Man and Wife Bug

Benny’s still cooking when he hears the door. It’s Jeff, home from work, claiming he’s solved his daughter’s problem. Jeff throws his coat on the bicycles. Katie has been in bed for an hour, but she’s not asleep. Down the hall, sheets flap, and her body rolls. Air wheezes out of her in high notes of frustration.

“Finally,” says Benny. His arm relaxes as he stirs in the last of the white pepper. “Whatever it is, I hope it’s not contagious.”

The six-year-old has been covered with itchy pimples for weeks. The doctors thought it was eczema at first, or juvenile acne. They are currently treating for both, with an antihistamine, but Katie still scratches, open-fisted and reckless.

“You made gnocchi,” Jeff says. “Slow day?”

“Still slogging through that review,” says Benny, though he barely touched it today. “It makes me hungry.”

They sit at the table and open warm winter beers. It’s freezing outside, and the subway is all the way at the top of the hill, where Joralemon Street begins. Jeff’s eyelashes are frosted together. He blinks and powders his plate with a tiny snowfall.

“I can’t handle the suspense,” Benny says, serving Jeff the potato dumplings with peas and mint. “What does she have?” He gives Jeff an extra scoop and leans back in his chair for the story.

There’s a clatter at the other end of the apartment. Socks pad over wood. Before Katie is halfway to the kitchen she’s talking.

“Daddy and Benny, I’m itchy.”

Katie helps herself to a seat at the table. She wears pajamas with carrots on them. Where she’s scratched too often, her peach flesh glows through the threads.

This is the first time Benny has lived with a child. Not even as a child did he live with another child. But a year ago he defaulted on rent once too often, and Jeff convinced him to move into his high-ceilinged apartment in Brooklyn Heights, between the elevated expressway and the river. They’d been dating for a year. This was before Benny started recovery, so he was furtive and remorseless. He took the chance at free rent and didn’t look back.

“Honey, it’s good you’ve come to the table,” Jeff says. “Because we need to chat.”

“I like chatting,” Katie says. She sets her chin down on her folded hands. Her eyelids droop. A kid so young shouldn’t have cause to look so tired.

“I think I know what’s going on with your itching.”

Katie’s eyes turn vague. She’s already zoning out.

“I’m thinking we have a case of bedbugs,” says Jeff.

“Like don’t let the bedbugs bite?” Katie asks.

“Unfortunately, they have. I’ve called the bug killers, though, and everything’s going to be fine. So I don’t want you to worry about it for one second.”

Adults are not supposed to betray open terror in front of children, so Benny holds his face in a grimace of compromise. Katie sneaks a cherry tomato. She nips one end, and gel spits out the other. She gnaws the empty hide, considering.

“Okay,” she says. “That’s kinda weird.”

“This is actually bad, you realize,” Benny says, later that night, as he pulls back their creamy duvet. The mattress is tall and puffy, over-soft and button-free, and they refer to it as Bed Island. “I have friends who were infested. You’re going to lose all your stuff. We’ll have to microwave the books. The house will be full of toxins. And even then, the bugs won’t go away. They never do.”

“Don’t worry,” Jeff says.

“No, seriously. Do you know how they reproduce?”

“No, and I don’t need to.”

“Traumatic insemination.”

“Wonderful.”

“Listen. The females don’t have orifices. The male stabs the female anywhere he feels like. She’s covered with bleeding holes and fleeing from him. That’s why they spread so fast. There’s probably a herd of woman bugs fleeing to Bed Island as we speak. Victims of sex crimes. Looking to drown their worries with the sweet taste of blood.”

“Benny,” Jeff says. “Enough. We’ll sort it out.”

Jeff pats Benny on the back like a coach and goes to sleep.

Benny doesn’t sleep. He watches Jeff, whose face is so slack that his mouth loops open in the corners. Maybe since the period of sleep is so defined for Jeff, he can embrace it gratefully. Benny knows he can stay in bed as long as he wants in the mornings, that Jeff will feed and water Katie, revise her wardrobe, and walk her to Saint Ann’s en route to the subway. Benny has the article to write but it’s really just a short piece; he could finish in an hour. But then he’d have nothing.

Full story included in Issue 22 of the Idaho Review.