Only Children (69 page)

“When you want to, Luke. Only when you want to.”

The bike wobbled. Luke put his feet on the ground and they skidded. The machine began to tilt. Luke planted his feet hard— and he went over, collapsing into a heap with the bike.

Eric and Barry ran to the fallen Luke. He lay still on the ground.

“Are you okay?”

“My foot is trapped,” Luke said. Barry lifted the bike. Luke got up slowly. He looked betrayed. “I hurt my knee,” he said.

Eric rolled up Luke’s pants. There was a broad patch of skin gone, an angry red rectangle.

Luke winced.

“It’s not bleeding. Do you want to try again?”

“No,” Luke said.

“Oh, you should try right away,” Barry said.

“I don’t want to!” Luke said.

“You won’t fall,” Barry said. “You fell because you were going too fast. Just go slower and you won’t fall. It’s because you stopped thinking about being on the bike. You know, it’s a funny thing, but the better you are at bike riding, the more likely you are to fall.”

“What?” Luke said.

Eric knew what his father meant: you get careless.

“Try again and go slower,” Barry insisted. He held the bike for Luke. “Go on, get on.”

Luke obeyed. But he was reluctant this time. Still scared, but not brave, not happy. Eric became a spectator. Barry took over.

Barry pushed Luke slowly, then let go without warning. Luke immediately put his feet down and stopped. Barry asked him not to do that. Luke said Barry shouldn’t let go unless he asked him to. How about I let go after I count to ten? Barry suggested. Luke agreed, but again was reluctant and unhappy. Barry pushed Luke slowly and let go after a count to ten. Luke wobbled on for a bit, then put his feet down and stopped. Barry lectured him: “Don’t worry about falling. If you go slowly, you won’t fall.”

Eric was sweating. His head ached. Watching Luke fall had upset him. Listening to Barry, he was nauseated. He hated the sound of his father’s voice: it was insistent and whiny, obviously fake in its protestations of assurance. Eric wanted to get away, to stop hearing Barry talk.

Luke started up again, but immediately quit once Barry let go. It was obvious Luke could ride the bike, but the fear of falling defeated his ability.

Barry lectured Luke: “If you go slowly and think about it you won’t fall. If you’re careful, you won’t fall. It’s funny,” Barry kept saying, “but the better you become, the more likely you are to fall.”

Eric’s mouth dried up. His head hurt. His skull bones were falling in, battered by Barry’s talk. Stop him, he could hear Nina say. Stop him from talking to Luke.

It’s funny, Barry kept saying. The better you are at something, the more likely you are to fall.

At this point, Luke wouldn’t even allow Barry to let go of the bike.

Eric got to his feet. He charged over to them. “Okay, okay,” he said talking fast, afraid of the rage inside. “Listen to me, Luke.” He talked as if he were giving instructions in a crisis, saving Luke’s life. “The faster you go, the less you think about it, the easier it’ll be. Grandpa’s wrong. He’s totally wrong. The better you are, the less likely you are to fall.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Barry protested.

“Yeah,” Luke said. He laughed, but tears came to his eyes. “I didn’t think it made sense.”

“When you decide to stop, use the hand brakes.”

“I use my feet ’cause I don’t—”

“You shouldn’t use your feet—” Barry started again.

“You don’t want to tip over,” Eric outshouted his father. “I know. I know, but first slow down with the brakes. You won’t tip over until you’re going slow. Then put your feet down. You won’t fall, Luke. Your body knows how to ride the bike. You already did it, remember? Look—” Eric pointed the distance Luke had traveled before the fall. “Look how far you got. You did that all on your own. The better you are, the more you do it, the less likely you are to fall. And if you fall—so what? You get up and go on!” Eric felt as if he were about to cry. It was absurd: why did he feel like bursting into tears? He swallowed them back. “The better you are, the faster you go, the more sure it is that you won’t fall. And if you do—” He paused, held his hand out, offered the finish to Luke.

