Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  “No. Daddy would never drop us, Mommy!” she said sternly.

  “Still, it’s good to walk on your own two feet sometimes,” Chris said setting her and Landyn down. “Let’s go find some food.”

  They ate lunch together—Thad included—in the kitchen with Chris playing the more active role of making sure Caity and Landyn ate their food. Robyn was distracted, thinking about her confrontation with Elaine Richards and considering how to ask Chris about the coffee and the lunch that had been thrown in her face. But she wasn’t too distracted to notice how surreal the whole scene was—Chris making airplane noises as he fed their son chicken nuggets, and the well put-together Thaddeus Hunt looking on as though this was a normal work environment.

  And maybe it was the new normal—Chris working as hard as always, but this time at home, flanked by his children, and as involved with them as any woman could hope for.

  Tomorrow, Jasmin and Kaden were coming for the weekend, and in a week, Deuce would be there as well, after having spent Thanksgiving Day with his mother and that side of his family. Chris had mentioned Deuce’s arrival a few times, casually, but often enough that Robyn knew he was looking forward to it, though he would never say so.

  Thad finished his meal and excused himself, pausing to leave his plate in the sink, and to thank Mrs. Lawson who was hovering about, probably eager to have them all out of her kitchen.

  “Guess who we ran into while we were out,” Robyn said, feeling it safe to broach the topic now that they were only among family.

  “Who?” Chris looked up as he helped Caity lift her over-filled glass of juice to her lips.

  “Felicity. And her mom.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Chris neither looked, nor sounded interested. He reached across to Landyn in his high chair and took a nugget from their son’s fingers, breaking it in half before handing him one of the smaller pieces.

  “Yeah. Elaine was a little annoyed that we let Felicity go in the way we did.”

  “Hell, I would be too,” Chris laughed. “But you said you gave her a little something extra at the end, right? So that should’ve eased the pain.”

  It should have. Except the loss of income to her daughter wasn’t Elaine Richard’s only source of ‘pain.’

  Robyn thought about the tone of the woman’s voice when they spoke at the toy store, and how aggrieved she seemed from the very first syllable. She thought about every encounter after the first time they met Elaine Richards and how she had angled to be in Chris’ company alone.

  And then Robyn thought about the last-ditch effort to unsettle her by mentioning coffee and lunch. She didn’t think Elaine had been lying about that, but something about it smelled of desperation, someone clinging to something or someone that was not yet in their grasp, but whom they had high hopes would be.

  Chris had likely seen her in town for coffee, and maybe even had a meal with her just as she said. If he happened across Elaine and she pressed the issue, he would have. He would have let her talk, but not said very much, asked a lot of questions but answered very few.

  Robyn had seen him do it a million times, with women who tried to stoke his interest in them, even with his wife there. Chris would shut part of himself off, seemingly present, and yet mentally far, far away. And it would be undetectable except to people who knew him very well, like Robyn did. Chris was one of those people who could cultivate a feeling of “friendship” and yet not recall a person’s name the very next time he saw them. It was both a talent and a curse.

  The day Robyn mentioned letting Felicity go, he’d had no reaction other than amusement, which meant he likely knew why she had done it and hadn’t cared. He hadn’t even behaved like it merited a conversation.

  Suddenly, Robyn was sure that in two weeks’ time, she might say the name Elaine Richards and he would look at her blankly.

  It seemed silly, suddenly, her intention to interrogate him.

  “You think maybe …” Chris gestured between their two kids, “… naptime?”

  “Yes,” Robyn said, laughing. “We tranquilized our children with food just so they can go to sleep, and you can get back to work.”

  “I’m about to put in some work alright, but maybe not the kind you’re thinkin’. And I’m pretty sure what I have in mind will tranquilize you.”

  Robyn blushed at the reference to how she routinely fell asleep right after sex, and shot a look in Mrs. Lawson’s direction, to remind him that the kids were not their only company.

  “Christopher.”

