When did she become so porous? The pink occident light of declining afternoon filters the cloistered world of the bedroom where she nurses her sick babies, flushing her closet door, her pillow shams, the pearly candle nubs, the children’s sleeping faces with a pacific, rosy luster. She cannot remember when, exactly, since yesterday, her body and her needs so completely shaped themselves to her children’s, when motherhood overflowed its banks and carried her, willingly, deep into its current. When did she change into a nightgown, pleating it into a thick tube between her hands, like stockings, and dropping it over her head in one efficient move? When did she gather the puzzles, the diapers, the bottles, the cups and plates? When did she collect the heap of new poems, loose sheets hastily plucked off the bedclothes and weighted beneath a candlestick on the bedside table, and shove them into the drawer of her desk, dismissing the idea that she might try to work while the children rested—impossible—in unison? When did she squeeze into bed with them, capturing one under each arm, nosing their sour little heads like bouquets, like the perfumes of a rare flower? Like the seductions of a night lily, like the potent pink dust of the stargazer. Sleep swells as she breathes in the breath of her hot babies. It rocks her at the surface of awareness, rocks her until she slips under, too.

*   *   *

She revolves on an island, floats and rocks in a cold gray December jelly churning a mash of salty ice into chunks at its surface. The stars rearrange and fade, throwing the shadows of passing planets on the wall. The stars fall, hurtling through a black heaven, white-hot flakes of pain bursting inside her eyes, blistering her head, making her sick. I remember this, she dreams. I remember this, her stomach heaving.

14. “The Detective”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“The Detective”

DECEMBER 16, 1962

LONDON