After Birth (8 page)

They had made us a salad and a bowl of overcooked greens (
for the vegetarians!
) as though it were a proud meal to offer a post-op nursing mother. Of course they added turkey juice to the stuffing, so I ate the bread and salad and over-sautéed greens and this awful pie one of Sheryl’s sons brought from FoodLand. You would not believe the crap Sheryl’s greasy sons and their wives call food. The waxy, genetically engineered fruits, the processed shit, the corn syrup dextrose canola preservative crap they call food. That they’re not all dead is testimony to general good genes, I guess.

I mostly sat on the couch and nursed, as one nurses and nurses and nurses a newborn. Paul brought me a plate, kept asking if I was okay. At one point Sheryl tried to drape a blanket over me.

Later one of Sheryl’s grandkids came over and stood right next to me. She was about six, watching with great interest.

What’s he doing?
she whispered, peering intently at the baby’s tiny working mouth.

He’s drinking milk
, I whispered back. There was still time for her. She stood stock-still for another moment, then ran over to her mother.

THAT BABY’S DRINKING MILK FROM HER BOOBIE
, she stage-whispered, eyes wide. The room burst into laughter.

Yeah
, her mother whined in that hellish fake voice people use to bullshit to their kids,
you didn’t do that, did you, Hayden?

Hayden said she guessed not.

My next visitor over on the couch was Erica. Walker had fallen asleep and released my swollen, still-wet nipple, which I hadn’t yet bothered to put away. The face Erica made, you’d think she was looking at a steaming fresh defecation. I pulled the cloth diaper out from under my shirt, where it had been stemming the leak from my other boob, and hooked the nursing bra all up again without waking the sleeping kid, proud of myself for having recently mastered this kick-ass series of moves. As proud as I’ve ever been of anything, come right down to it.

Erica sat there with that face like she was about to puke, or masturbate, or both. She was blind to the baby—the endlessly fascinating curve of his forehead, his astonishingly perfect nostrils and fingernails and eyelashes. Holding him in your arms reframed all things. How painfully obvious it was that men, with their secret societies and weapons stockpiles, could know little of life. Elsewhere in the room were heated discussions about football and politics and a new sci-fi movie whose effects were, according to one of Sheryl’s sons,
off the hook
.

So
, Erica said.
Listen. I wanted to talk to you about the wedding?

Uh-huh
, I said. Cipriani, February. Winter Wonderland. She’d been starving herself for the better part of a year. I was supposed to be a bridesmaid, wear a lavender gown. I intended to drink some moderate amount of alcohol for the first time in a long while. This moderate amount was going to get me Super Fucked Up. I was looking forward to it.

Yeah
,
so, Steve and I really feel that it’s
our
day, you know?

Sure.

I mean, what I actually mean is that it’s my day, really. It’s my day.

Christ. How estranged from yourself, how juvenile and spastic do you have to be to cling to that kind of idea? Like a kid with a behavioral disorder.

And here’s the thing
. She had rehearsed this. “The Thing.” Up it came from the entitlement swamp, covered in reeds, wearing a muddy veil and clutching an enormous bouquet.
So many of our friends have kids. And even though we love kids and love our friends’ kids and wish we could include everyone, we’ve decided we can’t have everyone’s kids, and it’s not fair to make any exceptions, so I just wanted to let you know that we’re not going to be having kids at the wedding
. She had definitely rehearsed it; she recited it without pause.
And I just feel that having kids there would just, like, take the focus off me. So!
She took a closing breath, exhaled it noisily.

Erica. I’m nursing. He’s a newborn.

She set her jaw, ready to rumble.

We declined to stay the night. On the drive home the baby bawled in the back while I bawled in the front.

I’m really not sure who I should try and comfort first
, Paul said.

Fuck you
, I said, because he was the only person available.

We pulled in to a rest stop in Ulster County, devoured the most disgusting/amazing heat-lamped pizza ever.

