11 Abbott and the Clenched Jaw
At whom can Abbott be angry? “Another amazing Friday night,” he says to his wife as they clip the dog’s toenails in the foyer. Abbott’s dog lies compliantly on the tile floor, but his eyes are wild with terror and his limbs are trembling. “It’s OK,” Abbott’s wife says to the dog. “This won’t hurt. You’re doing great.” Abbott’s knee hurts. He is angry with the dog, though he understands it is unfair to blame the dog for everything. He notices for the first time that there seems to be some kind of rot in the grout between the tiles. “We should brush his teeth, too,” Abbott’s wife says. “Look at that brown stuff.” “It’s always such a relief when the weekend comes,” Abbott says. “Don’t cut them too short,” says his wife. “It’s a chance to kick back and blow off some steam,” he says. With a little pep and tonal diligence, these words might possibly convey a tenderly ironic statement of solidarity, rather than a jagged statement of anger poorly disguised as a tenderly ironic statement of solidarity. “One more foot, buddy,” Abbott’s wife says. “You’re doing great.” “This is why we work so hard,” Abbott says. “It’s all worth it when the weekend comes.” Abbott’s dog makes a halfhearted attempt at escape, and Abbott pushes him back down to the floor. “Just relax!” he shouts at the dog. “First of all?” Abbott’s wife says. “This is not Friday.” Abbott says, “Fine.” She says, “It’s not even close to Friday.” Abbott says, “The point still holds.” “What point is that?” his wife asks. Abbott is not quite sure he knows what his point is. He has a notion, but it’s too terrible to say out loud. He pets the dog, examines a paw. “Second, it’s not my fault and it’s not his fault,” Abbott’s wife says, “so don’t take it out on us.” She kneels on the tile by the dog, scratching his ear. Abbott has been trying, he realizes, to look down her shirt. “Fine,” he says. “I know.” “And third?” she says, “do you even remember how hard I had to try to get you to go out on a Friday night before we had a kid?” Abbott says, “That’s not true,” which is not true. Meanwhile, the developing fetus can hear this whole pitiful encounter, according to the Internet. You would think the amniotic fluid would muffle sound, but it actually amplifies it. For an analogy, it might be helpful to remember how well you could hear underwater in the county swimming pool of so long ago.
12 Abbott Discovers an Idiom in His Yard
Abbott’s neighbor’s woodpile, against which Abbott pushes his mower this afternoon, is a real woodpile, not a metaphor. Abbott, deep in academic reverie, doesn’t even recognize the object, doesn’t name it woodpile. It’s been reduced to its geometry — it exists only in relation to his mower. As he bumps the mower against the edge of the pile, he is startled by an interstitial slithering in the stacked logs. He sees the scales, so vivid as to seem artificial. Numerous times in his professional life, in hallways and department meetings, Abbott has heard the phrase snake in the woodpile. It’s a stock expression of the paranoid intellectual. I know about snakes in woodpiles, Abbott thinks, sprinting across his yard away from the snake in the woodpile, but what is that snake doing in that woodpile? This is what it’s like living life backwards. He can’t catch his breath. Once again he’s stunned by the real.
13 Abbott Thinks, Yet Again, the Unthinkable
Abbott’s daughter has been napping for two hours and fifty minutes. Abbott, a frequent complainer about her short naps, thinks this one has been going on entirely too long. The monitor is quiet, which means either that she is alive and sleeping or that she is no longer alive. He wishes he had been more patient with her, more attentive. He wishes he had been more focused and engaged during all those hours they spent with the beads and the buttons in the family room. He wonders about the last thing he said to her. He thinks it was, “Have a good one.” When he has wrestled and played with her in the family room, he has put his head on her chest and heard her small heart beating. He has wondered what keeps it going and going. Nobody seems willing to admit that the very premise is outlandish. Abbott’s daughter’s nap is Abbott’s time to get things done around the house or run errands or rest or read, but for the past forty-five minutes he has just been sitting at the dining-room table, waiting for her to wake up. There is no good reason to go in to check on her. If her heart is not beating, then it has already stopped beating. Going in does not change that. Why enter her room only to confirm a dark suspicion? While there exists the possibility that she is alive and napping, Abbott should remain outside her room. If the nap lasts five hours, a week, a month, he should sit right here at the dining-room table with the slim hope that she’s just very tired. Why not live as much of his life as possible with this hope? Why rush to begin the sorrowful remainder of his days? If she is no longer alive, every second he does not know for certain that she is no longer alive is another second he does not have to live with it. He knows it is best to stay out of her room. When he enters her room, she immediately stirs. She is, and has been, alive. His relief is immediately succeeded by regret and self-rebuke. He does not want her to wake up. He could be reading right now, or taking his own nap. He could be working with wood. He tries to sneak from the room, but his daughter sits up and calls out. “Dad,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “Dad. I’m awake.”