“Let me give you something to make you more comfortable.” The nurse adjusted Bea’s IV and then Bea was out again. She dreamt of unsavory things.
SIXTEEN
Promises Kept
The first voice Bea heard was Lonnie’s. He was speaking in that charming I-have-the-room-in-my-palm tone. It was one of the things that she’d liked about him when they first met but now got under her skin. How he controlled every situation and people just stepped aside so he could. She kept her head on her pillow with her eyes closed and just listened as he launched into one of his stories.
“It was our first trip with Chico. We took him out to Napa Valley. He was like two or three months old but Bea and I had it in our minds that we were going to make parenting en vogue.”
Mena laughed.
“I thought I was helping Bea by packing the Pampers, wipes, and those little essentials so she could focus on him. When we got to the airport, don’t you know I left the bag at home? I was rushing through the airport looking for diapers and almost missed the plane.”
“Thank God for me,” she croaked.
Everyone looked in her direction.
“Baby.” He looked down at her with concern.
“I had six diapers in my bag. That’s how we made the plane.”
He rubbed her nose the way he did when they first met. “I was so worried about you. How are you feeling?”
Her voice was husky. “Okay.”
Mena brought the baby over to the side of the bed and turned her around so that Bea could see her.
“Awwww,” Bea moaned.
She was swaddled in a pink-and-white blanket and had a matching hat on her head. Her skin was so pale it was translucent.
“Bea, you did it. Isn’t she beautiful?” Mena’s voice cracked as she buried the baby back against her chest. Bea longed to feel her in her arms, smell her skin.
“We did it.”
Awilda stood in the corner, her fingers moving over her phone. “I just checked in with Joney. The kids are being bad. Want me to go over there and beat them silly?” She smiled.
“Yeah, until you get tired.”
“Girl, right now I’m wide awake.”
Bea cracked a smile and flagged Awilda. “How long have you guys been standing over me?”
“It feels like I’ve been waiting for you to open your eyes forever,” said Lonnie, clutching her hand in his. “I’m so proud of you.”
He was lathering it on thick. Bea felt a pain in her abdomen and wasn’t sure if it was physical or just disgust. She turned her face away from Lonnie and tried to get another peek of the baby.
“Bea, you must be starved. Do you want me to run out and get you some dinner?” Clark stood on the other side of her.
“What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” replied Awilda. “You missed dinner, you need to eat something.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“Maybe some soup. Iced tea or just something sweet.”
“Coming right up.”
* * *
Her recovery was slow. It was nothing like how she felt after giving birth vaginally. Her skin was itchy and every time she opened her eyes she was nauseous. The center of her body suffered from a tender mushiness, like a half-baked cake, and it hurt when she shifted her weight.
After her second night in the hospital, her nurse, Merry (like Merry Christmas, she told her in a cheery voice that annoyed Bea), removed the catheter and encouraged Bea to move around a bit. Bea didn’t want to move but once she sipped that second cup of tea, she had to use the bathroom.
The next morning, she was up walking gingerly back to her bed when Mena wheeled the baby in.
“You’re out of the bed. Still in pain?”
Bea lied. “No, I feel fine. How’s little miss?”
“Doing well. Just waiting for the discharge papers so that we can take her home. This is just surreal, Bea. Thank you so much for doing this. You have changed our lives forever.”
Bea sat on the edge of the bed. “Let me see her.” Mena told her that they had named her Sophia, which meant wisdom. Bea peered at her little face and thought that the name fit. It was still astonishing to her that she’d brought this little person into the world for Mena and Clark. That she had no biological connection at all after carrying her for nine months. Sophia didn’t look like her children. Why would she?
“She is the spitting image of my baby pictures,” Mena boasted. To Bea, Sophia didn’t look like any of them.
“Perfect little angel.” Bea could sense that Mena wanted the baby back and so she handed her over. “I’m happy for you. Motherhood is an amazing journey. Just know that you can’t get it right and you’ll never get it all done. That will take some of the pressure off. And it goes fast. I can’t believe Chico is already double digits.”
“I haven’t forgotten what we talked about.” Mena stood up and closed the door with her free hand, clutching Sophia close to her breast with the other. Out of her purse she pulled a crème colored envelope and handed it over to Bea.
“Mena…”
“Shh, Bea. You promised. No one knows about this but me. And no one should know.”
Bea opened the envelope and discovered three checks for nine thousand dollars each.
“Mena! Are you crazy? This is insane.”
“The amount is not even close to enough.” Mena kissed Bea on the forehead and then held Sophia to her heart. “I’ll love you forever for this.”
Bea didn’t know what to say. Clark knocked and as he walked in Bea slid the envelope under the bedcovers.
“Hey Bea, you’re looking good.”
Bea knew she looked a mess. She hadn’t combed her hair in the three days that she had been in the hospital.
“Our daughter is all checked out and ready to go home, sweetie.”
“Finally. I better get her dressed.”
“I’ll go down to the car and grab her seat,” said Clark. “Bea, you want anything from the cafeteria?”