Luke watched him. His mouth was tight, his blue eyes glowed in the sun. “So what?” Luke said. “I can just get back on and ride, right?”

“Right! Let’s do it.” Eric grabbed the back of the bike. “I’ll let go when you tell me.”

He pushed Luke fast, his heart racing. Eric saw a look of hurt on Barry’s face. Dad didn’t mean any harm, Eric said to himself. Barry just doesn’t know how to teach.

“Let go,” Luke said suddenly.

“Okay!”

Eric let go of the bike and stopped. Luke skimmed away, riding on the world. Eric was between the branches of two trees and the sun was on his head, warming him. He felt a chill shiver through his body. What the hell was all that from Barry? He doesn’t know how to deal with kids. I’ll tell him I was sorry for interrupting his lesson. Probably it would have worked, but Eric had felt too sick to listen.

Away, in the distance, Luke moved under the trees, in and out of the sunlight. Luke moved in the air, confident above the dangerous ground. He was alone on the path riding his bike with joy.

Eric watched him, the nausea gone, his body strong again. Luke slowed and stopped himself. He turned the bike to face Eric.

“I did it, Daddy.”

“Of course you did. You’re very good so you won’t fall.”

“When you’re good, you don’t fall, right, Daddy?”

“That’s right, Luke. And you’re very good.”

Luke pushed his foot on the pavement to get started, caught the pedal, and came at Eric. The head was up, the blue eyes danced in the air, and he flew past Eric and Barry, alone and proud and very good.

N
INA LAY
there, again beached on a hospital gurney. She waited for the tide. Eric sat and watched her. The monitor spewed out paper.

She was two weeks late. She was eager for the pregnancy to end. Marge Ephron, her doctor, had ordered this test, a fetal-stress test, to determine if there was any problem.

There just couldn’t be a problem. There just couldn’t be anything wrong.

Was that a movement? Yes, it had to be.

A nurse came in. “How we doing?” the nurse asked, but she looked at the reams of graph paper for her answer.

“Okay,” Nina answered anyway.

“Have you been feeling contractions?” the nurse asked looking up from the paper.

“No,” Nina said.

“Are you sure?”

“Why?” Eric said.

“Well, see this?” The nurse curved the paper in their direction. “That looks like a contraction to me. Baby’s heart rate is all right. It’s responding correctly. Here’s another one about ten minutes ago.” The nurse showed the jagged break from the norm on the paper, the stabs wounding a graceful curve.

“You don’t feel anything?” Eric asked.

“No,” Nina said. How could I have contractions and not know it?

“I’ll call Dr. Ephron and tell her. I think maybe you should stay on the monitor for a while. Just in case you’ve begun contractions. No point in going home and have to turn right around.” The nurse left.

“Well?” Eric said.

“Can’t be,” Nina said. What was that? The ripple in the ocean, the whale spinning inside. No. That’s not a pain. Probably just twisting in his bed.

“Why not? You had back pain with Luke. Maybe you don’t recognize a normal contraction.”

Luke. He was so happy. He had flowered so beautifully. What a great boy. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe you don’t try to follow up on success.

She didn’t think so. Eric was so good at being a father. And so sad at his own work. How wrong not to have another child.

She wanted to dare the skies again, to ask them for another temporary gift of perfect love.

They grow up and we get old.

Anything, any loss of sleep, any loss of ease, was worth the sweet, and too, too brief time of holding the little ones until they burst out of your arms and into the world.

What was that?

“Is there something on the machine now?” she asked.

Eric bent over. He was so tall he had to bend almost in half to read the paper. “No,” he said. He put his hand on her exploded stomach.

The nurse returned. “Dr. Ephron says you should stay on the machine until we figure out whether you’re having contractions.”

“Maybe it’s just the baby moving around,” Nina said.

The nurse shook her head no. “That’s here. See?” She showed the baby movements. “These are coming from you. Just relax.” She left.

