Then I was pregnant and all of the sudden he asked me to quit smoking and eat six ounces of soy protein at each square meal. He dragged me on long walks and encouraged me to squat whenever possible to loosen the ligaments in my hips. This was Walter’s Big Chance. His first wife, who raised Scottish terriers, fled after ten years of watching him calculate and avoid her. With me carrying his progeny, he took over my life, and now with Zeke here, named for his great-uncle, attention hasn’t waned at all. He highlights articles about how the baby should
latch on
with my entire areola pressed up against his soft palate and how nursing myelinates the nerves for rapid-fire brain activity. I want to know if Zeke will ever smile. Walter informs me the social smile comes at six weeks, but I can’t take two more weeks of waiting. I coo in Zeke’s face, tell him my best jokes, and I get nothing. Walter bought a digital camera so I could take a shot of the first smile and e-mail it to him at CUNY, but there the camera sits on the sideboard and I haven’t learned to upload.
When I wake, I’ve got a string of drool attaching me to the puce tweed fabric Velcroed to my headrest for lice control or something. I run my hand along my face and feel a crease down my cheek from sleeping on the seam. Still, when Walter notices me stirring, he looks at me like he can’t believe how lucky he is.
“I ate the salad and I saved the tuna casserole for you.”
“I’ve got to pee,” I say, standing and holding Zeke. Walter lowers my tray table. He puts the cold lunch leftovers on it and raises his tray. He shifts to get comfortable in his seat. He takes the blanket and lays it over his shoulder. He puts the pillow in his lap.
“Walter, I’ve got to
pee,
” I stage whisper. I’m swaying from one foot to the other, doing Kegels like crazy.
Finally he reaches out and takes Zeke. Walter’s warm hands cradle Zeke’s innocent neck and butt. He pulls the baby into his chest with devout attention and grace. I am moved and nauseated at the same time.
In the wan green light of the bathroom I try to wriggle out of my tights but I have to pee so bad I can’t hold it and a warm stream courses down my leg. The faucet won’t stay on in the thimble-size metal basin so I have to keep pushing it down to wet the towels and I barely have the space to bend over and wipe myself off. I’m turning from one side to the other like a dog chasing his own tail and I end up cramming the mountain of elastic into the tiny mouth of the trash can. I lean back against the door, close my eyes.
When I come out a baby starts to scream. It’s not Zeke; it’s the priest’s crier.
Wrangler Man shoves past me into the bathroom and attempts to slam the flimsy door. It’s a completely unsatisfying
shump.
The in-flight movie has started, something about a can-do secretary who vacuums in her lingerie, and passengers are shooting the baby death-ray stares. The priest has dark circles of sweat under his arms and he’s rocking forward and back in his thirty-two inches of allotted coach-class space, holding the baby like you would hold a porcupine to your shoulder. As I pass him, I see his priest collar is cockeyed, and he has curdled spit-up on his chest. The baby’s face is again ruby-colored and sweaty. Its hair is black and thick as an otter’s.
My body responds with the prick of let-down, again. I swear, my whole being has turned into a physical response. I ask him, “Can I try?”
“Thank you.” His entire body goes limp as he passes the rigid baby to me.
I place the baby over my shoulder and begin to sway, rubbing his tiny spine. He must be about four months old because he can hold his head up fine, but he’s small, the same size as Zeke. He screams louder so I sway faster and start to hum. The priest looks from the baby to me; creases like question marks form between his brows, and I feel I’m being tested. I look up the aisle. Walter has the headset on. He’s probably reading and watching the movie and stimulating brain growth in Zeke.
“Finally, someone with equipment.” Wrangler Man comes back from the bathroom, jimmies into his seat behind us, “Tired of fucking hearing that kid.” He has three mini bottles of Jack Daniel’s on his tray table and he’s talking loud, even for him. He latches his thick fingers over the top of the seat, leans in confidentially. “What the hell are you doing with a baby anyway? Get someone in trouble?” He has a sour grin on his face. And then, with a wink to me, “I thought they only liked little boys.”
The priest ignores him.
“Maybe he has gas?” I project over the baby’s cries.
“At the orphanage, in Romania, I think they subsisted mostly on sugar water. Could be the formula? It’s hard on him?”
“Whiskey on a rag worked on my kid brother.” Wrangler Man snorts.
