Read What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories for Free Online

the barest information, nothing that was not necessary.
    MONDAY morning, the boy was walking to school. He was in the company of another boy, the two boys passing a bag of potato chips back and forth between them. The birthday boy was trying to trick the other boy into telling what he was going to give in the way of a present.
    At an intersection, without looking, the birthday boy stepped off the curb, and was promptly knocked down by a car. He fell on his side, his head in the gutter, his legs in the road moving as if he were climbing a wall.
    The other boy stood holding the potato chips. He was wondering if he should finish the rest or continue on to school.
    The birthday boy did not cry. But neither did he wish to talk anymore. He would not answer when the other boy asked what it felt like to be hit by a car. The birthday boy got up and turned back for home, at which time the other boy waved good-bye and headed off for school.
    The birthday boy told his mother what had happened. They sat together on the sofa. She held his hands in her lap.
    The Bath
    This is what she was doing when the boy pulled his hands away and lay down on his back.
    O F course, the birthday party never happened. The birthday boy was in the hospital instead. The mother sat by the bed. She was waiting for the boy to wake up. The father hurried over from his office. He sat next to the mother. So now the both of them waited for the boy to wake up. They waited for hours, and then the father went home to take a bath.
    The man drove home from the hospital. He drove the streets faster than he should. It had been a good life till now. There had been work, fatherhood, family. The man had been lucky and happy. But fear made him want a bath.
    He pulled into the driveway. He sat in the car trying to make his legs work. The child had been hit by a car and he was in the hospital, but he was going to be all right. The man got out of the car and went up to the door. The dog was barking and the telephone was ringing. It kept ringing while the man unlocked the door and felt the wall for the light switch.
    He picked up the receiver. He said, "I just got in the door!"
    "There's a cake that wasn't picked up."
    This is what the voice on the other end said.
    "What are you saying?" the father said.
    "The cake," the voice said. "Sixteen dollars."
    The husband held the receiver against his ear, trying to understand. He said, "I don't know anything about it."
    "Don't hand me that," the voice said.
    The husband hung up the telephone. He went into the
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    kitchen and poured himself some whiskey. He called the hospital.
    The child's condition remained the same.
    While the water ran into the tub, the man lathered his face and shaved. He was in the tub when he heard the telephone again. He got himself out and hurried through the house, saying, "Stupid, stupid," because he wouldn't be doing this if he'd stayed where he was in the hospital. He picked up the receiver and shouted, "Hello!"
    The voice said, "It's ready."
    THE father got back to the hospital after midnight. The wife was sitting in the chair by the bed. She looked up at the husband and then she looked back at the child. From an apparatus over the bed hung a bottle with a tube running from the bottle to the child.
    "What's this?" the father said.
    "Glucose," the mother said.
    The husband put his hand to the back of the woman's head.
    "He's going to wake up," the man said.
    "I know," the woman said.
    In a little while the man said, "Go home and let me take over."
    She shook her head. "No," she said.
    "Really," he said. "Go home for a while. You don't have to worry. He's sleeping, is all."
    A nurse pushed open the door. She nodded to them as she went to the bed. She took the left arm out from under the covers and put her fingers on the wrist. She put the arm
    The Bath
    back under the covers and wrote on the clipboard attached to the bed.
    "How is he?" the mother said.
    "Stable," the