Read Songs Without Words for Free Online Page B

him a thumbs-up, and he smiled and gave Brody a little wave. He was a good boy, a good son. All the previous Joes lived directly under his skin. It was different with Lauren—or maybe Brody was different. He didn’t do the movie thing with her. What he returned to again and again was a certain time in her very young life, when Joe was a newborn, always on Liz’s breast, and he and Lauren were their own pair. It was the era when she liked to clomp around the house in his shoes. He read Dr. Seuss to her and cut up cheese and apples for her to eat. She had a special rubber whale, and she squealed with laughter when he made it swim around at bathtime. He loved to make her laugh, he loved to think that she was thinking. But at night, sitting by her crib for a few minutes once the light was off, he’d watch her little body move around, her rump go into the air, thumb into her mouth, and he’d be nearly breathless with the thought that she was still just a baby. He was afraid he asked too much of her. The urge to protect her was enormous.
    In the last seconds of play, Joe scored the game’s winning goal off a pass from his friend Conor, and all the boys pounded one another with excitement. Crowded together afterward, mud spattered and happy, they did their two-four-six-eight for the other team in a near frenzy of exuberance.
    Brody waited for Joe to pack up, and they walked to the parking lot. “Did you see Conor?” Joe exclaimed. “He set that up so perfectly.”
    “Wouldn’t’ve gone anywhere if you hadn’t been ready.”
    Joe grinned, and Brody squeezed the back of his neck, let his hand rest on Joe’s shoulder as they continued to the car.
    At home, Liz was at the kitchen table with coffee and the newspaper, her dark hair glinting red and blond in the sunlight coming through the window. She looked over her shoulder, then stood and smiled at Joe. “So?”
    “We won, four to three.”
    “And guess who scored the winning goal,” Brody said.
    “Way to go!” Liz held out her palm for Joe to slap. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
    Joe sank onto a chair and peeled off his socks, then unstrapped his shin guards with a groan. His feet were pocked with terry marks, the fine new hairs on his toes sticking to the skin.
    Brody looked at the clock: almost ten. “She’s not up yet?”
    “Not yet.” Liz bent over Joe and kissed the top of his head. “Teenagers need their sleep,” she murmured into his hair. “In fact, I have a feeling a certain person might crash this afternoon.”
    “Mom,” Joe said, but he was smiling.
    Once he’d headed upstairs to shower, Brody sat at the table, and all at once the morning caught up with him. There was a dull ache in his right shoulder—his tennis shoulder—and even his legs felt heavy. “Actually I’m beat, too,” he said, and Liz gave him a sympathetic smile.
    “Nothing like getting up at six-thirty on a Saturday.”
    He smiled back at her, but for a strange moment he felt close to tears: something to do with how tired he was, or perhaps with her kindness. She even looked kind: it was in her mouth, in the unassuming gray of her eyes. The first time he ever saw her, this knockout girl with long legs and great hair and a fantastic smile, standing across a crowded bar in the Marina, what he really thought was: She looks
nice.
    He rotated one ankle, then the other. He could do with a shower himself, or a long nap. A long nap with her: the house empty, the two of them lying together. He saw her on top of him, her breasts filling his hands, her face as light as the moon.
    “What?” she said. “You OK?”
    “Sure. Nothing a cup of coffee won’t fix.”
    They both looked at the coffeemaker: empty. “I’ll make a new pot,” she said, but he shook his head.
    “Actually, don’t bother. I’m better off without it. Any plans for today?”
    “Just Sarabeth coming for dinner.”
    “Oh, right.” He’d forgotten about Sarabeth—kind of like forgetting about a dentist