Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham Read Free Book Online Page A

at the window with his breathing machine, looking not out at the street but into the room. He saw that his father was frightened and confused.
    He said, "Mother?"
    She stared at him. Her eyes were not her own.
    "It's Lucas," he said. "It's only Lucas."
    Her voice, when she spoke, was low. She might have feared being overheard. She said, "He mustn't sing to me no more."
    Lucas glanced helplessly at his father, who remained standing at the window, looking into the room, watching intently the empty air before his eyes.
    His mother hesitated, searching Lucas's face. She seemed to be struggling to remember him. Then, abruptly, as if pushed from behind, she fell forward. Lucas caught her in his arms and held her as best he could, awkwardly, with one hand under her left arm and the other on her right shoulder. He could feel the weight of her breasts. They were like old plums loosely held in sacks.
    "It's all right," he said to her. "Don't worry, it's all right."
    He got a better purchase on her limp form. He worked his right arm around her waist.
    She said, "I know what language you sing in now." "Come back to bed. Come along, now." "It isn't right. It isn't fair." "Hush. Hush."
    "We done what we could. We didn't know what'd happen."
    "Come, now."
    Lucas snaked his arm farther around her, supporting her under her opposite armpit. At his direction, she walked unsteadily with him into the bedroom. He set her down on the bed. He pulled her legs up, arranged her as best he could, with her head on the pillow. He drew the counterpane over her.
    "You'll feel better if you sleep," he said.
    "I can't sleep, I never will. Not with that voice in my ears."
    "Lie quietly, then. Nothing will happen." "Something will. Something does."
    He stroked her hot, dry forehead. It was as impossible to tell time in the bedroom as it was at the works. When she was quiet, when she slept or did not sleep but was quiet and breathing steadily, he went out of the room.
    His father hadn't moved. Lucas went to the window and stood beside him. His father continued staring at the empty air. Lucas saw that the seven pennies still lay on the tabletop, untouched.
    He said, "Father, are you hungry?"
    His father nodded, breathed, and nodded again.
    Lucas stood with his father at the window. The ashman ambled by, dragging his bin. Mr. Cain shouted, "No place, everyplace, where's the string of pearls?"
    "I'll get you something," Lucas said.
    He took the pennies, went out, and found a man selling a cabbage for three cents, and a woman selling a hen's egg that, after some argument, she let him have for four. It seemed it might be propitious that his mother had asked after chickens and he had gone out and found an egg.
    He cooked the egg and boiled the cabbage, and set a plate before his father. He was seized by an urge to take his father's head in his hands and knock it sharply against the table's edge, as Dan did with his machine at the works, knocking it when it threatened to seize up, ringing his wrench against its side. Lucas imagined that if he tapped his father's head against the wood with precisely the correct force he might jar him back to himself. It would be not violence but kindness. It would be a cure. He laid one hand on his father's smooth head but only caressed it. His father made noises when he ate, ordinary slurpings combined with low moans, as if feeding were painful to him. He lifted a spoonful of cabbage to his mouth. A pallid green string dangled from the spoon. He slurped, moaned, and swallowed. He took a breath, then ate again. Lucas thought, Four across, six down.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of

old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of

mouths.

OI perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of

mouths for nothing.
    Lucas read his passage. He put out the lamp but could not sleep. He lay awake in the room. There were