Too Soon for Jeff

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “Poor little guy,” she says.

  We sit looking at the latest picture of Ethan for a long time, each thinking our own thoughts.

  “Okay, my turn,” she sighs. “You know I told you I’d only ever been with one other guy?”

  I nod. Is she going to tell me she’s had hundreds? That she was a slut all through high school?

  “We’re still sort of engaged,” she says.

  “Engaged?”

  “Well, not exactly, but everyone expects us to get mar­ried some day, including him. We’ve been together since junior high school.”

  “Do you expect to marry him?”

  “I used to think that. Now I’m not so sure,” she says, not meeting my eyes.

  “What do you think now?”

  She looks up at me. “I think I’ve never felt so strongly about anyone in my life, and I want to be in bed with you right now. But I don’t want to hurt Donny. I thought I loved him until I met you, and now I can hardly remember what he looks like.”

  “Well . . . one day at a time?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “Let’s work on the part about how you want to be in bed with me right now,” I say, pulling her toward me.

  Just as we’re locked in a heated embrace, our hands all over each other, Kevin walks in. He takes one look at us, says “Thank God,” and walks back out again.

  Neither of us wants to be separated at Thanksgiving break, but it’s been over two months since I’ve seen Ethan. I can hardly recognize him in the picture I got from Mom yesterday. I try to talk Nicole into coming home with me.

  “It’s a chance to see glamorous Los Angeles,” I tell her.

  “Somehow that idea isn’t as appealing to me as it once was. I can skip the police copters flying over my Thanksgiv­ing turkey, and bullets whizzing around the street. You come home with me.”

  “And face Donny?” I laugh.

  “We’ve both got to go to our own homes,” she says, getting suddenly serious. “You know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, police copters and all. But I’ve got to figure some things out and let Donny know where things stand. And you’ve got to see your baby so he doesn’t forget you . . . It’s only for five days,” she reminds me.

  The week before I leave for L.A. I write to Christy.

  Dear Christy, I’ll be home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day. The main reason I’m flying home is to see Ethan. I’d like to visit him Wednesday evening, and then take him to my house for a few hours on Thursday. I’m sorry we parted on such unfriendly terms. I want to try to get along with you so Ethan can love us both without feeling like he has to choose sides.

  I think we both want what’s best for him.

  I sign the letter sincerely, because I do honestly, sin­cerely, hope we can get along for the sake of our son.

  When Nicole and I say good-bye, before I get on the airport bus, she gives me a postcard with a picture of the Grand Canyon on front. On the back it says, “Remember me.” I hand her a CD that includes “The Grand Canyon Suite,” which is what they play on the Disneyland train trip, and I’ve signed my name across the front of the cover with a gold metallic pen. Neither of us has used the word love with the other. There are tears in her eyes as she waves good-bye, and tears in mine, too. I wonder if she will love Donny again when she sees him?

  On the flight home I read from The Autobiography of Mark Twain, which is an assignment for modern Ameri­can lit. Somehow Mark Twain doesn’t strike me as modern, but the professor teaching the class looks like he might have been traveling the river with Twain when he was a young man, so maybe it’s modern to him. Modern or not, it’s interesting and it helps the flight go quickly.

  Mom and Steve and Stacy are waiting to meet me as I fight my way through the crowds of people at LAX. They all attack me at once, laughing and hugging. For a moment I forget the love I’ve left in Texas, I’m so happy to be with the people I love here.

  On the way home they bombard me with questions about school and Brooker Springs. Have I met new friends? Do I like Texas? How’s debate? How’s the weather? How’s my room? My roommate? And on and on, so fast I can hardly answer them.

  “How’s Ethan?” I ask.

  “He’s doing fine,” Mom says. “You won’t recognize him.”

  “I want to see him as soon as we get home,” I say.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “Then how about all of us going to Barb and Edie’s?”

  I groan in happy anticipation. ‘You don’t know how much I’ve missed those garbageburgers. And onion rings.”

  “You don’t look like you’re hurting for food,” Steve says, punching me in the belly.”

