Free Magic for Beginners: Stories by Kelly Link Page B

kids, just with
rabbits, Carleton asking if today he has to go to school, does he
have to go to school tomorrow, why am I making him go to school
when everybody there is bigger than him, why is my stomach so big
and fat, why does his teacher tell him to act like a big boy?
Henry, why are we doing this again? Why am I pregnant? And where
are you? Why aren’t you here? What about our deal? Don’t you want
to be here?”
    “I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I’ll talk to The Crocodile. We’ll work
something out.”
    “I thought you wanted this too, Henry. Don’t you?”
    “Of course,” Henry said. “Of course I want this.”
    “I’ve gotta go,” Catherine said again. “Liz is bringing some
women over. We’re finally starting that book club. We’re going to
read
Fight Club
. Her stepdaughter Alison is going to look
after Tilly and Carleton for me. I’ve already talked to Tilly. She
promises she won’t bite or hit or make Alison cry.”
    “What’s the trade? A few hours of bonus TV?”
    “No,” Catherine said. “Something’s up with the TV.”
    “What’s wrong with the TV?”
    “I don’t know,” Catherine said. “It’s working fine. But the kids
won’t go near it. Isn’t that great? It’s the same thing as the
toothbrush. You’ll see when you get home. I mean, it’s not just the
kids. I was watching the news earlier, and then I had to turn it
off. It wasn’t the news. It was the TV.”
    “So it’s the downstairs bathroom and the coffeemaker and
Carleton’s toothbrush and now the TV?”
    “There’s some other stuff as well, since this morning. Your
office, apparently. Everything in it—your desk, your bookshelves,
your chair, even the paper clips.”
    “That’s probably a good thing, right? I mean, that way they’ll
stay out of there.”
    “I guess,” Catherine said. “The thing is, I went and stood in
there for a while and it gave me the creeps too. So now I can’t
pick up email. And I had to throw out more soap. And King Spanky
doesn’t love the alarm clock anymore. He won’t come out from under
the bed when I set it off.”
    “The alarm clock too?”
    “It does sound different,” Catherine said. “Just a little bit
different. Or maybe I’m insane. This morning, Carleton told me that
he knew where our house was. He said we were living in a secret
part of Central Park. He said he recognizes the trees. He thinks
that if he walks down that little path, he’ll get mugged. I’ve
really got to go, Henry, or I’m going to wet my pants, and I don’t
have time to change again before everyone gets here.”
    “I love you,” Henry said.
    “Then why aren’t you here?” Catherine said victoriously. She
hung up and ran down the hallway towards the downstairs bathroom.
But when she got there, she turned around. She went racing up the
stairs, pulling down her pants as she went, and barely got to the
master bedroom bathroom in time. All day long she’d gone up and
down the stairs, feeling extremely silly. There was nothing wrong
with the downstairs bathroom. It’s just the fixtures. When you
flush the toilet or run water in the sink. She doesn’t like the
sound the water makes.
     
    Several times now, Henry had come home and found Catherine
painting rooms, which was a problem. The problem was that Henry
kept going away. If he didn’t keep going away, he wouldn’t have to
keep coming home. That was Catherine’s point. Henry’s point was
that Catherine wasn’t supposed to be painting rooms while she was
pregnant. Pregnant women weren’t supposed to breathe around paint
fumes.
    Catherine solved this problem by wearing the gas mask while she
painted. She had known the gas mask would come in handy. She told
Henry she promised to stop painting as soon as he started working
at home, which was the plan. Meanwhile, she couldn’t decide on
colors. She and Carleton and Tilly spent hours looking at paint
strips with colors that had names like Sangria, Peat Bog, Tulip,
Tantrum,