Another Marvelous Thing

by Laurie Colwin

  He was fast asleep, his little arm stretched in front of him, an exact replica of Grey’s sleeping posture. On his back were two discs the size of nickels hooked up to wires that measured his temperature and his heart and respiration rates on a console above his isolette. He was long and skinny and beautiful.

  “He looks like a little chicken,” said Billy. “May I hold him?”

  “Oh, no,” said the nurse. “Not for a while. He mustn’t be stressed.” She gave Billy a long look and said, “But you can open the windows and touch him.”

  Billy opened the porthole window and touched his leg. He shivered slightly. She wanted to disconnect his probes, scoop him up, and hold him next to her. She stood quietly, her hand resting lightly on his calf.

  The room was bright, hot, and busy. Nurses came and went, washing their hands, checking charts, making notes, diapering, changing bottles of glucose solution. There were three other children in the room. One was very tiny and had a miniature IV attached to a vein in her head. A pink card was taped on her isolette. Billy looked on the side of William’s isolette. There was a blue card and in Grey’s tiny printing was written “William Delielle.”

  Later in the morning, when Grey appeared in her room he found Billy sitting next to a glass-encased pump.

  “This is the well-known electric breast pump. Made in Switzerland,” Billy said.

  “It’s like the medieval clock at Salisbury Cathedral,” Grey said, peering into the glass case. “I just came from seeing William. He’s much longer than I thought. I called all the grandparents. In fact, I was on the telephone all night after I left you.” He gave her a list of messages. “They’re feeding him in half an hour.”

  Billy looked at her watch. She had been instructed to use the pump for three minutes on each breast to begin with. Her milk, however, would not be given to William, who, the doctors said, was too little to nurse. He would be given carefully measured formula, and Billy would eventually have to wean him from the bottle and onto herself. The prospect of this seemed very remote.

  As the days went by, Billy’s room filled with flowers, but she spent most of her time in the Infant ICU. She could touch William but not hold him. The morning before she was to be discharged, Billy went to William’s eight o’clock feeding. She thought how lovely it would be to feed him at home, how they might sit in the rocking chair and watch the birds in the garden below. In William’s present home, there was no morning and no night. He had never been in a dark room, or heard bird sounds or traffic noise, or felt a cool draft.

  William was asleep on his side wearing a diaper and a little T-shirt. The sight of him seized Billy with emotion.

  “You can hold him today,” the nurse said.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, and you can feed him today, too.”

  Billy bowed her head. She took a steadying breath. “How can I hold him with all this hardware on him?” she said.

  “I’ll show you,” said the nurse. She disconnected the console, reached into the isolette, and gently untaped William’s probes. Then she showed Billy how to change him, put on his T-shirt, and swaddle him in a cotton blanket. In an instant he was in Billy’s arms.

  He was still asleep, but he made little screeching noises and wrinkled his nose. He moved against her and nudged his head into her arm. The nurse led her to a rocking chair and for the first time she sat down with her baby.

  All around her, lights blazed. The radio was on and a sweet male voice sang, “I want you to be mine, I want you to be mine, I want to take you home, I want you to be mine.”

  William opened his eyes and blinked. Then he yawned and began to cry.

  “He’s hungry,” the nurse said, putting a small bottle into Billy’s hand.

  She fed him and burped him, and then she held him in her arms and rocked him to sleep. In the process she fell asleep, too, and was woken by the nurse and Grey, who had come from work.

  “You must put him back now,” said the nurse. “He’s been out a long time and we don’t want to stress him.”

  “It’s awful to think that being with his mother creates stress,” Billy said.

  “Oh, no!” the nurse said. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, in his isolette it’s temperature controlled.”

  Once Billy was discharged from the hospital she had to commute to see William. She went to the two morning feedings, came home for a nap, and met Grey for the five o’clock. They raced out for dinner and came back for the eight. Grey would not let Billy stay for the eleven.

  Each morning she saw Dr. Edmunds, the head of neonatology. He was a tall, slow-talking, sandy-haired man with hornrimmed glasses.

  “I know you will never want to hear this under any other circumstances,” he said to Billy, “but your baby is very boring.”

  “How boring?”

  “Very boring. He’s doing just what he ought to do.” William had gone to the bottom of his growth curve and was beginning to gain. “As soon as he’s a little fatter he’s all yours.”

  Billy stood in front of his isolette watching William sleep.

  “This is like having an affair with a married man,” Billy said to the nurse who was folding diapers next to her.

  The nurse looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  “I mean you love the person but can only see him at certain times,” said Billy.

  The nurse was young and plump. “I guess I see what you mean,” she said.

  At home William’s room was waiting. The crib had been delivered and put together by Grey. While Billy was in the hospital, Grey had finished William’s room. The Teddy bears sat on the shelves. A mobile of ducks and geese hung over the crib. Grey had bought a secondhand rocking chair and had painted it red. Billy had thought she would be unable to face William’s empty room. Instead she found she could scarcely stay out of it. She folded and refolded his clothes, reorganized his drawers, arranged his crib blankets. She decided what should be his homecoming clothes and set them out on the changing table along with a cotton receiving blanket and a wool shawl.

