Rise (17 page)

Seven hours later she was still at five centimeters and the nurses started the Pitocin drip. He tried to wipe her brow with a washcloth, but he banged against her nose instead. After that he was afraid to touch her because he might mess up the needles. She was panting like somebody passing a stone, but she wasn't opening the way she should. They upped the Pitocin two times in the next three hours, and she really started to shout then. Things began to happen. People gathered around her bed. It felt like a dozen people from all their voices. The room was tight as an elevator caught between two floors.
A nurse was telling Marci when to push and she talked like a drill sergeant or a football coach. “Now's the time,” she kept saying. “Give it all you've got.”

He felt a strange tightness inside his chest when Marci gasped for air, as if he couldn't breathe unless she did. The tightness worked its way up into his throat. “Yes,” people were saying. “That's right. You're doing great,” and all those voices were jumbled together with the sound of falling rain. He held his breath without meaning to, and he didn't exhale until he heard his son screaming in the room.

He weighed six pounds eleven ounces exactly. The drill sergeant said he was nineteen and one half inches long. “He's got a good pair of lungs,” she told them. “You've got yourself a screamer.” Marci held him first, and she kept him for the longest time. The nurse told her to smile so she could take a picture. “You, too, daddy,” she said. “Get a little closer to the bed.” She took three pictures and he wasn't sure where to look, and when the nurse was done Marci took their boy and set him in his arms.

“Don't be afraid,” she said. “He looks like you. He's got your nose exactly.”

His son squirmed against his elbow. He worked his legs like a turtle flipped on its back, and this was as light as he'd ever be. A clumsy moment and they could lose him. He might drop his boy on the hard floor if his attention wandered. He might bump him against a door-frame or a wall. He ran his thumb over that waxy newborn skin, but his hands weren't sensitive the way blind people's were supposed to be. There wasn't anything distinctive about that bald head. This baby could belong to anyone. The doctors could switch one for the other, and he would never know.

The cloudy days were hardest. The nights when the baby cried, all those starless nights when Marci ran to feed him.
You can't just sit there forever
, she'd say. The house smelled like diapers and burnt baby formula, and he should have tried to help her. He should have found a way, but he just sat there like a train passenger and looked outside his window. He was waiting, and she wouldn't understand this. He was waiting for the winds to come and give him back his sky.

•

The highest mountain on Mars had a crater at its center. It had streaks of red and gray. The black sand dunes and the clifftops and the places where the rocks had slid a million years before. A dust storm turning over the planet's surface and its center made a perfect T. Be grateful for these things. They will get clearer before they go away. He recognized Saturn from his childhood books, but there were other ones, too, with copper-colored haloes and he didn't know their names. He saw dragonfly wings and a teapot constellation with clouds of violet steam. He saw his father's eyes.

They drove together along Austin Bluffs and she wouldn't tell him why. All she'd say was that they were going back to school. “Back to the scene of the crime,” she said. “When I was skinny and you still had all your hair.” She unfolded one of their camping chairs once they got to the visitors' lot. She set two hand warmers in his pockets and a travel mug with instant cocoa in the cup rest on his right.

“Can you see the scar?” She turned his chin toward the mountain where the limestone quarry used to be. Fifteen or twenty miles, maybe a little more. It was far enough away for him to see it clearly. The county was years into the reclamation but there weren't any trees yet, just milkweed and prickly pear and tufts of frozen grasses. “That's where you need to look.”

“Jesus, Marci. All that's out there is some sheep.”

“I'll call you when I'm ready.” She kissed him on the temple and wiped away the spit. “And don't complain about the wind. It's the warmest it's been all week.”

He heard the car as she drove away. A Camry she'd had since '98, but she always mashed the gears. Some students were laughing in the courtyard just behind the lot. It wasn't a commuter school anymore. The last time he'd driven by there'd been real dormitories laid out in a grid and not just a few scattered buildings. The cafeteria was probably gone where he and Marci used to sit fifteen years before. Anthropology and statistics and introductory accounting, he raced up the hill three nights a week and what did he remember? Early man used oldowan
tools to get the marrow out of bones. The australopithecenes could break rocks with their jaws. He still had his lecture notes in a plastic box next to the water heater.

“Sir.” A girl touched his shoulder. She knelt down beside him and spoke loudly in his ear, as if he were deaf and not just blind. “Sir, are you alright? Are you waiting for a ride?”

“I'm bird-watching,” he told her. “I'm looking for big-horns up in the hills.” The girl stepped back then, and the people with her laughed. After that they left him alone.

He dozed a little in the sun. He drank some of his cocoa. A football game was playing on somebody's TV. Somebody else was listening to a Spanish language tape in one of the buildings behind the lot.
Soy Antonio García Morales
, a man said.
Yo soy chileno. De dónde eres tú
, but the window closed before anyone could answer. Snatches of laughter and conversation and the voices all sounded so young. Marci was right, he knew this. He needed to see an occupational therapist so he could get his bearings. He needed to send in his Social Security papers and make an appointment at Johns Hopkins. But not today and not tomorrow either. All these things could wait. The sky would be clear tonight, and he'd see all his familiar places.

Two hours later give or take the car came into focus. He saw it before she called. It was working its way up the red dirt road that wound across the mountain. She'd scraped the fender sometime in the last few months, and the green paint had started to blister. It looked almost matte in the sun, like the Humvees the soldiers drove between Fort Carson and the city. She parked right below the quarry gate and stepped out from the car. She wore a knit hat he hadn't seen before. She frowned right at him as if she could see him sitting in his chair.

