Before he and Ruby reach the door, Iris comes out in what appears to be a great rush.She is wearing a maroon skirt and jacket, black high-heeled shoes.She looks hurried but hopeless.Nelson is beside her, try-ing to keep pace.Then Iris sees Daniel, with Ruby in his arms.Daniel’s first thought is that Iris will somehow misconstrue this, will think that he has spent the night at Kate’s house, or is in some aspect ofreconciliation.
But Iris, in fact, does not seem to be speculating about anything.
“Mrs.Davis just called the school,”she says, moving right past Daniel.“She has to leave in fifteen minutes and there’s no one home to look after Hampton.”
“Oh no,”Daniel says, following after her.“What happened to Mrs.Davis?”
“What difference does it make? I have to get home.He’s sleeping, he won’t be up until noon, at the earliest.But he can’t be in an emptyhouse.”
Daniel places Ruby on the ground and she and Nelson begin talking, smiling, and gesturing, like old friends in their mid-forties.
“You’re all dressed up,”Daniel says.“Are you supposed to be somewhere?”
“Yes.”She gestures helplessly, a mixture oftemper and surrender.
“I’ve got a meeting with my advisor.I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Fucking Mrs.Davis!”She doesn’t bother to lower her voice.“And now this one…”She waves in Nelson’s direction.“He’s insisting on coming home, too.May as well.No sense putting him in day care ifI’m going to be stuck in the house no matter what.”She reaches toward Nelson, pulls him close to her, caresses his face, his head.For a moment he luxuriates in his mother’s love, but then, suddenly, he squirms away from her.
“I thought all those people were there,”Daniel says.
”They’re gone, they left early this morning.Who can stand it?”
“I can look after him.He’s sleeping.He won’t know.I’ll just bethere.”
“You can’t do that,”Iris says.
”How long do you need?”
“An hour and a half, two at the most.No, I can’t.It’s too strange.”
“It’s okay.Don’t forget.”He smiles.“I have almost no career.All I have to do is make a couple ofcalls, I can do that from your house.”He is about to say,It’s the least I can do,but he stops himself.Iris is looking at him intently;it takes him a moment to realize why:she is trying to de-cide under what rules ofconduct it would be permissible to have Daniel looking after Hampton, even ifit’s only ninety minutes, even ifHamp-ton will never know, even ifthere are the emergency phone numbers Scotch-taped onto the wall next to every phone in the house, even ifthis will never ever happen again.
“You’re not going to see him, you know,”she says.“Not unless you go upstairs and watch him sleep.And, Daniel, I don’t want you to do that.
I forbid you, I really do, I forbid you to do that.”
“I won’t.I wouldn’t.I’m trying to help you here, Iris.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay, then?”he says.
”Okay.”
“Good, then that’s it.”He is wringing his hands, trying not to touch her.
”I really appreciate it.You don’t have to do anything, all you have to do is be there.”
“You better hurry.”
“Thank you.”She is surprised how formal this sounds.She clears her throat.“I really appreciate it.”
“I’m glad to help.I’ll bring Ruby, okay?”As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t, but he doesn’t want to complicate matters by taking it back.Besides, Ruby will take care ofNelson, which Daniel cannot really manage.And Kate will never know.
I love you,Iris mouths.
He presses his hand to his heart, as ifhe has been stabbed.
”Ruby?”he says.“Would you like to go to Nelson’s for the first part ofthe morning?”
Iris doesn’t have time to drive back to her house, she doesn’t even have time to transfer Nelson’s car seat to Daniel’s car, and she certainly has no time to jolly Nelson out ofhis annoyance that he is not going to be spending the morning with his mother after all.Daniel makes his way to Juniper Street with the kids in his backseat, Ruby snugly strapped in, while Nelson, as ifto announce his policy oftotal noncooperation with Daniel, refuses to keep his seat belt on.Each time Daniel glances into the rearview mirror, he sees Nelson glowering at him, and before long the boy’s antipathy becomes so wounding and, frankly, so irritating that Daniel feels it might be an appropriate act ofdiscipline to slam his foot on the brake and send the boy pitching forward.
Mrs.Davis, a thin, tired-looking fifty-year-old black woman, is waiting nervously by the front door.She is so fretful that she doesn’t even in-quire as to why Daniel is coming there to look after Hampton, though she has never seen Daniel before.Perhaps his being with Nelson proves his legitimacy.She gives Daniel no instructions, nor does she offer any explanations or apologies.In fact, all she says is a quick hello to Nelson, and“Now I’m really late”to Daniel, and then she puts a tan ski jacket over her uniform, though it is at least seventy degrees outside.
“Mrs.Davis!”Daniel calls out, when she is nearly out the door.“Wait!”
She turns toward him with a practiced, opaque expression, unapproachable.“Yes,”she says in a tone that says no.
He doesn’t know exactly what to say, but he is suddenly afraid to be in charge.“Is there anything I need to know here?”
“When’s Mrs.Welles coming home?”Mrs.Davis asks.
”In about an hour and a half.”
“That man ain’t going nowhere in the next ninety minutes,”she says, moving past Daniel and out onto the porch.An old FordTaurus is at the curb, with an immense kid ofabout eighteen at the wheel, wearing a sleeveless shirt.The car rattles as it idles, inky exhaust pours out ofthe tailpipe.Daniel stands on the porch and watches Mrs.Davis hurry to-ward the waiting car—had it been there all along?The driver starts to get out but she waves him back in;she goes to the passenger side and lets herselfin, and a moment later theTaurus pulls away with an unmuf-fledroar.
Daniel goes back into the house and as soon as he is inside he can tell by the quality ofthe silence that the children are no longer there.He goes to the kitchen and looks into the backyard.An olive-green tent has been pitched between two hemlocks;Nelson is standing next to the flap while Ruby crawls in, and then he crawls in himself.Daniel wonders for a moment whether he ought to go out and show the flag ofadult super-vision, but then he thinks it would be pointless.
He wanders through the house, looking for a spot where he can unobtrusively sit while the time passes.What had seemed at first like a fa-vor he was capable ofdoing for Iris seems now perilous, foolish, and strange.The entire success ofthe gesture hinges on Hampton staying asleep, and though Daniel is still enough ofan optimist to believe that Hampton will not awaken before Iris’s return, now that he is in the house—with its signs ofsuffering everywhere, a cane in the corner, a table filled with amber medicine bottles, brightly colored plastic baskets filled with laundry, piles ofblankets for the frequent house guests, the loving family who come when they can to share the burden ofHampton’s affliction—now that he is breathing the Lysol-tinged heat ofthis airless, sunny room, Daniel realizes not only that he is perched on the precipice ofdisaster but that he has been on this increasingly exhausting edge for months now.
He sits on the sofa facing the empty fireplace.Next to it is a large wicker basket filled with mail.Idly, Daniel looks in and sees that it is all for Hampton.Daniel scoops his hand into the pile, lets them fall;it’s like a write-in campaign, an appeal to the governor for neurological clemency.Free the Hampton One, let him come back to renew his sub-scriptions, make his donations, place his order, balance his checking ac-counts, look after his investments, go to Bermuda.
Scarecrow comes waddling down the stairs, roused from her spot next to Hampton’s bed.She seems to have aged years in the past six months.Her rump is massive now, her gait slow and uncertain, her brown eye is alert, but her blue eye, once keen and electric, is now milky and opaque.She moves toward Daniel, lowers her snout, and pushes the top ofher head against his legs.He strokes her silky ears, and she emits a deep, mellow groan ofpleasure.