insidiously torturing as the gnats.
And I didn't even want a baby, he thought to the rhythm of his digging. Isn't that the damnedest thing? I didn't want a baby any more than she did. Wasn't it true, then, that everything in his life from that point on had been a succession of things he hadn't really wanted to do? Taking a hopelessly dull job to prove he could be as responsible as any other family man, moving to an overpriced, genteel apartment to prove his mature belief in the fundamentals of orderliness and good health, having another child to prove that the first one hadn't been a mistake, buying a house in the country because that was the next logical step and he had to prove himself capable of taking it. Proving, proving; and for no other reason than that he was married to a woman who had somehow managed to put him forever on the defensive, who loved him when he was nice, who lived according to what she happened to feel like doing and who might at any time—this was the hell of it—who might at any time of day or night just happen to feel like leaving him. It was as ludicrous and as simple as that.
"Are you hitting rock again, Daddy?"
"Not this time," he said. "This is a root. I think it's too deep to matter, though. If you'll just get out of the way now, I'll try and fit the stone in."
Kneeling, he rolled the boulder into place, but it wouldn't settle. It wobbled, and it sat three inches too high.
"That's too high, Daddy."
"I know it, baby." He laboriously pried the stone out again and began hacking at the root, trying to cut it, using the shovel like a clumsy ax. It was as tough as cartilage.
"Sweetie, I said don't come so close. Y ou're kicking dirt in the hole."
"I'm helping, Daddy."
Jennifer looked hurt and surprised, and he thought she might be going to cry again. He tried to make his voice very low and gentle. "Look, everybody. Why don't you find something else to do? You've got the whole yard to play in. Come on, now. That's the idea. I'll call you if I need any help."
But in a minute they were back, sitting too close and talking quietly together. Dizzy with effort and blind with sweat, he was straddling the pit and holding the shovel vertically, like a pile driver, lifting it high and bringing it down with all his strength on the root. He had torn a ragged wound in it, laying open its moist white meat, but it wouldn't break, it wouldn't give, and it made the children laugh each time the shovel bounced and rang in his hands. The delicate noise of their laughter, the look of their tulip-soft skin and of their two sunny skulls, as fragile as eggshell, made a terrible contrast to the feel of biting steel and shuddering pulp, and it was his sense of this that made his eyes commit a distortion of truth. For a split second, in the act of bringing the shovel blade down, he thought he saw Michael's white sneaker slip into its path. Even as he swerved and threw the shovel away with a clang he knew it hadn't really happened—but it could have happened, that was the point—and his anger was so quick that the next thing he knew he had grabbed him by the belt and spun him around and hit him hard on the buttocks with the flat of his hand, twice, surprised at the stunning vigor of the blows and at the roar of his own voice: "Get outa here now! Get outa here!"
Leaping and twisting, clutching the seat of his pants with both hands, Michael found his need to cry so sudden and so deep that for several seconds after the first shocked squeal no sound could break from him. His eyes wrinkled shut, his mouth opened and was locked in that position while his lungs fought for breath; then out it came, a long high wail of pain and humiliation. Jennifer watched him, round-eyed, and in the next breath her own face began to twitch and crumple and she was crying too.
"I kept telling you and telling you," he explained to them, waving his arms. "I told you there'd be trouble if you
And I didn't even want a baby, he thought to the rhythm of his digging. Isn't that the damnedest thing? I didn't want a baby any more than she did. Wasn't it true, then, that everything in his life from that point on had been a succession of things he hadn't really wanted to do? Taking a hopelessly dull job to prove he could be as responsible as any other family man, moving to an overpriced, genteel apartment to prove his mature belief in the fundamentals of orderliness and good health, having another child to prove that the first one hadn't been a mistake, buying a house in the country because that was the next logical step and he had to prove himself capable of taking it. Proving, proving; and for no other reason than that he was married to a woman who had somehow managed to put him forever on the defensive, who loved him when he was nice, who lived according to what she happened to feel like doing and who might at any time—this was the hell of it—who might at any time of day or night just happen to feel like leaving him. It was as ludicrous and as simple as that.
"Are you hitting rock again, Daddy?"
"Not this time," he said. "This is a root. I think it's too deep to matter, though. If you'll just get out of the way now, I'll try and fit the stone in."
Kneeling, he rolled the boulder into place, but it wouldn't settle. It wobbled, and it sat three inches too high.
"That's too high, Daddy."
"I know it, baby." He laboriously pried the stone out again and began hacking at the root, trying to cut it, using the shovel like a clumsy ax. It was as tough as cartilage.
"Sweetie, I said don't come so close. Y ou're kicking dirt in the hole."
"I'm helping, Daddy."
Jennifer looked hurt and surprised, and he thought she might be going to cry again. He tried to make his voice very low and gentle. "Look, everybody. Why don't you find something else to do? You've got the whole yard to play in. Come on, now. That's the idea. I'll call you if I need any help."
But in a minute they were back, sitting too close and talking quietly together. Dizzy with effort and blind with sweat, he was straddling the pit and holding the shovel vertically, like a pile driver, lifting it high and bringing it down with all his strength on the root. He had torn a ragged wound in it, laying open its moist white meat, but it wouldn't break, it wouldn't give, and it made the children laugh each time the shovel bounced and rang in his hands. The delicate noise of their laughter, the look of their tulip-soft skin and of their two sunny skulls, as fragile as eggshell, made a terrible contrast to the feel of biting steel and shuddering pulp, and it was his sense of this that made his eyes commit a distortion of truth. For a split second, in the act of bringing the shovel blade down, he thought he saw Michael's white sneaker slip into its path. Even as he swerved and threw the shovel away with a clang he knew it hadn't really happened—but it could have happened, that was the point—and his anger was so quick that the next thing he knew he had grabbed him by the belt and spun him around and hit him hard on the buttocks with the flat of his hand, twice, surprised at the stunning vigor of the blows and at the roar of his own voice: "Get outa here now! Get outa here!"
Leaping and twisting, clutching the seat of his pants with both hands, Michael found his need to cry so sudden and so deep that for several seconds after the first shocked squeal no sound could break from him. His eyes wrinkled shut, his mouth opened and was locked in that position while his lungs fought for breath; then out it came, a long high wail of pain and humiliation. Jennifer watched him, round-eyed, and in the next breath her own face began to twitch and crumple and she was crying too.
"I kept telling you and telling you," he explained to them, waving his arms. "I told you there'd be trouble if you
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