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He knew perfectly well that Stevie wasn’t scared. Mariel glanced upward and then said, with renewed energy, “You frightened your son.” She could convince him, right here on the too-soft living room couch, that he had a brain tumor, and Leo preferred not to be convinced.Ī sharp thud came from overhead. If she could win the second-baby wars, then she could convince him his bolt wasn’t God. She’d convinced him to redo the kitchen, to stop smoking pot, to accept having only one child. In sixteen years of marriage, he’d never won a fight with Mariel. He didn’t want to fight about his neurological health. He suspected Mariel wouldn’t accept that line of argument.
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“I bet.” Fear was beating anger in her eyes now. “I’m sorry.” He sat up and reached for her hand. “Very accurate assessment of the situation. “That’s right.” Leo recognized that sarcasm was not currently called for, but he couldn’t stop himself. As far as Leo remembered, he’d been doing a great job before the tongue-speaking began. Leo felt a wave of guilt toward the kid, who’d been cooped up studying for months. “You had to dance down the entire aisle of Beth Sholom, waving your arms like a madman, in front of every single one of your neighbors, not to mention the rest of the Jews in Frederick, and you had to do it right in the middle of poor Micah Parker’s bar mitzvah. “I know what you had to do,” she repeated. She rested her elbows on her knees, froglike. He could see the swell of her freckled breast beneath her black wrap dress, which was coming loose. Her golden eyes gleamed at Leo in a way he found alarming. “I know what you had to do.” Mariel sank into a yogic crouch. Leo felt around his brain for a stand-in, some description or metaphor that might help his wife understand, at least for a moment, what had struck him in Beth Sholom’s back pew. I had to get up, because-” There was no because. He’d special-ordered it from Buenos Aires. He looked beyond Mariel, at the calming green David Byrne En Vivo poster hanging over the fireplace. “Leo,” she said, swaying above him like a Christmas-tree angel. If he couldn’t be alone, at least he could lie down. Maybe, at this precise moment, a little heavy on the anger. Her expression was a perfect blend of anger and fear. Her freshly hennaed hair streamed over her shoulders. Over his shoulder, he called, “I don’t know.” He reached the living room doorway, which had no actual door. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why you couldn’t just stay in your seat.” He heard her synagogue heels ticking on the oak floor. Mariel pursued him, voice rising through distress to outrage.