  But even though he did not look at all fragile and he was beginning to gain weight, it often felt to Billy that she would never have him. She and Grey had been told ten days to two weeks from day of birth. One day when she felt she could not stand much more Billy was told that she might try nursing him.

  Touch him on his cheek. He will turn to you. Guide him toward the breast and the magical connection will be made.

  Billy remembered this description from her childbirth books. She had imagined a softly lit room, a sense of peacefulness, some soft, sweet music in the background.

  She was put behind a screen in William’s room, near an isolette containing an enormous baby who was having breathing difficulties.

  She was told to keep on her sterile gown, and was given sterile water to wash her breasts with. At the sight of his mother’s naked bosom, William began to howl. The sterile gown dropped onto his face. Billy began to sweat. All around her, the nurses chatted, clattered, and dropped diapers into metal bins and slammed the tops down.

  “Come on, William,” Billy said. “The books say that this is the blissful union of mother and child.”

  But William began to scream. The nurse appeared with the formula bottle and William instantly stopped screaming and began to drink happily.

  “Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “He’ll catch on.”

  At night at home she sat by the window. She could not sleep. She had never felt so separated from anything in her life. Grey, to distract himself, was stenciling the wall under the molding in William’s room. He had found an early American design of wheat and cornflowers. He stood on a ladder in his blue jeans carefully applying the stencil in pale blue paint.

  One night Billy went to the door of the baby’s room to watch him, but Grey was not on the ladder. He was sitting in the rocking chair with his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking slightly. He had the radio on, and he did not hear her.

  He had been so brave and ch
eerful. He had held her hand while William was born. He had told her it was like watching a magician sawing his wife in half. He had taken photos of William in his isolette and sent them to their parents and all their friends. He had read up on growth curves and had bought Billy a book on breast-feeding. He had also purloined his hospital greens to wear each year on William’s birthday. Now he had broken down.

  She made a noise coming into the room and then bent down and stroked his hair. He smelled of soap and paint thinner. She put her arms around him, and she did not let go for a long time.

  Three times a day, Billy tried to nurse William behind a screen and each time she ended up giving him his formula.

  Finally she asked a nurse, “Is there some room I could sit in alone with this child?”

  “We’re not set up for it,” the nurse said. “But I could put you in the utility closet.”

  There amidst used isolettes and cardboard boxes of sterile water, on the second try William nursed for the first time. She touched his cheek. He turned to her, just as it said in the book. Then her eyes crossed.

  “Oh, my God!” she said.

  A nurse walked in.

  “Hurts, right?” she said. “Good for him. That means he’s got it. It won’t hurt for long.”

  At his evening feeding he howled again.

  “The course of true love never did run smooth,” said Grey. He and Billy walked slowly past the park on their way home. It was a cold, wet night.

  “I am a childless mother,” Billy said.

  Two days later William was taken out of his isolette and put into a plastic bin. He had no temperature or heart probes, and Billy could pick him up without having to disconnect anything. At his evening feeding when the unit was quiet, she took him out in the hallway and walked up and down with him.

  The next day she was greeted by Dr. Edmunds.

  “I’ve just had a chat with your pediatrician,” he said. “How would you like to take your boring baby home with you?”

  “When?” said Billy.

  “Right now, if you have his clothes,” Dr. Edmunds said. “Dr. Jacobson will be up in a few minutes and can officially release him.”

  She ran down the hall and called Grey.

  “Go home and get William’s things,” she said. “They’re springing him. Come and get us.”

  “You mean we can just walk out of there with him?” Grey said. “I mean, just take him under our arm? He barely knows us.”

  “Just get here. And don’t forget the blankets.”

  A nurse helped Billy dress William. He was wrapped in a green and white receiving blanket and covered in a white wool shawl. On his head was a blue and green knitted cap. It slipped slightly sideways, giving him a raffish look.

  They were accompanied in the elevator by a nurse. It was hospital policy that a nurse hold the baby, and hand it over at the door.

  It made Billy feel light-headed to be standing out of doors with her child. She felt she had just robbed a bank and got away with it.

  In the taxi, Grey gave the driver their address.

  “Not door to door,” Billy said. “Can we get out at the avenue and walk down the street just like everyone else?”

  When the taxi stopped, they got out carefully. The sky was full of silver clouds and the air was blustery and cold. William squinted at the light and wrinkled his nose.

  Then, with William tight in Billy’s arms, the three of them walked down the street just like everyone else.

  A Couple of Old Flames

  At the autumn cocktail party of the American Economic Review, Billy Delielle ran smack into Francis Clemens, whom she had not seen for two years. He was wearing one of his beautiful tweed jackets, and the ridiculously long paisley scarf he affected was wound around his neck. At his left was a hefty black man wearing a white skull cap, striped trousers, and a long tan linen shift.

  On Francis’s right was a girl so blond and pretty it caused Billy, who was dark and plain, to blink. The girl wore a fuzzy red sweater, dangling earrings, and lipstick to match her nail polish. She and Francis looked so wonderful together that it was hard for Billy to believe that at one time Francis had been her own illicit lover.

