Wife-in-Law

by Haywood Smith

“This is going to be fun,” I told Kat. “How about we go shopping today? Spend some of that trust fund?”

  “Great,” Kat said. “We can start at the thrift shops, then go to consignments.”

  No musty, used things for my baby, but I humored Kat. “Great. Have another doughnut, and I’ll get dressed.” I got up and headed for the bedroom.

  “Lunch is on me this time,” Kat called after me.

  “Lunch is on you forever,” I called back, “Madam Trust Fund.”

  This was going to be so much fun.

  “You’re not supposed to tell anybody about that,” she hollered back.

  “I’m not gonna,” I said, then closed the bathroom door to get ready.

  Maybe I might just consider breast-feeding. It would be a whole lot simpler than washing bottles and making formula.

  As it turned out, I did. Kat and I both had girls, just two days apart. Hers was late and mine was a little early.

  We named ours Amelia Harcourt Callison, after Greg’s late mother and dear departed grandmother.

  Kat and Zach named theirs Sada Scopes Rutledge, after his maternal grandmother’s first name, and Kat’s maternal grandparents’ last. And never was there a more loving, albeit misguided, set of parents than Zach and Kat. How Sada would end up after having no schedule whatsoever, running around naked all the time, and nursing till she was four, I couldn’t say.

  All I knew was that Amelia slept through the night after a month, took great naps, ate anything that was set before her, was potty-trained by two, and picked up all her toys after she was finished playing.

  Twelve

  April 1, 1985, one month after the babies were born. Eden Lake Court

  Kat didn’t argue when I put my foot down about subjecting Amelia to the dog hair all over her house, so we had our coffee klatches at mine, at whatever hour of the morning we could both manage to get up and start dressing. It wasn’t easy with month-old babies, despite the overwhelming love and joy I got from being Amelia’s mother. She slept more than Sada did, but I was exhausted from waking up to feed her, even though Greg brought her to me and put her down when she was done feeding every other night.

  Mama had warned me that there’d come a time when I would turn my face toward heaven and plead to God, “What did I do, that I should never have another decent night’s sleep?” and when I did, it was almost over.

  Based on that, it should be over any time, now. But Amelia had her days and nights switched around, waking up every two hours in the night to feed.

  That April Fools’ Day, my phone rang at nine A.M., just as I finished cleaning up from the breakfast Greg had made himself—passive-aggressively dirtying up half the dishes in the kitchen because I’d been too tired to get up at five and do it for him.

  Staring blankly out the window over the sink, I picked up the receiver and answered with a dull, “’Lo?”

  “Hey,” Kat said just as dully. “Comin’ over.”

  “See ya.”

  Ever since we’d come home from the hospital with our girls, our phone conversations were conducted in shorthand.

  I glanced back at the window and caught a shocking reflection in the glass. Can we say Medusa, with dark circles big as teacups?

  Too bad. No way was I getting up at five to put on a face for Greg anymore. I’d just have to take my chances.

  Coffee.

  I needed a jump start. I poured water into the Mr. Coffee to the twelve-cup mark and pressed the button to start it brewing, comforted by the promise of its pops and hisses. Then Amelia cried.

  I glanced at the clock on my way to her nursery. Four hours, this time. If I could just get her to go four hours at night, we’d both fare a lot better.

  On the way past the foyer, I detoured briefly to flip open the lock so Kat could get in, then I entered Amelia’s dreamy pink-and-white princess room and scooped her out of her crib. “Well, hello,” I crooned.

  As always in the daytime, she woke up smiling, content with my presence. “Are you a wet girl?” I said, kissing her hair and smelling that amazing baby-hair smell. Kat had been right: breast-fed babies definitely smelled sweeter than formula-fed ones. And it was certainly simpler and cheaper than fooling with bottles and formula.

  Amelia’s disposable overnight diaper squished against my forearm as I cradled her to me. “Do I need to change this girl? I think so, precious.” I laid her on the changing table and got out a fresh diaper, disposable wipes with aloe, and A&D cream. “We’re gonna get this baby changed, yesh we are.” I flubbed her tummy, and she laughed, the purest, sweetest sound in the world. “Yesh we are. We are gonna change this girl. Yesh we are.”

