When Molly stood up to fetch the stuff for Viv, who had historically struggled with constipation, Ben shrieked as though she was abandoning him on a street corner.
“I’ll be back in a sec,” she said.
She ran to get the supplies. Delivering them to Viv, she glanced at her toothbrush, fantasized about brushing the old wine breath away, restoring herself with peppermint, making some kind of plan, calling David. But by now Ben had worked himself up into such a state that she could hear him gagging on his own tears in the other room.
“Is he dying?” Viv said.
Back in the bedroom, she yanked up her T-shirt and settled onto Viv’s bed with him, stroking his hot head. She reached again for the bliss, strained to see the halo.
There it was: the bliss, the halo, the guilt at her richness. The ecstasy of the ordinary. Two, alive. This freshly peeled piece of the universe nuzzling into her.
In the bathroom, Viv cried out.
Molly jerked up, picturing a key turning in the lock, kidnapper identical to mother.
“The blue marker fell into the water,” Viv bellowed, “and I really need blue.”
Beneath her Ben clawed for the breast with both hands.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Viv yelled. “Mommy, I’m yelling ‘Mommy!,’ Mommy!”
3
The children were eating breakfast. They were having yogurt and jam. They needed things. More yogurt. More jam. Spoon flipping onto floor. Mess! Wet washcloth. But this one reeks. So: another. Laundry, soon. Hands white with yogurt. A handprint here. A handprint there. Wait. Stop. Don’t touch. Come here. Let me— Water, please. Wait, no, juice please. No juice. No juice? Hey I have a good idea! I’ll make lemonade with that lemon! No. Too messy. I’ll clean it up! Sorry. Not now. Too much. Too messy. Later. Maybe. Now! Cut it in half for me! I promise.
Under other circumstances, the same old thought might have crossed her mind: being a mother of two = ushering a pair of digestive tracts through each day.
But this morning she thought: tracts, intact.
She had an eye on the front door and an eye on the back door at all times.
The day was lightening. She was jumpy.
Something was going tap, tap, tap. What was going tap, tap, tap?
Viv was tapping the table leg with her spoon.
“Don’t tap the table leg with your spoon.”
“You’re scary, Mommy.” Viv was laughing. “I mean, you’re scared, Mommy.”
In the corner Ben made his sound of frustration, the eh eh eh of being a baby. He was clinging to the sideboard, reaching for the seahorse lamp, pointing at it, enraged, though she knew he knew how to pull the cord to turn it on; this recently acquired ability was one of his primary points of pride.
“He’s mad at the lamp,” Viv explained.
“Why?”
“Because it’s only dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“No light.” Viv was not patient. “Only dark.”
“Oh, the bulb burned out?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Erika.”
“I’ll fix it, okay?” Molly told him.
He waved at her. It was his all-purpose gesture these days: it meant yes, no, hello, goodbye, bring it, take it away.
A farsighted earlier version of herself had stacked spare bulbs at the top of the hall closet. She returned to the living room with a light bulb. She unplugged the lamp and unscrewed the old bulb. The children watched as though they had never seen a light bulb changed before. Which, come to think of it, perhaps they hadn’t. The tricky thing was removing the shade—it was impossible to achieve the proper angle of insertion otherwise. She stored each bulb under an armpit, not wanting him to grab them as she wrestled the shade. The shade popped out violently, springing her arms open. Both light bulbs hit the floor and shattered.
It was she who screamed. The children were silent, their eyes vast as they bore witness to the splinters of glass centimeters away from their bare feet.
She called herself names under her breath.
“Nobody move,” she said, quoting what she remembered adults saying in such situations when she was a child.
She stepped toward the kitchen, circumnavigating the chaos on the floor.
“Nobody move!” Viv scolded her.
“Yeah, nobody,” Molly said, “except for me,” wishing it didn’t have to be her.
She didn’t need to repeat her command to them; as she went to fetch the broom and dustbin and a plastic bag, she kept glancing back to marvel at their stillness. They were children of ice, holding each other close: quiet, alert.
Only as she was sweeping up the glass did she remember that these energy-efficient light bulbs contained mercury. David had mentioned it to her, standing in the aisle of the grocery store. Let’s buy the regular kind until the kids are older. Mercury creeps me out. She had rolled her eyes at him. It was an old dynamic of theirs: whenever one demonstrated paranoia, the other responded with bravado.
“Kids,” she said. “I need you to.”
“To what?” Viv said. She always knew when her mother was rattled. “To what?”
“To leave this room. Go to the—your room. Okay. Take him. Do—blocks or something.”
She couldn’t see any mercury, no minuscule mirrors glinting up at her. Yet she would have preferred to see it, to know how much and where. Knowing nothing, she was left to sweep up the rest of the mess—at least, all of it visible to the naked eye. Then she got out the spray and the paper towels. All the while imagining small feet glittering with blood and mercury and invisible glass. All the while doubting that any of it was any match for mercury. But unwilling—too fearful—to search for mercury cleanup tips on the internet.
Was she done? She was done. There was nothing more to be done.
Perhaps she had not unleashed too much poison into her children and her home.
“Where”—Viv startled her, seizing her waist—“is he?”
4
He was not in the kitchen. He was not in the bathroom. He was not in the bedroom. He was not under the bed. He was not in the closet. He was not in the hall closet. He was not among the blankets and pillows of his mother’s makeshift hallway bed. He was not in the other bedroom. He was not under the other bed. He was not in the other closet. He was not under the crib. He was not behind the door. He was not behind the other door.
“Maybe he’s playing hide-and-seek,” Viv ventured.
He was still not in the closet. He was still not in the other closet.
“We already checked there, Mommy.”
He was not under the table. He was not behind the couch. He was not inside the coffee table. He was not in the cabinet under the sink. He was not in the laundry hamper.
“Mommy, he couldn’t climb into there.”
Was the back door locked? The back door was locked. But she could have relocked it. She was sneaky like that.
“Please, Mommy, don’t make that face.”
She had stolen him.
“Maybe he grew wings and flew away.”
Wicked.
“Mommy, don’t make that face!”
5
It was Viv who heard the single syllable: Ba.