  Billy was wearing her nine-month-old son, William, whom she carried in a hip sling. He was a very cheerful baby who clutched a rubber giraffe in one hand and a teething biscuit in the other. Crumbs from his biscuit ornamented his mother’s skirt.

  Francis came right over and gave them a hard stare. He looked almost angry. Before Billy could stop herself, she blurted: “Who’s the dish?”

  Francis’s features instantly relaxed. A smile lit his face.

  “That’s Dr. Milton Obutu,” he said. “I know you’ve been reading his articles on the economic history of the developing nations with avid interest.”

  “The other one.”

  “Oh,” Francis said blithely. “A recent acquisition. Speaking of which, you seem to have acquired a little something yourself.”

  “This is my son, William,” Billy said. “He’s nine months old.”

  Francis leaned over and peered at William, who hid his face in his mother’s neck.

  “Not very friendly,” Francis said.

  “Don’t be shy, Will,” Billy said. “Show your face, please.”

  William looked up, smiled, and began to spit.

  “He has your social style, I see,” said Francis. “What a very good-looking boy.”

  “He looks like his father.”

  “He looks like you,” Francis said. “Of course, I am less intimately connected with the way his father looks.”

  Billy felt her cheeks flush.

  “So,” she said. “I see you’ve found my replacement. A much better model and much nicer colors.”

  The beautiful blond girl was deep in conversation with Dr. Obutu. Her hair was swept up in a French twist and she wore an enormous gold bracelet.

  “How interesting that after throwing me over you’re actually jealous,” said Francis.

  Billy found she could not look Francis in the eye.

  “Dr. Obutu looks very familiar,” she said. “Did he win a prize or something?”

  “I see motherhood has not made you any keener on current events,” said Francis. “He won the Welch-Orlovsky Medal in economics. A neat change of subject. I never knew that jealousy was included in your emotional repertoire. Of course, I had no idea you were fixing to have a baby. How little we know!”

  This, of course, was not true: they had known dozens of things. Billy felt her head cluttered with names of Francis’s friends, his children’s teachers in high school and professors at college, of Vera’s clients, of Francis’s former colleagues. She had heard countless stories about his landlady in the South of France, and in fact knew the history—that is, the history as Francis saw it—of this woman’s marriage, and so on.

  Billy, on the other hand, was so unforthcoming that Francis had given in to snooping, but snooping around the Delielle household did not reveal much. Billy and Grey were a pair of minimalists. Furthermore, Billy felt it was a betrayal to tell Francis anything whereas Francis took the opposite tack. Information defused things, he felt. If he nattered on endlessly about his family, he could con himself into thinking that there was nothing odd about the way he was feeling. As a consequence, he sang like a canary.

  The most fascinating subject was taboo. They did not discuss the reason for their love affair or its effect on their lives. They had broken up any number of times but the last parting had been final. Billy, as was customary, did the initiating. She said, with a tone of resolve in her voice Francis had never heard before, “My life is being ruined.”

  Naturally, she did not say how it was being ruined but Francis knew the knell of finality when he heard it. He had been listening for it all along, and when it came he was not entirely unrelieved. While his life was not being ruined, it was made complicated in a way he often found unbearable. Now he was used to missing Billy. It was rather like a chronic pain of the
lower back. When he looked at her and her child, a feeling akin to rage overtook him.

  “I always said you’d leave me in the dust,” he said.

  Billy was silent.

  “You threw me over,” Francis said.

  “I did not,” Billy said. Francis was pleased to see that there were tears in her eyes. “We were bound to part, one way or the other.”

  “We were?” Francis said. “Not from where I sat.”

  “Come off it, Frank,” said Billy. “I left you sitting right where you belong, in your ornamental house surrounded by your loving family and thousands of friends and relations.”

  At the sound of the sharp tone in his mother’s voice, William began to fidget. “He’s getting bored,” Billy said. “I’m going to have to take him away soon.”

  “Fine,” said Francis. “I’ll take you both away for a drink, and we can continue this most inspiring conversation.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “Ishbelle?” Francis said. “She’s very enterprising. She’s writing a profile of Dr. Obutu for the Wall Street Journal.”

  “Ishbelle?” said Billy.

  “She’s half English, half Dutch,” Francis said.

  “And won’t she think it’s odd that you’re leaving with me?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Francis said. “Besides, you’re a woman with a baby. What could be more safe and respectable?”

  They ambled to the corner. Francis took her by the arm. The air was chilly and wet, and it was getting dark.

  “Here we are,” he said, leading her through a wooden door.

  Billy had had hundreds of meals with Francis, mostly in out of the way delicatessens, Chinese restaurants, or coffee shops. Now she found herself in a bar full of polished blond wood, with a fire burning in the grate and fresh flowers in an ornamental urn.

  “Do you come here often?” Billy said.

  “Once in a while.”

  “We never went to such a nice place.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Francis said.

  They took a table with a banquette. William’s eyes were closed, so Billy spread a little blanket, unzipped his snowsuit, and set him down to take a nap. She took off his hat and kissed his hair.