Saving Elijah

children was very sick, Zandra. He's all right now, but I had to take the leave of absence. I'm really sorry. It just couldn't be helped."
    She seemed puzzled for a moment, then said, "It seems so weird that I come in here and tell you everything about myself and I know nothing about you. I didn't even know you had children."
    I nodded. "Yes. I do."
    "Well, I'm glad he's okay," she said. "How old is he?"
    I folded my hands on my lap. "He's five. But I really don't feel it's a good idea to tell my patients a whole lot about myself, Zandra. It can interfere with what we're doing together. I also really don't feel it's right to talk about myself or my son on your nickel."
    She sighed. "I suppose not."
    "You were saying you were angry that I wasn't there for you, weren't you? Can you tell me more about that? What happens when you get angry?"
    She described tightening feelings in her stomach and throat, then started to cry, and we spent the rest of the session talking about when she first felt that way.
    It felt right and good to be back at work. What had happened to me during those unutterable weeks had been a kind of madness, a fugue state or a psychosis of some type. Temporary, and now over.

    *    *    *

    The last week in February, a massive nor'easter swept into a region already suffering through the worst winter anyone could remember. That morning, after I got the kids off to school, the snow began with a few flakes that steadily progressed into another blizzard, piling yet more new snow on top of old. I was working on the essay with which I would reintroduce my column. I was going to call it "Film Noir Housewife":
    If I could be anyone in the world, I'd want to be one of those blond film noir women. Lauren Bacall, in To Have and Have Not. Veronica Lake in anything. I'd even settle for the more recent crop of film noir stars, like Kathleen Turner, in Body Heat. I admit I sometimes dream about this at night. There are no children in these dreams, no homework, no hemorrhoids, no husbands. There are only dark men involved in shady deals whose lips tighten with lust when they look at my blond hair, which dips seductively over one half-closed eye, or hear my voice, which is three octaves lower than possible for female Homo sapiens. I wear a khaki trench coat sashed over a body men would die or kill for. I am dangerous and I always carry my piece in my trench coat pocket. I wake up, alas, and realize I have to pick up dinner. Much to my surprise, my local Stop & Shop is filled with dangerous blondes. Dangerous blondes everywhere, squeezing cantaloupes, testing tomatoes, drawing their pieces on the butcher: "Hey, I want my meat prime!"
    Satisfied with the first two hundred words, I turned on the radio to see if the schools were shutting down early. They were. Again. I decided to pick up Elijah early enough so I could observe him in class. The roads were a slippery mess already. Once I got there I stood in the corridor with another mother looking in through the window. The runoff from snow melting on our coats and boots made two widening puddles on the floor.
    "What's the latest?" I said. "One foot or two?"
    "Two, I think." She smiled. Late twenties. She was pretty, but she had that look so many mothers of special-needs children have. Overwhelmed and exhausted.
    "Which one's yours?" the young mother asked. Then, when I pointed him out, "Oh, he's adorable."
    Elijah was staring at an oversized book on marine life Miss Stanakowski was holding up to the class. She had the book resting on her pregnant stomach, which had grown a lot bigger in the six-week absence. Page after page filled with incredible color photographs of sea plants, coral, brilliantly colored fish, lobsters, dolphins.
    "Whale," she said, pointing to a picture of a whale.
    Some of the children repeated, "Whale." Some couldn't speak, some couldn't pay attention. Elijah? He seemed too enthralled to say anything.
    "Which one's yours?" I asked the young mother.
    "Frederick." She pointed. "He's sitting right next to Elijah."
    I looked at the little boy on the floor with Elijah. He seemed to have some sort of palsy. His head lolled to one side, his mouth drooped.
    I tried to keep my voice steady. "How's he doing?"
    "Okay." She hesitated. "I heard Elijah was in the hospital. Is he better now?"
    "He seems to be doing fine. And Frederick?" He'd been in the hospital just about eight months ago, I'd heard. Some of these kids went to the hospital like other kids went