Mary Wolf (6 page)

Mama's writhing and panting. “Mary, we've got to get out of here! I can't do this anymore! We've go to leave!”

“You're doing fine, Mama. The baby will be here any second.”

“I've got to push!” she screams. “Oh, Mary, it's coming!”

She tears wide open, the baby's head pops out, covered with blood and white stuff.

“Push, Mama. Push!”

Slick shoulders slide through, then the baby glides onto the bed between her thighs, followed by a pulsing purple cord.

I pick up the baby. He's wet and slippery. His nose is plugged. I wipe it clean. I rub him with a towel and pat his back until he cries; a piping shriek, and then an outraged squall.

Released from pain, Mama's face is exhausted, exalted, delighted.

“Look at him, Mary! He's so beautiful,” she croons, “the most beautiful little baby I've ever seen.”

I wrap him in a blanket and place him on her breast, draping the thick cord across her belly. She unbuttons her nightgown and his tiny red face turns blindly toward her warmth.

Daddy bursts through the door. “The ambulance is coming!”

“Andrew,” Mama says, “come and meet your son.”

He tiptoes inside, the girls trailing behind him. I've never seen that expression on his face. It's joy. And I realize that my sisters were supposed to be boys, the son he's waited for all along, time after time, Daniel, Eric, and Paul.

My father's dream has finally been born.

“A boy! A boy.” Daddy kneels beside the bed, touching my brother's scrunched-up face, his hair.

“What's that snaky thing?” Erica points.

“It's the cord. It helped the baby breathe inside Mama,” I explain. “They'll cut it when we get to the hospital.”

“There's no need to go to the hospital. Everything's fine now,” Daddy says.

“Doctors should check them out, to be sure.”

“There's nothing wrong with this boy. Look at him nurse!” Daddy says proudly, his head resting on Mama's shoulder.

“What'll we call him?” Mama's smiling, stroking Daddy's hair. “We never expected a boy.”

She's wrong.

“Andrew Michael Wolf, Junior,” my father murmurs. “Andy for short.”

Six

Daddy told his boss that he didn't mean to call him an idiot and he'd be willing to take his job back, no hard feelings, but George said no.

So he found a job at a gas station in town. The hours were crummy; he worked all night, but he said he got a lot of thinking done, with no one there to bug him.

It was hard for him to sleep during the day; May was warm and the RV got hot. Also, Andy was crying a lot. Mama thought he might have colic. We'd hold him and rock him and Mama would nurse him, but he'd draw up his little legs and holler.

Erica and Polly could shut out the noise, but Andy really got to Danielle.

“Why's he do that all the time?” she'd whine. “Can't we put a pillow over his face?”

She's jealous because he's Daddy's favorite. That's how it is with a new baby. They're the littlest and cutest and everybody loves them. Daddy's especially proud of Andy, as if this boy is himself reborn.

Doting on Andy doesn't mean Daddy takes care of him. He believes that's the mother's job. Once, he proudly told Aunt Belle, “I've never changed a diaper.”

“What kind of father are you?” she asked, appalled.

“The kind that hates dirty diapers.” He'd grinned.

Mama takes care of Andy when she can, but she's tired. Mostly she nurses him and I do the rest. I bathe him in the sink, cradling his tender head. His eyes never leave my face. He kicks and splashes and makes us laugh. Then I dress him in the soft cotton T-shirts that were Polly's, and a disposable diaper. They're expensive, but Mama says cloth ones would give him a rash.

I'm surprised how much I love him; he's a lot of work. But that's his job, he's a baby. He didn't appoint himself the little king. Daddy anointed him and gave him his crown.

It's warm, I've got the windows open, driving to my next engagement, a sold-out concert in a famous hall. My fans are fighting over tickets.

Daddy says, “Mary, turn that down.”

“It's pretty, Daddy. You'll love it. Just listen.”

“And put out that cigarette. You have no business smoking. It's a disgusting habit.”

“You're right, Daddy. I plan to quit.”

“You stop right now, do you hear me, Mary?”

