by Julia Fierro
Josh massaged her scalp with his fingertips, and said, “You’ve got to relax. This worrying isn’t good for you. Or for Wyatt.”
She closed her eyes and let her head rock back and forth with the sliding of his fingers.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She knew what he really meant was, do we need to have a talk? Do I have to call Dr. Greenbaum to schedule an intervention where we can discuss upping your meds? Do I have to hide the dish sponge so you don’t scrub your hands raw, Nicole? Do I have to conceal the knife block behind the microwave so you don’t perseverate (a verb he’d gleaned from their couples’ therapy) about slicing yourself every time you walk into the kitchen?
“Aw, you are so sweet, honey,” Nicole said, in a voice she knew sounded both appreciative and condescending. “I’m fine.”
The Xanax spread through her like liquid calm, and as she blew on her hands that burned pink, she almost believed herself.
domestic bliss
Rip
It had been over a year since Rip first began calling himself a mommy.
In the beginning, it had been a joke.
Now, they, the mommies, were the only ones who understood it was no longer a joke. Nicole, Susanna, and Tiffany.
Even Leigh. Although, Rip thought, the discomfort Leigh felt around him was obvious. Like that afternoon, when she’d turned her head as he kissed her hello.
Rip stood on the deck alone, the cool sea air lapping at the back of his sunburned neck. He looked out at the Long Island Sound, as dark and still as a lake, only the occasional hesitant wave kicked up by one of the motorboats in the distance. It saddened him, this sea without any waves, as if it had been rendered impotent by the land on each side, as if it were cowering between two bullies.
He was buzzed. Or maybe more than that, because he’d lost count of the beers he’d put back since he, Hank, and Grace had driven out that afternoon. Grace had insisted they listen to some peppy kids’ album instead of Rip’s music, claiming the mix of grunge and rock was far too mature, that it “terrified” Hank, an argument that had led them, somehow, to a revisiting of that past week’s most popular debate. To buy or not to buy Hank the princess dress set (gown, tiara, and plastic shoes included) their son had coveted for so long.
“Just like Harper’s,” Hank had lisped, a dreamy look sedating his features.
As if, Rip thought, Hank was envisioning himself in a faraway land, he and his friend Harper frolicking among singing animals and Technicolor toadstools, a fairy-tale castle sparkling in the distance.
Rip was pro princess dress. Grace, con. He urged Grace to be open-minded, to let Hank express his unique fantasies. This was 2010, after all, a boy could wear a princess dress.
By the time they had crossed the causeway, Rip had opened his window to let in the mix of tangy brine and aging honeysuckle, and to drown out Grace’s half of their argument, which had now graduated to what had been their #1 hit on the squabbling chart for the last six months. The debate over whether they should have another kid.
Once again: Rip, pro; Grace, con.
Now, as the sun slipped closer to the sea, Rip dug his elbows into the concrete seawall and ran his hands over his stubbled face. Yet another perk, he thought with a smile, of the stay-at-home-daddy life. Not having to shave every day.
His fingers still smelled like the coconut-scented sun lotion he had lathered on the kids. At playdates, the undesirable child-care tasks often fell to him, and soon after he and Hank and Grace had arrived at the beach house, he’d been silently elected sunscreen applicator and grappled with one squirming kid after another as he applied, and reapplied, the BabyGanics organic sunscreen.
He had invited Grace along that weekend with hopes that a few days among his mommies would inspire her, would pluck at her biological heartstrings. Maybe the sight of the kids on the beach—their sun-browned skin, their boundless enthusiasm, their wonder over every shell, crab, and minnow, would change her mind. His plan was already backfiring. Hank had loathed the beach, acting as if each grain of sand was a personal assault. And there was already tension between Grace and Tiffany. He could tell, as soon as he’d introduced them, that there’d be pecking between them before the weekend was over.
But, Rip thought—and there was always a but for Rip. He considered himself a believer. Not in God per se, but in man. In Rip. In self-actualization. When the doctors had told him and Grace that it might be difficult for Rip to have children, he had torn the reins from Fate’s gnarled hands and steered that chariot to fatherhood. With a little help from an anonymous sperm donor, of course. Still, the day Hank had been born, wrinkled and swollen, Rip knew the boy was his own. He had wanted to shout down the pale yellow corridors of the maternity ward. Fuck Fate! I have a son!
