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“It does make you wonder,” Nick continues as he heads for the sofa and the TV remote, “why she had Dylan taken away from her. She seems pretty grounded and normal to me. A little quiet, maybe, but then so is he.”
I wipe the kitchen island with slow, circular motions. “I don’t know. Don’t you think there’s something…” I hesitate to put it into words. Nick waits, eyebrows raised. “Something a little… off about her?”
“Off?” He sounds nonplussed.
“I don’t know. Just… a bit… much.” I can’t explain it better than that.
Nick shrugs. “I suppose it’s a complicated situation. I mean, we’re taking care of her child.”
“I know.”
“Do you know why Dylan was taken?”
I shrug. “Sort of. Susan told me that he has anxiety issues, as we obviously know, and she thinks Beth feeds into it.” I pause. “He has seemed better here, hasn’t he?”
“It’s not like we have anything to go by, from before.”
“Well, just those first few days. The screaming…”
“He’s settled in pretty well,” Nick admits. “But that’s not necessarily a reflection of Beth’s parenting skills, or lack of them.” He sounds reproving, and I drop it. What am I trying to say, anyway? That Beth is a bad mother? Will that make me feel better about myself? Hardly. I knuckle my forehead, my eyes closed. “Ally?” Nick sounds concerned. He hasn’t turned on the TV yet, although I’m sure he wants to. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” I say heavily. I have to tell him about the money. It’s been too long as it is. “No, I’m afraid that it might not be.” I open my eyes and stare at Nick. He looks back with a frown.
“Okay…” he says
guardedly.
“Let me put Dylan to bed first.” I go upstairs, dreading the upcoming conversation with Nick. I have no idea how he’ll react. In our nearly nineteen years of parenting, we haven’t really had any big issues—and maybe we don’t now. Both Emma and Josh have pretty much sailed through their teenaged years, with just a few of the basic bumps. Yes, Josh is a bit monosyllabic, and Emma has her moods, but compared to the friends we have with daughters in eating-disorder clinics and sons addicted to porn or pot or worse? We’ve had it easy. Easy.
As I come down the hallway, I hear humming, and I realize it’s coming from Dylan’s room. Besides the one time he said “Mama,” and of course the screaming, it’s the first sound I’ve heard him make. I stand in the hallway and peek around the doorway to see him kneeling on the carpet of his bedroom, constructing a village made of Legos and humming under his breath. That cheerful, industrious sound makes me smile like nothing else could in that moment. I simply stand there and listen, letting it fill me up and buoy my heart.
Then I step into the room and it stops. Dylan looks up, alert, almost guilty, and I smile at him.
“Hey, Dylan. That looks amazing.” I nod to the eclectic assortment of Lego buildings—some square and squat, some tall and narrow. “You’ve been busy. Should we leave it all the way it is so you can work on it again in the morning?”
He nods and smiles shyly, and I reach for his hand to draw him up to his feet. We’ve developed a way of communicating over the last few weeks, a kind of silent conversation of looks and shrugs, nods and smiles. When Dylan comes up to me and silently holds my hand, I know he’s asking me a question. When he smiles, he’s saying yes.
Now he walks with me to the bathroom and I help him brush his teeth, thinking how wonderfully simple this all is, compared to the current minefield of my own children’s lives, which seems a particularly odd thought, considering how complicated Dylan seemed just a few weeks ago.
“Was it nice to see your mom today?” I ask, and Dylan freezes, giving me a guarded look that makes me pause, toothbrush in hand. I study his face, the way worry clouds his clear, hazel eyes as he ducks his head. “It’s okay, Dylan,” I say softly, but he doesn’t relax, still hiding his face from me. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay,” I tell him. I don’t know what he’s feeling, and I don’t want to project anything onto him, but it’s strange and a bit concerning that a mention of his mother makes him tense so much.
He certainly didn’t hug her today the way he has before, and he didn’t seem particularly sad to see her go. I think of that first visit, and the two hours he spent waiting by the door, the hour of screaming afterwards. We’ve come a long way since then, but I wonder if Beth would see it as progress. I certainly never expected him to assimilate so quickly.
“Time for bed,” I say, and Dylan relaxes a little bit. Back in the bedroom, I turn back the duvet as he scrambles into bed, reaching for his rabbit, and then I sit on the end and sing several lullabies, the most relaxing part of my day. I don’t remember when I started doing this, maybe in the middle of that first night when I had to sleep next to him. I sing all the old songs—“Hush Little Baby,” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” all three verses. I hadn’t realized I still knew them until I sang them to Dylan. “Then the traveler in the dark, thanks you for your little spark. Would he know which way to go, if you did not twinkle so?”
He drifts off by the last verse; a full day of school, plus Beth’s visit, has wiped him out. I watch him for a few moments, his face softened and relaxed in sleep, his breath coming in and out in soft little sighs. One hand is curled around his rabbit’s good ear; the one I sewed on is still hanging on, but it’s gone even floppier.
Outside, the stars are pricking the sky with their tiny sparks, just like in the lullaby, and I have a weary desire to stay in this darkened room with this sleeping child, where life seems so simple and sweet. But I know I can’t, and after another few peaceful moments, I rise from the bed and head downstairs for my conversation with Nick.
He snaps off the TV the second I come into the kitchen, already frowning. “So what’s going on?” he asks, sounding a bit belligerent.
I sigh heavily. I want a glass of wine, but we finished the bottle at dinner, even though I only had a few sips. Nick kept filling Beth’s glass as well as his own.
“Last week I found something in Josh’s room,” I say quietly, and Nick’s frown deepens into a severe crease in his forehead.
“Last week? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m sorry. There never seemed to be the right time.” Nick just gives me a look, and I recognize that as the feeble excuse it is. “I suppose I didn’t want to have to think about it, and it might be nothing.”
