Bedtime Story (4 page)

He was already nestled under the covers. Nolan the hamster was running merrily in his wheel.

The bookmark was leather, rough-cut and almost rectangular, with faded, painted letters, some of them backwards, that read, “To the best Dad in the world.” He had made it for me for Father’s Day when he was six, and we used it in all of the books we read together.

“We’re getting pretty near the end of this,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out what to read next.” I didn’t want to be the one to suggest the book that I had given him, still sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

“
The Lord of the Rings?”
he asked. Again.

We had watched part of
The Fellowship of the Ring
on DVD, the parts before it got too violent and gory, and he had been wanting to read the book ever since.

“We’ll see,” I said measuredly. “Those are some pretty meaty books, so we might want to wait for a bit.”

He pouted deliberately.

“There are plenty of good books out there.” Not hinting. Not really.

David had always been a reluctant reader, only doing his Language Arts homework under duress. We learned why when he was eight and his teacher sent him for some testing: dyslexia. Reading was a struggle for him, and since then we had done everything we could to make it easier.

But our nightly ritual wasn’t about work, or learning, it was all about pleasure.

“Dad,” he said tentatively, before I could start. “None of my friends get a bedtime story every night.”

“No?”

“Darren Kenneally says stories are for babies.”

“Do you think he’s right?”

He shook his head.

“Good. Because I know for a fact that he’s wrong.”

“Because you write stories. For grown-ups.”

I smiled. “Right. And you know what? Darren Kenneally doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

His face brightened.

After that he was quiet for so long that I was about to start reading when he said, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“When am I going to be too old for you to read to me?”

The thought brought a thickness to my chest. “Someday. That’s up to you.” Hoping silently that day would be a long time coming.

He watched me carefully for the first few minutes I was reading. Every time I looked up our eyes would meet, and he would grin a little and press himself deeper into the pillow. After a while he turned onto his back, folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed.

He never fell asleep when I was reading, but he always closed his eyes. Once when I asked him why, he explained, “When I close my eyes I can see what you’re reading. It’s like a movie inside my head.”

Although it took more than an hour, we finished
The Hobbit
that night; there wasn’t really a good place to stop in the last few chapters.

I was slipping the book back into the space on the shelf by the door when he said,
“Lord of the Rings
next?”

I turned back to him, setting the bookmark on the edge of the shelf. “Maybe,” I said, trying not to sound hurt. “We’ll have to see.”

He snuggled more deeply under the covers. “Okay.”

“Time for sleep now, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet dreams,” I said as I stepped into the hallway. “Happy birthday.”

I left the door open a foot or so, the way he liked it.

The soldiers marched Matthias quickly toward the castle, their boots echoing off the cobbles and the stone walls. Few people were out so soon after sunrise, but those who were gave the men wide berth, stepping into gutters or doorways to let them pass.

He gasped when they rounded the corner and the castle came into view.

The castle gates were closed.

For as long as he could remember, the gates had stood open, guarded, but swung wide onto the broad castle boulevard, the gardens within, and the towers that always seemed to shine against the blue sky. People would come and go freely. But this morning the entrance was blocked with towering wooden doors braced with iron.

Matthias stumbled slightly when Captain Bream stopped at a narrow iron door cut into a shallow recess in the castle wall, a short distance from the gates. The captain tapped three times on the door, and an eye-slit opened. The eyes behind the door surveyed them carefully, and after a moment a tumbler chunked into place and the door opened.

Matthias peered into the narrow opening, expecting to see the castle grounds on the other side of the wall. Instead, there was a dim tunnel, lit with torches, sloping into the depths of the castle. Armed guards stood inside.

“Come on,” the captain said, directing him through the door.

Matthias’s heart jumped into his throat as he stared ahead, his mind filled with his worst imaginings of the castle dungeons.

The captain dismissed his men, and they swung the heavy iron door shut as they left. The captain took a torch from one of the guards and started down the hallway.

Matthias followed silently, the torchlight wavering on the walls. The tunnel angled downward for a while, the walls growing damper, the air thick. Men stood guard at the openings of other tunnels, and they straightened as the captain passed.

Then the tunnel began to climb. In time, the air became fresher, cooler. The walls and the floor dried. Matthias had lost track of how long they had been walking when they came to a sudden stop at a dark archway, covered by what seemed to be a heavy curtain.

The captain pushed his torch into a bracket on the wall, then led Matthias through a barely noticeable seam in the middle of the curtain.

No, not a curtain, Matthias realized as he passed through it: a tapestry.

He found himself in a wide corridor, flanked on one side by a row of tapestries down the length of the stone wall through which he had
just passed, and on the other by a series of high windows. A breeze blew cool from outside.

Matthias stopped in the middle of the corridor. The captain turned to him. His face was hard, and his mouth opened to speak, but he stopped himself.

Matthias was overwhelmed, and confused. To go from the backroom of the tavern to the heights of the castle …

He looked first at the wall.

