Stealing Time by Rebecca Bowyer (acx book reading .txt) 📕

Or was about two years old. I wonderif she told her mother about the little boy at the window. Hermother’s head is bent forward, about to collect her handbag fromthe passenger footwell of the car. There’s another booster seat inthe back next to the little girl. I like to think that they werepopping into the music store to buy a guitar for the young childthat seat belongs to. Maybe for a birthday? A sixth birthday, ifhe—or she—was at school? Two-thirty-six in the afternoon it is.Two-thirty-six forever and always. Fifty-four minutes for this mumto unclip her toddler, go into the store, select a guitar, and hideit in the trunk before going to pick up her other child from theschool gate.

He’d be quite good at guitar by now, I’dimagine. Or she. After a few years of lessons. Or maybe it wasn’tfor them. Maybe they passed it onto their little sister. Maybe it’sin landfill by now.

This is how I amuse myself; this is how Ipass the hours. By telling stories about each of these frozenmontages. What they’re doing at two-thirty-six in the afternoon onthe main street of a small town, surrounded by mountains. What theymight be doing now in the unfrozen world. Where they moved onto.

“Nanna, Nanna!”

I can see Kir through the window. He’s got‘his’ guitar already, a tiny blue model with four nylon stringsthat are easy for little fingers to strum. Daniel has overtaken meand joined Kir inside. Kir hands him a tiny red guitar. I’ve showedKir how to use a pick, but he insists on using his fingers. Helikes to listen to the individual notes, moving his fingers up anddown the frets to hear them change. Again and again and again, withthe obsessive attention to repetition that only a child of his agecan muster and appreciate.

I enter the store and take my place on thestool in front of the grand piano.

“What are we playing today, MonsieurMaestro?” I demand grandly, looking down my nose at Kir. Kirgiggles.

“Castle on a Cloud!” he shouts.

“Of course, young sir. An excellentselection.” I begin to play the classic child’s fantasy song fromLes Misérables. I avoid looking at Kir while I play, and hesings. Daniel remains silent, withdrawn. Kir loves this songbecause it speaks of rooms full of toys, and dozens of other kidsto play with. I always dread it just a little. My mind has a cruelhabit of conflating little Kir with the image I have of a lonelygirl dressed in rags on a darkened stage. Cold, starved, abandonedby her mother, and worked near to death by her supposed caregivers.It’s not real, of course. Kir is happy enough. I glance at the manbehind the counter, leaning on the flat surface, reading the samemagazine. The same line, over and over. I smile as I remember Kirescaping my supervision a week or so ago and climbing up onto thechair to tickle him on the back of the neck. I imagine, again, himshivering slightly at two-thirty-six in the afternoon and lookingaround, perhaps catching the faint strains of light opera played onthe grand piano. Perhaps shrugging, shaking his head, and goingback to his magazine.

We walk home slowly. Kir’s burst of manicenergy has finally wound down a little. He has run laps of the toystore, counted all the tins of blue paint in the hardware store andchosen us a new house from the realtor’s window. Today it was arural property outside of town. Five bedrooms, a wrap-around porch,and stables for the horses to sleep in. He was a little crushedwhen I explained it would take a whole hour to drive there andgoodness knows how many hours to walk, given none of the carsstarted.

Back home I fix him and Daniel peanut buttersandwiches and send them off to prepare for bedtime. Daniel quietlyaccepts my offer of ‘Entiac’ to give him a few hours of oblivion.It will take him time to adjust, though I dearly hope he won’t needto stay for long. I hope he’s out of here and back in the world ofthe living soon. Kir reads aloud to himself for half an hour or sobefore the babble stops suddenly, and I know he’s fallen into whatpasses for sleep in here. I climb into bed myself and lay therestaring at the ceiling, exhausted but awake, waiting forsemi-consciousness to fill a few more hours.

At 3a.m., according to my watch, I am wideawake. I lie in the darkness afforded by curtains velcroed to thewalls. I imagine what the sounds of the night should be. Cicadascausing a ruckus, rubbing their wings together to keep smallchildren awake? No, too early in the year. Not hot enough. Anelectric car quietly buzzing past on its way home, carrying itspassenger to bed from a late shift at the hospital maybe? Voicesout on the street, people laughing and chatting, walking home froma friend’s party? Only on weekends.

Kir is only four years old in body, but atleast twice that in years on earth. I knew it would take time tofind the cure, but I never imagined it would be this long. Ienvisioned months, not years. I regret nothing. I’d do these yearsall over again if it meant giving our boy a chance to live. But Ido begin to worry about what his life will be like when his timecomes again. I have started a list in my mind of all the things wewill have to re-teach him. How to talk to other people. How to playwith children. Don’t run on the road. Dogs might bite you, steerclear.

I fear others will think of him as a childprodigy, reading novels and playing guitar. They will expect moreof him and he will fail to deliver. He is our wonderful, specialKir. But he is also just a regular, normal boy.

I suppose time will catch up with himeventually. Maybe we can home-school him for a few years while headjusts. It’s not unusual, especially for sick children. And it’snot like he’ll miss the company of children his own age. He’slearned to live without it.

All the muscles in my body tense as I hear anew noise. At first, I think I’m imagining