Stepping (30 page)

They said on the phone, in their new monotones, okay, fine, they would do it. And they arrived on June seventh, my due date, the day we had asked them to come. But they arrived with the same ungiving expressions that they had come with for two years. They didn’t speak easily, they looked surly, they averted their eyes. I smiled, Charlie smiled, we both smiled till our jaws hurt; still they froze away from us. And froze away from Adam. They did not touch him, or speak to him, or look at him. What has happened? I longed to ask. Why are you both acting this way? Do you suddenly hate us all? What can we do to change things? But their faces invited no such intimate questions.

When my labor pains started that night, waking me from my sleep, I panicked. I said
No
, new baby, not yet. I’m not ready for you yet. I’ve got to figure a way out of this. I can’t leave Adam here alone with these two ice maidens. Perhaps I was behaving irrationally; of course the girls wouldn’t kill Adam. But I so wanted the new baby’s birth to be a time of love and joy for everyone, including Adam. I didn’t want him to remember it as a time of loneliness and strangeness and fear. Perhaps I was being irrational, fearing to leave him with the girls. But then Charlie was being too rational, I thought, and I had to counteract that. Not everything could be measured in money and logic, not at times like these.

It was almost five-thirty by the time Mrs. Justin came and we gave her her instructions. Caroline and Cathy were still asleep in the pullout bed in the front parlor. Adam was still asleep upstairs. My contractions were coming fast and hard. We got into the car. Charlie drove as fast as he dared.

“Have you tried to talk to them about it?” I asked Charlie between pants. “Have you tried to tell them how we feel?”

“I spoke to them a bit yesterday,” Charlie said. “They said they feel funny here. They feel left out. We have our own little family and they aren’t a part of it. They said they don’t want to be a part of it, either. They just want to stay away from us. I guess they
feel I’ve betrayed them and you have sort of tempted me into the betrayal. They don’t like to talk about it much. They won’t talk to me much, won’t open up. When I told them how we still loved them and cared for them, how we miss them and miss their company and friendship, they didn’t respond. Finally both girls said that they thought if we hadn’t had Adam we could have afforded to send them to better colleges, to private instead of state schools. Cathy said it didn’t seem fair that I could go out and get myself some new children when she couldn’t go out and get herself a nice new father.”

“Oh, Charlie,” I moaned.

“Well,” Charlie said, “I have my hopes for this week. Maybe over a long period of time they’ll relax, feel at home, talk with you. They’re going through a tough time all around, you know. They told me that about a year ago Adelaide was offered a new job at the university. Quite a jump up from her former position. She is now executive secretary to the vice president of the university. It’s a demanding job; it pays well, and it’s prestigious, and apparently she loves it. It’s really a classy job, and a powerful one. She’s gotten into it completely. She works full-time and overtime, and often has dinner with the trustees or visiting biggies. I guess it’s rather become her whole life. She was glad it came along just as the girls were getting ready to leave the nest, but I guess the girls weren’t ready for it. On the one hand they’ve got their mother, who is too tired to cook dinner or to make homemade anything, and who is too busy and too involved with her new work to be really there for them, and on the other hand they’ve got us with our boring farm and new babies. They’re feeling isolated and unprotected and estranged and bitter.”

“But how great for Adelaide!” I cried out, louder than I meant to because of my contractions. “Did you talk to her when you picked the girls up yesterday? Did you see her?”

“Yes,” Charlie said, “and she looked better than I’ve ever seen her in her life. She’s kept her hair blond and she’s very slim and was wearing a simple tailored shirt and slacks instead of that frilly crap she used to wear. She is happy; that radiates from her all over. She is really happy. She looks elegant and totally complete. We didn’t talk to each other very long, but it was quite pleasant. She had a classy leather briefcase under her arm. She looked great.”

“God, I’m so glad!” I screeched. “Oh, Charlie, can you drive any faster? I think I’ve got to push.”

“Puff and blow, for God’s sake,” Charlie said. “Don’t push, Jesus Christ!” He pressed down hard on the accelerator.

