Everybody Has Everything

The moan became a whimper, and then the whimper silenced.

Ana put the quilt on the bed and turned back the top in a triangle.

Slowly, James placed Fi

James felt like he knew exactly what Fi

“I’m going to stay here for a while,” James whispered.

Ana nodded, useless again. She straightened the cushions on the floor surrounding the bed, then left them alone.

Fi

Early in the morning, when the sun was just rising and Ana and Fi

James nodded weakly.

Inside, the one lamp made everything seem darker. James felt criminal. He couldn’t bear to look around. He would find the address of the daycare only and leave the rest to Ana. He tiptoed through the domestic scramble of dishes and strewn clothes. On the fridge he found a handwritten list of phone numbers: M at Work, M: cell, S: cell, Dr. Garfield, and Family Place Daycare. He took the paper, picturing himself on some future day carrying Fi

Now, at the gate of the daycare, James looked around: So this was where Fi

“James open gate?” Fi

Fi

A woman did the same, collecting her daughter’s droppings. James glanced at her hair; it must have been a style at one point, but now it was just a shape, a rectangle. Her eyes were padded with exhaustion. James turned on a smile and tried to catch her eye, hoping to share a moment of parental chaos. But she looked straight ahead and strode away, putting distance between them.

The classroom was a whorl of sound, high-pitched. One wall was covered in paper plates painted different colors: some splattered, some entirely solid, one or two with just a brushstroke. James moved closer, sca

“You must be with Fi

“I’m James,” he said, surprised by the man’s strong grip. “Fi

Bruce nodded knowingly and ushered James to the sink, out of range of the children.

“We heard what happened from the social worker, and we’re all so unbelievably, unbelievably sorry,” he said.

“Oh, I believe you’re sorry,” said James with an awkward laugh. He became glib when nervous. But Bruce was not the kind of person to be hindered by other people’s responses. He continued.

“I want you to know that I personally have taken a training seminar in children’s grief, and everyone is on alert,” said Bruce. “Sad to say, but it’s not the first time we’ve had a child lose a parent.” James glanced at the circle of kids sitting cross-legged on a blue carpet, eyes upon a young woman reading a book out loud: “Olivia likes to try on everything!” Their size was incompatible with Bruce’s admission; how could these children possibly contain such sadness? Where would it go?

“Where do you take that kind of seminar?” asked James. At the five-minute mark, he had learned that Bruce had a B.A. in social work, and an Early Childhood Education Certificate. He hated the caseload as a social worker and always wanted to run a daycare, but it’s unusual for men to work with children in this day and age with all the suspicion, and on and on and on.

Oh, how much people will share. James saw Bruce naked in animal form, snarling and crouched in waiting, praying to be asked to spring upright and grunt out a story.

“How is Sarah doing, anyway?” asked Bruce, laying a hand on James’s forearm.

James was struck by guilt: He had not been thinking of Sarah. He had considered the situation decided.

“We have to wait. The prognosis is still vague.”

Bruce nodded. “Just keep us informed.”

“Same here,” he said, gesturing toward Fi

“I’d like to live in that world,” said James.

“Pardon me?”

“A world where a tiger gives a ride to a bear. You know, everyone helping one another out.” He was joking, but Bruce lit up.

“If only!” he said.

James turned to find Fi

Suddenly, Bruce let out a chirp: “You know, James, I remember you from TV, right? Aren’t you on TV?”

“I used to be.”

Bruce clapped his hands together.

“Ha! I knew it! You know, we have a lot of famous people at this daycare. Ruby’s mom wrote that cookbook, the one about organic baby food? And in the kindergarten room, there’s a little boy named Luke whose mom was in that miniseries, the one about the hockey wives?”

James clucked his interest, but he did not appreciate being in this particular lineup.

James leaned into Fi

James crossed the street, glancing back at the daycare.

As he did at least once a week, James walked back to the TV station where he used to work and sat facing the building on his favorite bench. He thought of these visits as a kind of crime-scene reenactment, as if by going back again and again to the site of his firing, he could make sense of it. He lit a cigarette.

The day James got fired had not been the worst day of his life. He was as still as a man Tasered to the ground and he contemplated this calmness as Sly—his old friend, his boss—sat across from him, slick with sweat, panting, saying what they both knew was coming. “This kind of television isn’t resonating in our research.… It’s not you, we think the world of you, it’s the genre … the demographic … the economy … the Internet …”