Weekend (5 page)

       
JOE

Joe felt an argument brewing. She knew she was silk-sensitive and should just button her lips, but—“You're in love with them,” she said. “Aren't you?”

Elliot took two places away from the table settings. “Oh, for god's sake, don't, Joe. How is it that you spend years coping with my lovers and then now, at this late date, this bullshit?”

“You are. You think you're not, but I see you around them. I see how you light up. Anyway, come
on.
What are you referring to, ‘late date?'”

“For crying out loud,” said Elliot. “I can't even stand that you're starting this crap.” Joe was trying to nurse, but so unsuccessfully, milk squirting, that Elliot, done with the table, grabbed the baby, walking her as she wailed, in a football hold they'd seen friends use. According to their midwife, no soothers were permitted at this stage in order to force the baby into developing a good breast latch, in order to compel a habit of needing just breast.

“Hello, you little butterball of goodness,” said Elliot, bringing Scout close up to her face where the baby finally soothed—perhaps in surprise? Elliot sounded deliciously fond. “Hello, you scrunched-face alien. Are you MaPa's little baby from Mars? You are, aren't you? You're MaPa's little baby girl from Pluto.”

Joe melted. Her breasts let down. Lord, when it started, the milk thing, it just wouldn't quit.

She was already regretting what she'd said, but at the same time, she wanted to say more, similar things, lots more, and furthermore, she couldn't stop herself. “I can't even tell that you're my wife anymore,” she said, tears waterfalling down her face. “You've barely looked at me since Scout was born. I'm a person! I'm real! I have feelings!”

Elliot looked away from Scout, exasperated, looked back with a cleared expression. “Aren't you MaPa's scrunchy-wunchie?”

Joe sniffled and said, “Something's going on. There's something you're not telling me.”

Maybe the baby was glad to hear Ell's voice. Maybe she'd been missing the way Ell used to talk to Joe's stomach when she was in-utero. The loving massaging hands, the cooing voice, old rock 'n' roll songs, “Jailhouse Rock,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Maybellene
.
”

Joe scraped her face with tissue. “I'm sorry. Just come over here. I can feed her again and we can cuddle.”

“Joe, I'm getting ready for dinner. I'm cooking, the water is boiling out of the pot,” said Elliot. “The birthing pool is still up. There are three piles of laundry. I can't do everything around this place and mollycoddle you, too.”

“
Mollycoddle
me?” Joe heard her voice rise dangerously.

“Oh, stop it. Unless you're on some kind of stupid pills, you know perfectly well what I mean. I don't mean you're an asshole and I've never loved you. I just mean the chores are spiralling out of control, and there was a lot I was supposed
to be accomplishing over the summer and I feel out of control and you know I hate that.”

The architect in her. It was all about straight lines going straight up. Could she at least acknowledge that the blueprints were changing?

“Those guys aren't coming over, right? You were willing to stop everything and visit with them,” said Joe, rising to take Scout back. “So visit us instead. Come on. How are you feeling? Still flu-ish?”

“Not flu-ish. It came, it went.” Elliot slumped beside her, brooding and resentful. She watched Joe's clumsy attempts to get Scout latched and drummed her fingers on the coffee table. Scout fussed when she couldn't quite figure out the nipple. The milk drips started again which made latching harder. Joe opened her mouth at the baby to mimic what she wanted: wide open, guppy-lipped. And Scout responded. Silence reigned; the baby suckled, and Joe winced at a new pain she supposed was good news.

“We should watch the latching movie the midwife gave us,” said Joe.

Elliot drew in a sharp breath.

“What I said earlier. You really could think about breast-feeding, Elliot.”

“Do I have to remind you I don't have nipples?”

“Now
you're
being intentionally stupid.”

“I'll be back at work in the fall,” said Elliot. “You're off for a year. You have the freedom.” Ell looked small and vulnerable
suddenly. “And Joe, if it's okay, could you maybe not mention my deficiencies again, please?”

