Page 8 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
As soon as the door shuts behind her, Patrick glances at his watch. “I need to check on Susan. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Susan’s fast asleep, which is good, and breathing, which is about as much as anyone could hope for under the circumstances. He takes his time going back downstairs, and when he gets there he pointedly doesn’t count the cash in the till until Nathaniel’s in the bathroom. Again, nothing’s missing.
He keeps an eye on Nathaniel for another reason. Unless Nathaniel is a lot denser than he seems, he picked up on the subtext of Patrick’s conversation with Vivian. If he hasmisgivings about sharing close quarters with a queer man, he’ll bolt, and he’ll do it soon.
But he doesn’t. That night, after Susan wakes up long enough to eat a peanut butter sandwich and fall back asleep in the bed of apartment 3F, Nathaniel moves his toothbrush into Patrick’s bathroom and proceeds to use up the last of Patrick’s shampoo.
Patrick spends the night snatching sleep in five minute increments, except for when Nathaniel comes in at two in the morning, says, “For the love ofgod,” and picks the baby up. Patrick passes out almost immediately.
The rest of the night, Eleanor’s either in Patrick’s arms or asleep in a dresser drawer, which Mrs. Valdez assured him is perfectly safe for the next week or two. Even asleep, she somehow looks furious. It’s the only trace of Susan he can find on her face.
3
Mrs. Valdez corners Patrick.
“You’re in charge here,” she tells him, an index finger firm against the placket of his shirt, her nurse’s uniform bright in the gloom of Susan’s kitchen. “You treat that baby like she’s your own baby and that poor girl like she’s your sister, you hear?”
Patrick can only nod. He’d watched with a secondhand sense of shame as Mrs. Valdez took in the empty bottle of Ballantine’s on Susan’s bedside table, the pills in the bathroom, the pervasive smell of weed.
“They’re both healthy,” Mrs. Valdez assures him. “Physically, at least. New mothers need meat. Can you cook liver?”
Patrick doesn’t even have a real stove in his apartment, and that’s on purpose. Instead, he orders so much takeout that, after the first few days, he starts giving Hector and Iris five dollars every morning and asking them to pick up Chinese food, sandwiches, pizza—I don’t care, surprise us, keep the change—on the way home from school. Just when he’s starting to worry he’s about to go broke, Susan remembers that she’s earned four gold records and has a bank account full of money.
“I shouldn’t be doing this to you,” Susan says. It’s three o’clock in the morning. They’re in Susan’s bed, Eleanor asleep on the mattress between them. Patrick should put her in the cradle Mr. Valdez brought home from work—a prop from a show thatjust finished its run—but if she wakes up again he’s going to need to scream into the pillow.
“You know I want you here,” Patrick says, when what he wants to say isjust please don’t die. All week long he’s been reminding himself that Susan’s been in a band for years. Valium and whiskey aren’t the worst she’s done. They aren’t even the worst she’s done around Patrick. “Just be careful, okay?” And then, feeling shitty about it before the words even leave his mouth, “If you die, your parents will take Eleanor.” The Larkins aren’t bad people, but there’s a reason Susan’s here instead of their comfortable Long Island split level.
“Go to hell,” she says. “I’m not trying to die. I just don’t want to be awake and sober for this.”
“People die without trying all the time.” Patrick hears Susan’s sharp intake of breath. Obviously people die without trying, Patrick, you fool, that’s the reason they’re in this mess.
“Okay,” Susan says, a little wetly. He rolls to his side and attempts to stroke her hair, but he’s terrible at this, just truly the world’s least comforting human being. He keeps thinking she needs to wash her hair.
“You trust him,” Susan asks a few minutes later, waving a hand in the direction of the living room. Through the bedroom door, Patrick can see Nathaniel passed out on the couch, an arm flung over his eyes. “I’m not insane for letting a total stranger rock my kid to sleep?”
Patrick doesn’t know a single thing about Nathaniel except that he takes his coffee black and has something against dust.
But you learn a lot about someone when you spend practically every waking minute with them for a full week. He’s kind to Iris and Hector, patiently listening to their tales of ninth grade drama and correcting their algebra homework. A lot of people would judge Susan for—well, for everything about how she’s handling things, frankly—but Nathaniel doesn’t so muchas look at her funny. He seems to save any malevolence for Patrick, and even that’s just a gentle cattiness: some scathing commentary about a used tea bag he found in the military history section, some pointed words about grown men who don’t understand that babies need to be burped. Nothing’s gone missing, no sinister strangers have come around asking for him, and Patrick would swear he isn’t using.
That much Patrick’s sure about: Nathaniel’s rarely more than a few feet away. Patrick would know if he had so much as a cigarette.
And then there’s the fact that he’s helping at all. It’s not like anybody asked him to—it wouldn’t have occurred to Patrick to ask his bookstore clerk to sterilize baby bottles, and it wouldn’t have occurred to him to ask anybody in the world to spend their nights walking his niece back and forth in front of the window until she falls asleep.
“He’s taking good care of that baby.” Patrick doesn’t add: thank godsomebodyis. Patrick’s trying his best but every time he picks her up he’s sure he’s doing something wrong, and from the way she carries on, she seems to agree. Susan’s trying too, but she isn’t in any shape to look after a newborn on her own right now.
“It’s so sad,” Susan says.
Patrick doesn’t even need to turn his head to know that she’s crying again. The past few sentences were probably the longest non-crying conversation they’ve managed since she got here. He reaches for her hand. “Why’s it sad?”
“Because he must have had kids. Where are they now?”
Patrick could point out that men leave their families all the time, or that Nathaniel’s experience with babies might come from younger siblings or nieces and nephews. But it all boils down to the same question: where are they now?
The next morning he shows Nathaniel where he keeps the stamps and envelopes. “If you want to send any letters,” Patrick explains.
“Thank you,” Nathaniel says, straightening out the roll of stamps before putting it back in the drawer.
“Just stick your letters in the tray with the other mail and I’ll make sure the mailman picks them up,” Patrick says.
