Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman

pearls, their color changed to a pale oyster yellow in the first days of her pregnancy, when she was so anxious about being found out that she couldn't eat or sleep.
    As for John Moody, he had no reason to doubt her; he believed the child they were about to have was his. When Arlie stopped worrying, the pearls then became a pure Egyptian white. All the same, it was a difficult pregnancy. Arlyn was often sick to her stomach, tired, on the brink of tears. But in her ninth month, she became less haggard, robust almost, and the pearls blushed faintly.
    Pink as the inside of an ear, pink as winter light. It was January, a harsh, frozen season, but Arlyn's presence was now so warm she seemed to heat whatever room she entered. Her hair turned darker, a deep blood red. The freckles she hated faded into nothingness. People in the shops in town stopped to tell her she looked radiant; she laughed and thanked them.
    Shouldn't she be guilt-ridden over what she had done? Well, she wasn't. She surprised herself with the way she felt. At night when John was asleep, Arlyn sat beside the windows to watch snow drift down and she thought, I am happy.
    It was a moment made of glass, this happiness; it was the easiest thing in the world to break. Every minute was a world, every hour a universe. Arlie tried to slow her breathing, thinking it might slow time, but she knew they were all hurtling forward no matter what.
    At night she read stories to Sam. She lay down beside him in his bed and felt his body next to her, the shape of his hipbone, his leg, his wiggly little feet. He smelled like glue and loyalty. By now Arlyn knew he wasn't like other children. There were more problems at school — he wouldn't listen, wouldn't behave; he often seemed to be in his own world, disconnected, missing homework assignments, ignoring party invitations. There were no friends who came to play. No after-school sports. No positive teacher's reports. All the same, at night when Arlie read to him, Sam was happy as well. They both were. The squirrel had indeed lived, and had been named William. He was now at home in the closet, nesting among a mess of torn-up newspapers and rags and peanut shells, tearing up the Sheet-rock, chomping on the wooden floor, coming out to play in the afternoons after school.
    William was their shared secret — John Moody had no idea the squirrel existed. That was how little he knew of their domestic life.
    Why, his wife and son could have had a tiger in a cage, a fox in the basement, a bald eagle nesting beside the washing machine and John would have been none the wiser. Arlyn could not remember the last time John had come into the child's bedroom to say good night, or the last time he had spoken to her other than to ask where his briefcase was or if she might fix him some breakfast. As for the pregnancy, it seemed to mean no more than that day's weather, a fact of their life, neither good nor bad, joyful nor regrettable.
    John was busy, far too busy for the likes of them, fools who wasted their time on squirrels and books and happiness. He was at work on a huge project in Cleveland — a tower of glass, thirty stories, bigger and better than the Glass Slipper or any of his father's other buildings. John spent most of the week in Ohio, exhausted when he flew back for the weekend, wanting only peace and quiet.
    "He'll come around," Arlyn's mother-in-law told her when she phoned. "The Moody men are better fathers to teenagers than they are to small children."
    Arlyn laughed and said, "You always defend him."
    "Wouldn't you do the same?" Diana asked.
    "Absolutely."
    Of course Arlyn would defend her own child no matter what.
    This was most likely the reason Diana had liked her daughter-in-law from the moment they met, when Arlie had knocked on the back door, an uninvited girl of seventeen. Arlyn might look placid, but there was a fierceness there, one Diana appreciated.
    "How is my brilliant grandson?" Diana always asked when they