“Maybe it’s his diaper?” the priest asks.
He hadn’t seen me slip my finger under the elastic at the baby’s thin thigh. “He’s dry. What’s his name?”
“Stanyos. His new family may change it.”
“Get up. Let ’er sit.” Wrangler Man nudges the priest’s shoulders forward.
Father Matthew, as he turns out to be named, slips from his seat and I sit down. I stretch Stanyos over my legs, skin to skin, so my thighs press into his abdomen, hoping he’ll burp. His cries fade to whimpers and the three of us hush, watching his perfect little body writhe like he can’t get comfortable in his skin. Wrangler Man breathes down my neck.
“Stanyos?” he says. “That’s a name begging for a playground brawl.”
I can feel his breath, smell the cigarettes and whiskey.
“There’s nothing to him. He’s so damn loud.” His voice is softer now, slower too, as if my rubbing the baby’s back is working to ease his discomfort as well. “My kid brother cried all the time. Inconsolable. My mom paced a trail in the carpet.”
Walter has begun to look for me. When he sees Father Matthew standing, me in the seat, and Wrangler Man leaning over, alarm flashes across his face. I know he is going to get up, to come see if he can, once again, rescue me.
I turn Stanyos gently toward me. His eyes are screwed tight and he is preparing to wail. His face presses into my belly and he goes crazy smelling my milk. He immediately begins rooting around my blouse, banging his head against me, his mouth working eagerly at the fabric.
And then it is simple. I undo the top three buttons, lower the flap of my nursing bra, and bring his mouth, wide as a hatchling’s, to my breast. “It’s okay,” I whisper. Stanyos pulls greedily at me and I feel the sting of milk rushing from my body into his mouth.
Father Matthew averts his gaze.
“Whoa.” Wrangler Man pulls back like he’s been hit. “Man. Shit.” I hear the crack in his voice, and so does Father Matthew because he asks him if he’s okay.
“My kid brother’s name was Steven.” And his voice breaks completely. “Shit.”
Father Matthew has his hand on Wrangler Man’s shoulder. He murmurs of loss and comfort as he leans over my bowed head. My husband and son are in the aisle now too. Walter’s lips are pressed into a thin line and I see the questions in his eyes.
It’s okay,
I mouth. Zeke is sleeping in Walter’s arms. The blister on his lip still flutters with each breath.
Behind me Wrangler Man hacks and spits into a cup. He slides open the porthole cover between our seats and I am surprised by the sun reflecting off the fat layer of clouds. I’d forgotten what time of day it was here on this plane, flying toward our families.
Stanyos swallows and swallows; his soft brown eyes glaze over like he’s been waiting for this his whole life.
Manx
Nora requested fluffy and white. A kitten to name Candi, with an
i.
A kitten who would weave figure eights around and between her ankles while she poured milk on her Cheerios. Instead, her mom dropped a box over the schoolyard stray. An emaciated, dark tabby who spent his time hissing at students and licking out the inside of Jell-O pudding cups. Ruby brought him home for Nora on Good Friday.
Ruby bathed the cat in their kitchen sink, using the last of the Short and Sassy shampoo. When Nora ran into their apartment after school, the damp cat was perched on the windowsill, clicking his jaw at a bird in the magnolia tree. If the cat had had a tail, he’d have been swishing it back and forth, pumping his frustration out, but he was a Manx.
Her mom sat at the kitchen table smoking, bloody toilet paper wrapped around her wrist where the cat scratched her. “Happy Easter.” She re-crossed her legs, dangled a tan sandal from her toe. “Are you thrilled?”
Nora stood in the center of the room watching the shoe bounce on her mother’s foot and then she looked back to the cat. A bead of drool glinted at the corner of his jaw.
“It was starving, Nora.” Ruby leaned forward to stub out her cigarette, then she mentioned that owing to the cat, their karma would probably improve, for providing shelter and everything, and besides, maybe all the cat required was a full bowl and consistent love. When Nora asked her what she meant by consistent love, her mom took a long swallow from her wine spritzer and jiggled her shoe some more. “Someone to be there every single time he meows at the back door.”
