Free Trompe l'Oeil by Nancy Reisman Page B

evenings, after Katy and Theo had gone to bed, James would carry Sara to the living room and hold her sleeping against him as he read a report. He tracked their separate breathing, at times imagined a tether between them preventingher from floating off. In those hours, the sense-memory of holding the others as infants resurfaced, differentiated not by the child but by the feeling of space: muted bands of streetlight against the Cambridge living room wall, a shadowy, pile-carpeted den in Newton. And what would it mean to begin here, to first learn the world at the shore? Sara had not witnessed anything, in Rome or elsewhere, and therefore seemed free. Say one could sift out what resided both in the others and between them, that June and its consequences, the half-buried thoughts: would Sara then encounter the clearest silences, unencumbered by absence, by the past? Say James believed this. Say he was partly right: she would first learn the world at the shore, begin oblivious. The past gave way to the future. Yet Rome, their Rome, also held its place, intangible, but dense with gravity. One could face elsewhere, resisting its tug, yet Rome and all that followed still silently whirled. Abstracted, like Molly herself—the space that had been Molly, or what, within each of the once-vacationing Murphys, had become of her.

    Katy guarded the baby. Walked her, soothed her, slept in the nursery rocker or on the floor beside the crib, despite admonitions to stay in her own room. Natural, wasn’t it? Weren’t they all protective?
    Yes and no. Katy would not hesitate to hand the baby over to Nora, but after a few months resisted giving the baby to James, or to Theo. One night, then another, the scenes repeated themselves: she’d walk the baby into another room, humming,ignoring James though he’d just arrived home, retreating when Theo greeted Sara. As if they were not to be trusted. And who was holding Molly’s hand? James thought and tried to unthink.
    When he confronted her, Katy said, “She’s my sister.”
    â€œAnd Theo’s sister,” James said. “And my daughter.”
    Katy sulkily handed the baby to James and observed him for several minutes, as if he might drop her, then vanished up the stairs.
    In the ensuing months, other hard moments accrued: Katy would ignore his instructions to turn off the television, or finish homework, or please help sweep the deck. More often, he’d be sharp. He did not want to be sharp; or, rather, he knew sharpness was no use. He tried to be more attentive, greeting Katy first when he arrived home, sitting with her over math. Waiting. She’d grow quiet, observing him, eventually becoming merely skittish.
    â€œKaty’s fine,” Nora told him. “She’s doing fine.”
    â€œReally?” James said.
    â€œWhat do you suggest?” Nora said. “She hardly sees you.”
    â€œI’m just saying,” James said. “She isn’t fine.”
    And who was, Nora thought. Last week, she’d caught Theo with a beer in his bedroom, trying to drink, coughing, spitting beer onto the floor. Theo was mortified. Later, James only shrugged, as if sneaking beer at twelve were de rigueur.
    Most days, Katy attended to her homework. And though she stuck close to Nora and Sara, that year she’d made a few friends, wary odd-duck girls who played board games and tape-recorded fake commercials, girls with strained laughs—girls who, like Katy, relaxed around Sara. They loved small animals,competed to pet the neighbors’ puppy; they called to wandering cats and scooped them up. They were shy girls who eventually burst out with stories of family dogs and younger siblings. They visited the house after school, took turns holding the baby, at times confiding in Sara about slights or private disappointments, as if she were a plump little Buddha. In their presence, Nora recalled school years when her own life had seemed awash in