When he was younger, much younger, he loved how an alley wall looked under moonlight: the fine grain of concrete or coarse mortar, the scent of spray paint filling his nose. The surface looks clean, though he knows it’s not, the way concrete walls in the city sometimes appear pristine at night.
He won’t turn its light on, of course, but his eyesight has adjusted to the darkness. Turning to lean half off the cushion, the blood rushing to his head, he reaches down and pulls out the drawing board. He lifts and twirls it gently between his fingers, watching the slender beam of plastic in the dark. He grazes it-a marker from Carter’s drawing board. On the floor, beneath his knuckle, he feels something smooth. He thinks about listening to music or skimming the news on his phone’s dimmed screen, but he’s bored of both. He feels a pull across his chest, a reminder that he should exercise, a reminder that he ignores. Tonight he lets an arm hang from the side of the couch. This has never happened, but in the unlikely event that it did, he would be fucked.
On the living-room couch during sleepless nights, Haiden is limited to activities that don’t require light, lest the glare reach through the gaps in Carter’s blackout curtains on her French doors and wake her. He stares at the drawing board once more. He uncaps the marker, puts the tip against the board, and quickly picks it back up. He takes it, and she flicks the background light off and on. “You draw something.” Carter jabs the marker at him. She smears a strand of hair out of her face with the heel of her hand, holding out a peach-colored marker with the other. The word sounds like “peecuz,” a quirk in her speech he knows he will miss later. A light-up drawing board that’s impossible to clean. “Steve.” She pauses, leaning over to reach beneath the couch and grab the new toy that her aunt, Hannah’s sister, sent recently.
#Clip on reading lamps for tubbler bed trial
The morning is a trial of not counting down the minutes and trying to be present. The morning is his shift, his half of the parenting peace agreement. Hannah’s job is demanding, more important and more lucrative than his. Since Carter was nine months old, Haiden has been the one to get up with her each day and watch her until the nanny arrives. His wife, Hannah, is asleep in the next room every room in their small apartment is the next room. Haiden imagines the sun as a tiny hole in a faraway nozzle. Light sprays in through the living-room window, misted with dust, turning the old wood floor golden. And anyway, a kid wouldn’t think of it as a daily compromise of identity, would she? Haiden gave up once he realized that Carter’s commitment was hitched to any frustration he expressed. He was mortified by the comparison to a goofy kids’ YouTuber who seemed only to bald and pudge further in each new clip. At first Haiden balked at being called Steve. He would love, simply, to go by Dad, or Daddy, but since her third birthday weeks ago, Carter has been stubborn-or dedicated, depending on his vantage. That his name is Haiden has ceased to matter. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
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