There was a young man from Racine… No. That was a limerick. And none too suitable for a baby, either.
Squeak started screaming bloody murder. Brenna discovered there was something about the frequency of a baby’s cry that a mother simply couldn’t tune out. She felt herself getting frantic.
She was a tough woman. She had survived Kavsak. But this. She was out of her depth. The sole point in her favor so far today was that the baby was actually wearing a fresh diaper. Brenna didn’t care that it was on backwards.
Margaret and Dr. J finally, mercifully, simultaneously shuffled out of their respective bedrooms, driven by the sound of a crime in progress.
Brenna looked at them. The cavalry. Salvation.
Witnesses to her utter ineptitude.
“Oh, my goodness,” Margaret said, coming forward, hands held out. “My dear child.”
Brenna gratefully handed Squeak over.
“Oh.” Dr. J diagnostically patted the reversed diaper. “Dry.”
The two of them bent their heads over the wailing baby.
“Wet chin,” Margaret said.
Dr. J exchanged a knowing look with her. She placed her thumb on Squeak’s lower lip and tugged it down. “Ah.”
“What?” Brenna asked, glimpsing a small red knob on Squeak’s gums.
The elder women turned to her. “Teething,” they pronounced.
Brenna groaned.
Motherhood.
Day one.
“Have you fed her yet?”
“Uh. We haven’t been up that long.” An hour?
“Hm,” Margaret said. “Did she have a bottle overnight?”
Brenna shook her head. “She slept through.”
“Well, let’s start there. These little ones don’t get good mileage. They need frequent fill-ups. Overnight is a long wait at this age.”
“Maybe,” Dr. J suggested, “a little cloth?”
“Good idea,” Margaret concurred. “One for now, two in the freezer.”
“Oh. Freezer! I forget there is electricity.”
Brenna looked from one to the other. They were talking MomCode.
Margaret patted Brenna’s arm. “Would you get three washcloths from the linen closet, please dear? Wet two and put them in the freezer. Give Squeak the third one to chew on. Soothes the gums, absorbs the saliva, keeps the chin from getting rashy.”
“Oh, Brenna. Baby’s bag is in the room? I will get food, and clothes, yes?”
“Come on,” Margaret murmured to Squeak. “Let’s get something in your tummy.” She continued with a string of endearments. The baby, tuning in to Margaret’s hypnotic tranquility, immediately lowered the decibels.
Tears pricked Brenna’s eyes. The baby had settled and nothing had even been done for her yet. The kid knew an Impostor Mom when she met one.
Dr. J came back with the supplies, saw Brenna’s face, and patted her arm. “Oh, Brenna. First time I changed Luka, I stand at his feet. Pshh!” She gestured a straight line down the center of her body. “My mother-in-law, I don’t think she likes me. She does not tell me: ‘You have a boy. Stand to one side when you open the diaper.’”
“Hah!” Margaret said, “I lathered Daniel with toothpaste, once. Reached for the tube of Desitin, but picked up the wrong one. Toothpaste stings! Oh, Lord, the way he howled I thought I’d broken the baby.”
Before she knew it, Brenna was sitting with Squeak on her lap, spooning carrot puree out of a bowl, contentment—parental and infantile—restored.
After she cleared the bowl, Margaret had the warmed-up formula ready and handed it to her. The baby knows what to do. Daniel’s words came back to her. Brenna watched Squeak suckle, the tiny mouth expertly working the nipple. She loved this view of her. She should get a picture. Large format. Fine grain. Maybe set up a tripod over her shoulder, rig a monitor and a remote release.
“Hey, Kid,” she murmured. “I was thinking how beautiful you’d look in an over-the-shoulder shot. You willing to sign a Model’s Release?”
Margaret beamed. Dr. J nodded approvingly.
Squeak snuggled into Brenna, resting her hand across her breast. “You’re a very messy little thing,” she said, catching the dimpled hand and pressing a kiss against her fingers. “I have a feeling I’m not going to stay clean for a long time.”
