Nell by Nancy Thayer Page B

asleep. Again she had settled nothing, had reached no conclusion about the meaning of her life. Who was she? Would she ever be able to use her acting talent again, or was that part of her life lost to her forever? Would any man ever really love her? Would she ever really love any man? Would she have to sell this house? Could she repair those damn steps by herself? She had not found the answers to those questions tonight. But the Panic Night feeling had abated. She was now more tired than scared. She somehow at least had made enough peace with herself so that she could sleep. She would rest in the midst of her confusion and loneliness, like a bird managing to sleep on the most sheltering branch of a wind-tossed tree.

Three
    Sunday evening Nell locked herself in her bathroom. She had a date that night, and she wanted one half-hour of uninterrupted solitude in which to get ready. She had settled Hannah and Jeremy in front of the TV with a pizza, milk, and a giant sack of fresh peas in the pod, which the children would crack open and eat like peanuts from a shell. She had asked Jeremy to answer the phone if it rang and threatened them both with death or worse if they got into an argument loud enough to reach her ears. Then she gathered up her paraphernalia and locked herself in the bathroom.
    Actually, the lock was a joke. Years ago, when Jeremy was three and Hannah one, Jeremy had managed to lock himself in the bathroom by turning the key in the old-fashioned brass lock. He shut the door, turned the key, took it out, then could not figure how to put it back in.
    “Be a brave boy and don’t worry,” Nell had called to him through the door after fifteen minutes of attempting in vain to instruct him in the art of inserting keys into locks. “I’ll call Mr. Milton and ask him to come over and open the door. You just sit down and wait, honey.”
    Even at three, Jeremy was a resourceful child. “Okay, Mommy,” he said cheerfully. “I can play with my bath toys while I’m in here. And if I get hungry, there’s lots of candy in here to eat.”
    Nell’s hair had nearly stood on end. “Jeremy! Jeremy, no . You must not eat anything that’s in the bathroom.”
    “But, Mommy, I can see some candy in a bottle—”
    “Jeremy!” Nell screamed. “ No! That is medicine . That is not candy! Don’t eat it or you’ll get very sick! ”
    Jeremy was quiet for a while. “Well,” he said, “can I drink the pretty red stuff? You gave it to me when I had a cold. You said it made me well . I could—”
    “ No , Jeremy,” Nell said. “That red stuff is medicine, too. Don’t drink it. It only works if you’re sick, and you’re not sick now, and if you drink it you’ll be very sick.Honey, be a nice boy for Mommy and promise you won’t eat or drink anything. I’ll get Mr. Milton over here right away. And if you promise not to eat or drink anything, I’ll—I’ll take you out and buy you a big ice cream cone.”
    Jeremy was silent again. Nell waited, leaning against the locked bathroom door. The silence grew more ominous. Nell knew that Jeremy was in there weighing the power he had now to disobey his mother while she couldn’t get her hands on him against the wrath he knew would fall if he did disobey and she finally got through the door.
    “Jeremy?” Nell said, her voice threatening.
    “I won’t eat anything,” Jeremy said at last.
    And he hadn’t. But Nell had been unable to reach the handyman, and it had been almost two hours before Nell found a friend with a skeleton key who managed to get the door open. By then both Nell and Jeremy were nearly hysterical. Nell had thrown the key in a river, as glad to see it sink as if it were a gun. Then the children had been so little and so connected to her that she could not envision a time when she could lock any door against them. For years she took baths, brushed her teeth, and put on her makeup with them crawling or toddling or rushing in to ask her a question or show her