Free A home at the end of the world by Michael Cunningham Page A

took such simple, boyish delight in winning that he forgot about his new peevishness. I could not imagine why he wasn’t more popular at school. He was clever, and better-looking than most of the boys I saw around town. Perhaps my Southern influence had rendered him too gentle and articulate, too little the brute for that hard Midwestern city. But of course I was no judge. What mother isn’t a bit in love with her own son?
    Ned got home late, after midnight. I was upstairs reading when I heard his key in the door. I resisted an urge to snap out the bedside light and feign sleep. Soon I would turn thirty-five. I had made some promises to myself regarding our marriage.
    I could hear his breathing as he mounted the stairs. I sat up a bit straighter on the pillow, adjusted the strap of my nightgown. He stood in the bedroom doorway, a man of forty-three, still handsome by ordinary standards. His hair was going gray at the sides, in movie-star fashion.
    “You’re still up,” he said. Was he pleased or annoyed?
    “I’m a slave to this,” I said, gesturing at the book. No, wrong already. I waited up for you . That was the proper response. Still, the book had in fact been what kept me awake. I liked to think you could change your life without abandoning the simple daily truths.
    He came into the room, unbuttoning his shirt. A V of chest appeared, the dark hair flecked with gray. “Looks like Deliverance is a little too strong for Cleveland,” he said. “Three sets of parents called to complain tonight.”
    “I don’t know why you booked it,” I said.
    He peeled off his shirt and wadded it into the clothes hamper. Sweat glistened under his arms. When he turned I could see the hair, like a symmetrical map of Africa, that had sprouted on his back.
    No. Focus on his kindness, his gentle humor. Focus on the shape of his flanks, still lean, in his gabardine slacks.
    “I’m lucky to have it,” he said. “It’ll be a hit. The seven o’clock was three-quarters full.”
    “Good,” I said. I put my book down on the night table. It made a soft but surprisingly audible sound against the wood.
    He took his slacks off. If I’d been a different sort of person I could have said, humorously, “Sweetheart, take your socks off first. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s the sight of a man in nothing but his Jockey shorts and a pair of black socks.”
    I wasn’t that sort of person. Ned hung his pants up neatly and stood for a moment in the lamplight, wearing briefs and the slick dark socks he insisted on buying. They had rubbed the hair off his shins. When he removed them, they would leave the imprint of their weave on the hairless flesh.
    He put his pajama bottoms on over his shorts, then sat on the bed to remove his socks. Outside of the shower, Ned was rarely stark naked.
    “Whew,” he said. “I’m beat.”
    I reached over to stroke his back, which was moist with perspiration. He startled.
    “Don’t you worry,” I said. “I mean you no harm.”
    He smiled. “Nervous Nellie,” he said.
    “Jonathan had a new friend over tonight. You should see him.”
    “Worse than Adam?” he asked.
    “Oh, much. Of a different order entirely. This one’s a little, well, frightening.”
    “How so?”
    “Grubby,” I said. “Silent. Sort of hungry-looking.”
    Ned shook his head. “Leave it to Jonny,” he said. “He can pick ’em.”
    I felt a twinge of annoyance. Ned was away so much of the time. Whatever took place in his absence became a domestic comedy of sorts; a pleasant little movie playing to a sparse house across town. I continued stroking his back.
    “But this boy seems frightening in a more adult way,” I said. “Adam and the others were children. I feel like this boy could steal, he could be up to all kinds of things. And it got me thinking. Jonathan himself is changing, there’ll be girls and cars and lord knows what-all.”
    “Sure there will be, Grandmaw,” Ned said, and got good-naturedly under