The screen door flew open and out dashed Nicole’s son Wyatt, clad in nothing more than Spider-Man underoos. Nicole’s husband, Josh, followed, his face reddened with what Rip interpreted as embarrassment and fury.
Rip waved hello and received a tight smile in return as Josh jogged after Wyatt, who skipped around the deck, effortlessly dodging his weak-chinned father. Josh wore wrinkled suit pants, and the armpits of his button-down shirt were dark with sweat. Rip looked down at his own ensemble. Frayed camo shorts and a tee shirt, stained, most likely from Hank’s greasy fingers. He took a swig of his beer and congratulated himself. The last time he’d worn a suit was just before Hank’s birth, when he had become an official stay-at-home parent, and when he had (with relief) quit his temp IT job at Grace’s investment firm.
When Nicole’s husband had arrived a half hour earlier, fresh from the Manhattan commute, Rip had caught the pale shadow of terror on the man’s face as he walked into the early-evening chaos; overtired children, wine-flushed parents, the floor carpeted with toys and cookie crumbs and puddles of spilled juice.
“Wyatt,” Josh called through clenched teeth, as Wyatt skipped across the deck, “Mommy says it’s time to go potty.”
Passive-aggressive parenting, Rip thought. Blame it on the other parent.
“He’ll make a decent soccer player,” Rip called out with a short laugh.
“Yep,” Josh said.
Whatever, Rip thought. Not like he was dying to make chitchat with the mommies’ SOs, aka Significant Others.
SOBs, Rip often joked toward the end of the playgroup dates, when everyone (except for Leigh, who was too almightier-than-thou to drink before sunset) had imbibed enough liquid courage for a bit of honesty to seep out, and with it, a collective venting about their partners, their kids, the monotony of life as a parent to small children. Rip played his part, griping about his fourteen-hour days alone with Hank, but, in all honesty, it was the best life Rip could imagine. Lately, the reality of that life running out (Hank would be in preschool next year) had Rip up at night, in a panic, strategizing over rum and Diet Coke on how to maintain his stay-at-home-daddy status.
Of course, he knew there wasn’t much strategy needed, though his mind still trembled in an endless cycle of what to do, what to do. It was simple. He had to convince Grace to have another baby, to accept the role of an anonymous sperm donor back into their lives, along with the hormone shots in the soft brown skin of her ass, the egg extraction, all leading to in vitro.
On the first try, it had seemed like science fiction to Rip, like one of the dog-eared paperbacks he’d loved as a kid. Brave New World. It had seemed routine by the third try, when the egg had finally stuck. Stuck was what the women on the trying-to-conceive online message boards called it, as in I hope to God this one sticks. Rip had spent hours (mostly during Hank’s afternoon naps) lurking on the anonymous boards of www.TryingToConceive.com, watching as the women sent each other good wishes (sprinkles of sticky baby dust!!) when they signed off. Off to check their basal temperatures, he assumed, or to pee on a plastic ovulation detector stick—all so they could time sex perfectly and catch that window of procreative opportunity.
As the sun slipped closer to the w
ater and the pools of seawater on the sandbar caught its tangerine light, Rip thought of how he envied those women on TryingToConceive.com. Even if they were barren, at least their wombs ensured it was they who held the reins. He admired their bottomless optimism. Like him, they were believers, unwilling to surrender to that stubborn old bitch, Fate.
If only Grace had an ounce of the reproductive fervor those women had, he thought. Then he would have his baby.
Wyatt’s flip-flops slapped against the deck as the father-son pursuit wore on.
Josh hunched forward, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “Wyatt! Come to Daddy already. It’s time to get dressed and go potty.” He coughed. “You can’t walk around half-naked, now can you?”
First mistake, Rip thought, kids don’t do reason. Second, do not ask your kid a question. Uh, yeah, Dad, you can walk around half-naked. I’m doing it right now!
There were a thousand Joshes in Brooklyn, Rip thought. All with the same sixty-dollar haircut and thick, black, Buddy Holly glasses. They dressed their offspring in tee shirts with ironic sayings, like the kids were their own private billboards. They wrote blogs describing life as a dad with an irreverence Rip was plain sick of. As if there were something uncool about loving your kids.