The tapestries were all about the kingdom. He was standing in front of a weaving of his home: the island at the mouth of the Col River with the walled lower city rising toward the castle, and on the shore, Colcott Town. The next tapestry over was a battle scene, soldiers fighting, and falling, the Sunstone crest bright on their standards. One soldier was rising from his mount, driving his sword deep into the chest of a Berok warrior, the blade piercing the bearskins the savages wore instead of armour.

He took several steps toward the windows and looked down, first, on the castle and its gardens, then, beyond the castle wall, on the narrow streets of the lower city winding down to the protective wall at the shoreline. From this direction there was nothing but the sea beyond the outer wall; if the corridor had been on the other side of the castle, he knew, he would have been able to see Colcott Town on the shore.

“It is difficult to tell how far you’ve walked in the tunnels,” the captain said. He looked toward the windows. “Or how high you’ve climbed. Only the royal chambers and the battlements are above us now.”

The royal chambers? Matthias glanced down the hallway at the huge double doors, the pair of guards standing in front of them. His heart thrummed in his chest.

“The Queen’s receiving rooms. Come.”

The guards pushed the doors open as they approached.

Inside, the heady smell of spices and flowers and perfumes filled the bright, sunlit air. Without warning, the captain fell to one knee, bowing his head so it almost rested on his other knee.

“My Lady,” he said.

Not having any idea what else to do, Matthias copied the soldier. He didn’t dare look up. His stomach lurched, and he trembled with fear.

“Rise.” The voice, rich and melodious, had come from the far end of the room.

Matthias waited until Captain Bream started to his feet before he stood up. He kept his eyes fixed to the floor, knowing better than to look on the Queen unbidden.

“Come,” said the voice, and Matthias followed Captain Bream forward.

He glanced about surreptitiously, curious about his surroundings. The room was large, but seemed cozy, with tapestries on the walls, low couchettes in the corner, carpets over much of the floor.

“Matthias.”

He couldn’t help but look up.

The Queen was the most beautiful woman Matthias had ever seen, with long dark hair and pale skin that seemed to shine in the light. She reclined on a low divan on a raised stone platform, a small bowl of dried fruit and a goblet close to hand.

“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” Matthias choked.

“Has Captain Bream told you why we bid you come?”

He shook his head, conscious of every motion. “No, Your Majesty.”

He tried to look away as she stood up. Her blue-grey gown trailed behind her as she stepped down carefully from the platform.

“You’re here because we need you, Matthias,” she said, close enough that he could smell the sweetness of her breath.

He almost jumped when she reached out and took his hand, holding it warmly between her own.

“The kingdom needs you.”

When I got down to the kitchen, I poured Jacqui and me each a glass of wine. As I carried the glasses and the bottle into the living room, I pictured myself passing the glass to Jacqui, reminding her of what we had been doing eleven years ago right now, the night that David was born. I imagined a moment of shared history, of tenderness.

She had been flicking through channels, but she turned the TV off as I set her glass on the end table next to her.

She didn’t say anything.

“Davy’s to bed,” I said as I sat down. Anything to break the silence.

She picked up her glass.

“We finished
The Hobbit.”

I wished she had left the television on, for the noise, the distraction. I lifted my glass toward her.

“Eleven years,” I said.

She smiled a small, sad smile, and sipped her wine.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Odds were the answer was going to involve me somehow, but I couldn’t bear the silence, the feeling of things hanging in the air.

She shook her head. “It’s the same old stuff,” she said dismissively. “Is it really worth getting into it, all over again?”

I could feel myself deflating. “Okay.”

“I mean, seriously, Chris. You couldn’t even be bothered to come to his ballgame? On his birthday?”

“I—”

“And that book. It’s like you don’t even know him. You spend more time with him than any other dad I know spends with his kids, and it’s like it doesn’t even register.”

“That’s not—”

“Do you even know who Rob Sterling is?”

She was so quick with the question, I knew that she had been waiting to use it. And I couldn’t answer.

“I didn’t think so.” She shook her head and looked away. “He’s his coach, Chris. Coach Sterling. David talks about him every day. Do you even listen?”

I leaned forward on the couch. “Of course I listen.”

“Really? Then why didn’t you get him what he wanted for his birthday? Instead, you get him that …” She nodded toward the book on the coffee table. David had taken all of his other gifts upstairs to his room.

“He’s going to like it,” I said, aware even as I was speaking the words
that they weren’t going to make any difference. “When I was a kid—”

“Exactly,” she said, so loudly I almost flinched. “That’s exactly it, Chris. When
you
were a kid. This isn’t about you. This is about David. It’s
his
birthday. And you couldn’t even be bothered—”

“Right,” I said, leaning forward to set my wineglass on the coffee table and pick up the book. “You’re right.” I stood up. “It’s probably not worth getting into it all again. I’m gonna go.”

“Chris,” she said to my back as I turned out of the room, but I didn’t respond.

I walked through the house and out the back door. I navigated the narrow path in the spill of light from the kitchen window and unlocked the door in the back of the garage.