The Changeling. Victor LaValle

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      Apollo hardly registered the reactions. He made himself busy getting his bag off his back, setting it down, then unstrapping Brian. He went down on a knee, undid Brian’s onesie, and pulled back the lip of his diaper. Brian kicked both legs out and mewled louder. Soiled. Apollo pulled out the changing pad and laid it flat on the floor and pulled back one of the diaper straps—that adhesive crackle.

      Only then did he look up to find seven horrified expressions focused on him and the now half-naked and soiled baby.

      “Problem?” he asked.

      A moment passed, and all five customers stampeded out of the store. Even the guy in the middle of a sale joined the exodus.

      Now Patrice grinned. “I’m real glad you brought the kid,” he said. He turned to the woman behind the counter, instantly first in line for service. “I’ve got a long list.”

      Apollo shrugged and finished up with Brian.

      Patrice left the store with a half-dozen bags in hand while Apollo carried only a rolled-up dirty diaper.

      “You and Dana should think about having a kid,” Apollo said as they walked down the block.

      He’d regretted it right after the words left his lips. It was a dick thing to say. He knew it. Didn’t he hate it when people on the streets offered unsolicited advice about how he should be caring for Brian? Old women scolded him for not covering him up, and others demanded he be uncovered. Old men jabbered about how best to burp or bounce or feed the child. Didn’t he loathe even those with the best intentions? But then he’d done something like it to Patrice. Maybe having a child was like being drunk. You couldn’t gauge when you went from being charming to being an asshole.

      “You’re right about that,” Patrice said. “If we don’t have kids, how will I ever know the joy of carrying a handful of shit?”

      They weren’t far from the Strand, just a walk crosstown. They headed that way without making a conscious decision. The store’s motto was “18 miles of books.” Apollo couldn’t think of the last time he’d found a book worth serious money there—the stacks were picked over by thousands of readers every day—but they couldn’t be downtown and refuse to visit. It would be like snubbing a beloved uncle.

      Manhattan air, in early winter, gets as crisp as a fresh apple. As they walked, Apollo turned Brian around so he wouldn’t face the cool wind. Turning him inward made Brian look up into his father’s face, or perhaps just up at the blue sky between buildings. The boy puckered his lips, and his tiny nostrils flared as Apollo and Patrice walked quietly toward the Strand.

      As a matter of routine, they pawed through the wheeled carrels that lined the front of the store. These were the worn-down paperbacks, the Signet Classics of Frankenstein and Jane Eyre; beat-up textbooks and cookbooks. Patrice and Apollo weren’t looking for anything worthwhile—it was just part of the ritual.

      “So I had to leave before you came out of the basement in Riverdale,” Patrice said.

      “You should’ve come downstairs and said goodbye,” Apollo teased.

      Patrice cleared his throat and ignored the taunt. “You find anything good?”

      Apollo cradled the back of Brian’s head as he leaned forward to read the paperback spines. He inhaled his son’s scent and considered the question. Did he find anything good? A book he’d be willing to split profits with Patrice over? Brian rubbed his head against the small patch of his father’s skin he could reach. Did he find anything good?

      “No,” Apollo said. “Nothing good. It was a bust.”

      APOLLO AND BRIAN returned home in the late afternoon but found the apartment as dark as nighttime. The curtains had been pulled shut in the living room. When he went to pull them open, he found a safety pin holding the two panels together. The same in their bedroom. The blinds in the kitchen were pulled down. Apollo found Emma in Brian’s bedroom, up on a short ladder, with a drill in one hand. The room’s curtains were in a small pile on the floor.

      She remained so immersed in her task that she hadn’t even heard them come in. Apollo watched her quietly from the doorway. Brian didn’t even struggle in his carrier, as if he too were taking in the strange sight. Emma raised the drill to the top of the window frame and pulled the trigger, then sank the spinning drill bit into the wood until it disappeared. When she pulled it back out, dust fell across her and to the floor.

      “What are you doing?” Apollo asked.

      Emma turned so fast, she nearly fell off the ladder. She brought the drill out like a pistol, pointed straight at him.

      “How was work?” he said.

      “Blackout curtains,” Emma said, then turned back to the window frame and drilled a second hole. The noise finally made Brian stir. He hadn’t been sleeping, but at least he’d been calm.

      “I thought we weren’t going to start sleep training yet,” Apollo said.

      Emma came down the ladder and set the drill on the floor. She took something out of a box that had been hidden under the piled curtains. She climbed back up the ladder, pulled a screwdriver from her pocket, and installed the blackout curtain’s frame.

      “We’re not starting that yet,” she said as she worked.

      “Then why are you putting those up?” he asked. “And why are all the windows covered up?”

      “I found a good message board for moms,” she said. “They told me these were best blackout curtains around.”

      “How much did they cost?”

      Emma didn’t answer him. She finished and came back down the ladder.

      “Why did you lay Brian down in that driveway?”

      Apollo practically clutched his pearls. “I was packing up the car. I tried to do it while I was wearing him, but I had to lean over too far. He cried. So I put him down. But it was just for a few minutes. Anyway, how did you know?”

      “You sent me a damn picture,” Emma said.

      Apollo stepped back. “I did?”

      Emma held out one hand. “Let me see your phone.”

      She scrolled through a few screens, then shut off Apollo’s phone with a grunt. Together they went into the kitchen. Apollo asked to see her phone now. She held hers up and said the picture was gone.

      “Well, why did you erase it?” he asked as he handed Brian to her.

      “Did I say I erased it?” she asked. “Why would I erase it?”

      She sat at the kitchen table with Brian, pulled up her top, and snapped open her nursing bra. Brian attached without error.

      Apollo opened the fridge and took out ingredients for a quick dinner. “Sometimes you think you’ve sent me a message, but it’s just sitting in drafts,” he said. “It’s possible СКАЧАТЬ