On weekends, the daddies came crawling out of the brownstones, numerous as cockroaches. Nervous they’d fuck up their kid in the few hours they had watch, they were either too lenient, trying to discuss the crime (Now, Finn, you know we don’t grab), or overbearing, giving their kid a time-out if they forgot to cough into their elbow. They wore self-doubt like a wet blanket, Rip thought, and left the playground as if they’d surrendered to an enemy.
Even now, Rip could see defeat coming, Wyatt running toward the edge of the seawall as a look of terror contorted Josh’s sweaty face.
“Stop,” Josh screeched.
Rip scooped up Wyatt just as he started to scale the wall.
“Little man,” Rip said. “You have got to chill.”
He handed the balled-up boy, still giddy with the chase, to his father.
“Thanks,” Josh heaved. “It’s Rip, right?”
“Yep.”
“Great to meet you,” Josh said.
Rip didn’t bother telling him they’d met before. Several times, actually.
As Josh walked back to the house, Rip watched the man whisper furiously into Wyatt’s ear. The boy sat upright, peeking over his father’s shoulder.
Rip gave him a wink, and Wyatt covered his mouth to stop a laugh.
Yep, there was no way in hell he’d be friends with that Josh dude. A dad who couldn’t have fun with his own kid.
Grace, and even Tiffany—who, lately, was the closest thing Rip had to a friend—had been urging Rip to make some guy friends. Someone to grab a beer with. A pal for a daddy double playdate to the zoo. They didn’t understand he couldn’t befriend just any guy. He wasn’t just any dad. He felt most comfortable with the mommies because, in the last four years, he had become a mommy.
Could they hook him up with a dad who made his own soap, shampoo, and lotion after his son was diagnosed with eczema? Who baked his own gluten-free bread, so not to aggravate Hank’s allergies? Who knew the names of all his son’s creatures, the stuffed animals (Mortimer, Polly, Pinky, Boy-boy, Nuk-nuk, Greenie) that Rip and Hank had christened together over the last four years. The only BFF daddy for Rip was the guy who, like him, spooned with his child every night while he told stories about the alien boy Zank and his pet robot Zork, and who, like Rip, was psyched to live in a time and place where daddies could be mommies, where they could embrace their domestic gifts, where they could nurture their offspring without being made to feel dickless. Rip baked a mean rhubarb pie and nobody (at least nobody in his mommy circle) would consider him less the man for it.
It didn’t hurt that Rip knew he embodied what the women of creative, yuppie, hipster, artisanal-obsessed, whatever they were calling themselves these days Brooklyn wanted in a man—the very opposite of their own fathers, whose duties had been limited to conception, financial support, and the occasional advice from on high. Today, the urban, and even suburban, streets were sprinkled with stay-at-home daddies pushing a toddler in a stroller on their way to a Tiff’s Riffs music class, an infant in a Baby Bjorn hanging like some mutant appendage from their chests.
In the last three-plus years, Rip had logged hundreds of hours at playgrounds, playspaces, and playgroups, and every playdate was a lesson in the new boundaryless definition of gender. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to enjoying the more obvious perks for a hetero (very hetero, he liked to think) guy living the stay-at-home-dad life. Mommies smelled nice and served delicious snacks. Never was there a bottle of vino under $13 at the playgroup. Each day held umpteen chances he’d catch a glimpse of cleavage, or the curve of a butt cheek winking at him through those tight jean leggings the mommies loved to wear.
Rip often felt as if he were living a kind of fantasy, the setting for a clichéd porn. Like when Tiffany, the extreme-domestic goddess in the group and (let’s face it, Rip thought) the hottest mommy, had invited Rip and Hank over so Rip could help her can the blueberries they’d picked upstate. While Billy Holiday had crooned, and Hank and Harper built snowmen with homemade playdough, Rip held the mason jars as Tiffany poured the jam that slid, almost seductively, into each hot glass container. He had watched Tiffany’s braless breasts quiver through the thin cotton tank top, smelled the nectar covering her hands, her slender forearms, staining her puffy lips. He’d felt a compulsion to taste her, and felt certain, in the way she let her tongue slide over her bottom lip, the way she let her long hair tickle his cheek as she bent to screw on the jar tops, that she too wanted him to slip his hand over the breasts he had seen so often.