But I don't stop, and he doesn't make me. He closes the screen between the cab and the rest of the RV. I turn up the tape. k.d. lang is singing, her voice pure and clean. I pretend it's me. It's a gorgeous day, a perfect day for driving, even though I don't know where I'm going.

I was sorry to leave Cloverdale. The teachers helped me. My English teacher, Mrs. Wilson, loved this story I'd written.

It was about a girl whose family had to move across the country. They had a dog named Rex, he was ten years old. They'd had him since the girl was a baby. The parents said they couldn't take the dog along, so the girl said she wasn't moving either.

When she came home from school the next day, the dog was gone. Her mother said her father had taken Rex to a farm, and that he'd be real happy there, with lots of room to run around. She made it sound like a wonderful place. The girl wished she could live there, too.

That night the girl heard her parents talking and learned that her father had taken Rex to the pound, and that he'd probably be put to sleep, since he was old. “At least he won't suffer,” the girl's mother said.

Then the girl had to pretend she didn't know the truth, because that would make her parents liars and killers. And they couldn't be; they were her parents, she loved them.

Mrs. Wilson said it was a wonderful story and submitted it to the school literary magazine. She said she'd send me a copy when it was published. I gave her Aunt Belle's address.

I sent a letter to Aunt Belle, telling her about Andy. “He's a month old now and he's so cute!” I wrote. “And he loves it when I sing so he MUST be a genius! Maybe we'll come back so you can see him.”

My father doesn't know about the letter. He called my grandparents when Andy was born and I think he asked them to send us money, because suddenly we had a lot. We got new clothes and a bunch of schoolbooks, and Daddy had some work done on the Jeep but it's still not running right. I asked him to put new tires on it but Daddy says there's nothing wrong with those tires, and besides, what difference does it make; we're towing it, not driving it.

Last night we were heading toward a state park. It took longer to get there than we expected. I drove through the dark, down a winding road, the fog wrapped around the RV like a blindfold.

When we got to the campground there was a chain across the entrance, and my father got out and said, “What the hell?” The fog had lifted and in the headlights we could see that there had been a bad fire and the campground was closed. The trees were scorched and bare.

We were too tired to keep driving, so we camped for the night. Andy cried a lot. Daddy's stomach hurt. “Can't you do something about that baby?” he said. Mama jiggled Andy and patted his back, but she was frantic; he got more upset.

I wrapped him in a blanket and took him outside and we walked around and around the RV. He stopped crying and turned up his face to the sky.

“Those are stars, Andy,” I whispered. “They're really far away. If you knew how far away they are, you wouldn't believe it.”

When we went back inside, my father and the girls were sleeping. Mama nursed Andy and put him in his laundry-basket bed.

“Thank you, Mary,” she whispered. “You're such a help.”

“It's not your fault Andy cries. Daddy shouldn't get mad at you.”

“He doesn't mean to. He's just got so much on his mind.”

“Who doesn't?”

“Things will be better soon.”

“When?”

“Soon,” she said firmly. “Let's not wake up the girls.”

“I'm not waking up the girls. I just want to talk to you, Mama. We never get to talk. There's always people around.”

“Not people,” she said. “Your family.”

“What's going to happen to us? We can't keep driving around.”

“We won't. We just haven't found the right place to settle down yet.”

“And we never will, thanks to Daddy. Everywhere we go, he gets in a fight, or something happens and he gets mad and quits. I know why we had to leave Cloverdale. I know what really happened at the gas station.”

“I don't know what you mean. Keep your voice down, Mary.”

“He stole those parts. They didn't give them to Daddy. He was putting gas in the Jeep without paying.”

“That's not true! Those parts were used. They were just going to throw them away! Anyway, so what if he took a little gas? That man hardly paid Daddy anything.”

“That doesn't make it right. I don't understand what's happening here. Why is everybody changing? Back home he wouldn't let us take one peanut out of the grocery store. He said that was stealing.”

