    â€œYou’d better get up,” the man said. “Get them breakfast. You can sleep some more after they’re out in the yard.”
    The woman leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. The girl came back with the boy.
    â€œLet me see.”
    He examined his father’s face.
    â€œPapa?”
    â€œYes, Red.”
    â€œI
heard
you last night.”
    â€œWe’ll talk about it some other time, Red. Now, go get dressed.”
    â€œWill you help me get dressed, Papa?” the girl said.
    â€œSure.”
    He got up at last, getting up suddenly, and went with the girl to her room, the boy running there after a moment, to be with them, bringing his clothes, dressing there.
    â€œI heard a lot of birds singing a long time ago,” he said.
    â€œMe, too,” the girl said.
    â€œI didn’t get out of bed to look at them,” he said. “I almost didn’t even wake up to hear them, but I heard them just the same. They sang a long time, and they’re still doing it. One of them—I
guess
it was one of them—did it in the dark, in the night, all the time Mama was crying and waiting for you to come home.”
    â€œRed?”
    The