Ah, but the blight that hit the chestnut trees, the director said. His sentence faded out. Then he wondered aloud if he was being too nostalgic: if he was talking about life as though spring were the only season, and everything of importance always happened underneath the chestnut trees.
The interviewer, who was fascinated, said nothing.
But then again, the director said, it would have been ludicrous to paint other trees to look like chestnut trees, or to have imitation chestnut trees brought in as props.
The director concluded by saying that of course that had not happened, and except for him, probably no one noticed the absence of the chestnut trees. “We are not Hollywood,” the director said. But even that he said lightly. He did not mean to indict Hollywood. He was just saying something that was to him quite apparent.
Will stood up carefully. He could almost hear his mother’s voice, telling him to rise carefully from the bathwater. He could almost see Mel’s expression as he extended a hand to steady him as he rose. He was happy that Corky had not worried aloud about his getting into or out of the bath.
When he was standing he turned the dial and got music. It was classical music that sounded like what his mother played in the darkroom when she was developing photographs.
He pulled the stopper but did not unwind Bugs. He meant to, but once he stepped onto the bathrug — a rug in the shape of a strawberry that fit without an inch to spare in the little space between the tub and the wall — he looked out the window, and what he saw got his complete attention. He saw Corky’s back, and the neighbor’s backs, and his father’s back, as he bent to get into the backseat of a police car. For half a second, he wondered if his father was looking for something, but then realized that he could not be looking for anything with his hands in handcuffs, because what would he do if he found the thing? The police had come for him, which was what they did when a person was a criminal.
The car pulled away. It pulled away and disappeared, without the light’s turning and without any noise except the sound of the motor. If his father was in the police car, something must be very wrong. When he thought of the worst thing he could imagine, it was that his mother was dead.
Then the thought came to him that it might have something to do with Haveabud. Why had Haveabud refused to come to the house, saying that he and Spencer would go to a comic-book store? Was that an alibi? Was there some reason why only Mel had accompanied him to his father’s house?
His father was in the police car.
His father could not be in a police car. How could his father be gone, when he had come to visit him?
The police would bring him right back.
They wouldn’t; Will had seen enough television to know that his father would not come back.
Corky and Corinne were crying. Holding each other and crying. The only man on the lawn now was Eddie, standing there, looking down the empty street.
No, his mother couldn’t be dead. The police would not have come to his father’s house and taken him away like that if she were dead.
He waited at the window to see if he might be wrong, and the car might come back.
Black dots representing strawberry seeds were spaced evenly across the rug. Will lifted his foot and looked at the seeds that had been beneath his foot. Then, keeping the towel over his shoulders like a shawl, he sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat, to think.
He held the radio on his lap, turning the dial from station to station. He missed the classical music and tried to find it again, but he couldn’t. He moved his thumb slowly, and one time he thought he had found it, then realized he hadn’t. The tempo had shifted to allegro, but he didn’t know that and kept trying to find the same music. He had been in the darkroom with his mother enough times to remember that classical music changed, just when you liked something, it changed, but he was distracted and he didn’t remember.
The music sounded wrong.
Something was wrong if Corky and Corinne were crying.
Through the window, he had seen what was wrong.
If someone did not come into the house soon, he would have to go outside and ask what had happened, because he was still worried that his mother might be dead.
For the moment, he sat with the towel around him, in silence, having given up on finding the song. He remembered, very distinctly, the way his father had looked at the man who showed up at the swimming pool the other day. Did that have something to do with this?
He bit his cuticle. He got up and unwound Bugs. Bugs waited with him.
Let’s say that the child knocks the radio off the shelf, where it has been sitting above the worktable in your garage. That you were prepared for the child to hurt himself because he is somewhat clumsy, never alert enough to danger, always intent upon what he wants to do, no matter what may be in the way — a radio cord, or whatever — so that when there is a mighty crash and the room goes silent, you look up expecting that the chainsaw you do not own has cut through the child, or the lawnmower has started up again and run him over. No, you see: It is only that he has attempted to walk through the space where the radio cord is stretched to go into the wall outlet. He reaches down and puts the plug into the socket again, and as he does that, you look at his quick concentration and know that you have lost him for all time. His hair has begun to change from gold to dark brown, his hands have real dexterity and are no longer the bobbing-octopus fingers of a baby. Suddenly he is neither angel nor devil, but a person doing a quite ordinary thing, and hoping his mistake will not be unduly remarked upon. What have you been doing all these years, anyway, in shaking your head sadly from side to side every time he forgets to screw the lid back on the jar, in admonishing him to get on tiptoe to put his cereal bowl in the kitchen sink and run water in it? You have devoted great amounts of time to worrying, to talking when you would have been happier to remain silent, to instructing someone who was bound to learn things whether you informed him of them or not.
Not wanting to betray your impatience, you have nevertheless been trying to speed him along.
Wanting to stand his ground, he has lagged behind.
Trying to be kind, you have told him jokes simpler than those that amuse you.
Understanding that compulsive talking is your nervous tic, he has patiently allowed you to rattle on.
You have explained to him that some words that can be said in front of you cannot be said in front of his mother.
He has understood that secrets bond men together.
You have done everything possible to give him the impression that although men and women may be different, women are every bit as intelligent and capable as men.
He has told you he knows fifteen words for women’s breasts.
You have told him, in terms he can understand, about sex.
Sex becomes a great mystery.
When questioned about fine points, you have not backed down.
He has spared you information about playing doctor with the boy next door.
You finally realize that the day has come when you can let go of his hand as you are crossing the street.
In his peripheral vision, he sees the red sports car he wants one day to own.