***
He had left the back door ajar. When Carrie came in she closed and locked it and turned off the porch light. She remembered another time, when she had had even more to drink, and she had carried a head of angry steam up the stairs intent on heaving it like a medicine ball into him. Tonight she just removed her heels and padded silently, deliberately, up the squeaking stairs. She pressed a thumb and finger to her stinging eyes in the kitchen, then studied the setting: the dirty dishes by the sink, the child’s plate covered in ketchup, the half-full half gallon of mostly melted Rocky Road. She peered beyond the kitchen to a dark dining room, and beyond to a living room, also dark, save a fluttering television glow.
Staying on the balls of her feet, Carrie moved toward the luminescence. Something deep in her chest tickled as she approached the archway. The couch opposite the television crept into view, revealing his bare feet, then his legs. Then, finally, Audrey’s legs, her small feet pressed against his stomach. They were both perfectly still, their faces lit by some Animal Planet story. The girl’s mouth was slack, open, leaking a dead sleep. Michael was the one with a thumb in his mouth. Carrie first caught him doing this in his sleep right after his father’s sudden death, and again on the nights after 9/11. He innocently denied the habit when he was awake.
Carrie sat on the ottoman, captive to the father-daughter still-life. Wisps of the little girl’s hair crossed her mouth. Her eyelashes were almost comically long, one of Michael’s most wonderful gifts to his daughter. Even in the blue darkness, Audrey’s face looked flushed, like it always did after the jubilant running of countless “loops” through the hallway, her bedroom, the bathroom, their bedroom, and the hallway again. Carrie spent a long time staring at the girl’s torso, narrowing her eyes and willing a sign of movement. Audrey’s breath always seemed so shallow when she slept, and on many occasions mother and father had watched her sleep from the bathroom doorway, whispering tense queries to each other about whether they could perceive any movement. Eventually the child would turn over, or sigh, or release that strange hoot in her sleep, and they would roll their eyes at their concern. And now, again, Carrie couldn’t help herself: she needed to see some sign of life. Audrey wore an oversized shirt, Michael’s freebie from a 10K race that was too small on him, so now it was the child’s prize “nightgown.” No matter how hard Carrie focused her eyes down the city streets of the silkscreened Chicago landscape, she could not see a rise-and-fall underneath. Just at that moment where quizzical would turn to panic, her eyes darted to Audrey’s face again, and she finally noticed the bending of the hair strands under the girl’s nose, like thin inverted palm tree trunks in a rhythmic wind. And Carrie exhaled.
In his sleep, Michael pulled his thumb from his mouth and brought his arm down around Audrey. His forearm and large hand covered all of Audrey’s torso as he pulled her into his chest like a teddy bear. The girl allowed herself to be swallowed into his body and the pair sighed in unison. Carrie’s brow furrowed. It was her name that was called in the middle of a nightmare or after a tragic sidewalk spill. But it was Michael’s presence that relaxed the child, that brought on the impromptu dances of sheer delight, leaving Carrie, smiling and biting her lip, feeling like an audience member to their performance.
Michael’s legs still turned her on. Even at rest, they barely contained their power. He had not run for the last six months, an achilles injury that would never end, or so he said. He knew the attraction his legs held, which explained the recent transformation of his running shorts from “sports equipment” to “around-the-house fashion statement.” As if physical attraction would solve things. The arm around Audrey was similarly beautiful. His hand had wedged between the girl’s ribcage and the couch. She was belted in tight against him. Carrie suddenly felt on the verge of tears.
Her eyes traveled to his face and she almost jumped when she was met with a silent stare. The sharpness pierced, and she bled color from the inside. How long had he been awake, watching her watch them? She swallowed, forcing her emotion down into her belly.
“I’m … back,” she whispered. His head nodded almost imperceptibly. “How long has she been asleep?” she asked. His shoulder shrugged gently. “Shall we move her to bed?"
He considered this for a moment. “She’s fine for now,” he said, speaking out loud. He was always louder than he needed to be. She constantly feared waking up Audrey, but he always reminded her how heavy the child slept. And he was right: to Carrie’s memory, their louder exchanges these last months had never roused her.
“So … are you coming to bed any time?” she whispered.
He seemed to consider this for an eternity, at one point closing his eyes and pressing his lips against Audrey’s tousled head. “Yeah,” he said. “Eventually.” His terseness conjured her mother on those high-school Fridays of her senior year. Carrie regularly defied curfew, and at some point in the spring, Mom seemed to tire of the haranguing and simply gave up.
Carrie turned her head toward the bright kitchen and the long, black hallway leading to the bedrooms, the optical illusion of walls narrowing to a point of nothingness. Her limbs felt suddenly heavy, and she wondered if she could make it to the bedroom. What she really wanted was to lie back and fall asleep on the big, cushy armchair behind her. But the sense that she did not belong in this room was palpable.
With a sigh that became the exhale that powered her to her feet, she whispered “Okay then,” and, shedding her sweater on the ottoman, she turned and headed toward the bright light.
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