Eight Minutes by Lori Reisenbichler

“Are you okay?”
    “They think I’m nuts.” I shake my drink and take another sip. It’s awful once it gets warm.
    Wendy says, “You know, I just read a memoir by a California woman whose daughter had a mean imaginary friend. The little girl kept hitting the mom and then crying, saying her imaginary friend made her do it. The mom ended up taking the girl to some South American country where everyone assumed she had a demon that needed to be driven out. She went to a shaman or something who told her to do this ceremony . . . or was it a ritual?”
    She smiles at my puzzled expression.
    “My point is this: I bet all her friends thought she was crazy, too.”
    Crazy or not, when I get home, I go straight to my list and add this:
Toby knows Kay is John Robberson’s wife.
Toby’s temper tantrums are more frequent and intense, which means his resistance to seeing Kay is getting stronger.
    I ponder that last entry awhile, my stomach churning the whole time, before I add one more:
John Robberson is pressuring Toby.
    The worst part about this list is that I can’t even show it to Eric. I’m embarrassed about my bout of verbal diarrhea this afternoon. Pauline shouldn’t know more than my own husband. I need to sit him down and tell him everything.
    At dinner that night, I try. I start by describing the temper tantrum at the store, but he doesn’t want to hear about the explanation. He just looks over at Toby and tells him not to do that again. He actually tells our three-year-old that temper tantrums are a sign of weakness.
    Weakness? Are you kidding me?
    I’m sorry to say I swallow that metallic taste in my mouth and take the bait. We argue about that one, late into the night. And one more day goes by, and he doesn’t know the truth.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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    JUST A GAME
    T he very next night, I’m determined to tell Eric everything. But when he gets home from work, he goes directly to the liquor cabinet and makes himself a Jack and Coke. He sits down on the living-room floor with Toby, the two of them entirely focused on the airplane bucket.
    “How was your day?” I call from the kitchen.
    No answer.
    I step toward the living room and watch as Toby pulls out the metal F-105. He shows it to Eric, holding his palm out flat like it’s the floor of a hangar.
    Eric says, “You know, when I was a fighter pilot, there was this one time . . .” and he takes the plane away from Toby. Before Toby objects, Eric says, in an animated tone, “I was flying low, following the river.” He uses the plane to take a low swoop over the carpet, in a serpentine motion. Toby claps his hands.
    I can’t believe it. A week after the fact and he’s resurrecting his party spiel—with Toby this time.
    He keeps going, telling the same story about the Dragon’s Jaw, dodging enemy fire, the bomb getting stuck—only at the end, he says, “Is that how you did it?”
    Toby, smiling, takes the plane from him, evidently understanding the game without Eric having to explain it. “Fly wight over the bwidge, and . . . awww. Stuck.”
    “That’s right! The bomb didn’t release.” Eric takes the toy plane back. “I didn’t realize it until I tried to pull out. How about you? What do you have to do then?”
    I stand stock-still in the kitchen. I don’t know which bothers me more—the fact that he’s doing this or what he’s saying. That fight I didn’t pick after the party? It’s coming to him.
    “You have to woll out, with the bomb,” Toby says. “You have to be bwave. Like John Wahbuhson.”
    “That’s right. I was brave, and I rolled out, but you have to do it on the side that has the weight. But you knew that, right?”
    “Awound and awound.”
    I can hear Toby get up, and when I step into the living room, I see him spin with the toy plane in his hand; Thud the airplane flying around Thud the dog.
    “And then what?”
    Toby looks closely at Eric, then answers, “The smoke whooshed,” and he sticks his arms in front of