I’m going to name the baby Fat Sex Bus, he tells me.
* * *
…
The last supper. We are served a boring, vitamin-filled meal that befits the expecting parents to be. I ask Catherine if she is scared. “Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes a little.” The baby is due in two days, a girl, but they are keeping the name a secret. We spend a while trying to guess it.
Anna?
Emma?
Ella?
Lily?
“You’re getting warm,” she says.
* * *
…
It’s the night of the back-to-school concert. Before we can walk into the auditorium, we have to show our IDs and the ticket his teacher sent us last week. On the corner of the ticket there is a number that shows how many people are in your family. There is a warning not to bring any extra guests to the performance because SAFETY FIRST!
Eli stands in the front row of the bleachers next to Amira. He is wearing his lucky pants and his lucky shirt, but he looks nervous. The last song is his favorite one, he has told me. I can see him gathering confidence as they move through the other, lesser numbers. Then all at once the kids close their eyes and begin to sway. Everyone leans forward, trying to see. They sing that their lives are like a drop of water, no more, in an endless sea. Whatever they make will not stand; it will crumble to the ground before their very eyes. And all the money in the world could not buy them a moment more.
Nothing lasts forever is the conclusion reached. An exception is made for the earth and the sky.
* * *
…
The baby is here! She arrived last night at 3:04 a.m. Her name is Iris and everyone thinks it’s a good name.
They got a private room, thank God, but Catherine is still wild-eyed. Nothing went according to plan. There was no calming music, no birthing ball, no soft socks, no warm compresses. They gave her an enema, an epidural, and Pitocin. The baby came so fast that Catherine’s doctor didn’t make it there in time. She arrived an hour late, dressed for an evening out, and delivered the placenta.
All this I get in whispers from Henry. “There was so much blood! They were mopping it up with towels! You wouldn’t believe it, Lizzie,” he says.
But I would. I had a baby in this shitty hospital too. There’s that ding, ding, ding as you go down the hallways, all those machines conducting their business. Even the buzzing of these awful lights is stored somewhere deep in my body. As soon as I walked through the door, it rose to the surface.
* * *
…
On the last night that she’s in town, my mother comes over for dinner. She has been helping Henry and Catherine with the baby. She is thrilled by all the hard work. She says she can’t remember the last time Henry paid so much attention to her. She talks about the goodness of God. She cooks us spaghetti carbonara.
Later, she plays an endless game of War with Eli and expresses concern about how closely Ben follows the political news. “You should pace yourself,” she tells him. “We’re only about twenty minutes into this.”
In the morning, I drive her to the airport. She is sorry to go. “Don’t you think I could be more helpful if I lived here?” I don’t know what to say. Yes, of course, but she lives on a fixed income, has no savings. Where could she afford to live? She gives me a tentative smile. “I don’t take up much space.” I squeeze her hand, then turn on the radio. I flip until I find an easy listening station. But then I realize it’s God radio. A question is posed to us.
The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?
Yup.
I kiss her goodbye, make her promise to call me later. She insisted I not go to short-term parking, just drop her at the curb, but from my rearview mirror I see my mistake as she struggles through the revolving door. Ten minutes after I drop her off, Henry texts me. The mothers are gone! The mothers are gone! When are you coming over?
* * *
…
I spend a morning trying to find my old nursing pump for Catherine. Here it is, finally, in the back of a closet. Odd to see it again. I remember the weekend I weaned Eli, I drove up to visit an old friend, one of the few left who is married without children. She and her husband live in an old Victorian house and everything in it is carefully chosen and beautiful. She made me a fancy dinner—rack of lamb, mint jelly, chocolate soufflé—and I tried to act like a human being, not like someone on the lam from her kid.
But then in the middle of the night the milk started coming in, and my shirt got so wet that I sat on the toilet and squeezed it into a towel, worrying about what to say, where to put it, would it smell sour?
I was up most of the night. My body hurt; my brain did too. I thought I might hide the towel under the bed or pack it in with my things to get rid of at home. I couldn’t tell which plan was best, but in the morning when I saw my friend, I said, That beautiful towel you gave me, I’ve ruined it, so sorry, I can pay you for it, and driving home alone, radio on, everything was so green—you wouldn’t believe how green it was—and alongside the road there were flowers and vegetables, but no one there minding the stand, just a box to leave money in, and even that not locked.
I should have taken it.
* * *
…
I get a series of ecstatic texts from a newly divorced friend who has met someone. “I can only imagine what it would be like to be this age and then suddenly fall in love,” I tell Ben. “You are in love,” he corrects me.
Later, he runs his hand along my leg in the dark then stops. “Are you wearing my long johns?” “I was cold,” I tell him. We make up a proverb (Married sex is like taking off your own pants), fool around, go to sleep happy.
* * *
…
Hippie test, courtesy of a book Sylvia gave me. I’m hoping there’s some kind of extra credit or else I really bombed it.
Where You At?
Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap. How many days till the moon is full?…From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region? Name five grasses in your area. Name five resident and five migratory birds…Were the stars out last night?