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The Secret Lives of London Detectives
Jessica’s class was going to a petting zoo. Emily was taking the morning off to be one of the adults on the field trip. Squeezing past him in the hall, she put a camera in Judah’s hand, saying, “Here.”
Having removed her from her bath, Judah Zukor had his daughter Amy in his arms, swaddled in a towel. He could smell from her hair that he’d missed some shampoo, should have rinsed her head again.
He had to look past his daughter’s little rump to see what he’d been given. Her head was tucked in to the hollow of his shoulder. The child was going back to sleep. “Come on, Puppet, none of that.
We’ve got to get moving. What’s this?”
Emily answered, “What does it look like, Judah. A camera.”
“What’s wrong, doesn’t it work?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
It was one of those fool-proof numbers that wound its own film, focused itself. Still, where in the hell did you open the thing? Where did you put the batteries? “What do you mean you wouldn’t know?
It’s your camera, Emily, not mine.”
“I’ve forgotten how it works. I need to make sure that it works.
Okay?” Emily had this way of letting him know she needed more from Judah than he was providing. You. You and your intermittent father act. She did this same thing in bed if he reached over to touch her. What I need from you Judah is help, not a roll in the clover. I’ve never been more stressed, Judah. I’m dying here, or haven’t you noticed?
Judah was half-dressed and late to get started. Amy slumped over like a rag doll when he propped her up in her bed, the lower berth of a shaky wooden bunk. He got down on his knees and began foraging through her drawer of under things. The carpet was cheap, more nylon than wool, and the nap burned his skin. Searching for her stuffed bunny beneath the piles of clothes and toys that were strewn about the floor, Jessica slid beneath him as if he were a bridge. “Help me get your sister dressed, Jess,” he said. “I’m looking for bunny,” she protested.
“You can’t take bunny to school anymore, remember? They won’t let you. You’re too big.”
“Then I’m not going. I’m staying home. Help me look, Daddy.”
“Where did you last see bunny, Puppet? Try to think. Did you have bunny with you while you were eating your breakfast?”
“I haven’t had my breakfast yet. Amy didn’t do her homework.”
For no reason he could determine, Amy, waking now, began to whimper. He thought perhaps she had hit her head or otherwise injured herself but she hadn’t. Increasingly, they had to look to Jessica to serve as an intermediary.
“Amy doesn’t have homework.”
“Amy does too have homework, Daddy. She brings a book home from class every day. She has to be read a story, then you have to sign a paper.”
“When did this start?”
“It’s in her knapsack, just see if it’s not. She’ll need money today for a tea as well.”
A phone rang in the distance. Dishes piled high in the sink toppled over as Emily answered the call. She turned on the tap. He heard her speaking into the receiver as she answered as well the chime of the microwave: something, waffles if the girls were lucky. He heard her open the microwave door, reset the timer, give the dish a little longer.
“You’re going to need your shoes and stockings as well.”
“NO. Not until I find bunny.”
Jessica had dressed herself. He could see what she had done. She had put the dress on backwards so that the buttons up the back were in front, making it easier to work them. Two ends of an untied cinch now trailed the floor behind her. He heard Emily’s footfalls returning toward their end of the house, heard her stop at the tub and release Amy’s bathwater. Heard her put the rubber bottle of children’s shampoo back where it belonged. She was carrying Amy’s night dress in her hand when she came into the room. She had rinsed it out in the bathwater, apparently. She seemed to be wringing the neck of a Disney character that was stenciled on its front. “It’s for you,” said Emily.
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