Unlovely (2 page)

Tony and Sylvia discussed the
possibility of Sylvia's taking a teaching position at the local high school,
but that felt too much like giving up, as if she were going to pursue a career instead
of life as a wife and mother. So she worked mornings at the drugstore,
restocking shelves, greeting customers and generally keeping herself busy. In
the afternoons she would complete the grocery shopping, laundry, and other
household tasks, then settle herself into a chair to knit. She knit all sorts
of baby wear, from bonnets that would fit the smallest infant to sweaters that
would fit a chubby toddler, and packed them in a trunk she kept in the corner
of the master bedroom. Sylvia's mother told her that it was bad luck to make
clothes for a baby before its birth – let alone before its conception – but
Sylvia had to keep her hands busy and just couldn't think to knit anything
else. To demonstrate her respect for the whims of fate, though, she would not
knit anything in blue or pink or any kind of pastel. The trunk was full of
items in every other color: browns, reds, hunter greens, grays, mustard
yellows. Soft, lovely things. Sylvia would pull out a pair of wee socks and
stare at them, dreaming of tiny feet and fat ankles.

After half a decade filled with tears
and prayers and disappointment, Sylvia felt nauseated and dizzy at just the
right time of the month. A trip to the doctor confirmed that Sylvia was, in
fact, pregnant. Tony and Sylvia were jubilant.

The grandparents-to-be were delighted
beyond measure; the neighbors assured the
Milfords
that they would be available to help out when the baby came, "Just say the
word!" Within a few weeks, friends began showing up at their door with
baby items they had treasured, and hated to part with, but wanted to pass on to
a young couple who could use them: garbage bags full of clothes and baby
blankets; two playpens; bibs (some of them only barely stained); baby bottles,
even a crib and mattress ("I hate it," Sylvia said of the mattress.
"It smells like mice." Tony agreed, so they discreetly discarded it).

The next seven months were the happiest
of Sylvia's married life. Having always been a slight person herself, easily
overlooked, the knowledge that she was now not just one, but two people walking
around in her unassuming body gave her extra confidence. She drank a quart of
whole milk a day, ate liver twice a week and spinach three times,
took
brisk walks and frequent naps.

She also read every manual concerning
childbirth she could locate. Among these books was a collection of stories
about home births written by women who lived in a religious community in
Tennessee. It seemed so lovely that Sylvia decided to give birth without any
medical intervention. She wanted her baby to have a gentle, spiritual entry
into the world, assisted by Tony and a midwife or two, in their bed at home.

Sylvia had begun collecting
lilac-scented candles and incense when Tony decided he'd been indulging her
long enough. This was his baby too, after all, and he was at least as invested
in its health and well-being as his wife. He'd had a look inside this book and
found it disgusting: picture after picture of naked women in labor, their faces
masks of pain or ecstasy. This was not for Sylvia, and certainly not for any
child of his. Absolutely, under no circumstances, was their baby going to be
born anywhere but in a sterile hospital, surrounded by medical personnel and
all the interventions a baby could want. With deep misgivings, after nights of
tearful pleading, Sylvia gave in.

Two weeks before her due date, Sylvia
went into labor. It was actually quite an easy birth ("You see, Tony? We
could have done this at home!"), and the result was a lovely, plump, baby
girl, bald and long-limbed. They named her Claudia, after Tony's grandmother,
and upon seeing her for the first time, both parents fell madly in love.

Tony and Sylvia had a long, quiet
discussion in the hospital, trading the blessed duty of cuddling their newborn,
in which they concurred that it was important to them not to screw this
enterprise up; they must rear this little girl in absolutely the right way, and
they must treasure every moment they spent with her. Of course, many parents
have similar discussions, but to Sylvia and Tony this was almost a desperate
intention; it had taken so long to conceive Claudia, they feared they would
never have another child. And in fact, they never did.

"I think they probably wanted a son."

"Why?" Dr. Phillips made a
quick note. "What makes you think that?"

"I just do. If they could only have
one child, I think they wished it had been a son."

"Did they ever say that to
you?"

"No. But they thought it.
Especially my father. Maybe everything would have been different."

"How can you be sure what they
thought?"

"I'm sure," Claudia maintained
severely.

Dr. Phillips took another note and
asked, "How would it have made life different if they'd had a son?"

"Well, obviously, I wouldn't be
here. That would be different, wouldn't it?"

Dr. Phillips ignored the sarcasm.
"I assumed when you spoke, you meant life would be different for
them."

"I don't know.  I think they
might have been happier, not as disappointed with life."

"You do understand that
your
having been born a girl was completely beyond your
control."

"It doesn't matter. I still feel
guilty, like the sperm that made me pushed the sperm that would have made him
out of the way. Like I cheated." Claudia picked at the bandage on her
right hand.

"Do you think that's
rational?"

"Of course not. That's how I feel,
not what I think."

"Do you ever mix those things
up?"

Ugh. What a question. "I don't
know."

Dr. Phillips changed the subject.
"Did you feel loved? Did they love you?"

"I guess. As much as they could. I
think they loved me because they had to."

"Because they had to," Dr.
Phillips repeated, apparently seeking explication.

Claudia shrugged. "I don't know. I
think my mother loves being a mother, but she doesn't love me. Perhaps that's
not fair. I guess she loves me as much as she can. I don't know. My dad? 
There's just something missing in my dad, I think. Or maybe it's missing in
me."

Claudia was a difficult baby from the start. It was
certainly nobody's fault: she was changed, fed and bathed regularly and
lovingly; she was held so often that her person hardly touched the ground for
her first six months of life. But she was terribly colicky. Every night at
about nine o'clock her back would arch, her face would redden and contort, and
she would scream for all she was worth for hours at a time. This went on for
months.

