We can feel Genia kicking, you say. I put my hand on Andi’s belly and I can feel strong tiny feet beneath the skin.
Her back hurts.
Gen’s?
She needs an operation. They tell her it’s her own fault for playing too much golf.
Millie, Andi says, figuring it out. Millie. That’s a shame.
They didn’t give me the right medicines. All the pills get mixed up. Then they charge me like you wouldn’t believe. The doctor wears a diamond earring in each ear. I think he’s a fairy.
Lots of guys wear earrings in both ears these days, Andi says. That just means they like to wear earrings.
The doctors say I have rocks in my ears.
I bet doing your exercises would help, you say.
What?
You could make a note and hang it on your refrigerator, suggests Andi. That’s what I do sometimes.
We wanted to thank you, you say after a pause. But you shouldn’t be doing that… you shouldn’t be sending us checks.
We appreciate it, says Andi. We really do. Only we know you have your own bills to worry about.
I want her to know she has a great-grandmother who loves her, says Grannam.
She’ll know, you say. The money, though… you don’t need to do that.
I want to.
We know you do, says Andi with affection. Only we’re fine. She’ll completely know how neat a Grannam she has.
They’ve got her in the hospital.
Millie?
The little Korean girl. Are you seeing a doctor out there?
Don’t worry about us. We’re okay.
On the movie last night there was one of those people with wings.
With wings?
On the TV. You know.
Angels?
One fell out of heaven. It was an accident. Robert Duvall bumped into him. He landed in a cornfield. I think it was that man with the antennae. You know. The spaceman.
The spaceman?
Nooky-nooky.
Robin Williams. Nanoo Nanoo, I think it was.
He breaks both legs and a wing. It was Iowa. Iowa or Kansas. A farmer finds him. That fairy in the movie with Helen Hunt and the fat man who played the writer.
Greg Kinnear?
Greg Kinnear isn’t fat, you say.
Jack Nicholson is fat, Andi explains. Greg Kinnear co-starred as the gay guy.
They say he’s supposed to be having an affair with Julie Andrews, Grannam says.
Greg Kinnear?
Jack Nicholson. Only he’s not her type. She’s too sophisticated for him. Greg Kinnear brings Robin Williams home and locks him in the basement because he’s planning to charge people to see him. Only then he discovers Robin Williams makes winning lottery tickets when he dreams. He gets sicker and sicker. The sicker he gets, the more he dreams. The more he dreams, the richer Greg Kinnear gets. I laughed and laughed, but it made me think too much.
What happened?
Robin Williams makes a plane fall on his house.
He doesn’t.
Everyone dies. Greg Kinnear, Robin Williams, Greg Kinnear’s family. All the passengers. One of them was that schwartze with the eyes who used to be the policeman in Los Angeles.
Eddie Murphy?
His comeback, the TV Guide said. He was on the screen thirty seconds, screaming. Some comeback.
They showed that on TV?
The pet cat, too. In the last scene the pet cat is trapped in the burning house, his tiny face pressed against a window. It’s time for lunch. It must be so cold where you are.
It isn’t bad, you say. They showed a cat burn to death on TV?
I think it was Robin Williams. Maybe it was somebody else. Everybody in the movies looks like everybody else in the movies these days.
You must be hungry, says Andi. We’ll let you get off. But no more checks, okay?
Movie stars used to look different. Who looked like Bette Davis? Now they all look the same, like they were made yesterday on an assembly line. I love you, dears.
We love you, too. But no more checks, okay?
I’m so proud of you two, Grannam says, clicking her off button before you can reply.
Do you know what rug fibers contain? Andi asks from under the quilt.
At just past four.
At just past four in the morning, according to your digital clock.
She nudges you with her cold toes.
Outside it is felt-tip-pen black.
I don’t, you say into the mattress.
Rug fibers contain everything your shoes have touched.
She inhales and exhales, contemplating.
Pesticides. Fertilizers.
I’m really, really tired here, you say.
Mouse droppings laced with let’s say just for argument’s sake the hanta virus.
She pauses, inhaling and exhaling, then continues:
The contents of mercury thermometers cause nerve and lung damage.
You should understand that my mouth is moving but my brain’s still sleeping, you say.
Say you drive into Moscow and take a stroll up Main Street, she says, and you absentmindedly step in a puddle which someone has at some point spit into. Where does the spit end up?
You do not say anything.
Andi nudges you with her cold toes.
Say hello to infection, she says. Which is to say nothing of airborne toxins. Microscopic mica chips. The particulate matter released from the Hanford site thirty years ago and stirred up again as you mow your yard.
We’ll vacuum, you offer.
Mite waste.
You do not answer.
Andi nudges you with her cold toes.
Say it, she says.
Say what?
That we’ll vacuum and scrub. With ammonia. Ammonia and steam. Say we’ll vacuum and scrub with ammonia and steam.
We will, you say.
You wait, inhaling and exhaling, then say:
Okay?
You wait some more and then say:
Okay?
Good, she says after a while, settling back into her nest. That’s good.
You purchase child-proof locks for the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen.
For the cabinets and drawers in the bathroom, studio, and laundry nook, too.
Then you purchase plastic covers for empty electrical outlets.
A gate for the top of the stairs leading down to Andi’s studio and for the bottom of the stairs leading up to the loft and your bedroom.
You raise dangerous items out of your child’s reach.
Take off your shoes on the porch before entering.
The longest negative on record measuring twenty-one feet, and George Eastman patenting his roll-film Kodak in the 1890s: take one hundred shots, send the camera back to the company, developers there open it, extract the old film and replace it with new, then send it back to you.
The world becomes fresher, every detail increasingly interesting.
You shop for a crib with a slat spacing no more than two-and-three-eighths inches wide and a corner-post protrusion of not more than one-eighth of an inch.
Make sure all the small parts are firmly attached and able to withstand twenty pounds of force, threaded bolt ends are either inaccessible or covered by an acorn nut, and all open holes are too tiny for a child’s finger to become caught in.
Andi and you get down on the floor and crawl through your house, paying attention.
Tie your lamp cords off the floor.
Shorten the pull cords from your venetian blinds.
Check to see if there are rooms into which a child could lock herself.
You notice yourselves slowly becoming cognizant of the contents of wastepaper baskets.
You begin to feel more confident.
You begin to feel more confident and you fold and put away your tablecloth.
Everything is perilous, you understand, but two people can make a difference.
Two people can make a certain degree of difference.
You pop off the rubber tips on your door stops, think twice, then unscrew the door stops themselves.
Everything is perilous, but some things are less perilous than others.