The Rainbow Room

[Cerise]

The Rainbow Room

 

In the end we decided to make the room a skyscape. Mandy had been pushing clowns at me for months (which she called “cute” and I called “creepy) and my mother-in-law, Gina, had voted for sailboats. I still think that the toy soldiers were the best of the lot, but Mandy put her foot down on that subject.

 

“No son of mine is going to go to sleep looking at representations of people who kill each other for a living,” she said.

 

I told her I’d be getting him a bb gun for his eleventh birthday, just to piss her off, and she smacked me with her edition of “What Every Mother Should Know” which was hardcover and hurt a damn bit.

 

But we all agreed about the rainbow wallpaper, with its pastel blue background and brilliantly coloured arcing stripes that would thrust out of one fluffy cloud only to plunge back down into another fluffy cloud. Rainbows were just ambiguous enough that it would turn out alright, even if we were wrong about the sex of the child. Mandy had assured me that it would be a boy (she had done the ‘wedding ring suspended from cotton thread’ test with her girlfriends) but I wanted all bases to be covered, just in case.

 

“It’s so cheerful,” she said, watching from her chair next to the fan as I was gluing the upside-down multicoloured smiles into place. Her stomach was enormous at this point, stretching out the cotton of her t-shirt. The skin underneath, I knew, was firm and tautly stretched as well, like a drum skin. At night I would place my palm over the bulge and feel the percussion concerto inside.

 

“That’s because it’s a promise,” I said. “A promise from the Bible, yeah? After the flood, God sends a rainbow as a message to Noah that he won’t fuck up the world on such a massive scale no more. You see?”

 

She nodded, watching as I twitched the last strip of wallpaper into place.

 

“That’s my promise to him,” I said. “That I’m not going to fuck up his life the way my father did.”

 

“Jake,” she said, in that tone that makes my throat tighten. She motioned for me to come over so she could stroke my back, which is what we did instead of hugs, seeing as how none of our arms would quite reach around each other with Mandy’s stomach in the way. She made humming sounds while she traced lines over my shoulders and when she smiled I could hear it in her voice.

 

“We’ll just have to name him Noah then,” she said.

 

“Noah Xavier?”

 

She made a face at me. “I thought we agreed, no relatives’ names.”

 

“Noah Ulysses?”

 

“Now you’re just being silly. What about Oliver?”

 

“You know I hate my middle name.”

 

We looked at the new wallpaper for a while, silently. I could tell she was thinking hard because her hands had stopped their stroking and had moved onto tapping. Just when I thought her nails were going to drill into my skin she said, “I’ve got it. Noah James.”

 

“Noah James,” I repeated, liking the sounds. “Noah James Bertram. He sounds like a lawyer.”

 

“A doctor,” Mandy countered. “The best surgeon in the world.”

 

“Don’t you think that’s a bit ambitious? He’s not even born yet.”

 

“Alright,” she amended, “best surgeon in North America.”

 

And we laughed together and watched the rainbows.

 

Three days later I was back in the nursery, trying to assemble a crib with only a screwdriver and a set of instructions in Swedish. Gina had taken Mandy out to fulfill a craving for fresh watermelon and the search was taking a while, probably because of the fact that it was February. Noah James was due in two weeks, which meant that I would have to get this damned bed assembled before then. And preferably today, while Mandy was gone, so she wouldn’t have to hear me swear at all things Swedish.

 

“What Every Mother Should Know” had insisted that at eight months the fetus could hear things from outside the womb, so I had been forbidden from using “foul language” where little Noah could supposedly hear.

 

The crib was still in about fifty pieces when the call came. I had my cell phone out in an instant, prepared to hear that Noah was an impatient little brat and that I should get my ass to the hospital immediately. Except only half that message was true.

 

“Jake,” Gina sobbed, her voice sounding tinny and far-away, as if the reception wasn’t that good where she was calling from. “Jake, you’ve got to come now. There’s been an accident.”

 

And I sat on the floor while she told me about icy patches and guard rails and Mandy, who couldn’t fit a seat belt over her girth comfortably, smashing through the windshield.

 

“They tried to save the baby,” Gina was saying, “But it’s gone Jake.”

 

I dropped the phone and pressed my palms down on my eyes, watching the bursts of colour explode behind my eyelids. You promised, I wanted to scream, you promised me.

 

When the coroner’s report comes in a few days later, I found out that we wouldn’t have been able to call him Noah James after all. They sent me a form to fill out and a mould with a tiny footprint and handprint on it. Tiny girl fingers. Tiny girl toes. On the form I print Norah Jane Bertram in capital letters. We had never discussed girls’ names, but I knew Mandy would have loved it.

 

Names are important. Names are an oath that can’t be broken. Norah Jane Bertram…just one letter more…

 

End.

 

 

Here Fwee, can you figure out the riddle in this one?

[pandora]

Wow. Did you write that? I am very fond of it.

[Fweethawt]

Wow.  Did you write that? I am very fond of it.

 

Everything that she posts is hers.

 

In the rare case that it is someone elses work, she'll specify.

 

 

=========================================

Cerise,

 

Sorry dear, but I don't even so much as see the riddle.

 

 

 

I've read this whole thing about three times now too!

[Cerise]

Names are important...especially initials.

 

*hint hint*

[Fweethawt]

Names are important...especially initials.

 

*hint hint*

 

Names are important. Names are an oath that can’t be broken. Norah Jane Bertram…just one letter more…

 

N J B ??

 

 

 

 

I think you're just messin' with me.

 

[Cerise]

Try the initials of the narrator. It'll take a tiny bit of detective work but...

[Fweethawt]

Wait!

 

Wait!

 

Don't say anything.

 

I'm going to look at something else in the story...

 

Hold on.

[Fweethawt]

Try the initials of the narrator.  It'll take a tiny bit of detective work but...

 

J O B ?

 

Jake Oliver Bertram?

 

 

Someone betrayed by God? Job?

[Fweethawt]

.....

[Cerise]

hmmm...

 

[Fweethawt]

hmmm...

 

 

Don't give me a "hmmm...", and a " "!

 

Did I get it?

 

 

 

 

 

[Cerise]

If you didn't get it, I would have given you a "hmmm" and a instead.

 

[Fweethawt]

If you didn't get it, I would have given you a "hmmm" and a  instead.

 

 

 

I guess I'll have to keep that little code of yours in mind if there ever comes another time that you attempt to shred my gray-matter with one of your little "riddles".

 

 

 

I never would have figured it out without your help and hints though.

 

 

[chefranden]

All your stuff has riddles? I'm not good at riddles.