  “Hey, show me you can button these pants around your gut—then your insulting remarks might mean something.” We all laugh. I’ve missed these people so much. I wish Nicole were here with me, getting to know the people I love.

  I’ve brought a Brooker University teddy bear for Ethan. I wind it up so it’s playing the alma mater as I walk to the door of Christy’s house. Her mom answers the door and invites me in. Mr. Calderon is sitting in his E-Z Boy rocker, watching TV, with Ethan asleep on his shoulder. I walk over and stand looking down at him.

  “Getting big, huh?” Mr. Calderon says, smiling.

  I can hardly believe it’s the same baby. He’s chubby! I reach down and touch his hand—check out his crooked pinkies. He stirs a bit but doesn’t waken. Mr. Calderon says, “I think he’ll stay asleep for awhile. Why don’t you put him in his crib?”

  I reach down for Ethan and lift him to my shoulder, being careful to support his head. But he’s strong now. Even though he’s sound asleep, he’s not all wobbly. I lay him in his crib, propped on his side the way I first learned when he was in the hospital. I cover him with a light blanket and go back to the kitchen where Mrs. Calderon is making tamales. I wash my hands and start helping her put them together, as I did two years ago at Thanksgiving, when everything was different.

  “Where’s Christy?”

  “None of your business,” Maria yells from her bedroom.

  “Hello, Maria,” I yell back.

  She comes in, smiling. “Hey, Homes,” she says.

  She looks tough. She’s dressed like a Chola, wearing black eye make-up and plenty of it. I guess she’s thirteen now. I’m not sure. She hangs around the kitchen for a while, then goes back to watch TV.

  “That girl’s going to kill me if she doesn’t straighten up,” Mrs. Calderon says. “She’s been sent home from school three times already. Three!”

  “Why?”

  “Gang attire. She dresses right at home but somewhere between here and school she changes clothes . . . We never had such problems with Christina . . . Well, but maybe Maria won’t get pregnant so young . . . I don’t think I could take another one. I love little Ethan, but you know, babies are a lot of work and I’m not so young anymore.”

  We concentrate on the tamales for a while, not talking, and then I ask again, “Where’s Christy?”

  “She’s working at The Gap, down at the mall. She’ll be home by nine, unless she goes out with the girls from work for a while.”

  “How many days a week does she work?” I ask.

  “Oh, most. She and Ethan get home from the Infant Center around three and she usually needs to be at work by four.”

  “Hey, Mom,” Maria yells from the living room. “The rug rat is crying!”

  I go back to Christy’s room and pick up the baby. He doesn’t smell very good. I turn on the light and reach for a diaper. Everything’s in the same place it was the last time I was here—diapers, baby wipes, burp cloths.

  I undo his dirty diaper, being careful to put the clean one over him so he won’t pee on me. I learned that the hard way when he was first out of the hospital. I clean his butt, which is about twice the size it was when I last saw it, and fasten his clean diaper. Then I pick him up. He’s got eyebrows and eyelashes and even some hair. He no longer looks like a baby skinhead.

  “
Wow! You are one big guy,” I say.

  He grabs a hunk of my hair and pulls. “Hey! When did you learn that trick?” I unwrap his fingers from my hair and hold him cradled in my arm, so I can see his face. He looks at me for a long time. I don’t think he remembers me, but then I find the smiling spot under his chin and his face lights up. Maybe he does remember me.

  “Remember me?” I say. “I’m your daddy.” I tell him how I first saw him in the hospital. I show him how my fingers and his look the same. He watches everything, and listens.

  Mrs. Calderon comes in and stands beside us.

  “He looks great,” I say. “Someone’s taking good care of him.”

  “Christy and I take good care of him,” she says. “Christy’s a good mother, but, you know—seventeen. She doesn’t always want to be tied down. Alfredo watches out for him, too—holds him and feeds him. I didn’t think he’d be like that, but he is. Life surprises us sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  I nod, then suddenly I notice the tee shirt Ethan is wearing. “Hey. What’s this Cal Berkeley stuff?”

