Free The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony

their son, Rovar
.
     
    The article is divided into two columns. Directly underneath the second column, underneath my name, is a picture of a snail-shaped galaxy. In his extreme haste to meet the five o’clock deadline, the junior editor hadn’t read the column. He only knew that Galaxy Car Rentals was paying a hefty sum to have their advertisement advertised in this issue, and he was trying to find room for their logo. At the time, however, this wasn’t what bothered me about the article, nor was I bothered by the car rental’s disclaimer pinched into the text, nor was I even bothered by my name, detached, hovering. I was only bothered by the word “couple.”
    Nothing could be further from the truth.
    Imagine. In the busy hey-ho of life, tooling around in your automobile, you drive past a scrawny little man shuffling down the side of the road. He’s wearing a silk shirt with an anachronous paisley print. The long collar hangs from his neck in a limp frown. His hair is oiled and licked to one side with a comb he keeps in the back pocket of his creamy slacks. They’re not in fashion—wide, aggressive pockets buck out from either side—but his shoes are black Italian leather, finely polished. Every few steps or so theman stops walking, reaches down and rubs dust from the road off the tips, and then stands up again. His face is small and pointed, with eyes that dart like flies. His given name is János. It is a Hungarian name. It’s pronounced YAH-nosh. It means “God is good.” You drive past this man, you pass him, but something about him warrants a second glance; you grab a look from your rearview mirror, and it’s then you notice that the man is not alone: a small boy is walking next to him with skin so pale it’s almost transparent. You swear you can see his blood vessels and arteries churning. You can see the holes that hold his eyes. He stares at you, mournfully, and the look on his face makes your heart feel wet. You feel, suddenly, as though the arms of a thousand miserable children are reaching out to you, begging you to stop the car, but the skinny man catches you in the pause. He catches your eye, and smiles. The smile is handsome, but not genuine. It leaks to the edge of his face. At once, all the blood in your body makes for your feet, so you do not stop. You press the pedal. It’s just a boy and his father, you tell yourself.
    Walking home.
    Home is a farmhouse east of the Queeconococheecook River with large barn in the back, out of which János Pfliegman works as a butcher. Today, on March 18, 1983, two years and three months before he will die in a terrible car accident, Ján and the boy are walking along the side of Back Lick Road. They have been wandering the horsefields behind the barn for hours, looking for a violin that they did not find. They climb the stairs to the front porch. “I’m going back out,” Ján says, without looking at the boy. “Get in there and help your mother.”
    The boy watches his father walk back down the road to the horse-fields, hopping around the weeds, and then slips inside the farmhouse. He ducks past the kitchen, where his mother, Janka, is stirring tomato soup at the stove.
    Janka is short, and sloppily fat. She is only slightly taller than the stove itself, and has to stand on a footstool to cook anything. All day she waddles around the kitchen wearing an oversize men’s golfing shirt that says VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS GOLFERS . Janka stops stirring and reaches down to scratch her legs. Her legs are hairy, pocked from plucking. Shespends hours in the bathroom trying to manage them. When a tickle appears at the back of the boy’s throat, he moves quietly away from the kitchen doorway. He covers his mouth to keep from coughing, and moves up the stairs to his room unseen. He lies on his bed, picking at his sweaty clothes. Janka buys all of his clothes two sizes too big at the secondhand store, where she also buys his toys. Toys broken, with parts missing,