Out of Time

Chapter Six

77 Chapter Six In the dark before morning the baby is crying. Odd corners of the house are lit with the orange glow of nightlights, fluorescent clocks, the switches on power strips. He drifts, unmoored, down the hall to the baby’s room. Sleeplessness has imbued his world with a surreal shiver. He picks the baby up from her crib, and she clutches him. She is about to cut another tooth, and has been waking up at five in the morning for the last week. He carries her back to his wife, who takes her, and frees a breast, and begins her early morning feeding. It is a Wednesday. He has three composition classes to teach, and sixty papers to grade by Friday. He falls asleep for a brief second, standing. Instead of bed, instead of his papers, instead of the baby, he goes to his study, sits down, picks up a pencil. Soon the dog will whine to go out. He doesn’t have long. The house is a sentence away from settling into day. ...