  He grinned back at her. “You sayin’ you not into it?”

  “Of course I’m into it,” she said, slowly. “Always.”

  Renewal

  1

  I’ll get him.”

  The squalling began almost as soon as they sat down to eat, and at the sound of it, Keisha felt her shoulders and neck begin to tighten. Jayson sprang up immediately, the way he always did when Lee started crying.

  “Get a bottle ready,” he said as he left the room, glancing over his shoulder.

  Sighing, Keisha got up to do just that. She had stopped breastfeeding only a month earlier, and sometimes when the baby cried, she still felt her nipples tingle, preparing to aspirate milk. She ignored it, because if she gave in even once and let Lee latch on, her body would begin producing again.

  It was confusing, this conflict she felt. On one hand, she wanted nothing more than to have him get everything his body needed from her body. And on the other, Keisha balked at the commitment of it. She could not be away from Lee for very long when she was breastfeeding. Or, at a minimum, she couldn’t be away from a breast-pump. What had women done, she wondered, before that technology was developed? Stood over a sink and milked themselves like cows?

  But who was she kidding? She was never away from him for very long anyway.

  “Here she is.” Jayson came walking back into the kitchen holding their son. “Here’s Mama.”

  Looking at them together, Keisha couldn’t help herself. She smiled.

  Jayson, with that chiseled physique, evident even under his t-shirt and carrying their baby who—no one could deny—was darn near perfect. He had a mass of coal-black curly hair, so voluminous that sometimes Keisha had to fasten it at the top of his head in a loose little man-bun, large light-grey eyes that must have sprung from some long-forgotten ancestor, long sweeping lashes and Keisha’s own light-tawny complexion.

  Now that he was in Jay’s arms, Lee looked almost jolly, his eyes bright from recently-shed tears, but his cheeks rosy and pink mouth parted in a wet smile, as though he was saying, you saved me, Daddy, you saved me.

  Jayson was a sucker for Lee’s cries, because he wasn’t home with him all day the way Keisha was. He didn’t have to time his showers, his meals, and even his trips to the bathroom according to the will of this tiny, deceptively gorgeous little despot.

  “You want him?” Jayson asked, leaning toward her with the baby.

  “No, you hold him. I’ll take care of this,” Keisha said, indicating the bottle of milk warming in the pot on the stove.

  “Chloe says we should stop doing that. That the heat and the plastic … it’s not good for him.”

  Chloe, her sister-in-law who Keisha happened to love, was also a pain-in-the-ass when it came to baby advice. As if it wasn’t already apparent that Keisha didn’t know what she was doing, Chloe’s advice only highlighted that fact.

  “Just this one time,” Keisha said. “All the glass bottles are dirty right now.”

  Though he was behind her, she could feel Jay poised to complain, to ask her to wash one of the glass ones. She held her breath and waited, but he didn’t say anything. How could he? He had to know she was exhausted. She spent every waking moment thinking about Lee—his food, his clothes, his naps, his bowel movements, or lack thereof.

  Being able to sit down to dinner, without holding a baby at her side felt like a mini-vacation. And now it had been interrupted. On the kitchen table, her Singapore rice noodles
were getting cold, and the sauce in the spicy General Tsao’s chicken was becoming gummy. Everyone knew that reheated Chinese never tasted the same.

  “Key!”

  Keisha jumped at the sound of Jay’s voice, and just in time, plucked the baby bottle out of the pot, as the water began to boil.

  “Now it might be too hot,” Jay said from behind her.

  No shit.

  Keisha held the bottle by the neck and took it over to the sink, letting the cold water run for a little, then putting the bottle under it.

  “Getting it hot and then cooling it down like that …”

  And in plastic. Don’t forget that part; in the toxic plastic bottle.

  “… I feel like it’s probably killing all the nutrients in the formula.”

  Keisha sighed. He was so transparent. He wanted her to breastfeed again. Why didn’t he just say it? Chloe had of course breastfed both of her girls. Perfect stay-at-home mom, Chloe. Keisha had been at home for almost nine months now and was just about ready to rip her hair out from the tedium.

