Free Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman Page B

was that?" George said, stunned.
    "This past winter. I thought you knew."
    George got in his truck and took off. He had a panicky feeling inside his chest. He could be angry at his brother all he wanted, but George knew he had only himself to blame for not knowing.
    He'd moved to New Haven so he wouldn't run into Arlie; he'd been a coward in the face of her rejection. He'd figured if she had changed her mind, she would have contacted him. He'd figured she made the choice to stay with John. Now everything he'd been so sure of was evaporating.
    George Snow was driving so fast little stones flew up and hit against his windshield. When he got to the street where she lived his panic worsened. There were four trucks parked in the driveway, so he pulled onto the grass. The lawn was soft from all the rain in the spring and his tires sank in deeply, but George didn't give a damn. As an ex—window washer he noticed that the windows were in bad shape, streaky and matted with leaves and pollen.
    As he sat in his parked truck, not knowing what to do next, a woman came out of the house. George recognized her as the mother-in-law. She had Sam in tow — it was Friday, music lessons
    — and in the mother-in-law's arms, the baby. A real, live baby.
    George Snow watched them get into a car and pull away. He was dizzy and overheated; he felt as though he'd just woken from a dream in which he lived in a third-floor apartment with an old collie and worked in a pet shop. But now he was awake. He left his truck and went up the drive to knock on the door. When no one answered, he rang the bell; he just kept his hand on it until it sounded like church bells. A woman George didn't recognize opened the door. "Stop that," she said. "Have you no consideration?"
    George Snow walked past the strange woman, into the hallway.
    It was so dim inside, as though he'd wandered into a dark wood.
    "Stop right there." The woman was a nurse. Jasmine Carter.
    "You'd better do what I say or I'm calling the police." "I'm going to see Arlyn."
    The house used to seem perfect to George; he knew it so well from looking through the windows. But it wasn't the way he remembered it. Standing in the hall, he couldn't see outside through the glass.
    "Oh, no you're not," Jasmine said. "I'm in charge of Arlyn and I'll tell you what you'll do. Do you have any idea of what's going on here?"
    "She'd want to see me."
    Jasmine and George stared at each other and George knew he was being assessed. Who exactly was he to think he had any right to anything? He thought about the children in the driveway. He thought about all he didn't know.
    "I'm going to see her no matter what you say," George told the nurse after he introduced himself.
    One thing he clearly was was a man who would cause a ruckus if Jasmine tried to get rid of him. And he was more; when he said his name, Jasmine recognized it. It was the name Arlyn said in her sleep.
    "Well, if you want to see her, you'd better be prepared. I won't have you upsetting her with your reaction. Get all of the bullshit out right now. What you're about to see isn't pretty."
    "I'm okay," George said.
    "You won't be," Jasmine said. "Trust me."
    "You don't know anything about me."
    "I know she talks about you when she doesn't intend to. Most probably, she wouldn't want you to see her this way."
    George hadn't thought about how terrible it would be to love someone and see her in pain. He had not had a glimpse of Arlie in more than a year. He had begun to heal, if anyone could call a life spent alone and cut off healing.
    "I'm okay," he said. "No matter how she looks."
    He followed Jasmine upstairs.
    "She's sleeping a lot. She wishes she could go outside, but it's just too hard for me to carry her. Fifty pounds is my limit."
    As they walked along, the glass ceiling above them was streaked with pine needles, pollen, leaves, raindrops, a mourning cloak.
    They walked past the children's rooms.
    "Does the baby have red hair?" George asked.
    "Blond."