Everybody Has Everything

“There he is,” he shouted. Fi

“Thanks for taking him, James,” said Marcus.

“You’re home early,” said James, and the wifeliness of the comment immediately struck him.

“Such a beautiful day. I wanted to take him to the park.”

“Yeah! Park!” said Fi

The two men nodded at each other, caught in the silence of a meeting without women.

“Definitely a day for the park,” said James. “I’ve got to get going, so …” He began to back away.

“Do you want to come in? Grab a beer?”

“No, no,” said James, who suddenly remembered where he’d had this feeling of barging in on intimacy before: walking into his old apartment to find his roommates clothed but disheveled in the kitchen, gazing awkwardly at each other, mouths swollen. “I’ve got—stuff—I should—but thanks. See you soon, Fi

“Bye, James!”

“Hey, man,” said Marcus, rising with Fi

Those were the last words James had heard him say.

Finally, a moan swelled from behind a nearby door. Mrs. Bailey rose, opened the door, and shut it immediately behind her. A

When the door opened, Fi

Ana watched as he let go and ran immediately to James. She saw A

James murmured: “How are you, Fi

“Good.” He looked around the room, at all the women and James.

A

“Should we take him to visit”—Ana stopped, leaned in—“the hospital? Does he know about the hospital?”

“He knows his mommy is very sick, and his daddy isn’t coming back.”

James frowned. “You guys told him that? You don’t think that might have been better coming from someone who knows him?” he said. He was slumped in the chair. Ana noticed that he was often draped across furniture lately, boneless and large.

Fi

A

“There’s a wait list for counseling, but Fi

“Efficient,” muttered James.

Ana skimmed the pages: Toddler can sense when a significant person is missing … Presence of new people … No understanding of death … Absorbs emotions of others around her/him … May show signs of irritability … May exhibit changes in eating, crying, and in bowel and bladder movements …

James, looking over her shoulder, whispered in Ana’s ear: “That could be a description of me.” She didn’t smile, caught on the last line: Bowel movements. Ana wondered where they would put all the used diapers, the wads of wipes, if they would need to buy one of those pneumatic tube garbage cans. One time at Sarah’s there had been a perfect ball of a dirty diaper in the center of the living room for the entire duration of Ana’s visit, distracting her, crying out for disposal. Finally, when Sarah left the room for a moment, Ana grabbed it. She had stuffed the slick mass in the kitchen garbage, then scrubbed her hands at the sink like a surgeon.

“We need to stop at the store,” said Ana, suddenly, to no one.

James was putting shiny black ru

“Fi

“Yes, sweetie. You take it.”

She stood, handing Ana a shopping bag. “A few clothes I had lying around.”

James and Ana backed out the door, murmuring thank-yous. Fi

James put the car seat in the back while Fi

Suddenly, Fi

“Don’t do that! You can’t run away!” She was shouting. Fi

“Lady, you okay?” called one of the boys. She had Fi

“Basketball,” he said, and started crying.

“Thank you,” called Ana, nodding to the boys, hoisting Fi

“I think it’s in,” a

He rose to a puzzling image, Ana with the child clinging to her neck, crossing the parking lot, shadowed by a slow-moving silver car.

“What happened?” asked James. Ana shook her head, passed him Fi

Ana’s hands fluttered as she buckled herself in. In the back, James was cursing, trying to co

“Do you know how this works, Fi

Ana gripped the dashboard.

“Can we go, please? Can we just go?”

James clicked the final latch and patted Fi

They drove out of the parking lot, under the collective glance of the teenage boys, Ana hating herself for her judgment, her fear. She blamed her own parents, their willful ignorance about adulthood, how they chose anything else over it whenever they could. “I love you, kiddo,” said her father once when she returned from the park, eager to show him a dirty dollar bill she’d dug out of the sand. “But man, I wish I could go to India.” And so he had gone, without Ana or her mother, and he’d never really come back.