Lathering on the frosting on the cake, a faded pink and purple, she's staring at the dull end of the knife and at the flashing on her phone; one, two, three missed attempts, she stacks the frosting high and tips it to the other end, changes a knife, then switches her position. Her bones ache where they meet at the center, or just below, her hips; a soft but pounding deep-set bruise, but nothing on the skin, no mark—she's looked—she wonders how nerves tangle inside or outside old and aging bones and lets out a sigh. The frosting refuses to even out on the cake. She wants to create a pattern but doesn't know how; she doesn't know how to cook, never learned how to bake, the meals she makes are hurried and gathered since she assumes Nathan won't mind and since her husband had left so early on that breakfast in bed and toasted bagels and reducing tomato sauce and garnishing were all words far away from her, distant like houses on another street in another city in another country, where the customs are strange and exotic, where they bow upon encountering and kiss to say goodbye, twice on the cheek, three times for family. The missed calls are from Kit; after a few more minutes (she figures) of attempting to spread the frosting evenly and wondering how much dye you need to put in the mixture to match the type of purple Nathan wouldn't fold into a tantrum over she picks up the device and hits call, shaking her head as if knowing her doomed fate and waiting on the line. The sound, like an approaching train, of the various technology trying to get a hold of her sister, always feels like a countdown to her; booooom, you might be here, boooom, but you're not there, booooom, you might be spared, boooom, but not forever; she does it, she thinks, for the chance of the sweet and intoxicating feeling when it goes to voicemail, the click that restores her sanity like a piece of wood jammed under gallows that refuse to open to devour an accused and then the distinctive breath—you've reached Katherine, she's not here, leave your number, and then she'd hang up and smile, as if she warded off fate in a twisted trick and feat of mind over reality and probability. But she doesn't hear the breath; the countdown stops and Kit answers with a sigh, and she says hello and that she's tried to reach her but couldn't and where would she even be, and wouldn't some more help be better for him, wouldn't some structure be easier, and the frosting is drying at the ends like the end of the day, and when Kit finishes her lecture she answers back without having heard the content but with so much practice that the reply suits perfectly, tailored and fitted blindly and cut at the meeting points right where it should.
Purple, she says, and Kit mentions that Hayley likes purple. Isn't it a bit feminine, she asks, and she chuckles—it's what he likes. Kit asks how she knows what he likes, and in an act of robotic defiance, quicker than a sonic boom, she stores the questions somewhere deep within her bruised bone and switches the topic.
I can't get the frosting to even out on the cake,
she says.
Do you have the right kind of knife?
Kit asks. You know for Hayley, we just went to a bakery—it's more simple. I could give you a name.
I'm putting the frosting on it, Kit,
she says, her voice flat, and Kit coughs.
Well, you could have. I'd have paid for it. I know a great place on Centre. It's vegan.
Kit either speaks or does not speak. She draws the curtains slightly to look to the front yard; it's nighttime, but surrounded by his pool of soft-sponged pillows, Nathan is set, his gaze fixed. She lifts the knife and licks the frosting; she wonders, then executes the experiment to discover, what would happen if she slid the dull end on her skin. Nothing, the answer seems to be.
…And we can come and bring him to Hydrotherapy and M.J says it's great, and that it'd work with his muscles a lot.
Mhm,
she says. They did try that, and other therapy, when he was small. There was a time, after she quit teaching and gave up her tenure, that all their week was was that: Hydrotherapy in the morning; speech therapy at noon; a communication technician in the afternoon; physical therapy before bed; the special straws, the bottles of medicine, knocked off every counter although she found and installed, her own hands on the drill, fifteen new ones; Nathan was tall and his arms strong enough to break through her unsteady fixture of the furniture and the routine, and when her husband left the shelves seemed to have gotten even easier to break. She'd locked the bathroom cabinet but there was always a way to get in, it seemed. Nathan is pointing his arm upwards. She walks towards the window.
…like you're giving up on him,
she hears Kit trail off, and they are always finding new developments in medicine, and Jordan says—
She hangs up the phone. Her lips form into a strange shape; she murmurs something unclear to herself. The knife and the frosting clang as they fall to the ground, and she wipes her hands on her jeans and walks through the door.
She sits down next to Nathan; his spasms and tics are like little cricket sounds in the night air. His black eyes are set up and she stares with him; ships like books make their way through the sky while the odd, overwhelming, storytelling yellow of the moon stands and lights them with great bravado. She thinks that it looks like queens and kings, like archways and prayer rooms of a grand kingdom, she sees Orion move with a great force and her son sway softly to the stars outside.
Light,
she hears Nathan murmur, and the odd shape from before on her mouth turns into a small smile.
Light!
she exclaims.