“No, thank you.” Clark left. “What are you taking the baby home in?”
Mena handed Bea the baby while she retrieved the carry-on bag from the corner. When she opened it she had enough baby clothes for a week.
“Are you going on vacation from here?”
“I just didn’t want to leave anything at home.”
“Darling, you have enough stuff in that suitcase to dress every baby in the nursery.”
Mena held up a pink sleeper with a matching hat.
“Precious.”
Mena reached for Sophia and sat on the edge of Bea’s bed. The baby stirred, opening her mouth into a little yawn. “Awwwww, precious love,” Mena said and then started coughing.
“You been feeling okay?”
“Just tired from my meds. And the baby hasn’t even made it home yet.” Mena wore her hair extensions and Bea could see that she had taken time to powder the sickness from her face.
“If you need my help, I’ll come by in a few days.”
“You’ve done enough, Bea. This next step is on me.”
Bea knew Mena was right but that didn’t stop the pinch of sadness from coming over her when she had to say good-bye to the new family. The one she had helped create.
* * *
Dr. Spellman came by to check on her shortly after Mena left and insisted that Bea remain in the hospital a fourth day for observation. Secretly, she was happy to stay. She enjoyed the meds that the nurses gave her and when given a choice, insisted on the strongest dose available. The television was on and she watched in a fog, not thinking much of anything. Time passed without her keeping track. It was the most rest she’d had in months.
On the morning she was to be discharged, Lonnie took the day off from work to bring her home.
“Hey, baby.” He leaned down for a kiss. He had a bouquet of flowers and they made her smile.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you.” She brushed her hair. “Where’re the kids?”
“Your mother has them. She insisted on them staying with her until you got home.”
He’d had three nights to run the streets.
“Ready?”
“I guess.” Bea didn’t want to leave her hospital room. Once she did, she would have to deal with her real life, and being here had made it easy to pretend.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, nothing.”
SEVENTEEN
Naked and Afraid
Bea had only been home recuperating for three days when Lonnie left for a five-day business trip.
“Really? You have to go with me in this condition? School starts in a week and I haven’t gotten anything done.”
“Babe, this is how I pay the bills. They need me.”
“I need you.”
“I don’t want to leave you. Trust me, I don’t.” He looked deeply into her eyes, forcing her to look away. “Irma is downstairs cooking up a storm. She promised me that she’d take good care of you until you got better.”
“I’m not sick, Lonnie. I had a baby. They cut me open.” I almost died in that hospital and you weren’t there. She reached for her painkillers.
“Would you get me some water?”
Lonnie was bent over wiping a smudge from his brown loafers, the casual ones that he wore when he traveled. “Of course, baby.”
He had been sugary sweet since he’d announced that he had to leave.
“Here.” Lonnie returned with a big cup of ice water.
“I didn’t ask for ice.”
Lonnie went into the bathroom, dumped the ice out, and brought the water back.
“Why do you have to go?”
“Bea, we’ve been through this. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Why weren’t you at the hospital when Sophia was born?”
“We’ve been through this too. I was in a meeting that ran long. I’m sorry. You know I wanted to be there for you.”
Bea rolled over and stared at the wall. How did she know anything when it concerned him?
“When I get back, we’ll do something special. Get yourself better so I can take you out and show you a good time.” He kissed her cheek. Then she heard his luggage clunking down the stairs. Bea fell asleep. When her eyes opened she wasn’t sure how much time had passed but she could smell her mother’s special soup, asopao de pollo, wafting from the kitchen. Her mother thought that the thick meaty soup with yucca and vegetables was the cure-all for everything. After her father’s funeral, she made the soup. The time Bea showed up at her house after catching Lonnie with his assistant, they ate the soup. After Chico was born, her mother brought the soup down on Amtrak to D.C.
“To heal your female parts, mija,” she had said then.
“You’re up.” Irma paused in the doorway. It seemed to Bea that her mother’s hips were getting wider every time she saw her. She had urged Irma to go to the community center where they had workout classes for seniors but she never went. When Bea’s father died, it was like he took her mother’s beauty with him. She just stopped caring. Instead she sat with dinner on a tray in front of telenovelas. The only place Irma walked was to the bus stop, which was a half block from her apartment. Most times she didn’t do that. She had a medical plan that allowed her to call for ride shares and that van picked her up right in front of her house.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat. The kids are asking for you. They are worried. Said you’ve been spending all of your time in your bed. I told them you were just recovering and would be down soon. Will you be down soon?”
Bea pulled the covers over her head. “Just leave it there. I’m tired.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“Okay. I bought you a magazine.”
Irma left it on the edge of Bea’s bed and then backed out and closed the door. Bea’s breasts were leaking. She had asked Lonnie to bring her a head of cabbage so that she could dry up the milk and he had bought lettuce.
* * *
In the days that followed, Bea had not gotten out of bed for more than it took to go to the bathroom. If she remembered, she brushed her teeth. It had become difficult to rouse herself to be bothered with anything. The kids talked without her remembering the conversation. They asked for things and she just said yes.
