The Late Child Read Free Page B

to see that the wolf was really dead. Then no one would have to be afraid that he would somehow make his way back up the cliff and chase Benjy again.
    â€œDo you think Jimmy will bring Popsicles, Mom?” Eddie asked, again.
    â€œI don’t know—did you really like Jimmy?” Harmony asked. It made her feel a failure, that her little boy would always have to be losing people he really liked. But Eddie had been a little cool with Jimmy, a little reserved—maybe it wouldn’t be such a heartbreaker for him, if Jimmy turned out to have hit the road, rather than just going for cigarettes.
    To her surprise Eddie looked up at her with a giggly look.
    â€œI didn’t really like him but I can’t tell you why, Mom,” Eddie said.
    That was sort of unusual—Eddie was such an open little boy: he would even talk to her about his little penis, if he got a good feeling in it while he was wiping himself on the potty, or fooling around a little in the bathtub.
    â€œHoney, if you didn’t like Jimmy, why can’t you tell me why?” Harmony asked. It took her mind off Pepper for a second: whatif Jimmy had molested Eddie or something. Eddie had a giggly look on his face, though; probably he wouldn’t have looked giggly if there had been some form of abuse.
    â€œI can’t because it’s a bad word,” Eddie said. “At school you’re not supposed to say it.”
    â€œEddie, you’re right here with me, watching
Benjy
,” Harmony reminded him. “What kind of bad word would mean that you didn’t like Jimmy?”
    â€œFart!” Eddie said, before dissolving into helpless giggles.
    â€œOh,” Harmony said.
    â€œHe farts all the time—I could smell him in my bunk bed,” Eddie said.
    â€œOh,” Harmony said again. It wasn’t as bad as abuse, of course—on the other hand it sort of made her wonder a little about the level of boyfriend she had chosen to bring home. Why should her beautiful little boy have to smell her boyfriend’s farts, while he was in his bunk bed trying to sleep? It wasn’t a huge failure, like taking in a child molester would have been, but it didn’t exactly make her a candidate for the mom honor roll, either.
    â€œYou’re supposed to fart outside,” Eddie reminded her. “You’re
never
supposed to fart inside.
    â€œI don’t care, though, if he brings the Popsicles,” Eddie added. His mom looked like she might cry. Maybe he had said the fart word too much.
    Harmony was remembering that she had been a little offended by that very problem when she first began to go out with Jimmy—or rather, when she had first sort of given up and gone to bed with him. It was during their intimate moments that Jimmy’s habit of expelling wind—lots of wind, and no fragrant breeze, either—had first manifested itself. Harmony’s first thought had been, Whoa, what am I getting myself into, here? But Jimmy hastened to explain that it was a digestive condition he had picked up in Asia, while in the service. He didn’t want her to think it signified any lack of social graces—it was just a medical problem, really. Helooked so hangdog when he discussed it that Harmony, as usual, felt sorry for the man. After that she did her optimistic best to turn off her smeller, at such moments, if Jimmy’s digestive condition began to act up—and it usually did.
    But then, after all, nobody was perfect. After rashly, and to be truthful, accidentally, having Eddie at age forty-two, Harmony herself had developed a female problem that probably wasn’t too attractive—it may have been the reason Webb left her, a bare six months after their son was born. Webb was one of the best tow-truck drivers in Las Vegas—he had spent twenty years racing to every wreck, particularly big smashups on I-15. Webb definitely liked to be first on the scene when there was a big smashup;