She opened the back door and bent down by the car seat. When she turned around she had their boy cradled against her shoulder. He was bundled up in a yellow parka like the Stay Puft man. She took off his cap and set it in her coat pocket. His fists were clenched against the cold. His hair was pale as corn silk. The January sun was shining but it threw off no warmth and she was holding up their boy. She raised him like a banner.

T
he nest fell from the eaves and landed below his window. The guys from All Year Gutters were up there walking on the shingles. Every summer they came, and they weren't careful with their hoses. They hit his balcony and his mountain bike, and it didn't matter if he complained. The president of the condo board was always somewhere else. Playing golf in Arizona or fishing in Cancún, and he didn't stop to listen when Jason caught him between trips. He just waved and kept on going.
Where's that pretty wife of yours
, he'd say.
It's been ages since I've seen her
. Jason hated him even more then. Not even fifty and retired already. Always smiling and always wearing shiny leather shoes. Tan as a politician and he went to a salon where the ladies buffed his nails.

He went outside though the workmen were still spraying the water. They were shouting over the thump of the compressor. The birds were wet and their skin was dimpled gray and they were dead, all of them, except for one still in the nest. They looked like tiny ducklings. Like plucked birds hanging from hooks the way he'd seen in San Francisco. They'd gone to Chinatown there just after they were married. They'd walked together on those narrow streets, and Shelby bought straw hats and umbrellas made of paper and a tiny painted tea set for when they had a daughter.

He knelt on the wet concrete so he could see it better. It lay curled on its stomach like a baby in a cradle. Its eyes were closed, and he
reached for it. Not even a trace yet of feathers. It was a tiny thing no bigger than his pinkie. It was a heartbeat in his palm. He was scared a little the way he always was when he touched something wild.

His duffel bag was packed already and waiting at the door. He was supposed to be in Guffy where she was waiting at the cabin. Sixty miles west on the 24 past the fossil beds, past the Eleven Mile Reservoir where they'd camped together on their honeymoon. He'd taken ten vacation days, and they'd go on the trails the way they used to. They'd pick the first raspberries. She said it was important to find a happy spot. Not the condo where they'd spent the last eight years and not her new place either. She was staying out in Rockrimmon with some Christian Scientists, and none of it made sense. A pharmacist living with folks who think disease is an illusion. They didn't vaccinate their kids against the measles or take penicillin if they were infected. She'd taken their beagle Lucy and the stationary bike, and she cried sometimes when she called. She asked him if he missed her.

He built a nest of white socks on the coffee table. He filled the hot-water bottle and wrapped it in a towel. His mother had raised sparrows and gray-crowned rosy finches. She dusted them for mites and kept them in the kitchen.
There's nothing sweeter
, she'd say,
than a baby starling when it sleeps
. She taught him how to wet their beaks and how to mix their food. Dog food worked, or cat food in a pinch, and he opened one of the Alpo cans Shelby had left behind. He soaked the food in water and mashed it with his fork, and he used a chopstick from the Shanghai Gardens to bring the food to the bird's beak. It resisted at first. He had to work the stick against its mouth, and then it ate the meat. He'd forgotten how quick they were. It was like one of those sword swallowers at the circus how deep it took the stick.

She called him at four and again at four thirty and left messages on the machine. “I'm waiting,” she said. “I've been here for hours.” The second time she didn't say good-bye. She took a breath, and he heard the tears behind her voice. “You always do this, Jason. You always leave me hanging.” He should have answered the phone.
She'd been planning this trip for weeks. There was still time to pick up the receiver, but he reached for the chopstick instead and fed the baby bird.

She hadn't taken her engagement ring. He'd worked three months to pay for that diamond, and she left it on the dresser.
Sell it
, she'd told him.
You need the money more than I do. The city doesn't pay you near enough for all the work you do
. He worked for the state and not the city. He worked for the Office of Weights and Measures. She could never keep that straight. He checked the scales and the packaged goods at every bakery from downtown to Fort Carson. He knew by feel if things were too light. His boss Milman called him Digit because his fingers were better than any scale.

He sent the ring to her certified mail, signature requested, and he kept the green slip when it came. He put it on the fridge next to the Dominos menu. She was growing organic vegetables and composting her coffee grounds, and he was eating deep-dish pizza and Dunkin' Donuts fritters. His pants were tight even when he left the top button open, and it didn't help that he was working the bakery rotation. His shirt smelled like cinnamon by the end of the day, and he was always hungry. He ate sticky buns in a single bite. He could unhinge his jaw like a snake. She'd give him a hard time when she saw him. Fat men have lower sperm counts, that's what she always said.

The bird started chirping at five in the morning. He fed it in the dark. Every twenty minutes he gave it a little more, and he could see the knot inside its throat where the food was gathered. The sky lightened through his window. There were streaks of pink above the maple trees, and it was the first sunrise he'd seen in years without feeling the need to hurry. Other birds were chirping outside, and the magpies were sharpening their beaks against his chimney. The vibrations worked their way down the metal flue. He drank his coffee in the kitchen. He sat at the empty table where she used to read her magazines.
We need to pay more attention to texture
, she'd say, and she looked so serious about the house. She talked about the Roman shades and the lacquer
on the cupboards. The skateboard park bothered her when the city built it across the street. It would hurt their property values. She cared deeply about things he didn't even notice, but he didn't mind and he didn't complain because decorating kept her busy. If she focused on the house, maybe she wouldn't notice what was missing.

After the third time, she packed up the blankets and took apart the crib. The doctors said it was her hormone levels. They said her luteal phase was too short, but the creams and the pills didn't make it any longer. She started talking about caffeine and pesticides and hormones in dairy products. She ate only organic and stopped eating fish because of the mercury.
It's those environmental toxins
, she'd say.
They're disrupting all my cycles
.