Weekday afternoons Nora walked home alone from Beachwood Elementary to their apartment on lower Primrose Terrace, a neighborhood of stucco apartment buildings renting to older couples, struggling actors, and stewardesses. Usually Nora would make herself a snack—Ritz crackers and marshmallow fluff—then watch a talk show on TV, Merv, Mike, Phil, or Dinah. After today, someone would always be home waiting to greet Nora, and she pictured her cat curled up in her lap, licking cracker crumbs off her fingertips while she waited for her mom. She named her cat Phil Donahue, hoping he’d greet her the way Donahue ran to the women in his audience, eager to hear anything they had to say about seat belts, war, or divorce.
It’s not that Nora didn’t have friends, she did, but Jocelyn, whose big apartment was on the first floor, went to St. Agatha’s school and she wasn’t available to play in the afternoons. They were the only children in the building and so they were friends. The only reason Jocelyn’s family lived on lower Primrose at all was that her dad was the manager. He was also an official at St. Agatha’s, and Donald wore a suit, either dark green or brown, every day of the week. When Nora delivered the rent check once a month, Donald would call her into his telephone study with the leather desk blotter, the dark wooden crucifix, and the rye-toast smell hanging in the air. She knew he knew she and her mother didn’t attend church, which was why Jocelyn wasn’t allowed to play at Nora’s. But every month, as she waited in his tiny study while Donald wrote out a receipt in letters so small and pointy they looked like crabs crawling across the page, he made the same joke about her mother.
How’s Diamond .
.
. er .
.
. Emerald .
.
. Sapphire .
.
.
until he settled on
Ruby.
Then he pulled a coin from behind Nora’s ear.
Sometimes her mom sent her downstairs with a note requesting an extension, and Donald would run his tongue around the inside of his cheeks, clear his throat as if phlegmy displeasure were lodged there. Nora never knew if the envelope she carried contained a note or a check and she held her breath every time he slit it open with his silver letter opener. Either way, Donald, with his dark eyebrows that nearly met in the middle of his forehead, and the rash of capillaries spread across his nose, made Nora’s mouth go dry.
Once, Nora walked into Jocelyn’s kitchen to find Donald gripping Jocelyn’s mother’s arm. She heard him yell-whisper
erratic home life
and
multiple partners.
When he and Margaret noticed Nora, Donald clamped his mouth shut, and Margaret’s pale English complexion flushed pink. The kitchen went quickly still. Nora averted her eyes from Donald’s hand on Margaret’s arm to the window and the
25 MPH
sign out front. Sunlight streamed in, washing the spotless counter in sweet yellow light and bouncing off a china sugar bowl. “It smells clean in here” was all Nora could think to say.
Ruby told Nora that Donald’s disgruntled attitude had nothing to do with the rent extensions. Donald’s disenchantment revolved around his wife’s habit of wearing pantyhose twenty-four hours a day, as reported by Nora who three times had spent the night in the big apartment.
Nora and her mom lived in the building on lower Primrose because it was an improvement from their last place and they were working their way up the hill to the green lawns and swing sets and cute white bungalows. Their building did have a sliver of lawn in front, but Jocelyn and Nora ignored it, mostly staying in the carport—rolling around belly-down on skateboards, or putting on plays in Margaret’s clothes. Now that Nora had a real live pet to include, she thought their games might evolve. Ruby provided her with an old scarf to fashion into a leash for Phil Donahue, but when she tied it on, he nearly yanked his oniony head through his new flea collar.
“Keep that beast away,” Jocelyn yelled. She stopped running circles around her mother and a large aqua mound on the floor of the carport and pointed accusingly at Phil Donahue. “His claws will ruin my new pool.” She sang out the last two words as if she were a game-show host.
Margaret looked up from unfurling the blue plastic heap and smiled at Nora. “Have you a new pet, lamb?” Margaret baked scones and saved Jocelyn’s hand-me-down Cotswold-wool sweaters for Nora. Nora knew she was an opportunity for Margaret to tend to those less fortunate and thus an avenue to God.
“My mom says he needs consistent love,” she said to Margaret.
“You must come ’round for a dip later.”
“Where’s his tail?” Jocelyn stood with her hands on her hips.
Nora scooped up her hissing cat and stared at all the amazing blue. She breathed in the new-plastic smell and scratched the stump where Phil Donahue’s tail should have been.
“He’s a Manx, love.” Margaret’s British accent made anything seem charming.
Nora was secretly mastering the accent by whispering a list of words before bed each night, like a prayer:
tomato, trespass, brilliant, wee, biscuit, charming, love.