Perfect Match

Perfect Match

When the monster finally came through the door, he was wearing a mask. She stared and stared at him, amazed that no one else could see through the disguise. He was the neighbor next door, watering his for-sythia. He was t he stranger who smiled across an elevator. He was the kind man who took a t oddler's hand to help him cross the street. Can't you see? she wanted to sc ream. Don't you know?

Beneath her, the chair was unforgiving. Her hands were folded as neatly as a schoolgirl's, her shoulders were squared; but her heart was all out of rh ythm, a jellyfish writhing in her chest. When had breathing become somethin g she had to consciously remember to do?

Bailiffs flanked him, guiding him past the prosecutor's table, in front of t he judge, toward the spot where the defense attorney was sitting. From the c orner came the sibilant hum of a TV camera. It was a familiar scene, but she realized she had never seen it from this angle. Change your point of view, and the perspective is completely different.

The truth sat in her lap, heavy as a child. She was going to do this. That knowledge, which should have stopped her short, instead coursed through her limbs like brandy. For the first time in weeks, she didn't feel as if s he were sleepwalking on the ocean floor, her lungs fiery, holding on to the breath she'd taken before she went under-a breath that would have been bigger, more deliberate, had she known what was coming. In this horrible place, watching this horrible man, she suddenly felt normal a gain. And with this feeling came the most wonderfully normal thoughts: that she hadn't wiped down the kitchen table after breakfast; that the library book which had gone missing was behind the dirty clothes hamper; that her c ar was fifteen hundred miles overdue to have the oil changed. That in the n ext two seconds, the bailiffs escorting him would step back to give him pri vacy to speak to his attorney.

In her purse, her fingers slipped over the smooth leather cover of her checkb ook, her sunglasses, a lipstick, the furry nut of a Life Saver, lost from its package. She found what she was looking for and grabbed it, surprised to see that it fit with the same familiar comfort as her husband's hand. One step, two, three, that was all it took to come close enough to the monster to smell his fear, to see the black edge of his coat against the white collar of his shirt. Black and white, that was what it came down to. For a second she wondered why no one had stopped her. Why no one had reali zed that this moment was inevitable; that she was going to come in here an d do just this. Even now, the people who knew her the best hadn't grabbed for her as she rose from her seat.

That was when she realized she was wearing a disguise, just like the monste r. It was so clever, so authentic; nobody really knew what she had turned i nto. But now she could feel it cracking into pieces. Let the whole world se e, she thought, as the mask fell away. And she knew as she pressed the gun to the defendant's head, she knew as she shot him four times in quick succe ssion, that at this moment she would not have recognized herself. I When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very ha rd; I am sure we should-so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.

-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre We're in the woods, just the two of us. I have on my best sneakers, the one s with rainbow laces and the place on the back that Maeon chewed through wh en he was just a puppy. Her steps are bigger than mine, but it's a game-I t ry to jump Into the hole her shoes leave behind. I'm a frog; I'm a kangaroo ; I'm magic.

When I walk, it sounds like cereal getting poured for break-fast. Crunch. “My legs hurt,” I tell her.

“It's just a little bit longer.”

“I don't want to walk,” I say, and I sit right there, because if I don't move sh e won't either.

She leans down and points, but the trees are like the legs of tall people I ca n't see around. “Do you see it yet?” she asks me.

I shake my head. Even if I could see it, I would have told her I couldn't. She picks me up and puts me on her shoulders. “The pond” she says. ''Can y ou see the pond?"

From up here, I can. It is a piece of sky, lying on the ground. When Heaven breaks, who fixes it?

I have always been best at closings. Without any significant forethought, I can walk into a courtroom, face a jury, and deliver a speech that leaves the m burning for justice. Loose ends drive me crazy; I have to tidy things up t o the point where I can put them behind me and move on to the next case. My boss tells anyone who'll listen that he prefers to hire prosecutors who were waiters and waitresses in former lives-that is, used to juggling a load. Bu t I worked in the gift-wrapping department of Filene's to put myself through law school, and it shows.