Squeak pulled her mouth off the nipple and smiled.
By ten, the adults had eaten breakfast and cleaned up, Brenna had showered and dressed, and her bedcovers and sheets were washed and out of the dryer. Squeak balled her fists and rubbed her eyes.
“Time for nap,” Dr. J noted, looking as if she were ready for one herself. Maine’s peaceful countryside was working its magic, relaxing her. She held out her hands for the baby. “I will lie with her, yes? We both sleep a while.”
Brenna kissed Squeak’s forehead and handed her over.
Margaret suggested a walk. She wanted to go home overnight tonight and needed to be sure Brenna would be all right. Time to begin transition.
Brenna nodded and they went out. Cloud shadows scuttled across the meadow, seemingly bending the grasses, though it was really the breeze.
Margaret watched her step off the front stoop. No hesitation. She fell in beside her.
“How are you feeling, taking on a baby?”
“The doctor is in.” Brenna chuckled. She didn’t reply, however. She had a different agenda. “How are you doing, Margaret? I haven’t had a chance to ask.”
Margaret stopped. Chin down as if she were wearing granny glasses, she gave her an appraising look.
“How did your call to Daniel go last night,” Brenna persisted. “Is he angry with you?”
Brenna was testing, reconfiguring their relationship, seeking equal footing. Margaret decided to let her shift the dynamics. They were moving to a new place. “He’s hurt. He doesn’t want to be, but he is.”
Brenna plucked a stem of grass and smoothed it between her thumb and index finger. “I’m sorry, Margaret. Sorry to cause either one of you pain.”
“I know.” Margaret squeezed her elbow. “Life overflows.”
Brenna gazed out at the waves breaking in the distance. “Will you still be my friend?”
“With boundaries.”
The reply stung Brenna. But Margaret saw that she understood.
“I won’t ask about him again.”
“I can’t be in the middle. You two need to sort out your relationship yourselves. And…I need to be his mother.”
She nodded and walked on a little, giving herself a moment before Margaret caught up. “How is that? To be a mom, I mean. Because I don’t know how, and now I have a kid.” She sailed the grass away like a smooth dart.
“Don’t chide yourself for your inexperience, Brenna. No one’s born knowing what to do. You love Squeak. Everything you do will flow from that. The rest is just logistics.”
“When do you get good at it?”
“You don’t. As a parent, you learn a few tricks, but you’ll always be scrambling, with every age.” Even when your child is forty-two.
They picked their way down to the shore. Brenna bent down, selected a black stone, and stood at the water’s edge rubbing it, her shoes just beyond reach of the waves.
“I’ve been away from Alden a long time,” Margaret said gently.
“Yeah. You going home today?”
“Tonight.”
“To wean me?”
Margaret chuckled. “To see Alden. Then I’ll be back tomorrow. We still have some days, dear, while we make sure you’re set. But eventually, I’m going to give you Charlotte Hamilton’s number in Washington, D.C. again. When you go home, I expect you to call her and book regular time with her.”
Brenna turned the stone over in her hands. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.” It had been good, having a daughter of sorts, cooking together, gardening. She liked Brenna.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do, you know?”
Brenna was standing a
t the threshold of a new life, no clear direction yet envisioned. “Start by getting used to Squeak. Dr. J and I will help you. You’ll gain confidence. Life will take shape a day at a time. You’ll find your path. You’ll be all right now.”
“You saved my life.”
“You saved Daniel’s.”
Brenna grimaced.
Squeak’s rescue notwithstanding, Brenna would never again trust her own moral boundaries.
“Remember our conversation in Washington, when we talked about forgiveness?”
“I talked to my Dad. Dr. J softens him.”
“That’s good, Brenna. But I want you to think about someone else, too.”
“Who?”
“Maric.”
“Fuck Maric.” She hurled the stone into the ocean.
“Consider his despair.”
“I don’t care about his despair.”