Something’s crossed over in me, and I can’t go back. (That was Thelma in
Thelma and Louise
.)

Hey, uh
. . .
sorry to bother you? I’m a friend of Mina Morris’s. We’re at uh
. . .
Crisp and Jerry’s? The water cut out this morning. The hot water. There’s no hot water. And the heat might be on the fritz. We can hear this banging? Can you call us? Thanks a lot.

Male voice. I listen to it three more times. It’s pretty amazing that these houses are still standing at all, when you think about it.

Will’s happy to see me, I could swear he is. It smells of Nag Champa in there. He gets his coat. We walk. Sunny, freezing.

She’s having a baby. Any minute. Like, she might be having it right now.

Cool. You can show her the ropes.

How deep in shit she’d have to be!

The guy who opens Crisp and Jer’s door is upper forties, short, wool socks, handsome, glasses, flannel. Self-conscious, you can see it immediately in the clothes, which are just slightly too too. Hates his father, wants to impress his father. Not quite enough self-loathing to cancel out the narcissism. Deeply admires people less materialistic than he, can’t quite give up on impressing people more materialistic than he. You grow up among the rich, you become a veritable Jungian psychic where material self-representation is at hand.

Hey
, the guy says.

He steps aside to usher us in. Teeth-grindingly cold. A space heater is doing very little to help matters. Mina is bundled so thoroughly in blankets on the couch that at first I don’t see she’s holding her newborn.

We stare.

They look like hairless rats when they’re this new, like soft mechanical dolls. The most riveting, shocking hairless doll rats you ever saw. So intense, what happens when there’s a newborn in the room. This negative energy charge, this weird, blessed pall. Difficult not to whisper, tiptoe, nice and easy, forget what you were going to say.

Hi
, I say.

Four days ago
, she says, not looking up.

So small and tender, shockingly close to nonexistence. It’s a whole lot like the dying. It’s almost exactly the same. Inspires quiet. I worship babies, it occurs to me. This is what worship does: fucks you all kinds of up.

She gestures at the space heater.
Sort of bad timing
.

How are you?
Redundant; I have eyes.

Um
.
I’ve been better. I’m okay?
She’s asking: am I? Her hair is wild.

Will and the guy are standing at attention, like they’re at a funeral for someone they barely knew, no idea what’s required of them.

Then the guy remembers to introduce himself.

I’m Bryan
, he says.

Baby daddy? Boyfriend? Relative?

Ari.

Will.

Hi. Cool.

Will leads the way to the basement. Their footfalls thud on the stairs.

Midwife went home the other night, a few hours after. Said she’d stop by again, see how we’re doing. Haven’t heard from her, though. Left a message.
She picks up her device and sets it back down.

You had him here?

Yeah
, she says, like duh.

Where’s your family? Or whatever. Are they coming?
I feel faint, standing over her. A hundred feet tall. And claustrophobic, like when I was a kid, with the panic attacks. A war zone, this: life and death doing a maddening polka on your soul.

She laughs. Laughs and laughs, shakes laughing, tears up, downright glittery.
My family. My family!
This is the funniest, oddest idea she’s ever heard.
My family!
She sighs gratefully, happy for the laugh. Laughter the great transfusion.

Ah
, she says, calmer now.
My family
. A bit less crazy-eyed, a pinch more present. She stares at her animate bundle. Shakes her head, grins, bugs out her eyes like a soap actor’s interpretation of nuts.

My family!

I sit.

2

DECEMBER

One night, late, almost morning, maybe counted as morning, couldn’t say for sure, my mother was next to me on the couch while I nursed.

How do you know if he’s getting enough?

He’s getting enough.

How do you know?

You just know.

Well. We always knew. We used to microwave your formula.

I sighed, closed my eyes, hoped she might not be there when I opened them again.

What? We didn’t know. It fills them up better! He’ll sleep longer. Oh my God, you know what else we used to do? Benadryl. What a gift that was. Knocked you out for hours.