This morning, I've got a closing on a rape trial and a competency hearing. In the afternoon, I have to meet with a DNA scientist about a bloodstain in side a wrecked car, which revealed brain matter belonging to neither the dr unk driver accused of negligent homicide nor the female passenger who was k illed. All of this is running through my mind when Caleb sticks his head in to the bathroom. The reflection of his face rises like a moon in the mirror . “How's Nathaniel?”

I turn off the water and wrap a towel around myself. “Sleeping,” I say. Caleb's been out in his shed, loading his truck. He does stonework-brick pat hs, fireplaces, granite steps, stone walls. He smells of winter, a scent that comes to Maine at the same time local apples come to harvest. His flannel sh irt is streaked with the dust that coats bags of concrete. "How is his fever?

" Caleb asks, washing his hands in the sink.

“He's fine,” I answer, although I haven't checked on my son; haven't even s een him yet this morning.

I am hoping that if I wish hard enough, this will be true. Nathaniel wasn't really that sick last night, and he wasn't running a temperature above 99 degrees. He didn't seem himself, but that alone wouldn't keep me from sendi ng him to school-especially on a day when I'm due in court. Every working m other has been caught between this Scylla and Charybdis. I can't give a hun dred percent at home because of my work; I can't give a hundred percent at work because of my home; and I live in fear of the moments, like these, whe n the two collide.

“I'd stay home, but I can't miss this meeting. Fred's got the clients coming to review the plans, and we're all supposed to put in a good showing.” Caleb looks at his watch and groans. “In fact, I was late ten minutes ago.” His day starts early and ends early, like most subcontractors. It means that I bear the brunt of getting Nathaniel to school, while Caleb is in charge of the pic kup. He moves around me, gathering his wallet and his baseball cap. "You won'

t send him to school if he's sick . . ."

“Of course not,” I say, but heat creeps beneath the neck of my blouse. Two T ylenol will buy me time; I could be finished with the rape case before getti ng a call from Miss Lydia to come get my son. I think this, and in the next second, hate myself for it.

“Nina.” Caleb puts his big hands on my shoulders. I fell in love with Caleb because of those hands, which can touch me as if I am a soap bubble certain to burst, yet are powerful enough to hold me together when I am in danger of falling to pieces.

I slide my own hands up to cover Caleb's. “He'll be fine,” I insist, the power of positive thinking. I give him my prosecutor's smile, crafted to convince.

“We'll be fine.”

Caleb takes a while to let himself believe this. He is a smart man, but he's methodical and careful. He will finish one project with exquisite finesse bef ore moving on to the next, and he makes decisions the same way. I've spent se ven years hoping that lying next to him each night will cause some of his del iberation to rub off, as if a lifetime together might soften both our extreme s.

“I'll get Nathaniel at four-thirty,” Caleb says, a line that, in the language o f parenting, means what I love you once did.

I feel his lips brush the top of my head as I work the clasp on the back of my skirt. “I'll be home by six.” I love you, too.

He walks toward the door, and when I look up I am struck by pieces of him-the breadth of his shoulders, the tilt of his grin, the way his toes turn in in his big construction boots. Caleb sees me watching. “Nina,” he says, and that smile, it tips even more. “You're late too.”

The clock on the nightstand says 7:41. I have nineteen minutes to rouse and feed my son, stuff him into his clothes and his car seat, and make the drive across Biddeford to his school with enough time to get myself to the superi or court in Alfred by 9:00.

My son sleeps hard, a cyclone in his sheets. His blond hair is too long; he needed a haircut a week ago. I sit on the edge of the bed. What's two second s more, when you get to watch a miracle?

I wasn't supposed to get pregnant five years ago. I wasn't supposed to get pregnant, ever, thanks to a butcher of an OB who removed an ovarian cyst wh en I was twenty-two. When I had been weak and vomiting for weeks, I went to see an internist, certain I was dying from some dread parasite, or that my body was rejecting its own organs. But the blood test said there was nothi ng wrong. Instead, there was something so impossibly right that for months afterward, I kept the lab results taped to the inside of the medicine cabin et of the bathroom: the burden of proof.