Elliot suffered phantom pain and numb skin.
Can you feel that?
Joe would ask, trickling her finger across Elliot's chest or arm.
No,
Elliot would say.
Now? No. Now? Maybe, sort of.

“God, you're crabby. You don't have to be mean, Ell. I'm just trying to do the best thing for Scout.” She paused, thought, didn't resist. “Also I don't see why you have to sleep with Logan anymore.”

Ell rose. “You asked me to come sit with you and now you're attacking me. Can I say anything right?”

Joe thought about that. “Probably not. Probably no, you can't.”

Elliot said, “Look, please, for fuck's sake, don't pick a fight with me when you don't mean to.” She tickled the baby's cheek.

“I might mean to,” said Joe, tears tracking down her cheeks. “The book even says you are not supposed to leave me alone this week, not once, not for an instant. You read it, I know you read it.”

Elliot shrugged. “You're not
alone
alone. I don't want to argue. I wasn't trying to do anything against you. Or us. I'm happy about Scout.”

“About the baby, but that's where your interest here stops.”

“Well, I don't want her to grow up hearing our fights, Joe, I don't. We're patterning the experiences she'll gravitate toward later on. I know you don't want to hurt her future chances either.”

“I don't, but—”

“I am pulling with you, Joe. I am. I'm just overwhelmed with some things, some things I wasn't expecting, that I'm having trouble dealing with.”

“See? See? I knew it!”

“Don't go off the deep end now. Don't. You do this. You explode into a fervour when I haven't said anything to rile you up.”

“Okay, fine. Okay. What things?”

“Nothing things. Work things, some of them.” Elliot shrugged. “
Things,
okay?”

“You need to show me you care, is all,” said Joe.

“Don't I show you? Isn't cooking for you showing you?” Ell did almost all the cooking. A lot of the cleaning. She was no slouch around the house. And no slouch as a partner either, most of the time. Most of their years.

“I need you to notice
me
,” said Joe. There were small snuffling noises at her breast, but Scout kept falling asleep instead of nursing and coming off the nipple open-mouthed, head canted like a drunk—finally food comatose. Could babies feel the stress between a couple? Was Scout right this moment imprinting on her mother's misery like a whooping crane following a light plane?

“I need you to notice
me
,” said Elliot.

Joe blinked in astonishment.

“All you see is Scout. Sometimes I feel that's all you wanted
me for was to have a baby, and now that you have her, you have no use for me.”

Oh, that was insane, insane! All she did was notice her! Dropped everything when she was around to smother her with attention! Joe felt as if lethal gasses were expanding inside her, pushing at her skin. “But I love you, Elliot! I'm wild about you! All I do is consider your welfare!”

Elliot pushed herself up, tucked a weary fist into the small of her back. “I admit, I am not as patient as I usually am. I'm sorry.”

“No,
I'm
sorry,” Joe said, lifting bleary eyes. “You're not entirely wrong. I'm absorbed with her. And I've been shrill with you, demanding. This experience is, I don't know, consumptive.” Joe's left arm was aching from Scout's weight. “It's how crappy and vulnerable I feel physically, the stitches, the fact that I can't get more than two hours of sleep in a row, and then all the worry about getting her latched to establish breastfeeding, and is my milk ever going to come in—”

Elliot laughed. “I think your milk is definitely in.” Joe's shirt was soaked to her waist. “I'm sorry you're hurt,” said Elliot, relenting, wrapping her arm around Joe, pulling her as tightly in as she could without pushing up against Scout.

“Tell me you love me.”

“You know I do,” said Elliot, kissing her cheek. “I'm married to you, aren't I? Obviously I love you.”

“It's the best,” said Joe, sighing with pleasure, quelling the inner voice that said,
Hey, wait a second!
Snuggling down, she
rested her head on Elliot's shoulder. She could smell her own milk, sweet, sour. It was true that she was no kind of wife these days. It would be six weeks until they could have sex. And even then it might not be what she'd had before, since in birthing, somehow in all her magnificent pushing, her clitoris had torn. What was Logan, what was anyone else, compared to this, compared to the three of them becoming a family together?

