The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

hold of his hands where they hung limply by his side. He bent his head down, lifting her hands and cupping his face, kissing her palms. She shuddered. Then she stood, sliding her hands from his, folding her arms across her chest.

‘Now?’ he asked, tears forming in his eyes.

‘Yes, please. I need to lie down. I’ll see you on the other side, or, if we’re among the favored few, somewhere along this life’s sojourn, sometime in the future.’

Clair sat for a while, feeling the absence of his energy. His largeness. If he was acting, he did it well. If he was being truthful, well, she couldn’t think about that now. Looking around, deciding what to do, she saw his coat laying across the couch, where he had left it. Forgotten in his rush to escape before he fell apart. She sighed, knowing how much the coat meant to him, and realizing that his leaving it was a sign of how upset he had been. That black wool coat that had been the focus of an argument, the last winter the three of them had been together. It had been a fissure in the tender veneer of their life as a family.

She walked to the couch, picked it up, and wrapped herself in it. His smell emanated from the damp wool. She sat in the rocker, and let her mind drift. One year ago, could it be. Last November.

Devon had been agitated all day. Winter break parties at his school, shopping with her after school, and coming home, his favorite TV show changed for a holiday special. Clair had tried all of her techniques for calming. A bath with favorite toys, toast, with butter, honey, and cinnamon. Stories told from memory, so he could see her eyes throughout the telling. They had practiced Mommy and Me yoga. It was raining but he wanted to go out, having been cooped up all day. She had let him. He had put on his Superman cape and ran around the yard, rain falling down like spirit from the sky in the evening dusk. When he had finally worn himself out, she dried him off, helping him put on his pajamas. Still wearing the kind with feet in them, he had waddled around the kitchen, calmer now, wanting to help her prepare dinner. They had been baking bread, he rolling the dough between his fingers, creating shapes, and getting flour all over himself and the counter top. Adam had come in, wet, tired, wearing his new black wool coat.

Devon had run to him, throwing himself at his father, hands sticky with flour, like glue. Adam, in his surprise and rash anger at getting his coat covered with flour, had shouted and shoved Devon away.

They had been being frugal, without her working. And Devon’s treatments, counseling, school, and tutors cost money. Neither had bought anything not necessary for over a year. When Adam came home, wearing this expensive coat, she had been angry, accusatory, telling him he cared more about his appearance than his family. He had made excuses, how he had to look a certain way, uphold his stature, and anyway, he hadn’t had a new coat or anything new since Devon was born and by God, he was the one earning the goddamn money here and if he wanted to buy a coat, he would. The coat was special and the mines laid.

Chapter 22

Adam

Somehow, he reached his car, eyes burning with unshed tears, breath held captive in his throat. He couldn’t swallow to release the pressure, vertigo causing him to weave like a drunken man. Once inside the car, he punched the starter, sat for several moments, listening to the engine hum. Remembering a technique he had learned in scuba training years ago, he consciously exhaled what little breath he had left, relaxing the epiglottis, and allowing cool, nourishing air to flow in. This pause between breaths, momentary death, ignited visions, like lightning flashes against a dark sky.

Memories of a trip he and Clair had taken to La Paz before Devon was born. She had been goddess-like in her sixth month of pregnancy, wearing a deep red bikini, her belly like mother earth, holding all promise for life and abundance. He had rubbed baby oil on her back, belly, thighs until laughing, hands reaching, touching, they waded out into the crystal-clear water to make love in the gentle rock of the waves, her legs circling him, his face buried in her breasts. He had told her he loved her, as they swayed together, his face nuzzling her neck, tasting salty skin, catching long, auburn hair streaked with sunlight in his mouth.

So far from now, from this sad, gray day. Grateful for his breath, bringing much needed oxygen to his struggling brain, he sat, the flashback resonating, reminding him of who he once was, who they were. Windshield wipers slid across glass, misted with light rain, their back and forth refrain calming him, like the placental swish. Remembering the first time he had heard that, the first ultrasound. A boy, perfect, all his tiny parts present. A son. He would be a good father. He would be everything his father was not. Then the diagnosis, his perfect son, imperfect. Had he minded? Had he felt differently about Devon after? He tried so hard to remember. Clair was devastated. Did she blame him? One moment they were the perfect family. Husband, father a popular man, respected, maybe even loved by his students, admired by his colleagues, and yes, desired by some. Clair, a woman of stature, internationally known for her research on theoretical mathematics, probability, and models of infectious disease. Then, the spiral downward into a different Clair, locked into trying so hard to change what was unchangeable.

In his memory, he had loved and accepted Devon as he was. He knew there was no such thing as perfection. He saw his son as he was, a being divined in his own skin, worthy of his care