Chapter 2 - The Shower
The first thing Niles asked after everyone stopped shouting was:
“Am I dirty forever?”
That ended the corporate discussion.
Alden could have announced the collapse of the federal government and I would not have cared.
My son believed garbage had changed something permanent about him.
“No.”
I knelt.
“You are not dirty forever.”
“My hair.”
“We wash it.”
“My dinosaur.”
His shirt.
“We wash that too.”
“Cake?”
I almost cried.
“The cake is safe.”
He looked over my shoulder toward the party.
“Everybody saw.”
There.
That was the injury.
Not physical.
Humiliation.
I took him inside.
Roderick followed.
“Coralie.”
“Not now.”
“I need to explain.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Niles first.”
To his credit, he stopped.
I carried Niles upstairs.
He was too big for me to carry comfortably anymore.
I did it anyway.
In the bathroom he refused to take off the shirt.
“Birthday shirt.”
“It needs washing.”
“I want it.”
“We’ll wash it and give it back.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
He finally let me remove it.
There was no skin injury.
No chemical exposure.
Nothing medically dangerous among the contents as far as we could see.
But I called his pediatrician anyway because some of the food was spoiled and he had gotten liquid near his mouth.
We rinsed his eyes.
Washed his face.
Shampooed his hair twice.
No symptoms.
No urgent treatment needed.
The pediatrician told me to watch for irritation or gastrointestinal symptoms if he had accidentally swallowed anything.
Reasonable.
Then I wrapped Niles in a towel.
He sat on the bathroom counter.
“Grandma says I’m not Wexler.”
My heart hurt.
“You are Niles.”
“But Dad.”
“Dad is your dad.”
“She said DNA.”
“Dad is your biological father too.”
“How know?”
“A test.”
He frowned.
“Why Grandma say no?”
There was no five-year-old answer.
“She made a mistake.”
Roderick stood in the doorway.
I looked at him.
“No.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Not until I know what you did.”
He nodded.
Then Niles reached toward him.
“Dad.”
Roderick’s face broke.
He came in.
Niles climbed off the counter and into his arms.
That mattered.
My anger at my husband did not erase my son’s father.
Roderick held him.
“I’m sorry.”
Niles said:
“Grandma trash me.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Roderick could not answer.
Neither could I.
Not yet.
May you like
Downstairs, forty guests had become witnesses to a family secret none of us fully understood.
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