  What is it about childbirth that compels perfectly sane, intelligent women to start talking like idiots—in falsetto? I knew I sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t help myself.

  I heard the front door open. “’S me!” Kat called.

  “Help yourself to coffee,” I called back. “I’m changing Amelia.”

  Busy with the diaper and a fresh onesie, I didn’t hear anything else till Kat came in behind me. I looked up to see her holding Sada in one arm—attached to one bare boob pulled out of the neck of Kat’s peasant blouse.

  In her free hand, Kat held my glass coffee carafe, filled with hot water.

  “Damn,” I said without realizing it came out. “Forgot to put in the coffee.”

  She turned, her garish gypsy skirt flaring above her wool socks and hippie sandals made from tire treads. “I’ll do it. You finish with Amelia.”

  “Mmm.” I headed to the closet and opened it to the array of gorgeous Johnson Brothers smocked dresses and adorable knit outfits the other wives from Arthur Andersen had given me at the baby shower they’d hosted at the PDC. (That’s the Piedmont Driving Club, the most exclusive one in Atlanta.) Easter was only three weeks away, so I picked out a pink cotton dress with little white bunnies smocked across the front, and matching ruffled panties.

  After struggling to get the neckhole over Amelia’s large head without pulling off her ears, I finally managed to get her dressed, then brushed her hair and hit a lick at mine with her soft baby brush. Not that it did mine much good.

  I hadn’t been to the beauty shop since she was born. After taking off a week to help me with the baby when we came home, Greg had been working straight through, so he couldn’t keep her for me, and I couldn’t leave her with Kat because of the dog hair and cat hair and God knows what else was growing in her house. Not to mention the pot crop in her sunroom, the ultimate irony for a narc, but that wasn’t my business.

  What I needed was a reliable sitter. But all the good ones I knew about were already booked up by my friends.

  Maybe an old-fashioned nursemaid. Whatever happened to nursemaids, anyway?

  Weren’t there agencies?

  If Greg wasn’t so anal about squirreling away every spare cent for our retirement, we could easily afford one. Even a single day a week to myself would do wonders.

  I eased Amelia’s hand into one puffed sleeve.

  I needed help. Just enough to get some sleep.

  I’d actually considered telling Greg he had to take another week off so I could leave him with Amelia and escape to the closest convent to hibernate for at least a week, with nothing but my Bible and a few good romance novels to keep me company. But I realized I’d never be able to express enough milk for Amelia (only hospitals had electric pumps for that), so it remained just a dream that I cherished from time to time.

  Not that I’d ever tell anybody, especially Kat or Greg. The Department of Family and Children’s Services would probably be on the doorstep the minute the words were out of my mouth.

  I threaded her other hand through the other sleeve.

  As I stood there in the nursery, Amelia looked up at me with such adoration that I immediately wondered what kind of heinously selfish woman would even think of leaving such a precious gift for even a day, much less a week.

  Ah, yes, guilt: the inevitable flip side of the
joys of motherhood.

  “Coffee’s ready!” Kat hollered.

  Amelia started nuzzling at my breast, so I broke my own rule about nursing in front of anybody besides Greg and dropped the neckline of my nightgown to let her feed. But I did cover her with a lightweight seersucker receiving blanket, for modesty’s sake. Not that Kat would care, but I did.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Sada was still chowing down for any and all to see. Kat handed me my coffee. “I didn’t put any poison in it.” Her word for artificial sweetener. “You’ll have to do that yourself, though why you insist on endangering yourself and your baby is beyond me.”

  Right. And what about the marijuana Sada was getting with her milk?

  I’d quit drinking and smoking cigarettes the minute I’d found out I was pregnant, and so had Greg, but Kat still smelled of hemp. Instead of bringing it up, I held my peace and made a great production of adding three Sweet’n Lows to my cup. I savored a long sip, then smiled. “Aaah. Love that poison.”