Nathaniel looks younger when he's asleep, with one hand curled under his che ek and the other wrapped tight around a stuffed frog. There are nights I wat ch him, marveling at the fact that five years ago I did not know this person who has since transformed me. Five years ago I would not have been able to tell you that the whites of a child's eyes are clearer than fresh snow; that a little boy's neck is the sweetest curve on his body. I would never have c onsidered knotting a dish towel into a pirate's bandanna and stalking the do g for his buried treasure, or experimenting on a rainy Sunday to see how man y seconds it takes to explode a marshmallow in the microwave. The face I giv e to the world is not the one I save for Nathaniel: After years of seeing th e world in absolutes, he has taught me how to pick out all the shades of pos sibility.

I could lie and tell you that I never would have gone to law school or beco me a prosecutor if I'd expected to have children. It's a demanding job, one you take home, one you cannot fit around soccer games and nursery school C hristmas pageants. The truth is, I have always loved what I do; it's how I define myself: Hello, I'm Nina Frost, assistant district attor ney. But I also am Nathaniel's mother, and I wouldn't trade that label for th e world. There is no majority share; I am split down the middle, fifty-fifty. However, unlike most parents, who lie awake at night worrying about the horr ors that could befall a child, I have the chance to do something about them. I'm a white knight, one of fifty lawyers responsible for cleaning up the stat e of Maine before Nathaniel makes his way through it.

Now, I touch his forehead-cool-and smile. With a finger I trace the slight b ow of his cheek, the seam of his lips. Asleep, he bats my hand away, buries his fists under the covers. “Hey,” I whisper into his ear. “We need to get m oving.” When he doesn't stir, I pull the covers down-and the thick ammonia s cent of urine rises from the mattress.

Not today. But I smile, just like the doctor said to when accidents happen f or Nathaniel, my five-year-old who's been toilet trained for three years. Wh en his eyes open-Caleb's eyes, sparkling and brown and so engaging that peop le used to stop me on the street to play with my baby in his stroller-I see that moment of fear when he thinks he's going to be punished. “Nathaniel,” I sigh, “these things happen.” I help him off the bed and start to peel his d amp pajamas from his skin, only to have him fight me in earnest. One wild punch lands on my temple, driving me back. “For God's sake, Nathaniel !” I snap. But it's not his fault that I'm late; it's not his fault that he's wet the bed. I take a deep breath and work the fabric over his ankles and feet . “Let's just get you cleaned off, okay?” I say more gently, and he defeatedly slides his hand into mine.

My son tends to be unusually sunny. He finds music in the stifled sounds of traffic, speaks the language of toads. He never walks when he can scramble ; he sees the world with the reverence of a poet. So this boy, the one eyei ng me warily over the lip of the tub, is not one I recognize. “I'm not mad at you.” Nathaniel ducks his head, embarrassed. “Everyone has accidents. Re member when I ran over your bike last year, with the car? You were upset-bu t you knew I didn't mean to do it. Right?” I might as well be talking to on e of Caleb's granite blocks. “Fine, give me the silent treatment.” But even this backfires; I cannot tease him into a response. "Ah, I know what will make you feel better . . . you can wear your Disney World sweatshirt. That'

s two days in a row."

If he had the option, Nathaniel would wear it every day. In his room, I overtu rn the contents of every drawer, only to find the sweatshirt tangled in the pi le of soiled sheets. Spying it, he pulls it free and starts to tug it over his head. “Hang on,” I say, taking it away. “I know I promised, but it's got pee all over it, Nathaniel. You can't go to school in this. It has to be washed fi rst.” Nathaniel's lower lip begins to tremble, and suddenly I-the skilled arbi trator-am reduced to a plea bargain. “Honey, I swear, I'll wash this tonight. You can wear it for the rest of the week. And all of next week, too. But right now, I need your help. I need us to eat fast, so that we can leave on time. A ll right?”

