The After Party by Anton DiSclafani Read Free Book Online

I could see the road through the floorboard. The sight had made me unbearably sad, and I’d feigned illness.
    â€œMy stomach,” I’d said. “It’s a little tender.”
    â€œTender,” he repeated quietly.
    He turned the car around silently, returning me to my surrogate family, my borrowed home. The moment had stayed with me. His pitiful face, angry and hurt; the quickly disappearing ground beneath my feet.
    Now I had a house to run, a maid to manage, a husband and child to tend to. It was infinitely better never to see the dirty ground beneath the floorboard. It was there, of course, but why linger on it?
    Life before Tommy seemed scarcely worth remembering. What had I done with all that time?
    Most mornings I rose before six, so I could get breakfast together for Ray before he left for work. Ray could have gotten breakfast together himself, of course, but I tried to live my life exactly the opposite of how my mother had lived hers. I rose, brushed my teeth, and smoothed my hair into a loose bun. Most women I knewwouldn’t let their husbands see them without makeup, but I liked to think Ray and I were closer than that. I tapped Ray on the shoulder as I was leaving—“Rise and shine,” I whispered—then stopped at Tommy’s room. He was waiting for me, standing up in his crib in his blue, footed pajamas, waiting to be lifted. His silhouette in the dim morning light always moved me. He was most affectionate now, would allow me to nuzzle his cheek, dot his forehead with kisses; he loved threading the tie on my silk robe through his fingers.
    It was time for him to move into a real bed, but I didn’t want to do that until he spoke. It seemed safer this way, to keep him contained, until he could call out if he needed me. Today he rested his warm cheek on my shoulder, and we stood there for a moment, completely still. It would be my only still time that day.
    When Ray joined us we were in the kitchen, Tommy in his high chair with toast. Ray gave us each a kiss and took a seat before the plate I had set for him, and Tommy, at his side, held out his hand, waved it, and looked at Ray expectantly.
Ask for it
, I thought, but did not say. It was something I’d heard other mothers say to their children, though of course they said this to children who spoke. But Ray knew, and spooned some of his eggs and a piece of his bacon onto the high chair tray.
    â€œCiela invited us to Clear Lake in August,” I said instead.
    â€œA whole weekend with JJ.”
    I smiled. “I’ll be there, too. And Tommy. And I think a few other couples.”
    We ate in companionable silence, Ray skimming the paper, occasionally reading things out loud to us.
    â€œAre we done?” I asked Tommy, while I wet a rag. “Yes,” I said,“we are,” as I scrubbed his face clean. He held out his hands, so I could do those next. Those were the kinds of gestures that made me hopeful.
    We were all so used to each other in the mornings. I never remembered my parents talking like this, chatting for an hour over coffee. It meant something to me, that Ray and I could pass time so easily. And everything was more hopeful in this early light, even this morning, when Joan had tied up my brain in knots. That Tommy didn’t try to speak to us, even babble; that he seemed more interested in his high chair, in his hands, in the bird outside the window than us—well, he was our son. Whatever he gave us seemed like enough.
    Even now, though, I wondered when Joan would call. Had I called her one too many times this week? All friendships have boundaries. I believe that: then, now, forever. One woman is more powerful than the other. Only subtly more powerful. Too big a difference, like with me and Darlene, and a close friendship never has a chance. But even in the deepest friendships, like mine and Joan’s, one woman always needs the other woman less. Joan didn’t spend her days