  Pulling the bottle out from under the water, she tested the temperature of the milk on the back of her hand. When she turned to hand it to Jay, Lee reached out for it with his chubby hands, and easily guided the nipple to his lips, beginning to suck enthusiastically.

  “Look at him,” Jay said. “Smart kid.”

  He took him back to the table, and sat down again, reaching for his fork and easily resuming his meal. Keisha stood by for a moment incredulous as she watched Lee recline and relax against Jayson’s chest holding his bottle with both hands, his little legs pumping in the blue onesie.

  When she tried to feed herself while feeding him, Lee never cooperated. He fussed, he reached for her fork or spoon, he squirmed in her arms and basically made it clear that if he was eating, she needed to simply stare lovingly into his eyes and watch him do it. Under no circumstances was she supposed to be eating as well. Oh, no sirree.

  “But y’know what?” Keisha said as she sat down and reached for her fork. “The plastic bottles are easier for him to hold. The glass ones are heavy. I worry he might smash himself in the face with those if it slips.”

  That was the only kind of argument Jay would respond to when it came to Lee—relative risk. It was relatively less risky to use plastic than it was to risk having their son smashed in his face trying to hold the heavy glass bottle.

  Jay’s brow furrowed. “That’s true,” he said. “Maybe just don’t put them in hot water, then?”

  “Yup. You’re right.”

  Keisha took a bite of her noodles. Still warm, thank God. She ate quickly out of habit. When she was home alone with the baby, eating was a race against the clock, because Lee never napped for very long. She sometimes pictured him in her head as lying in wait in his crib, listening for the sound of the microwave, or of utensils against a plate, and then timing his cries accordingly.

  “I’m off tomorrow. Ashley’s covering the store for me. You want to go out and do something?”

  Jay’s photo studio and store, Shutterbug, did well enough now for him to have hired two other part-time people besides his longest employee, Ashley, so there were days when he didn’t have to go in at all. But he still worked an average of six days a week, catering not just to the townspeople but to the New Yorkers in town for day-trips, who were attracted to the prints of Jay’s own photographs, mostly of the flora and fauna of the Hudson Valley.

  Between the prints, the photo equipment, event bookings and in-studio shoots, they were doing well with the business. Or at least Jay was doing well. Keisha was home changing dirty diapers.

  “What should we do?”

  Jay shrugged. “I dunno. You tell me. You’re the one cooped up in here all day. What do you want to do?”

  Run away. Far away from the laundry, and the baby bottles and the drool and the poop. Away from the incessant crying, and the hastily-eaten meals. Away even from Jayson and from Lee, and this entire life.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the mall, or the park or something?”

  Jayson looked at her strangely.

  “The mall or the park?” he said. “You get a free day, and you want to go to the mall or the park.”

  “Jayson. I don’t know. I can’t think about it right now. Can I just sit here, and enjoy my noodles? Does everything have to be a … test?”

  “Does everything have to be a test?” he repeated. He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What’re you talking about? What feels like a test?”

  “Nothing. Okay? Keisha stood, and took her plate with her. “I’m just going to eat in the living room …I just need some … And if when he’s done can you give him a bath? It’ll make him fall asleep easier.”

  “Okay.” Jayson shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  She had been giddy, at first. They both had been. Lee was right on time, and healthy at almost nine pounds. And he looked just like Jay even as a newborn, except for those grey eyes. Jay wanted a boy, so he was over-the-moon. Keisha had been happy and exhausted, and in awe of what her body had done. How could it do that? How did it just know what to do?

  Despite her inattention at Lamaze, she managed fine. The pain was bearable, and she felt focused and determined. Lee came out with so little doctor assistance, Keisha felt like Super Woman. And when they put him on her chest, sticky and covered in mucus, she felt a primal urge to lick him clean.

  Wow, Jay kept saying, wow.

