Cloven Hooves. Megan Lindholm

she is hating him, she has to think constantly about his broad shoulders and white teeth, his roguish smile and dancing blue eyes, and the elegant way he put his own cloak around her to cover her after one of his less civilized pirates had ripped her bodice …

      “If we’re staying here this winter,” I say, being careful to always say, “if,” not “since,” “then I suppose I should look around for a job. What do you think?”

      “Just a sec,” Tom said, not even looking up. Evening has come, greying the windows and leaking shadows into the house. The table is an island awash with yellow light. The rest of the kitchen is a gloomy, huddling place. Tom’s heavy tractor manual has a yellow cover, stained with diesel. Tom’s notes and a schematic take up the rest of the tabletop. There is no room for me to share the table. “I’ll talk to you in just a second, honey. I’m sure the problem is in this section of the hydraulics, and I think I can find it if I’m just left alone for ten minutes straight. Okay?”

      I don’t answer, but he doesn’t notice. He is already submerged in valves and lines, filters and clamps. It doesn’t bother me. There are other things for me to do. Teddy is ready for bed, has been tubbed and scrubbed, and now waits, red-cheeked, for a bedtime story. He is a little pinto himself now, my boy, his innocent butt white still, but the rest of him baked brown right down to the top of his sneaker lines. His fair hair has turned ashy white, his face tanned so dark that his blue eyes are a shock. I sit on the floor by the wicker sofa that has been spread up as a narrow bed.

      “What shall we read?” I ask, but it is really a rhetorical question. Where the Wild Things Are is already set out by his bed. We have read it every night for the past three months, and he shows no sign of tiring of it. I do not mind, even though I can now recite it. There is something in this book for Teddy, and once he has digested it, he will be ready to go on.

      “This one,” he says, and presents me with a Little Golden Book about Scooby-Do. With some reluctance I accept it, leaf through its stiff newness.

      “Auntie Steffie gave it to me. He’s our favorite. When I go over Saturday mornings, we watch Scooby-Do together, with Pop-Tarts.”

      The ultimate cultural experience. We read the new book slowly, with Teddy taking great care to examine every picture. It is the same story that they use for all the cartoons, and Teddy seems pleased with its familiarity. When we are finished, I cannot resist saying, “Well, I think I like Where the Wild Things Are better.”

      “It’s okay,” Teddy concedes. “But it’s not real.”

      “And a talking dog that hunts for ghosts is real?”

      He frowns. “It’s real in the story. Not a dream. Auntie Steffie says that Max falls asleep in his bed and just dreams the Wild Things. She says that he had a bad dream because he went to bed with no dinner, and that’s what the story is really about.”

      “Oh,” I say. I try to find the right words. “I don’t think it’s a dream in the story. It never says he falls asleep and then wakes up again.”

      “But then how did he get to where the Wild Things are?”

      “In the boat. His bed turned into a boat.”

      “No. ’Cause that can’t really happen. He just fell asleep and dreamed it. It’s a dumb story, just about a dream someone had.”

      He stuffs the Scooby-Do book into the place of honor under his pillow. I pick up Where the Wild Things Are as I stand and take it with me. I think it is my book now, a thing Teddy has outgrown and cast aside. Perhaps I am a thing Teddy has outgrown and cast aside. I feel gutted, hollow. Why did she have to take that away from him? I wonder. Did she even know what she was doing? Is it a malicious cruelty, or only ignorance? And why is it so important to me? Am I worrying about Teddy, really, or am I worrying about me and what she has taken from me, the thing Teddy and I shared? I feel Teddy’s eyes on me and turn back to him.

      “Can we get some new books next time we go to town? I had lots of books at our old house and here I don’t have hardly any. Can we get some new ones?”

      “What do you mean, our old house? Your books at home still belong to you, and they’ll still be there when we go back. If we stay here much longer, maybe I’ll send for some of them. But not too many, because we’d just have to pack them up again when we go home.”

      “Can’t we just get new ones?”

      “Maybe. A few. We’ll see.” I tug back the covers that are sliding off his feet, snug them around him. “Don’t worry about it. Daddy and I are going to talk tonight and decide all about when we’re going home. Then I’ll tell you in the morning, and things won’t seem so confusing. We can plan better.”

      “Auntie Steffie says she saw a Sylvester and Tweety book in the drugstore.” His eyes are already closing. I don’t reply but reach to turn off the lamp by his head. As I rise once more, he asks from behind closed eyes, “What if we never go back? What if we live here forever and ever? Then would we send for all my stuff?”

      “Don’t be silly,” I tell him. “We’ll be going home, and all your stuff will be there and just fine. Now go to sleep.”

      I leave his bedside like an actor leaving a darkened area of a stage, stepping into the yellow light of the kitchen and Tom’s set. The light spills in a circle on the table from the pull-down fixture, illuminating Tom’s manual. His hand moves, scratching pencil notes on a yellow tablet. He looks tired, older. His hands are graven dark with diesel and oil, the nails cracked, the downy hair on the backs of his wrists and forearms eaten away by harsh cleansers. The lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, between his eyes and on his brow, are pale against his tan. He glances up from his manuals, gives me a smile, and goes back to tracing a diagram. As I walk behind his chair he reaches back with his free hand, hooks it around me for a moment, and pulls me up against his back. I hug him suddenly, impulsively, putting my face against his hair, smelling his true scent despite the diesel. He goes, “Mmmm,” and is still for a second. Then he leans forward again, his fingers wander slowly across his diagram, his hand drops away from me. I stand clear of him.

      I settle in another chair, across the table from him. I rest my pirate romance on the edge of the table, stealing a bit of light from him, hovering at the edge of his glow, and try to submerse myself in David and Desiree and Alfred. They are all idiots. Boring, stupid people, trapped in a trite plot, who will inevitably do what is expected of them. Alfred will be unmasked as the kidnapper and swindler he is. David will regain his wealth and marry Desiree. How can they be so blind to the other possibilities? And who could have put such an idea in Teddy’s head? Live here forever and ever. The three of us in this cramped little house, forever under the sway of Mother Maurie. I can see me now, a junior wife in the Potter tribe. I smile at the idea and go back to my pirates. But after a while I find myself rubbing my jaw, where the knotted muscles ache.

      “Tom? Tom?”

      “Yeah, just a sec, Lyn … Okay. What is it?”

      He closes his manual on his pencil and looks up at me, sighing. I am seven years old and I’ve been talking during the spelling test. I grope for excuses. “I just wanted to talk to you for a second, honey. Have you given any more thought to staying here for the winter?”

      “Sure.” He stretches, rolling his shoulders under his T-shirt. “I told the folks today that it was all settled. Dad was really relieved.” He pauses at the look on my face. “Isn’t that what we agreed on?” He looks genuinely puzzled. Frantically I dig through my memories of the conversation. When had I agreed, when had I told him, sure, go ahead, we’ll stay the winter?

      “No, Tom, I don’t think so. I thought we said we’d stay till the end of summer, and talk about the winter. I mean, we need to discuss it more. For one thing, I’d need to find a job, and I can’t think what there is in town. And we’d have to have all our stuff shipped down, which means asking someone to pack it up for us. And we’d have to spend the whole winter here, in this tiny place, and try to find decent tenants for our place and hope they don’t tear it to ribbons …”