Was that a pain?

“Is there something on the paper now?”

Eric bent over. “Yes,” he said. “It’s happening again. You feel it?”

No. Nothing.

“It’s going crazy,” Eric said. “You sure you don’t feel pain?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “Talk to me. After Luke, what did you do when you went home?”

Eric thought. “I fell asleep,” he said.

“That’s all?”

Eric was embarrassed. “I played some music.”

She laughed. “The
Messiah
.”

Eric smiled shyly. “He’s a miracle to me,” he said, and choked on the words.

Tears were in her eyes also. She put out her hand. “We’ve done okay.”

“Luke did it. Not us.” Eric took her hand and stood with his head bowed, waiting, praying over her.

“This one will be great too,” Nina said.

There!

“What is it?” Eric asked.

There! Sharp and hard, the message had come.

“What is it?” Eric asked.

Nina smiled.

At last! There it was!

At last, she had felt the pain, the exquisite pain of life.

A Biography of Rafael Yglesias

Rafael Yglesias (b. 1954) is a master American storyteller whose career began with the publication of his first novel at seventeen. Through four decades of writing, Yglesias has produced numerous highly acclaimed novels and screenplays, and his fiction is distinguished by its clear-eyed realism and keen insight into human behavior. His books range in style and scope from novels of ideas, psychological thrillers, and biting satires, to self-portraits and portraits of New York society.

Yglesias was born and raised in Washington Heights, a working-class neighborhood in northern Manhattan. Both his parents were writers. His father, Jose, was the son of Cuban and Spanish parents and wrote articles for the
New Yorker
, the
New York Times
, and the
Daily Worker
, as well as novels. His mother, Helen, was the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Russian and Polish immigrants and worked as literary editor of the
Nation
. Rafael was educated mainly at public schools, but the Yglesiases did send him to the prestigious Horace Mann School for three years. Inspired by his parents’ burgeoning literary careers, Rafael left school in the tenth grade in order to finish his first book. The largely autobiographical
Hide Fox, and All After
(1972) is the story of a bright young student who drops out of private school against his parents’ wishes to pursue his artistic ambitions.

Many of Yglesias’s subsequent novels would also draw heavily from his own life experiences. Yglesias wrote
The Work Is Innocent
(1976), a novel that candidly examines the pressures of youthful literary success, in his early twenties.
Hot Properties
(1986) follows the up-and-down fortunes of young literary upstarts drawn to New York’s entertainment and media worlds. In 1977, Yglesias married artist Margaret Joskow and the couple had two sons: Matthew, now a renowned political pundit and blogger, and Nicholas, a science-fiction writer. Yglesias’s experiences as a parent in Manhattan would help shape
Only Children
(1988), a novel about wealthy and ambitious new parents in the city. Margaret would later battle cancer, which she died from in 2004. Yglesias chronicled their relationship in the loving, honest, and unsparing
A Happy Marriage
(2009).

After marrying Joskow, Ylgesias took nearly a decade away from writing novels to dedicate himself to family life. During this break from book-writing, Yglesias began producing screenplays. He would eventually have great success adapting his novel
Fearless
(1992), a story of trauma and recovery, into a critically acclaimed motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez. Other notable screenplays and adaptations include
From Hell
,
Les Misérables
, and
Death and the Maiden
. He has collaborated with such directors as Roman Polanski and the Hughes brothers.

A lifelong New Yorker, Yglesias’s eye for city life—ambition, privilege, class struggle, and the clash of cultures—informs much of his work. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts are often primary characters in Yglesias’s narratives, and titles such as
The Murderer Next Door
(1991) and
Dr. Neruda’s Cure for Evil
(1998) draw heavily on the intellectual traditions of psychology.

Yglesias lives in New York’s Upper East Side.

Yglesias with Tamar Cole, his half-sister from his mother’s first marriage, around 1955. He was raised with Tamar and his half-brother, Lewis.