Ten minutes later, we have reached agreement, thanks to my complete capitu lation. Nathaniel is wearing the damn Disney World sweatshirt, which has b een hand-rinsed, hastily spun through the dryer, and sprayed with a pet de odorizer. Maybe Miss Lydia will have allergies; maybe no one will notice t he stain above Mickey's wide smile. I hold up two cereal boxes. “Which one ?“ Nathaniel shrugs, and by now I'm convinced his silence has less to do w ith shame than getting a rise out of me. Incidentally, it's working. I set him down at the counter with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios while I pac k his lunch. ”Noodles,“ I announce with flair, trying to boost him out of h is blue funk. ”And . . . ooh! A drumstick from dinner last night! Three Ore os . . . and celery sticks, so that Miss Lydia doesn't yell at Mommy again about nutrition pyramids. There.“ I zip up the insulated pack and put it in to Nathaniel's backpack, grab a banana for my own breakfast, then check the clock on the microwave. I give Nathaniel two more Tylenol to take-it won't hurt him this once, and Caleb will never know. ”Okay,“ I say. ”We have to go.” Nathaniel slowly puts on his sneakers and holds out each small foot to me t o have the laces tied. He can zip up his own fleece jacket; shimmy into his own backpack. It is enormous on those thin shoulders; sometimes from behin d he reminds me of Atlas, carrying the weight of the world.

Driving, I slide in Nathaniel's favorite cassette-the Beatles' White Album, of all things-but not even “Rocky Raccoon” can snap him out of this mood. Cl early, he's gotten up on the wrong side of the bed-the wet side, I think, si ghing. A tiny voice inside me says I should just be grateful that in approxi mately fifteen minutes it will be someone else's problem.

In the rearview mirror, I watch Nathaniel play with the dangling strap of hi s backpack, pleating it into halves and thirds. We come to the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. “Nathaniel,” I whisper, just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the engine. When he glances up, I cross my eyes and stick o ut my tongue.

Slowly, slow as his father, he smiles at me.

On the dashboard, I see that it is 7:56. Four minutes ahead of schedule. We are doing even better than I thought.

The way Caleb Frost sees it, you build a wall to keep something unwanted out ... or to hold something precious in. He considers this often when he builds , fitting sparkling granite and craggy limestone into niches, a three-dimens ional puzzle drawn thick and straight across the edge of a lawn. He likes to think of the families inside these baileys he constructs: insulated, safe, protected. Of course, this is ridiculous. His stone walls are knee-high, not castle-worthy. They have large gaps in them for driveways and paths and gra pe arbors. And yet every time he drives past a property he's shaped with his own heavy hands, he pictures the parents sitting down to dinner with their children, harmony wrapping the table like mosquito netting, as if literal fo undations might lay the pattern for emotional ones.

He stands at the edge of the Warren property with Fred, their contractor, as they all wait for Caleb to put on a show. Right now, the land is thick with birches and maples, some tagged to show the potential location of the house and the septic system. Mr. and Mrs. Warren stand so close they are touching . She is pregnant; her belly brushes her husband's hip.

“Well,” Caleb begins. His job is to convince these people that they need a st one wall surrounding their property, instead of the six-foot fence they are a lso considering. But words are not his specialty; that's for Nina. Beside him , Fred clears his throat, prompting.

Caleb cannot sweet-talk this couple; he can only see what lies ahead for them : a white Colonial, with a screened porch. A Labrador, leaping to catch monar ch butterflies in his mouth. A row of bulbs that will, next year, be tulips. A little girl riding a tricycle, with streamers flying from the handlebars do wn the length of the drive, until she reaches the barrier Caleb has crafted-t he limit, she has been told, of where she is safe.

He imagines himself bent over this spot, creating something solid in a space where there had been nothing before. He imagines this family, three of them by then, tucked within these walls. “Mrs. Warren,” Caleb asks with a smile, the right words finally coming. “When are you due?” In one corner of the playground, Lettie Wiggs is crying. She does this all t he time, pretends that Danny socked her when the truth is she just wants to see if she can get Miss Lydia to come running from whatever it is Miss Lydia 's doing. Danny knows it too, and Miss Lydia, and everyone, except for Letti e, who cries and cries as if it's going to get her somewhere. He walks past her. Walks past Danny, too, who isn't Danny anymore, but a pira te, clinging to a barrel after a shipwreck. “Hey, Nathaniel,” says Brianna. “ Check this out.” She is crouched behind the shed that holds soccer balls as s oft as ripe melons, and the ride-on bulldozer that you can only ride on for f ive minutes before it's someone else's turn. A silver spider has stretched a web from the wood to the fence behind it, zagged like a shoelace. At one spot a knot the size of a dime is tangled in the silk.