  Cranky as I was, I couldn’t resist waving a red flag with, “I think I’m going to start Amelia on some rice cereal at her ten o’clock feeding. Mama said it’d make her sleep better at night.”

  Horrified, Kat reared back, clutching Sada. “Need I remind you, your mother’s crazy, and so is giving cereal to a month-old baby. It’ll totally screw up her digestion, not to mention her immune system.”

  My, my. So how did all of us survive?

  Kat was so brainwashed by all this supposedly natural hippie nonsense.

  “She’ll still be getting plenty of my milk,” I told her, “and they have organic rice cereal at the health food store.”

  Kat was as cranky as I was, so she shot back with, “Even your precious überauthoritarian Dr. Denmark says it’s best just to give breast milk for at least six months.”

  Hah. “I called Dr. Denmark,” I gloated, “and told her I was so tired, all I want to do is lie down and cry all the time. So she said it would be fine to try the cereal. So there.”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “Lord help that child.”

  A huge, blubbering poot preceded a noxious odor from Sada’s unbleached cloth diaper as a mustardy spot bloomed on the back of her little nightgown.

  Gag. “Uh-oh. Bessie.”

  The poor child had terminal diaper rash (maybe from the pot), so Kat had stopped using rubber pants—yet another unsanitary choice among many.

  And she thought I was horrible for using artificial diapers.

  “Rats.” Kat unplugged Sada, setting off a wail as she held the poor, scrawny little thing at arm’s length—over my mahogany breakfast table! “I forgot to bring any diapers.”

  Quick as Wonder Woman, I whirled and ripped off a long swath of paper towels, then wrapped Sada’s blooming bottom in them to prevent any leakage. “Guess you’ll just have to make do with one of mine.” Disposable. “And quick.”

  Kat made a face, but relented. “Guess I will.”

  “There are plenty on the changing table. And don’t worry. I won’t tell any of your eco-Nazi friends.” I handed her a gallon-sized freezer bag—another convenience to which Kat took strong exception. “Please put the dirty one in here.”

  She just stood there like the true passive-aggressive she was, while another juicy blarp emanated from Sada’s paper-towel cocoon. The more you try to hurry people like Kat or tell them what to do, the worse they balk. But I had to do something before Sada started leaking all over my spotless house. “Please, Kat.”

  “You and yer plastic bags and disposable diapers, stranglin’ the ecology,” Kat grumbled as she took it. “It’s just baby poo, not nuclear waste. Everybody shits, for God’s sake. People shouldn’t be so uptight about it.”

  I motioned her toward the nursery. “I’m not uptight about pooping. But I am uptight about pooping on my carpets or my furniture. I mean this, Kat. So kindly get a move on.”

  “I’m going,” she said as she headed that way in slow motion.

  I had no intention of trying to help her. A queasy shudder rippled through me at the mere thought of her wringing out that diaper in the toilet with the same hands that held her baby—and her fork. Yuk.

  The bad news is, Kat went right back to cloth diapers after that one “lapse,” and she continued to smell of hemp.

  The good news is, my house escaped being christened by Sada poop. And Amelia loved her baby cereal mixed with mother’s milk. I gave her some at ten that night, and she slept for six hours. So I gave her some more at her four A.M. feeding, and she slept for another six.

  Glory hallelujah! Within a week, she was sleeping from ten at night till six in the morning, and I was beginning to get my sanity back.

  Sada, on the other hand, continued to nurse at will and sleep with her parents. And the dogs. And the cats. With the rabbit she got for Easter looking on.

  The Tuesday after Easter, 1985. Eden Lake Court

  The second-worst day in Kat’s life happened without warning. We had all been so involved with our new babies that we’d forgotten fate can change everything without warning.

  Amelia was finally breathing deep for her afternoon nap when the doorbell rang and sent her howling. Annoyed, I scooped her up and went to see who it was. I opened the door to find Kat standing there, bawling, in her bare feet and usual drab, baggy earth-mother dress, with Sada on her hip.

  She thrust the baby at me, prompting Sada to start howling, too. “Here. Take her. I have to get to Grady.”