She giggled and glanced around at the chaotic mess: was the basket full of clean laundry, or was it dirty? The bowl in which I’d eaten that morning’s oatmeal, getting crusty. Dirty dishes stacked in the sink. She raised her brows.

Kill you to tidy up a little?

Don’t start with me, Demerol bitch.

What? You might feel better if it wasn’t such a pigsty around here.

I stared out the big window, arms tense around Walker. Didn’t want to be that way around him, no flash of anger.

Sorry, monkey
, I whispered.
It’s okay.
How much of the rest of my life would I spend thusly assuring this poor moppet that “it” was “okay”?

Incidentally, you have no right to speak to me that way.

That’s how she was: hard and mean until you responded in kind, then wounded, self-righteous.

Soon he was finished on the left side, big boy. I lifted him up, held him close, delicious soft hilarious drunk face, patted his back, and put him to work on the right. We passed weeks this way, he and I, submerged, disoriented, in a twisted sort of contentment. Now I yearn for that time, want to lie with him connected and safe. Memory’s a ridiculous bastard.

This is my son
, I said, gazing at him to be spared her.
This is Walker. Isn’t he beautiful?
The big eyes, so liquid and good. You couldn’t help but smile, be filled with the presence of whatever the hell we can all agree on.

That’s an idiotic name. Where did you even come up with a name like that? What does that even mean?

It’s Old English. It’s a great name. Hello? Walker Percy? Walker Evans?
She was a lover of books and culture, at least.

You should have named him for me.

I said nothing.

I mean, really.

I wanted this to be a good thing
, I hissed.
A fresh start. A new thing
. My heart raced. Walker started to cry. I put him up over my shoulder the way my favorite nurse had shown me, pat pat pat rub rub rub.
It’s okay. It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay
. Bluffing.

She cackled.

Riiiight. Hey, how’s the dissertation coming, Little Miss Fresh Start? You look hard at work.

Fuck you.

Nice.

This is work.

Walker spit up, looked greatly alarmed, settled back down.
Sorry monkey sorry monkey it’s okay monkey shhhhhh.
Will you hand me one of those rags?

I was forever in need of someone to hand me something.

Take a shower! Change your clothes. Jesus. Make yourself something to eat. Any opportunity to fall apart, this one. Have you looked in a mirror lately? What is the big deal, here? Get it together. Honestly.

I just had a fucking baby is the big deal you dead cunt.

She began to moo at me, cracked herself up.

Mooooooooo.
She got pretty hysterical, and then was gone. Without ever having handed me one of those goddamn rags.

Shhhh monkey, shhhh it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

I write to Crispin and Jer about their busted boiler. Crisp replies:

goddamn motherfuuuuuuuck it all to hell. alright, over it, do whatever u have to do. don’t skimp. thought that bitch’d last one more winter. thanks, punky. sorry. miss you. ate a pizze last night u would have had a stroke over. jer sends hugs and is getting fat.

Punky is because I told him I was obsessed with Punky Brewster as a kid.

Turns out the old boiler was installed in 1975. Will and a guy from the superstore are almost done replacing it.

Bryan’s in an armchair, staring at his computer. Still have no idea what his role is here.

Hurts just to look at Mina’s tits, so swollen. She winces when the baby latches. This is the part no one talks about, the part that feels suspiciously like a secret. Sorry:
a
part. And secrets are by nature shameful. Pisses me off, watching her struggle and wince like that.

Look at the teeny-tiny baby
, I tell Walker, who nods solemnly and is off again to empty the bottom kitchen drawer of its contents, hurl them one by one to the floor, and put them all away again. So long as he’s not in mortal danger.

I bring Mina a glass of water.

She thanks me as though such kindness is going to push her over an edge.

Fuck, my tits hurt so much
. They’re enormous, her tits, big and hard, like implants.