  And then he kissed her lips, and her sweaty forehead, and she felt like she had accomplished something, given him something irreplaceable, which of course she had.

  She thought about all the girls she knew from her old neighborhood who had become mothers too early. Babies seemed to mean something different then—they were anchors that helped you get your hooks into some guy (though that scarcely ever worked), or anvils, that rooted you to a life you wanted to escape, or responsibilities that meant you would never again be able to do something just for yourself.

  Lee’s birth was none of those things. It was a celebration of her and Jayson. A living breathing symbol of how united they were. When the nurse came to take him to clean him off, Keisha felt her first surge of maternal protectiveness, lifting herself up in bed, and craning her neck so she could see every second of what they were doing to her baby.

  It’s okay, Jay told her. They’re just cleaning him.

  After that, they let her hold him for a little while before they took him away to do all their other tests. Keisha tried to keep her eyes open but couldn’t for very long. The labor had been almost ten hours.

  And the euphoria? That lasted three months.

  Three months of going into Lee’s nursery and looking at him every half hour. Of wanting to sleep with him, and having Chloe come over and stage a mini-intervention to talk her out of it. Of having to be persuaded to take a shower, because she didn’t like being unable to hear the baby monitor.

  The following three months had been the exact opposite. The weight of it arrived, at some point, Keisha didn’t know when. But one morning she recalled waking up and staring at the ceiling. Jayson was next to her sleeping, and from down the hall, she heard Lee whimpering, making the sounds that came just before he delivered a full-throated yell. She heard his whimpering and felt a deep bone-tiredness, and an unwillingness, almost a resentment about having to answer his call.

  Jayson stirred next to her.

  I’ll get him, he said, sleepily.

  She thought now that she would have stayed there, listening to him cry. She wouldn’t have moved even if Lee had given that yell. She wouldn’t have moved, and she wasn’t even sure she would have cared.

  2

  Give her the day to herself, Jayson. That’s what she needs. Not an afternoon in the park or at the mall.”

  “I didn’t think so, but that’s what she said she wants to do.”

  “Don’t listen to anything she says right now. She doesn’t know what she wants.”

  Jay laughed. “Wow, Chloe. Don’
t let the National Organization for Women hear you.”

  “It’s biological, hormonal. She has a … thing. I don’t want to call it postpartum depression because I don’t like labels, but it sounds like that.”

  “I thought that only happened right after pregnancy.”

  “No. It can happen later as well.”

  “Yeah, but if it’s that, should I leave her alone?”

  “Why wouldn’t you? Do you think she would hurt herself?”

  “No.”

  “Then, yes, believe me, she’d probably love it if you left her alone. You can always take Lee over here to me and the girls.”

  “Nah. I think I’ll just take him into the store with me. I may as well go, if Key isn’t doing anything with us.”

  “Okay, but if that gets to be too much, then bring him over.”

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  Jayson hung up and listened for the sound of the shower. Keisha had gone in to take one right after breakfast, and he had gone to see about their son. Lee was lying on his back in the crib.

  When he picked him up though, Jayson realized that when Keisha had looked in on him that morning, she couldn’t have picked him up, couldn’t have changed him. Lee was wearing a diaper saturated with what felt like five pounds of urine.

  The idea of going into his son’s room, looking at that face and not wanting to pick him up was inconceivable. But apparently, that was precisely what his wife had done. Everything Jayson had been trying to ignore over the past few months was staring him dead in the face. Keisha’s attitude toward Lee, toward him, toward just about everything these days, was almost apathetic.

  She went through the motions, of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the baby, and when he was in the mood, even fucking. But it was like she wasn’t even there. Her eyes were vacant and detached.

  Maybe she thought he was too busy to see it, and that if she had meals on the table, clean clothes in the drawers, and Lee was well taken care of, he wouldn’t notice. But he did. He had noticed for a long time, but this morning was the first sign that even the effort to pretend things were normal was becoming too much for her.