“After thirty months of witnessing what comes of erasing each others’ humanity, Brenna?”
Her head came up, eyes flashing. Maric had cost her. She held him accountable for hell.
“Maric didn’t hurt the children. They’re all in good homes now. Think about that. And, remember, too, your own spirit. Hatred calls nothing good to itself.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Perhaps not yet. But the day you do, the chain that Maric holds you by will be broken, and you will be set free.”
“You push, Margaret.” She said it without rancor.
Margaret shrugged. “Life pushes. I just suggest ways you can hold your own.”
Brenna picked up a new stone, a white one with black speckles. “When you come back to visit me, can I take pictures of you? Stills.”
She smiled. “Yes. You may.”
“In the garden with that straw hat. Cultivating. Tending. Guiding wayward vines up trellis support.” She grinned.
If there was one thing Brenna understood, it was sub-text. It’s what made her photography breathtaking.
Daniel knocked on the edit suite door, acknowledgement that the Queen was in residence. He heard Marga call and turned the knob.
“Daniel,” she said, her head twitching fractionally to one side, her sharp eyes seeking the precise moment she’d make an edit. She punched a key. Her taut shoulders and intense gaze broke. The machine did its thing. She leaned back, her bracelets jingling.
He dropped a coil-bound packet of paper on the console beside her. “Final script,” he said. He’d finished it at four that morning. It had taken the better part of a week to complete the final polish—much longer than he expected.
Marga sat up, eyes alight.
“Sit,” she said, rolling the guest seat closer. Her dark fingers started flipping through the document, past the material she had already seen to the new pages.
Even though he had other work to attend to, he sat down. He wanted to see her first reactions, what she thought. He wanted to see if she would notice how he’d maneuvered the script around Brenna’s personal crisis and Squeak’s provenance.
She read, lips moving silently, stopping sometimes to poke her finger at a passage. “Mm-hmm,” she mumbled. “Aha.” Then she moved on. She wasn’t just reading, he knew. In her mind, she was assembling, envisioning, grabbing this shot and that one, putting them under narration, cueing up transitions, considering music. She was experiencing the script as a symphony of pictures and dialog and sound.
Dr. J’s arrival with Squeak had turned the story, allowed him to mold the piece in a way that protected Brenna and the baby without betraying the spirit of the experience. He made Jasha the hero, the mastermind behind his and Brenna’s and the children’s escapes. Which in truth he had been. Daniel simply hadn’t dwelt on the timing of the events. The interval when Maric tortured Brenna, the time between her stepping on the land mine and being turned over to Navy SEALs, and the days it took Jasha to forge adoption papers and Dr. J to escape were never addressed. Daniel merely said Jasha got them all out.
Had there been footage for the time span after the nursery, it would have been trickier, or perhaps impossible to use the approach he had used.
At last Marga’s singular interaction with the script played itself out. She closed the back cover and rested her palms on it. When she turned to face him, there were tears in her eyes.
“This,” she said, “has your heart in it. A man’s journey. A quest for understanding. The effort of a moral man to survive an immoral world. I am privileged to be able to work with you. Muy bien hecho.”
Very well done.
“One thing, though. This story does not use the footage of Brenna Rease with her baby. No one thinks of her this way, tender, sweet. It would be a good shakeup. This story is all about what we think we know, but don’t, ah? I think, for closing credits we should split the screen—you one side with Kristjan, her on the other with Elizabeth Ann. Both front shots, good symmetry.” She illustrated the idea in the air with her hands. “Death on one side. Life on the other, the viewer sees the contrast.
“The credits run over top—” she winked “—and no one notices my name.”
“All right,” he said. “Do that.” He patted his knees. “Well, I’ve got a premiere to get rolling.”
He got up and walked to the door.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good man. I know that’s not always a straight path.”
A thin wire of concern pulled through him. Had he left some trace he shouldn’t have? Had he, before Dr. J arrived, revealed some contradictory fact that Marga was now connecting to his written script? “You seeing some…gap…I should be worried about?”