  “Dashan sent him that,” Maria yells from the living room, as if she’s been listening to every word.

  “Dashan’s always sending something,” Mrs. Calderon says.

  I don’t say anything. It’s nice, I guess, that Dashan sends him shirts but I’d rather see Ethan in a Brooker University shirt. Of course, that would be difficult, since I haven’t sent him one. I will as soon as I get back to school.

  “Look at your teddy bear,” I say, taking the bear and winding the key. “Listen.” I make the bear dance to the music and Ethan lets out a big laugh. God, I love this little boy. I want him always to have a good life. I don’t want anything, ever, to hurt him.

  Thanksgiving Day I get Ethan and take him back to my house. It’s the usual crowd for dinner, with one addition—Douglas, the guy who graduated from nursing school with my mom. I notice he’s at home in our kitchen—knows where to find everything and helps himself to a beer from the fridge. Once, when he brushes close to my mom as she’s basting the turkey he looks into the oven. “Nice breast,” he says, then raises one eyebrow in a way that makes me think he’s admiring more than the turkey. My mom laughs. What’s going on here?

  Just as I’m about to dig into my mashed potatoes, complete with a well of turkey gravy, Ethan starts to cry.

  I hope he’ll stop, but he doesn’t. I take one quick, delicious mouthful, put down my fork and pick him up from the couch where he’s been sleeping. I hold him and pat him, but he keeps crying. It’s only been an hour since I gave him a bottle, so he can’t be hungry. I change him and rock him. He still cries.

  “What should I do?” I ask my mom.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes babies just need to cry.”

  “Let me try,” Douglas says.

  I hand Ethan over, and Douglas walks with him from room to room. It doesn’t work. His lungs must be pretty strong now, ’cause he’s making a very big sound. I call Christy’s house. She answers the phone. It’s the first time I’ve talked to her since I left for Texas.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Jeff?”

  “Yeah. I can’t get the baby to stop crying,” I tell her. “What should I do?”

  “Is he hungry? Wet? Have you tried rocking him?”

  I assure her that we’ve tried it all.

  “Well . . . Sometimes I take him for a ride in the car when nothing else works.”

  I hang up, wrap Ethan in a blanket, put his hat on him, take him to my car and strap him into his seat. His face is red and he’s screaming at the top of his lungs. It’s awful! I start the car and drive slowly down the street. I’ve driven two blocks when Ethan stops crying. In another two blocks he’s asleep. I drive, aimlessly, past old familiar sights—the street where Christy and I used to always park, the Fit­ness Club, Hamilton High School. I turn down Benny’s street and see his car in the driveway so I stop and ring the doorbell.

  “Is Benny home?” I ask his dad.

  “Jeff. Come in,” he says, grabbing my hand and giving it an enthusiastic shake.

  “I can’t. I’ve got the baby in the car,” I say. “Where’s Benny?”

  “Basic Training,” Mr. Dominguez says. “Maybe it’ll straighten him out.”

  He walks with me to my car and looks in at Ethan. “Benny told me you and Christy had a baby. I guess your carefree days are over now, huh?”

  “I guess so,” I say, getting back in my car. “Tell Benny hi for me next time you talk to him.”

  I drive by Jeremy’s, even though I know he’s not home, and Dashan’s, and Trin’s, but I know they’re all away at school, at least until Christmas.

  Ethan is still sound asleep when I get back to my house. I carry him carefully into the living room and put him back down on the couch. He barely moves.

  Everyone is in the den now, watching the game and eating pumpkin pie.

  “I saved a plate of food for you,” Mom says.

  I put my plate in the microwave and eat my warmed-up dinner. Before I finish my pie, Ethan is crying again.

  “I’ll get him,” Mom says.

  “He’s probably hungry now,” I say.

  Douglas warms a bottle and Mom holds Ethan, watch­ing him while he eats. “I love the feel of his furry little noggin,” she says, rubbing her hand lightly across the top of his head. When Ethan stops eating she hands him to Douglas, who holds him against his shoulder and rubs his back until this loud burp erupts.