The first few weeks, Tony and Sylvia
were beside themselves at the thought of their little one suffering so. Then,
they began to feel mildly annoyed. Eventually it fell almost entirely to Sylvia
to care for the baby during these episodes, and she did, while Tony retreated
to the study to read his newspaper in peace, surrounded by his books, relative
silence, and the comforting aroma of Ben-Gay.

Sylvia didn't mind being left with this
duty. It made her feel like Claudia's special champion, the one person this
cranky, miserable, tiny person could count on to always be there. She liked to
feel indispensable. Plus, being a martyr came naturally to Sylvia.

Eventually Claudia grew out of this
stage and transformed into a charming, chubby toddler. She was bald, except for
a light layer of talcum-scented fuzz; few people on the street ever noticed her
dear fuzzy head, though, because she never left the house without a cap
coordinated to a sweater set knit by her mother. Claudia learned to walk at
about a year old, which made Sylvia wild with anxiety; she was terrified lest
her daughter's perfectly white teeth be chipped during a tumble on the hard
wood floors. She needn't have worried so; Claudia displayed admirable balance
at an early age, and was almost always good enough to fall backward onto her
well-swaddled bum rather than onto her sweet little face, its cheeks pink and
chapped from an excess of kisses.

Claudia learned to speak early. Her
mother kept a running commentary up all day long to encourage her daughter's
verbal skills, and this strategy achieved its ends. Claudia's first word was
dada
,
which delighted Sylvia and Tony no end. They tried to get her to say it over
and over, and she was actually quite cooperative, to the delight of her parents
and the customers at Milford Drugstore. Her second word was
mama
,
followed closely by
umm
and
ho
. If an historian wanted to know
exactly which words the infant Claudia learned and when, it would actually be
quite an easy business, because Sylvia diligently recorded in a baby book as
many milestones of her daughter's life as she could discern. When this was
filled, she started a diary. She kept this up until Claudia entered Smith
Street Elementary, when she began to keep boxes and files of Claudia's
accomplishments and continued to add to and nicely organize them up through
high school.

When Claudia was four, Tony worked to
persuade Sylvia that their daughter would benefit from more time in the company
of other children. Sylvia thought Claudia was doing just fine the way things
were, despite having no siblings and no girls her age in the neighborhood, but
Tony saw it as problematic: Claudia didn't seem to miss having anyone to play
with, and that didn't seem normal. As well, Tony thought his wife could profit
from the separation. She needed to get out more. So it was with some misgivings
that Sylvia applied to
Mapleville
Senior High School
to be a substitute teacher, and was accepted.

Sylvia did not enjoy her new job. She was
miserable standing in front of a group of students with whom she was utterly
unfamiliar, trying to persuade them to do whatever the teacher had left in the
lesson planner. The students could sense her insecurity; they usually ignored
her directions and spent the period chatting among themselves. Sylvia would
count it a good day if she could keep all the children in their classrooms and
no one ended up in a fight.

Sylvia substituted on an average of once
a week, sometimes twice, and on those days she dropped Claudia off at the Green
Apple Youth Academy. Sylvia had researched every daycare in the area, and she
and Tony agreed that this one seemed the nicest. It was run by some women from
the Methodist church in a small building on its grounds. In the entryway there
was a large print of Jesus surrounded by little children offering flowers. The
picture across from it showed Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders, walking
across a grassy lea. It looked like a wholesome place, staffed with teachers
ready to inculcate their tiny clients with good values. It was very clean and
orderly, and the children looked reasonably happy. Plus, they were flexible;
they could take Claudia at a moment's notice if the school called Sylvia to
substitute.

Claudia hated it. She hated having to
bolt her breakfast in her daytime clothes on Academy days so she could be
hustled out to the car in the cold morning air. She hated the chaos, the
pushing to get near the TV during
Rocky and Bullwinkle
(not that she even
liked
Bullwinkle
, but they had to watch, and there was a pecking order
associated with who got the best seat – just one more thing to annoy her).

Moreover, the whole plan was a bust as
far as socialization was concerned. Claudia wasn't like the other children at
the Green Apple Youth Academy, the ones who attended every day, dropped off by
harried mothers who tossed their sprayed hair aside to air-kiss little ones and
give tight, girdled hugs before dashing off to work. Those unfortunates were in
daycare from seven or eight in the morning until five in the evening or even
later. They formed cliques and traveled in packs. Claudia was only an
occasional student at the school, picked up by 3:30. The other children did not
consider her a "real" Green Apple.

Socializing was excruciating for her.
The children already had their groups and she was not in any of them. She very
much disliked having to persuade someone to share a bench during group art
time. She only had two friends: Lorenzo, who didn't play with her much but
would eat the lima beans from her succotash (a true act of kindness – you had
to finish your vegetables, and
lima
beans made Claudia
gag), and Melanie Stephens.

Melanie was a quiet child, the same age
as Claudia, who regarded her classmates sullenly and rarely initiated
conversation or games. No one went out of his way to play with her, either. She
was a loner. Claudia usually ended up with Melanie when they had to pick
partners for games, because Claudia was the class interloper, and Melanie was the
class weirdo. Melanie licked her hands – her palms mostly – out of nervous
anxiety. No one wanted to touch her. The teachers kept trying to get her to
stop the hand-licking, even making her wear mittens all day except for
mealtimes, but nothing worked. She kept licking whenever they turned their
backs to her, and they just couldn't watch her every minute.