Marga gave his question some thought. “No. It perfectly simplifies complexity. I’m glad those children have survived.”
He nodded, relieved.
He took the elevator to his floor, grabbed a cup of coffee in the lunch room, and got waved over by Mildred. She held up three yellow telephone message slips.
“Sam Chisolm, Marnie and Eric—the event organizers for the premiere—and someone named Kelly Price, no company name. She said you’d know what it was about.”
He took the notes. “Thanks.”
He closed the door on his office. Kelly Price, the realtor, was a pistol. She moved houses. And in his neighborhood they turned over quickly. Knowing her, she had an offer. He picked up the phone and dialed Sam. He’d deal with Kelly from the privacy of home.
“Hey, Sam.”
“I hope you have your ponies corralled. I just sent out engraved invitations to the premiere. Brenna Rease at the top of the list. Big draw. Special guest. Everyone wants to come shake her hand. I’ve been talking to people, getting the buzz started. Entire EBS board’s already signed on.”
Brenna, as far as Daniel knew, was still in Maine. He wondered if she’d actually attend.
“There’s going to be more money at the Kennedy Center than there are snakes by a creek on a hot day,” Sam said. A hint of uncertainty crept into his voice. “This thing’s going to fly, right?”
“Marga has the final script, Sam, and plenty of time to mix it all down.” The deadline was tight, but the way her hands and brain flew—given how committed she was to it—it would happen, and happen well.
“How about your voice-overs?”
“The booth and the engineer are booked for Monday. I’ve cleared my schedule to be available.”
“Well, just don’t attend any pep rallies beforehand. Now. Am I going to be happy with this documentary, Daniel?”
“Marga likes it.”
“Yee-hah. Magic words. The last time she liked something, it won three Emmys.”
Daniel bit his tongue. He’d risked his life, was exposing his private hell to anyone who cared to press a remote control button, and Sam was thinking wall hangings.
“Don’t forget to have your tuxedo dry cleaned,” Sam said merrily, before ringing off.
Before Daniel’s thoughts could stray to the notion that Brenna might actually show up
for the premiere, he picked up the next telephone slip and dialed the event planners. They’d take care of the nuts and bolts, he just had to identify the schema.
He met with them that afternoon and made it home by five with his favorite Indian take-out food in hand. There were three realtors’ cards on his dining room table, meaning his house had been shown today. His telephone message light was flashing. Kelly Price, he assumed. It wasn’t as if Brenna was suddenly going to call and profess undying love.
He set the food bag on the table, brought back a beer, cutlery, and a dinner plate and sat down to eat. Later, he’d call Kelly. See if he was going to be a homeless man, his household goods in storage, no new place picked out in Portland. He hadn’t had a chance to go online to peruse the Portland real estate listings. Hell, he hadn’t even told his parents yet. He’d been avoiding their calls. He was too tired to fake out his Mom about how he was feeling.
Sad.
His mind kept drifting to Brenna and Squeak, wondering how they were doing together.
He twisted the cap off his beer bottle and took a long draught. He hated the disruption of moving. He felt trepidation about leaving EBS, but especially after his conversation with Sam today, all agog about awards and Brenna being a star for his show, he felt right about the decision. He himself was interested in content, not form. When he wasn’t so tired, he’d feel the excitement of his impending big changes.
He pulled the stapled bag open. The aroma of Rogan Josh, basmati rice, cucumber raita, and naan filled his senses.
In the past days, Dr. J had called to let him know she was staying on in Maine for a while, helping Brenna with the baby, who was teething. James had called, too. He and Gary were going north to meet Squeak (and scold Brenna). They were excited about becoming uncles. Even the Envoy had left him a message saying that Squeak was with Brenna and thanks for taking care of the baby.
Everyone had called except Brenna.
He scooped out rice, spooned the lamb onto the plate beside it, tore off a piece of naan and ate silently.
Chapter 30
Day Three Page 60