“It was. It is.” Mama's face looked tired and heavy. “Mary, you don't understand how hard this is for Daddy. Losing that company just about killed him. He ran that office. That was his office, Mary. Your father was an important man. Now he feels like a failure, a loser, like he can't even feed his own family.”

“He can't.”

“Do you know how hard that is for a man like Daddy? The last thing he needs is to feel like you don't love him.”

“I do love him.”

“Or trust him. He's your father, Mary. He's still the head of this family.”

“But why does he get to decide what's right? I mean, look at us, Mama. We're camped in a graveyard.”

“How was he supposed to know there'd been a fire?”

“He's not. The point is, we shouldn't even be here. We should be in Nebraska, in our beds, sleeping. He would've found another job. But he just, he didn't—Please don't cry, Mama. Please don't cry.”

“Oh, Mary,” she sighed, leaning her head against my shoulder, “I wish we could go home.”

We could leave right now. I'd drive all night, heading toward the dawn and our family in Nebraska. But between us is the country of my father's pride. He'll never go back in disgrace. He'd rather die.

“It's all right, Mama.” I patted her shoulder. “Everything will be all right.”

I like driving, riding up front alone. I feel powerful, sitting up so high, looking down at the cars whizzing by on the road. The sun keeps snagging on the crack in the windshield, shooting tiny sparks into my eyes.

I grind out my cigarette and turn on the dashboard fan. Why did I start smoking? I keep hoping it will make me feel less tense, but it's just one more thing that makes no sense.

I turn down k.d. lang and push open the screen that separates me from the family.

“We've got to make a decision here soon. Which way do you want to go?”

I've interrupted Daddy at his crossword puzzle. He frowns in the rearview mirror. “I thought we were going to the coast,” he says.

“Why? There's no work there.”

“You let me worry about that.”

“I'm talking about myself. I want to get another job.”

There's something my parents don't know about me. I earned more money than I told them about, hiding it in my guitar case; saving it for something, I don't know what. An emergency. A bus ticket.

How could I think of leaving them? It makes me feel like a traitor.

“I don't want you working anymore,” Daddy says. “Mama needs your help at home.”

“But we need the money. I can help with groceries.”

“I don't expect my children to support me. Not until my old age, and I've still got a few good years left.” Daddy's mouth is smiling but his eyes are cold. “You just worry about doing well in school.”

“There aren't too many schools on the coast. We'd be better off going to the city.”

“I'd rather go to the beach,” Mama says mildly. She's knitting a cap for Andy's bald head.

“Mama, we're not on vacation,” I say.

“We're not?” Daddy looks surprised. “Why didn't somebody tell me?”

He and Mama and the girls giggle, except for Danielle, who stares out the window.

“I think we ought to head over to San Francisco or Oakland,” I say. “There's lots more going on over there, and we can always find a place for the RV.”

“No,” Daddy says. “No more big cities. There's too much crime. And all those people on the street.”

“Homeless people, you mean. Like us.”

“They're not like us! What's the matter with you?” Daddy throws down his puzzle. “I don't know what's gotten into you lately. You're acting like some bratty teenager. I won't put up with that attitude. Do you hear me, Mary? As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as teenagers. Not in this RV. You're either a child or an adult.”

Wondering which one that makes me, I take the Highway 1 exit toward the coast.

Seven

We camped on the coast near the town of Mendocino, which was full of beautiful Victorian houses converted into inns and shops. Mama loved it there. We spent one whole morning browsing. Daddy bought Mama a pretty scarf, and a handmade candle in the shape of a whale. Mama let the girls pick out something in the toy store. Erica and Polly got baby dolls. Danielle chose a Chinese kite. In the bookstore Mama offered to buy me a book about the lives of women rock stars. I said no, it cost too much. She surprised me with it at lunch.

The café was downtown, overlooking the ocean. We sat by a window, in the sun. The sea and the sky were as blue as Andy's eyes. The table was decorated with a bouquet of wildflowers.

“This is living.” Daddy sighs, sipping his cappuccino. “I mean, look at that view. That's heaven. What do you say we call this place home for a while?”