       
JOE

Campfire next door, and Elliot said they should go. She'd been twitchy through dinner. “It's not far. Do you think you can walk it if you hold on to me?” she asked Joe. “I'll carry Scout.” They navigated across the rocks down to the campfire pit between the two houses, met Toby waggling his tail partway. Lightning bugs blinked on, blinked off, blinked on, blinked off. Joe realized that it felt amazing to be outside, even just creeping along as they of necessity had to, her arm slipped through Ell's elbow to help steady her, the U-pillow huge and geriatric around Ell's neck, the babe snuggled into the crook of Ell's low-hanging free arm. It even felt amazing just to realize that she didn't have to exist within the bubble that was their living room and spare room for perpetuity. Elliot gave the baby over, slung the U-pillow onto a stump for Joe, then stood behind her so she could lean for support.

“Y'all,” Logan said. “Take my chair, Joe.”

While they switched, Toby flopped down, a woof coming out of him as if he'd moved a great weight.

“Ajax, this is Joe, and baby Scout. Joe, Ajax,” said Logan.

Joe was seeing if she could sit comfortably on the pillow. It smarted, but then her stitches hurt no matter what.

Logan stoked the dying fire.

Ajax said, “Scout is a great name. I'm happy to meet you, Joe. May I hold her?” She walked around the campfire jiggling Scout, rubbing her back and patting her bottom.

“You must have kids?”

Ajax told them about her kids.

Though Joe had been hoping to avoid a feeding, Scout got hungry so she fiddled with fixing the tiny voracious mouth to her nipple. Crackles from the fire, the sound of the baby slurping. Preamble gotten through; how they all knew each other. How Logan and Ajax had met twenty years earlier and lost touch and met again. When she sat down, Ajax leaned into Logan as if she'd known them always. Joe had half a mind to say, “Wait a second, that's
Logan
you're talking about,” but it hadn't been Logan's hand on Elliot's ass, but the reverse—Elliot's hand on Logan's ass. Joe was surprised that Ajax was older—Logan usually dated down, dated thirty-year-olds. Ajax, she said, was turning fifty; it was her birthday weekend.

Toby musically shook his collar, put his large head on Logan's lap, and Logan petted him as long ropes of spittle fell. He didn't sit long before he melted into the ground, his big head tucked onto his paws. Logan offered Dos Equis; Joe couldn't, Elliot begged off, and Ajax didn't.

Logan said, “Sure am glad to be up here again. I didn't know when I was going to make it back.” Logan hugged Ajax close. “Was waiting for the girl to be able to come with me.”

“I thought we were going for an afternoon's drive,” said Ajax.

“Oh, Logan is a real card,” said Joe dryly. “All about romance and true love.”

“I think they really are,” said Ajax, beaming over at Logan.

“Let me tell you about love. Here's what I know about love,” said Logan. “My cousin Miranda met this woman when she was young—nineteen. She met Daisy straight after she broke up with this loser dude she'd been dating in high school. She was in college at the time, taking a two-year program in insurance brokering. She wasn't worldly. She hadn't travelled. She didn't really excel in school, and she certainly didn't make any real friends, not in all those twelve years. Miranda was still living at home with her mother, but she worked at a foot-long shop, mostly for tips, and this woman came in a lot. She always ordered a BLT sub, and it got so my cousin was excited to have her come in, you know, looked forward to seeing her? She was always in nice clothing, and she flirted. I don't know at what point Miranda figured out that Daisy was married and had a newborn, but by then she was in love. We all said, don't hold your breath; she is not going to leave her wife. Go out with somebody else. But she couldn't. She slept with Daisy in Daisy's marital bed when her wife was out. She slept with her year after year until, eventually, yeah, Daisy left her wife and they moved in together. But then she caught Daisy having sex with other people—”

“Well, we all do that, pretty much,” said Elliot. “I mean, speaking for myself as someone poly.”

“We're not,” said Ajax and reached for Logan's hand. “Right, hon?”

“We're not,” Logan confirmed. “I'm not anymore.”