I was afraid I would have the baby in the car. I was afraid Adam would cry when he woke up and found us gone. I was afraid the girls would be mean to him. I was afraid that in Charlie’s eyes I was suddenly not as attractive as Adelaide was, slim and elegant and sporting a leather briefcase. I was afraid that I would never be slim and elegant and sporting my own leather briefcase. And it is true that one’s psychological state has a lot to do with one’s physical state. Somewhere underneath it all I rationally knew what was going on, but I was so afraid of everything that each contraction seemed like a hard grip of fear. By the time we got to the hospital I was sobbing and shaking and out of control. We had of course forgotten to call the doctor to tell him we were on the way. I collapsed into a wheelchair and we went up to the maternity ward, where I was somehow shoved or thrown onto a table and hurried into the delivery room. By then I was pushing: I had to push. And I was screaming because of the pain, because I was so out of control, because my whole life was out of control. Never had anything hurt so much. The table was not ready. I grasped Charlie with my left hand and a nurse with my right hand, and another nurse ran around all flustered down where my legs were, trying to do something with white towels, and I yelled, “Please help me! Please give me something for the pain!” And in a lovely sliding whoosh my daughter was born.

I had two cozy, aching, leaking, loving days in the hospital with Lucy before I went home. I let myself forget Adam, little chubby Adam, for those two days because Charlie was still there and I knew that Charlie would take care of him. I gave myself over to the adoration and contemplation of my new child, to the enjoyment of my pains and wounds, to the routine care of others, to soggy, milky, bloody, hot and moist bliss. But the third day of Lucy’s life I went home. The nurses and my physician warned me against it, but I didn’t listen to them. I didn’t care. I would not leave my son alone with my stepdaughters.

Charlie came to pick me up, and Adam was in the car. His hair was curly from the humidity of the New Hampshire day and his cheeks were flushed. I put the baby in a
baby carrier in the backseat and rode in the front seat next to Charlie, hugging Adam and stroking his perfect tanned sturdy legs and burying my nose in his hair.

“How are Cathy and Caroline?” I asked him.

“Who?”

“Cathy and Caroline—”

“Oh, those ladies that are living at our house? They’re okay.” And that was all he said. At least, I thought, at least he doesn’t seem afraid of them.

Charlie got us all settled at home. Cathy and Caroline were out weeding the garden, and when we drove in they turned to look at us, but did not leave their work to come up to see me and my new child. Charlie carried Lucy in and settled her in her bed. He brought me my overnight bag and unpacked it for me. He fixed me a Bloody Mary; he fixed himself and Adam and me lunch.

He said, “I’m sorry I have to go. A man my age has no business having babies. I’d like to stay home and simply hold Lucy and stare at her. She is so beautiful. But the conference is important.”

“I know that,” I said.

“I’ve talked with the girls. I told them to be nice to you and to Adam. I told them they are to do all dishes and housework while I’m gone. They’ve been working out in the garden pretty well. I think it will all be just fine. I really do think it will be better than leaving you here with some strange expensive public health nurse.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll take Adam outside and have the girls watch him while you nurse Lucy and take your nap. Don’t worry. I promise it will all be okay.”

Charlie left me then, leading Adam out the door, holding his dimpled hand. I shuffled up the stairs into my bedroom and tried to put on some lipstick, tried to brush my hair. I didn’t want to look too boringly dowdy. I changed out of my maternity clothes into a soft blue nightgown that I had bought when Adam was born; it buttoned down the front so that I could open it easily for nursing. I shuffled down the hall to the bathroom and took care of some physical needs, and by the time I was able to shuffle back, Lucy was wailing her new baby wail. I changed her and nursed her and talked to her a bit, and soon she fell back asleep. It was a warm June day and the windows were open, and insects
buzzed against the screen and there was no breeze. I lay back on my bed, listening hard for sounds of Adam, and before I knew it I was asleep.

When I awoke it was because Lucy was crying again. The light in my bedroom had changed and deepened. With horror I looked at my watch; it was almost six-thirty. I had slept for five straight hours, I had left my little boy alone in the world for five straight hours. Frantically I grabbed up Lucy and changed her, then held her to me and shuffled out of my room and down the stairs. “There, there,” I murmured, “there, there, you’ll get your dinner in a minute. Let’s just find Adam first.”

The door into the kitchen was shut. I opened it to see Catherine and Caroline sitting at the dinner table, eating the casserole I had made and frozen earlier that month. The television was on and they were entranced by it.

“Hello,” I said. “Where’s Adam?”

“In there,” Cathy said, and jerked her head sideways.

Adam was lying in the playpen, sucking his thumb and rolling rhythmically from side to side. When he saw me he stood up and burst into tears.

“MOMMY!” he wailed.

Neither girl looked at him or at me; they continued to steadily watch the television. I put Lucy on the rug on the floor and went over to lift Adam out of the playpen. It hurt to lift him; he was so much heavier than Lucy, and I had to bend down into an awkward position to reach him. I felt things inside me pull. But he wrapped himself around me and buried his head in my neck and cried, so I could not put him down.

