That was the night he felt worthy of it.
C, c
From the Semitic gimel (c), “sling” or “throwing stick.” Hence, the three great achievements of the Early Bronze Age, as represented by the first three letters of the alphabet, were domestication of animals, man-made shelter, and warfare.
calque: A word formed by translation from another language. Typically, English adopts words wholesale, as in “déjà vu,” “amuck,” or “kindergarten,” but makes calques of particularly picturesque or apropos phrases, as in “losing face” from the Mandarin diu liãn, or “scapegoat,” possibly a mistranslation of azazel, a demon of Hebrew mythology, for 'ez ozel, “goat that escapes,” i.e., [e]scapegoat.
Christ: From the Greek khristos, “anointed,” akin to the Sanskrit gharsati, “to grind oil from seeds,” from the Proto Indo-European, ghri-, “to grind,” whence also grind, grist, and grits.
cliché: I will forgo the comical catalog of clichés a lesser lexicographer would mistakenly think witty and original. French printers called a ready-made phrase cast as a single piece of type cliché, onomatopoeia for the liquid slap and hiss of a hot letter mold dropping into cold water.
cuckold: A derisive term for a wronged man, from cuckoo, a bird famed for laying eggs in other birds’ nests, from the Middle English cukeweld or cukewold, from the Latin cuculous, and thence from the Greek koukos.
When Mary picked up Bone from the hospital, she quizzed the staff, getting nothing but good news, which is always strangely dissatisfying. The Etch-a-Sketch of Bone’s heart had risen and fallen all night with perfect regularity, his vital signs as vital as ever, his blood pressure neither too high nor too low, his urine all that good urine should be, if not more. Bone’s bill of health was a clean one.
“I think we ought to cancel the appointment with the neurologist,” Bone said as they drove home. “I know it was scary, but I think I just freaked out for a while there. I’ve been under a lot of stress, and I just freaked out.”
“What’s stressing you?”
Bone might have responded he was worried she had something going with Cash Hudson but said instead, “Just the usual. My editor’s losing patience waiting for me to finish Words. And of course, my dissertation committee’s breathing down my neck.”
Mary said nothing for a time. He put his hand on her knee, but she ignored it. “You still need to keep the appointment,” she said.
Bone couldn’t have said what he expected of his homecoming, but it wasn’t what he got. It wasn’t as if he thought there’d be a banner reading “Welcome Home.” That would have been ridiculous. Still, it felt odd that everything was exactly the same as it had been before. Instead of a ritual to smooth the transition, he and Mary did as always: Bone sat on the couch and read The Journal of Etymology, and Mary talked on the phone to her friends. They watched TV without speaking. It felt strange acting as if nothing were strange, but at least there was a bright spot about gliding back into the familiar routine: Saturday night in the King household was the customary night for sex.
At bedtime, Bone sat on top of the covers, stripped to his boxer shorts, a singsong going through his head: tonight, tonight, tonight, going to make love tonight. He’d taken care not to disarrange the covers because he wanted to share sliding into a fresh bed with her—like breaking the crust of crème brûlée—pushing their feet down through cool, tight sheets as their arms and bodies sought each other out.
Mary, in the bathroom, was brushing her teeth with astonishing thoroughness, it seemed to Bone. After a while, feeling foolish and self-conscious, he pulled back the covers and got in. So much for his and Mary’s getting into bed at the same time. He lay on his side in a roguish pose, head in hand, elbow sunk in the pillow. Toilet flush. Mary came in the bedroom but immediately left.
“What is it?”
“Forgot to set up the coffee maker.”
Bone’s wrist was going numb. He rolled on his back, hands folded across his chest. Tonight, tonight, tonight. Then she was in the bedroom. She took off her skimpy flower-print robe and got in bed. Her summer nightgown was little more than a slip. Tonight, tonight, tonight. Bone reached for her but only knuckled an elbow. Now she was trimming her toenails. She propped against the pillow and opened her murder mystery. Bone kissed her bare shoulder.
“It’s Saturday night,” Bone reminded her hopefully. This was not turning out quite the magical evening he’d imagined.
“You just got back from the hospital.”
“So?” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I don’t work that way. I can’t just turn it off and on.” She stared at him. “Are you going to sulk about this?”
“Aren’t you glad to have me home?”
“All right,” she said. She bookmarked her place, set her mystery on the nightstand, and turned off the light. Her legs were wonderfully cool and smooth. She held his face in her hands and gave him a businesslike kiss.
They weren’t exactly setting the night on fire, but even bad sex is better than no sex at all. He kicked his briefs out from under the covers, then turned to kiss her again. But now the angle was wrong; their mouths didn’t seal, and a little drool dripped onto the pillow. Putting a hand on either side of her head, he lowered to her mouth in a push-up. The angle was better, but now there was something under his hand.
“Move,” Mary said.
“What?”
“Move. You’re on my arm.”
Bone got out of bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to pee,” Bone said. “Back in a second.” Down the hall in the bathroom, Bone peed and flushed. As he washed up, Bone looked in the mirror and reflected. When had their sex life turned into this dreary cycle of anticipation and letdown? There’d been a time, and not long ago, when adjectives such as “spontaneous” or “joyous” could fairly be applied to their lovemaking, or at the very least “mutual.” Mary enjoyed sex, Bone supposed, but she didn’t believe in it, its power to heal, to make whole, to justify the shabby round of existence. He wondered how he and Mary had allowed themselves to turn into these people. Could they ever turn back?
Bone cut off the water and walked down the hallway to the bedroom door.
But that was as far as he got.
Go on in. How do you go on in? Tell yourself to move. How do you tell yourself to move?
His immobility had struck again.
Mary said, “What are you doing?”
“I can’t move,” Bone said. “Oh, God, it’s happening again. I can’t move.”
Mary got out of bed. “I’ll get Cash.”
He cursed her, which shocked them both, and instantly felt ashamed and said more mildly, “Please, God, no, why do you have to bring him into it?” He saw her mind was made up, and said, “If you have to bring Cash into it, at least put something