“It's a question of what a couple promises each other,”
said Ajax. “It's a question of being honourable. Pretty much if you're keeping an element of what's going on hidden from your partner, you're about to be sucked under on the honour thing.”

“Exactly,” said Logan, raising her beer. “So Daisy did the opposite, and my cousin found out, but she was still really young, and she believed Daisy when she said it wouldn't happen again. She liked to believe people were basically good at heart.”

“How very World War II,” said Elliot.

“So she got married to Daisy and it happened again, of course, and Miranda finally left Daisy. Then Daisy got into a bad car wreck, and my cousin took her back. Daisy couldn't work anymore, but she could still philander. So she philandered. And Miranda found out and, kaboom! Apart. Again. Then Daisy messed Miranda around.”

“Physically?”

“Yeah, uh-huh,” said Logan, uncapping another beer.

“That should fucking just never happen,” said Ajax. “I know that it does in our community, and lord knows, I had my own trouble like that with an ex; we've all had our experiences with controlling, angry partners, but—”

“That is over the top. That's not love,” said Elliot.

It was humid, the night pressing in on them, pressing, it seemed, their sweat to their skin. Logan saw a shooting star and pointed too late to share it.

“What's love, though? They would have said they were in love,” said Logan. “Even Miranda, when she was being battered, she would have said she was in love. And Daisy probably would
have said she was in love. You know you have it when you have it, but other people can't assess your heart to say you're right or wrong. Is love a feeling or is love an action?”

“We have it,” said Joe. “It's a feeling and an action.”

“It's a feeling,” said Logan.

Ajax said, “It's an action.”

“I guess we have it,” said Joe. “I mean, I'm happy when Ell's around. I light up. I mean, I have my moments, and this week there have been lots, but …”

“She's maybe been a little cranky,” said Elliot, patting Joe's knee.

“You try pushing a watermelon out your hoo-haw,” said Joe.

Logan made a face.

The fire spit sparks.

Elliot took the baby from Joe and wrapped a blanket tightly around her, covered her head, swung her up to her shoulder to pat her back. “If you're talking about love, you could talk about this. Four days ago, I didn't even know Scout. Now I can't imagine life without her.”

Aww,
thought Joe.

“Daisy was completely obsessed with my cousin, is what I am getting at. She wanted to know everything she was doing, everyone she was seeing, you know. And maybe that was a kind of love.” Logan took a slug, drew Ajax closer.

Joe said, “That's not love!”

Ajax said, “Having a planned baby is love, for sure.”

“It matters to me that Joe would put herself through that,” said Elliot. “Labour was hard. But, I mean, look what you get.”

Ajax grinned at Logan and stroked their leg.

“Maybe love is just the ability to get along together, day to day,” said Logan. “To stand each other's foibles. Maybe that's all it comes down to. Maybe it's understanding that if you break up, you have to take yourself along and that's who you'll be dealing with—again.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Elliot.

“Maybe it's loving unconditionally,” said Ajax. “I loved my ex unconditionally, but she didn't love me the same way. Really, I doubt she knows a thing about love.”

“But fighting can be good,” said Elliot. “Things build up between us, for instance, and then we fight, a good walloping yell, and then things feel better afterward. That's love too. There's no reason that can't be love.”

“If it's not rage. Melt-downs and suicidal ideation. If it's not violent,” said Ajax. “If it tips into violence, that's not love, I'm sorry. If you're manipulating the other person, no. That's just not love.”

Logan said, “I give you that. Fights are important. Fights are sometimes just as important as getting along. But not always. My mother married her first husband in Morocco, and they had two little boys. That man beat my mother, he beat her to a pulp. She was a PhD, you know, and he was a medical doctor, but he still got home and beat her every night, and this one time, she just ran. She ran as far as she could to get away from him,
which in this case was to southern Spain, and she abandoned my brothers.”

“Not you?”

“I wasn't born yet,” said Logan. “And my brothers aren't in my life.”

On Elliot's shoulder, Scout burped and fell sound asleep.