“I think you are suffering from that postpartum depression, honey.” Irma put her hand on Bea’s forehead like she would know with one touch. “Not good. Should I call the doctor?”
“I’m fine, Ma.”
“I don’t know. I saw it on Dr. Oz. Women who have babies and then can’t get out of bed. They have thoughts of suicide. You feel depressed?”
“No. I’m just tired.”
“You’ve been in bed for three days. You can’t let Lonnie come back and see you like this.”
Fuck Lonnie, Bea thought and rolled away from her mother’s gaze.
Irma stood with her hands on her hips and took the tone she’d used on Bea during her difficult adolescent years. “You’re going to eat dinner tonight if I have to spoon-feed you myself.” She turned and left.
Bea waited until she was sure her mother was in the kitchen and pulled her feet from the bed. It hurt. She moved to the rocking chair that she kept by the window in time to see Joney raise her hands to the sky and then fold over on her yoga mat. Bea watched Joney move through the air with ease and surety. Bea felt an emotional pendulum fight for space in her chest. She went from happy at seeing Joney to crying breathlessly. It was as if a switch had been turned in her head and she went from light to dark and then had crashed into sad. Images of her father lying in the coffin at the funeral home came to her. Then the sound of his wife’s voice pierced into her ears. Bea remembered how desperate she’d sounded when she screamed, “Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?”
Bea could relate to her weeping. She felt left out in the desert, alone to die with no one or nothing to comfort her. If only she could open up her chest and stop the pain. The nightgown she wore was irritating her skin and she took it off. She went into her bathroom and started a bath. When the tub was filled with hot water, Bea couldn’t stop picturing herself getting into the tub and holding her head under the water until she was no more.
What the hell was happening to her? She knew the baby was Mena’s and not once during her pregnancy had she thought of the child as her own, but now she felt lost without the kicks of the baby. She was no longer important. Didn’t have a job to do. With the distraction of the pregnancy out of the way, now she had to deal with her life. It felt unbearable so Bea climbed back into bed.
* * *
She had listened all day to the rhythms of the house. Dinnertime. Bath time. Bedtime. Her mother cleaning the dishes and prepping for the next day. The digital clock on her nightstand flashed 1:53 A.M. The dark horse had climbed into bed with her and urged her to get up. Bea didn’t want to, it still hurt a bit to walk up and down the steps. She was supposed to be up and walking from the moment she got home so that her body would adjust but she had been in bed.
When Bea walked into her kitchen it was spotless. It smelled like Pine-Sol and white vinegar. The room was cleaner than when the cleaning lady came every other week. Her mother was like that. You could eat off the floor. Saliva gathered on her tongue as the dark horse pushed her to open the French doors of the refrigerator. It was well stocked. Lonnie must have taken Irma shopping before he left. She didn’t stop to think. She pulled out everything that she could get her hands on: containers of rice, beans, and puerco asado, the pork. She warmed the soup in the microwave and found bags of chips, pretzels, Wheat Thins, and peanuts from the pantry and made herself a party mix.
Bea lined up all of her treats on the kitchen counter and then went from item to item like she was being timed. Full, she burped. Inside the downstairs powder room she locked the door, ran the faucet, and then made it all come back up.
EIGHTEEN
Sniffing for Happy
&nb
sp; Bea watched television in the family room on Lonnie’s supersized television with the surround sound turned low. She had flipped through the channels until she landed on QVC. The discovery of this channel had both delighted and mesmerized her. The host, David Venable, convinced her to order Bobby Chez’s famous jumbo lump crab cakes, Kansas City filet mignons, and gadgets for pizza night. In the next hour, Jayne Brown sold her backpacks and water bottles for the children’s return to school, and a stainless steel bracelet that read FAITH. Bea had never ordered anything on television before and for a brief inkling she experienced the same high she felt when she binged.
It was that time between the middle of the night and morning when she went back upstairs to her bedroom. She was again restless. Her eyes darted around for something to do. She went into Lonnie’s closet and without even putting on her white gloves went through all of his clothes, pulling them down one by one until more than half of what he owned was in a big pile on the floor. Bea curled up in the pile and went to sleep.
She hadn’t heard her mother come in until she was standing over her.
“Dios mio! Beatrice, what’s the matter with you?”
Bea looked at her but said nothing.
Bea was still there an hour later when the door opened again. This time Bea was butt-naked on the hardwood floor with the clothes piled on top of her.
“Bea.”
Awilda walked into the closet and got down on the floor next to her. “I brought your favorite.” She held up a bag of Chewy Chips Ahoy.
Bea swallowed her saliva, searching for her voice.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“You miss the baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lonnie?”
“Not really.”
“So what is it?”
“I don’t want to be here. I’m just taking up space. Wilde, I can’t even stand to hear my kids’ voices. Can’t do this family thing anymore. I just want out.”
“All right.”
“All right, what?”
“We’ll leave. Get dressed and we’ll go.”
And Then There Was Me Page 15