  Grady? The public hospital was way downtown. Only poor people went to Grady—or those with severe traumas. Kat started running toward her house. “Wait!” I called after her, babies screaming in stereo. “What happened?”

  She only turned back long enough to say, “Zach’s been shot!” Her features crumpled, voice breaking. “He might not make it. I have to get there.” She turned and sprinted for home.

  Dear God. What had happened?

  Zach couldn’t die. He couldn’t.

  I turned and took the wailing babies inside to the playpen, then called Greg at the office.

  His officious little secretary answered, “Mr. Callison’s office. How may I help you?”

  “This is Betsy,” I shouted over the babies. “I need to speak to my husband at once.”

  “I’m sorry,” she oozed, clearly enjoying it. “But Mr. Callison is in a very important meeting. Shall I have you call him back when it’s over?”

  I flushed to the top of my head. “What you shall do is go into that meeting and get him,” I ordered. “This is an emergency. Get him. Now!”

  “One moment, please. I’ll see if he can come.”

  “If he doesn’t, he may regret it enough to get a new secretary,” I threatened.

  While I waited, phone glued to my ear, I nuked two emergency breast-milk bottles and gave them to the babies in the playpen, which finally stopped them crying.

  My threat to Greg’s secretary must have worked, because Greg came on the line, his voice muted. “This had better be important, because I’m in a partner’s meeting.”

  “I wouldn’t have interrupted you if it wasn’t,” I snapped. “Zach’s been shot. Critically. Kat said he may not live. They’re taking him to Grady.”

  Greg’s iron self-control failed him for the first time I could remember, and he let out a shaken, “God, no,” before he regained enough composure to say, “I’m heading for the hospital. Find a sitter for the kids. Kat will need you there.”

  “Okay.” Good plan.

  He didn’t even say good-bye, just hung up.

  Twenty minutes passed before I finally located a friend from church I could trust—director of our Sunday nursery—who said she’d come over and watch the children. I threw on clothes, then scribbled down instructions for the babies that would take them through the next day, if necessary. When she got there, I went over the instructions, then got in my Town & Country minivan and raced toward Grady, as fast as I could drive.

  Of course, when I could have used a police
escort, I never saw a cop.

  By the time I’d parked and found my way to emergency, an hour and a half had passed since Kat had left. I asked the nurse at the ER desk where Kat was, and she directed me to a private conference room—not a good sign.

  Several grim men in suits outside the door stood as I approached. Probably DEA.

  “I’m Betsy Callison,” I told them, and they relaxed, stepping clear of the door.

  Hearing sobs inside the little conference room, I assumed the worst and let myself in quietly.

  Greg was holding Kat, comforting her with soft shushes as he stroked her back. She was still barefoot, God bless her.

  He caught my eye and nodded in relief that I was there to take over.

  “He’s still alive,” he told Kat. “They didn’t even think he’d make it to the hospital, and he’s made it up to surgery. Zach’s a fighter. It’ll take more than four bullets to kill him, mark my words.”

  Four bullets!

  I circled Kat’s shoulders, surrounding her with caring. “Greg’s right, honey. Zach wouldn’t leave you and Sada.”

  Kat reared back to glare at me. “Good people die all the time! Or hadn’t you noticed? And the ones who ought to die live on and on, just like the scumbag who tried to eliminate Zach!” All her anger and frustration came out, focused on a safe place: me. “The police have no leads,” she went on. “All they know is, somebody was waiting when Zach showed up at his undercover job, then shot him and disappeared without leaving any evidence.” Hatred burned in her green eyes. “The shooter’s out there somewhere, and he knows who Zach is. What he is. Somebody betrayed him.” She pulled free and paced the tiny room like a caged tiger. “His cover’s been blown. If he lives, he probably won’t even have a job anymore.”

  “Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh.” I pulled her to me despite her resistance, then put her into a chair and sat beside her, taking her cold hand in mine. “Forget about all that. Just focus on Zach, and his getting well. The DEA will take care of the man who did this. And find the leak.” I wished I could believe what I was saying. “You know they will. Just focus on Zach now.”