Family Dancing by David Leavitt Read Free Book Online

Jennifer would go to college, Roy and Ernest to her sister in Washington (though her ex-husband would probably fight for a custody she had made sure he would never get; she had at least covered that base).
    Now she looked at her children. They ate, they gossiped between bites. Dear God, she thought, how will they get along without me? For if she had died today, they would probably be eating in a friend’s kitchen—the Lauranses’ or the Lewistons’—in shock, as yet not really believing she was gone. There would be the unfamiliar smell of someone else’s cooking, someone else’s dinner, another way of making spaghetti sauce. And at home, the unmade bed, her clothes, her smell still in the closet, in the bed, lingering a few days, then disappearing from the world forever. Soon Ernest would start to cry for her, and alien arms would take him up. There would be nothing she could do. She would be gone.
    They didn’t notice anything different. Happily eating, arguing, in the cramped kitchen full of steam and the smell of butter.
    “Pass the noodles,” Mrs. Harrington said.
    “Mom, you never eat noodles.”
     
    She dressed in a big, dark gown with an Indian design stitched into it—a birthday present from Jennifer. A life of objects spread out before her—the bed, the television, so many cans of SpaghettiOs for Ernest. New products in the grocery store. The ads for reducer-suits in TV Guide .
    “Mom, let’s go, we’re gonna be late!” Ernest shouted.
    “Ern, let’s watch ‘The Flintstones,’ ” Jennifer said. To help her mother. She tried to help.
    “Is Ernie dressed?” Mrs. Harrington asked.
    “Yes, he is.”
    But when she emerged, perfumed, soft, Ernest didn’t want to leave. “Dino’s run away,” he said.
    “We have to go, Ern,” Jennifer said. “Don’t you want to go to the Lauranses’? Don’t you want to see Timmy?”
    Ernest started to cry. “I want to watch,” he said in a tiny voice.
    “All your friends will be at the party,” Mrs. Harrington consoled.
    “Oh, shit,” said Roy, “why do you treat him like such a baby when he mopes like this? You’re a baby,” he said to his brother.
    “I am not a baby,” Ernest said.
    “Babies cry ’cause they can’t watch TV ’cause they’re going to a party instead. You’re a baby.”
    Ernest’s crying got suddenly louder.
    “You’ve done it,” Jennifer said.
     
    Thirty minutes later, Dino was safely home, and the Harringtons were on their way. Dry-eyed. “Happy now?” Mrs. Harrington asked.
    Jennifer and Ernest climbed into the back. “I hope Timmy’s there,” Ernest said.
    “Can I drive?” Roy asked.
    “Not tonight, I’d be scared,” Mrs. Harrington said.
    “Then can we at least listen to KFRC?” Roy asked.
    “Yeah! Maybe they’ll have the Police!” Ernest shouted gleefully.
    “O.K., sure,” said Mrs. Harrington.
    “You’re in a good mood,” said Roy, switching one of the preset buttons to the station he wanted.
    They pulled out of the driveway. The dark, warm car filled up with a loud, sad song:
    Why did you have to be a heartbreaker,
    When I was be-ing what you want me to be . . .
    Roy beat his hand against the dashboard. He looked funny in his orange shirt and green tie—long hair spilling over corduroy jacket—as if he had never been meant to dress that way and had adjusted the standard male uniform to his particular way of life.
    Oh, Mrs. Harrington relished that moment: her children all around her. What amazed her was that she had made them—they wouldn’t be who they were, they wouldn’t be at all, if it hadn’t been for her. Aside from a few sweaters and a large macramé wall hanging, they were her life’s artwork. She was proud of them, and fearful.
    They turned onto a dark road that twisted up into the hills. From the Lauranses’ high window, Mrs. Harrington’s house was one of a thousand staggered lights spreading like a sequined dress to the spill of the bay.
    The Lauranses had introduced