Brian Bahr
A Confidential Light
She returned almost immediately and entered the bathroom without knocking. Standing at the sink, his hands gripped the cold porcelain and his head hung between his arms so that his dangling hair almost touched the sink.
“You can use your father’s electric razor for now and he’ll pick up one for you on his way home from work,” his mother said.
He stared for a long time, peeking out from under his hair, at her outstretched hand, at the little stars in the skin around each of her pores, at the fine blonde hairs that could only be seen in a confidential light, “I don’t need to shave today.”
“Then why’d you make a stink,” she said as she shut the door.
The door opened immediately after it had shut, as if it had bounced, and his sister spiraled in. She fluttered her hands and weaved her legs in an intricate but brief dance sequence and then stopped with her body in a primly awkward position behind him, staring at her brother who stood at the sink in his underpants.
“You have lots of moles on your back,” she said and re-coiled out of the bathroom, leaving the door on its hinge.
He could hear them out in the hallway: his mother telling his sister that she needed to hurry or she would miss her bus: telling her that she needed to hurry because she was not going to get another ride to school this week: telling her to go say goodbye to her brother.
“You’re so lucky,” his sister said, appearing in the doorway, “you get to stay home from school with mommy this week.”
Then she twirled away, but came back when her mother told her to hug her brother. He felt her warm cheek against his skin and the softness of her hair before she
disappeared once again.
As he listened to her thunder down the stairs, he stared down at the skin on the back of his hand. Each of the countless pores that tunneled beneath the skin were connected by nearly imperceptible grooves that disappeared as the skin stretched, but they traced a path through every pore across his entire hand.
“You know, your sister would really like you to go to her ballet recital tonight,” his mother called from the hallway. “She’s been practicing all year.”
“She doesn’t care if I come.”
“You can’t stay home alone, and you’re father’s going, because he’s worked hard all day and he needs a break—”
“A break from what?”
“—and I’d really like to go see your sister’s new numbers, but I’ll go wherever you go. But you know you can’t stay home alone.”
He stared down at a raised mole that tautened the wrinkles between pores, while remaining hunched over the sink, the straining muscles between the wings of his shoulder blades bunched as if in protection, and then he gazed up through his hair at the shelf next to the mirror—which now stood nearly empty—gazed at the spaces between the shaving cream and deodorant and toothpaste and nailclippers: even the mouthwash was gone. His shoulders finally sagged, but his bearing did not change as he lowered his eyes back to his hand and stared at the mole: a raised bump but also a smooth indiscretion interrupting the field of starlines and pores.
“Could you get ready a little faster? I need to go to the store today, so I’m sorry but I have to bring you along,” his mother said; then from farther down the hallway she
called back to him, “And your breakfast’s getting cold.”