Breasts, breasts, and more breasts, it had been four years of nipples, all shades of pink and brown, erect and glistening, fresh from a satiated baby’s mouth. Only Leigh was so modest as to breast-feed with a swaddle blanket shielding her. He’d known Susanna’s breasts (small but perfectly shaped), Nicole’s breasts (large with wide, purplish nipples) and Tiffany’s, his favorite, full and white, almost translucent, a network of blue-green veins radiating from her petal pink areolae. Tiffany had zero qualms about unleashing her breasts for Harper to nurse anywhere and anytime, and Rip had seen them enough to memorize them, to think of them as old friends. These weren’t women to hide themselves. These were the daughters of the daughters of the feminist revolution, after all. They’d taken monthlong prenatal breast-feeding classes, they’d given up trying to hide a wriggling baby under their fifty-dollar hooter-hider nursing covers, and Rip could see in their eyes and in their relaxed smiles, a gratitude toward him, for giving them permission to let their breasts roam free.
The mommies thought of him as Mama Rip. Diaper-changer, boo-boo kisser, nose-wiper, playground pal. A sensitive shoulder to cry on when the monotony of motherhood felt like just too much. How little they knew about how grateful he was for their breasts.
strings attached
Leigh
The room hummed with the business of children. After a glass of white wine, Leigh felt as if the noise in the room had elevated. The revving of toy cars and the clatter of plastic blocks. The jabber of half-formed language and shrieks of fury in the never-ending battle of toy sharing. The giggling chatter of the mommies and the sobbing that followed a boo-boo; all of it plucked at the growing pain behind her eyes. Mommy! Mama! Mommy! Mama! Mommeee!
Wine was poured, Brie and crackers nibbled. Leigh smiled and nodded appropriately as the mothers alternated between admiring the children in the moments they behaved (Look at them. They’re so cute!), and critiquing them when they fussed (It’s a good thing they’re cute).
Hank was crying again, rubbing at his swollen eyes with fleshy fists.
“There’s still sand in my eyes.”
Grace looked around the room, caught Leigh’s eye, and said, “He has a hard time at the beach. Everything’s so intense.”
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br /> Leigh nodded; there was a hint of a question in the woman’s stiff voice, a silent plea for commiseration.
“Yes,” Leigh said. “It is a very sunny day.”
Then she caught sight of Chase creeping closer to Hank. Chase’s head was tilted, as if mesmerized by Hank’s despair. Leigh started to stand, to intervene, but the weight of the baby in her arms pulled her back, and just as she was about to call for Tenzin, Chase backed away.
“Yip, yip, yip!” he sounded off as he galloped around the room.
“Give people their space, Chase. Honey,” Leigh said.
Chase continued to race around the room, skirting the other children. It was a game he played, to see how close he could get without bumping someone. He sounded off as he galloped, yips and tongue-clucks and fluttering of his lips.
The soundtrack of Chase, she had once joked with his speech therapist, who assured Leigh her son did not have a tic. Still, Leigh feared a Tourette’s diagnosis down the road. She had always been proud of how still she could hold herself, even as a child. In the polished pews of Saint John’s Episcopal Church on Sunday mornings. At the barre in Miss Posey’s ballet studio. In cotillion class, her white-gloved hand sweating in the viselike grasp of a pimply thirteen-year-old boy.
Grace wiped the tears from Hank’s reddened cheeks with the corner of a towel, and said, “Chase just wanted to cheer you up, Henry.”
Hank summoned the breath for an even louder wail. “My name is Hank!”
“If you don’t calm down,” Grace said, pausing to search the room, “I’m going to have to get Daddy.”
“I want Daddy!”
“Okay, that’s it.” Grace’s lips were a thin white line. “You’re getting a time-out.”
“Daddy!” Hank screamed, raw and phlegmy. Leigh covered Charlotte’s little ears with her fingertips.
“Actually,” Tiffany began as she knelt in front of Hank and rubbed his back.