  “You’re going to have to teach this kid some manners,” Steve says.

  “I thought that’s what great-uncles did,” I tell him.

  “Nope. Great-uncles only play.”

  I take Ethan back to Christy’s about ten.

  “Can I come get him tomorrow?” I ask her.

  “Sure. I have to work, and my mom can use a break, I guess.”

  I hand Ethan over to Christy, carry all his stuff from the car into her room, say goodnight and leave. Christy and I still don’t talk much, except about the baby.

  Chapter

  23

  “Jeff! Over here!”

  I am surprised to see Nicole waving to me as I get off the plane in Dallas. I run to her and hug her tight. She kisses me, laughing.

  “Daddy let me borrow his car until Christmas,” she says, leading me to a brand new Cadillac parked in valet park­ing. “I decided to swing by the airport and meet you.”

  I put the seat in a reclining position and breathe in the new car smell.

  “How did you get him to let you keep this for a month?”

  “By being his darlin’ baby girl,” she says with a smile. “Besides, he’s going to Hong Kong on business next week and probably won’t be back much before Christmas.”

  I ask the question that’s been on my mind for the past five days. “How did things go with Donny?”

  Nicole frowns. “Not so good, at first. He was upset. Very upset.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I’ve met someone, things have happened, and I want to be free to follow my feelings. We parted friends, sort of—how about Baby Ethan?”

  “He’s practically grown,” I say.

  “How was California?”

  “Different. Noisy. Crowded. I’m glad to be on my way to Brooker Springs.”

  We talk, sitting in Nicole’s dad’s car in front of the dorms, until sunrise. When Kevin leaves for his eight o’clock class, Nicky and I sneak into my room and use my bed for more than sleeping.

  I do a lot of thinking after Thanksgiving. When it’s not raining, and sometimes even when it is, I sit leaning against the broad trunk of the huge old oak tree, looking toward the lake, and thinking about my life. I know I want to teach. I want to be someone who reaches others. And I want to stay in the debate program here at B.U. Debate makes me think. Part of me falls asleep when I’m not involved with debate—like the whole dramatic side of me goes into h
ibernation.

  I often sit under the oak tree, thinking the same thoughts over and over, because of Ethan. And, even though I don’t believe in ghosts, that Kunta Kinte talk from Roots prac­tically haunts me—how it is the job of the father to be as a giant tree to his manchild. This oak tree I sit under shelters me from rain or sun, supports me as I lean against it. Roots, trunk, branches, leaves—substances of life. How can I be as a giant tree to my son, when I am, myself, sitting under a giant tree in Brooker Springs, Texas?

  By December, just before the end of first semester, I can finally make most stones do about three hops to Nicky’s five. We are throwing stones, and talking.

  “Nicky . . .”

  She stops and looks at me, frowning. She can tell in an instant if I’m joking or serious.

  “Nicky . . .”

  “You’re moving back to California,” she says.

  I throw another stone. It sinks. We watch its ripples broaden and diminish.

  “Tell me you’re not moving back to California.”

  “I’ve got to, Nick. Come with me. California has schools, too.”

  “I knew it,” she says, turning to face me.

  “How could you? I just figured it out myself.”

  “Texan’s intuition,” she says, laughing, then comes over to me and hugs me hard.

  “Every time I see a kid with his dad, or hear the D.I. piece that guy from Carson does, I get a pain in my chest that goes clear through to my backbone. I can’t only see my son at vacation times. I want to be more than a vacation dad. He deserves more,” I say, kissing her. “Come with me. I don’t want to lose you. I need you.”

  She pulls away.

  “I can’t just tag along after you, Jeff.”

  “I want you near me so we can love each other. Don’t you want that?”

  “Yes. You know I do. But I want it here. This is my school. I’ve planned to come here since I was a little girl. My mother and father met here. I want to love you here,” she says, then picks up a stone, skips it seven times, turns and walks away.