“Did you feed him?” I asked the girls.

They pointed to a plate full of food. “He didn’t want it,” they said. “He said he didn’t like it.”

“Oh, well, did you give him anything else?”

“No. He didn’t say he wanted anything else. We just thought he wasn’t hungry.”

Lucy, who had apparently been shocked into silence for a few moments, now began to wail again, wildly now. It had been over five hours since she had been fed. Adam continued to clutch me and sob. Both girls continued to watch television.

“Look, sweet pie,” I said to Adam, “Mommy will put you in your high chair, and
I’ll sit right next to you and feed you your dinner, and you can watch baby Lucy drink her dinner just like you did when you were a baby.”

“Out of your breasts?” Adam asked.

“Out of my breasts,” I said.

The novelty of it appealed to Adam; he willingly got into his high chair. I picked Lucy up and pulled a chair over for myself to sit in next to Adam’s high chair, and opened my robe and got Lucy’s greedy mouth onto my left nipple. I held her with my left arm and fed Adam his food with my right hand. The girls continued to watch television. It was as if the three of us simply were not there. I felt a rage bubbling within me, but I tried to keep it down, not wanting to mix Lucy’s milk with acid.

My stomach growled. I had not had anything to eat or drink since lunchtime, when Charlie had been there to fix my food; that protected friendly time seemed ages away. Now I felt like an unwanted stranger in my own home. There I sat, weary and aching and bleeding and leaking and longing for a kind and interested word. There I sat with my new baby, and Caroline and Cathy did not so much as turn their heads to see what Lucy looked like. There I sat, feeding Adam as I nursed Lucy, while Caroline and Cathy stared at the television, and ate the casserole I had made, and acted as if no one else were in the room. It was strange. It was awful.

“Do you suppose one of you could get me a plate of the casserole?” I asked. “I’m very hungry. And could you please pour me a beer?”

Caroline and Cathy looked at each other, exchanged a long, bored, superior, put-upon look.

Then, “I’ll get it,” Caroline sighed. She rose and opened a beer and without pouring it into a glass plopped it down in front of me like a surly waitress. Then she glopped the casserole on a plate and shoved that in front of me. She sat back down again.

I was nearly in tears. I felt as though the world had gone mad. The hate that radiated from the girls was suffocating me. I could not understand what happened, but I knew that if I tried to discuss it with them I would burst into humiliating sobs and not be able to stop.

“Could I please have a fork?” I asked. I thought of all the times, the thousands of times, that I had cooked dinner for them, and set the table, and done the dishes.

Cathy rose this time, and got a fork from the drawer and laid it down near me. Then she, too, sat down to stare at the television.

I was so hungry that I somehow managed to eat my dinner and feed Lucy and feed Adam all at the same time. I switched Lucy to my right breast, put a mouthful of food in Adam’s mouth, then quickly stuffed food in my mouth while Adam chewed. I had to ask the girls for another beer, for a napkin, for an apple for myself and a banana for Adam. Finally I felt satisfied, and Adam had eaten everything, and Lucy’s mouth went slack around my nipple. I held her against my shoulder and patted her until she gave a loud, most vulgar burp. The sound made Adam laugh, and I smiled, but Caroline and Cathy appeared not to hear it.

I pushed back my chair, and laid Lucy on the floor, and helped Adam out of his high chair. Then, without speaking to the girls (after all, what could I possibly say?), I picked Lucy up and took Adam by the hand and led him up the stairs. We went into his bedroom, and I spent two long hours there, playing toys with him, reading him books, while Lucy lay on the floor, looking up at the light. Now and then she would cry a bit, and I would hold her, and she would snuggle against me, not sleepy, but content. Finally I managed to get Adam into his summer pajamas, and into the bathroom to use the toilet and to brush his teeth, and finally, finally, he was in bed. I was exhausted. I felt like a prisoner in my house. I could hear sounds of the television below me. Lucy did not want to sleep, so I sat with her on my bed for a while and sang to her, and let her lie on her stomach on my rug while I tried to write a few birth announcements to friends. But I was tired, too tired. I craved rest and sleep. I longed for a hot bath, a stiff scotch, and twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. I wished that someone friendly would call me to see how I was; I wished Caroline and Cathy would come up and ask how I felt, if there was anything they could do to help. I wondered why on earth they were behaving like such total rotten spoiled bitches; I didn’t have the emotional or physical energy to try to figure it out myself. I decided that in the morning I would definitely screw up my courage and ask them what was going on. If I could be brave enough to ask point-blank right into their bitterly closed faces what was going on, surely they would have to answer.