In the car, Maya had got Moira from the hospital — Moira was off on the weekends, but she had a friend in the emergency room. The Rubins were quietly seen as soon as they entered, though it was not apparent whom to thank. However, the doctor they were given looked no older than twenty and spoke wearily from behind owlish glasses. Maya wanted to insist on someone more alert, but settled on apprising him that she was an employee of the hospital, though this did not alter his manner. The blood was not Max’s. “It’s summer, they’re in velvet,” he said. “It’s soft tissue. One scratch, and it flows. You’re lucky. If it was fall, your son might have been really hurt. Disinfectant twice a day, and he’s going to be fine.” He squatted before Max, who wouldn’t let go of his father’s hand. “You got yourself a fright,” the doctor said to him. “Usually, someone’s walking out onto the deck, and they’ll startle a buck. Is that what happened?” Alex rushed to say yes before his wife had a chance to answer truthfully.
Maya spent the night next to Max in his bed. She didn’t sleep, though he did. She resisted her craving to check the wound. Because it was night — because the chorus of Rubins had quieted, because she was sleeping in a different bed with a different body beside her, because sometimes she did drift closer to sleep — several times she believed for more than a moment that it had all been imagined. The remainder of the time, she marked the slowness with which time passes when one is watching the clock. It was 2:17, and an hour later, it was 2:23. Was she responsible? Had the visit to Madam Stella hexed Max instead of unhexed him? But everything had been fine until Alex intervened. And yet, what had been fine — her son playing with deer? She didn’t know what to do because she didn’t know what to regard as the problem.
At six, she had the impression that the sun would not rise. It was not dread that she felt, more a general impression that incrementally — imperceptible in the passage of days — her life had tilted from its center, like a ship listing. This was the new level. After seeing her son surrounded by more deer than he had ever had friends, it was not difficult to imagine the sun no longer rising with the same regularity. When it did, at half past six, it did so rudely, all at once. A blast of gray light cut through the night, and then it was everywhere.
Belatedly, she heard the sounds of coffee downstairs. It was too early for Alex — he took advantage of being one of the principals at work by arriving at nine. Maya’s work started earlier, and Max was sometimes out the door for school before his father had woken. Maya eased herself out of Max’s grip and tiptoed downstairs. Alex was at the kitchen table — in a bathrobe and leather slippers, a cup of black coffee steaming in front of him. He drank it milky and sweet but there was no milk or sugar in front of him. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the coffee — he just fingered the handle and stared at the cup.
“You’re up,” she observed.
He nodded distractedly. She leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms.
“Sit at the table,” he offered.
Maya didn’t have the energy to pull out the chair and merely wedged herself into the thin space between its back and the table. She felt thin — scooped away. She had eaten badly in the previous weeks, and her body showed the change quickly. Until now, she had not noticed it, really. The only thing she was aware of was how unaware she felt. And this despite trying so hard to pay attention. Trying to notice every little thing.
There were papers in Alex’s hands. He was fingering the handle of the coffee cup only because his other hand was tracing the lines on the pages before him. One never saw papers in Alex’s hands. The paperwork was Maya’s domain. Alex handled the lawn, the fireplace, the doors when they needed oiling. Maya handled the bills and the coupons and Max’s permission slips and everyone’s medical records, and invitations from the local synagogue. There was a basket in the corner of the kitchen counter that said MAYA; all paper items requiring attention went there. But now Alex had papers in front of him. He was up an hour before his usual time, red-eyed and strange, with papers in front of him. All at once, she knew it was Max’s adoption paperwork. She knew it before she saw the agency’s logo on the stationery.
“Why do you have that out?” she said cautiously. The folder’s location was not a secret for the adults, but it was buried in the back of a file drawer in Alex’s home office so that Max would never stumble across it. Maya had the berserk thought that Alex wanted to give Max back. No. Even she knew that was insane.
“One page,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically.
“When they give you a human being, they give you one page of medical history.”
“I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”
“One page?” he said. “That’s all you needed to know? Look at this.” He waved the paper. “‘History of heart disease — none.’ No further detail. Did anyone bother to do more than ask? In this country, it’s assumed that the other person is telling the truth unless you can prove otherwise.” A look of — not perplexity, but grief — came over Alex. “Why?” he asked simply.
“You should have gotten involved,” she said coldly. “Save me from mistakes.”
“Give you the paperwork,” he said, “and I wasn’t involved. Take the paperwork away from you, and I’m cutting you back. How should I behave? Explain it to me. Give me a list of instructions.”
“There are privacy laws, Alex. That’s why it’s so thin. But the hospital said everything was fine. And Laurel said so, too. Why was he such an easy infant? He’s been with us for eight years. It can’t have anything to do with his background.”
“Privacy?” Alex said incredulously. “I must respect their privacy after they’ve decided to surrender their child? What about my privacy?”
“Yours was respected in turn. You insisted on a closed adoption and got it.”
“Oh, it was very closed,” he said. “So closed that I had the pleasure of the birth parents in my living room. I’m too soft, Maya — because I didn’t like growing up under my father. But as I become older — I hate to say it, this is the thing that children hate to admit, but I won’t lie to save myself the embarrassment of having been wrong — I see he was right. To know where I live, those people were allowed. For what reason? She needed to see with her own eyes it was far from Montana? Look at a goddamn map. But when I’ve got a question? And for a slightly more significant reason than I want to see where they live, such as my son consorts with wild animals? No — the privacy of the birth parents must be respected. You know what the issue is? We’re too nice, Maya. Too decent. Too fearful. Still the immigrants, thirty-five years later. Still asking permission.”
“Alex,” she said quietly. “First of all, please lower your voice. Secondly, you’re not making sense. You wanted the adoption to be closed.”
“I’m not asking to become their friends. I want a thorough medical history. Down to the Indians, or whoever the hell spawned these people. ‘Don’t let my child do rodeo,’ she said. What does it mean? Don’t let him be like his father? But who is his father? And children are sometimes like their fathers whether they live with them or not. It’s called genes. This is why I was against adoption, Maya. Because you get genes that belong to somebody else. We didn’t ask enough questions. The most important thing in our lives, and our eyes were closed by wishfulness. We wanted too badly for it to work out.”
“You mean my eyes were closed by wishfulness,” she said. “I wanted it to work out.”