Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  “I’m hungry,” he sulked.

  She laughed. “Not you. Otis.”

  “Oh, ex-cuze me.”

  Once they were in the city, Otis began crying. “Oh, sweetie,” Suzanne said, waggling her fingers at him. She dug in his baby bag for a pacifier. “Oh, don’t tell me I forgot—” she said. She lifted up on one hip so she could check her pockets.

  “I’ll do that—” Ivan teased, trying to wedge his fingers in her pocket. She brushed him away.

  “We have to stop so I can get him a pacifier.”

  Ivan sighed and fumbled in his pocket. “I’m out of cigarettes. Can I burn one off you?”

  “No way. Not with Otis in the car. And anyway I quit. It’s bad for Otis.”

  Ivan gave her a cool stare that she did her best to ignore. She drove to a Rite Aid and parked on the street. “A parking space! That’s a small miracle!” she said.

  “He’s not the only one who needs a pacifier,” Ivan said. “Can you pick me up some Luckies?”

  “You’re not going to smoke around him.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Suzanne, you’re killing me.”

  “Leave the radio on, he likes it,” Suzanne said. “And there’s an extra bottle in his bag if he wants it. And a clean burp cloth if you need it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her.

  She wanted to tell him the songs Otis liked, the ones that always calmed him down, especially if you sang them in a silly voice. She wanted to tell him that Otis liked to be tickled, that he liked to hear a voice talking to him, but she stopped herself from saying more. Ivan had a kid. He probably had his own things that he liked to do. So instead, she turned to Otis. “Be a good boy, now. I’ll be back in a flash. I’ll give both you boys time to get to know each other. Just don’t talk about me when I’m not here to defend myself.”

  “Hurry back,” Ivan said.

  Suzanne leaped out of the car, running into the store. She ran to the baby aisles like a pro. She knew just what to get. Big white and purple can of Alimentum. She’d better get two cans while she was here. A bright blue pacifier. Maybe two of those, too, because you couldn’t have too many the way Otis liked to hurl them into space. It made her smile, just thinking about it. She hightailed it to the checkout, just in time to see the cashier, a young girl with bad skin and a frizzy blond perm, getting all flustered. The cashier held up her hands apologetically. “The machine’s jammed,” she said in a tight chirpy voice, and Suzanne looked at her watch. Great. She hoped Otis wasn’t fussing. She hoped Ivan had pulled out that extra bottle. “Where’s the other register?” Suzanne asked.

  “What other register?”

  Suzanne sighed and looked at her watch again.

  The register pinged. The drawer slid open. “Fixed it!” said the cashier, slamming it shut with the flat of her hand. “Next!” Suzanne stepped forward and someone gave her a smart tap on the shoulder. “I was here first,” a man said, plunking down a red basket on the counter. He was in an expensive business suit and had on shades inside, which always irritated Suzanne. “I had to exchange a damaged can and I came right back. She knows.”

  “Like fun you were—” Suzanne said, but the cashier was picking items out of the man’s basket, ringing them up. The man gave Suzanne a smug smile that irritated her so much she could have hauled off and whammed him. “Excuse me—” Suzanne said crossly.

  “Oh, sorry. I already started the ring-up.”

  Suzanne waved her hand. Fine. Fine. What did it matter now? But although she knew it was impossible, this girl seemed to be going to slower and slower, taking her sweet time counting out the money twice, just to be sure, stapling the receipt to the man’s bag slowly, once, twice, three frigging times.

  “Okay, now your turn.” Unapologetically, the cashier looked at her. Suzanne would have snapped something at her, but she knew how that worked. You made a dig at someone and they took it out on you. You got punished but good. She could be waiting here all day to get the things she needed. She pushed the formula and the pacifiers toward the cashier. She tried to smile pleasantly, while inside she was thinking daggers.

  “No bag—” Suzanne reached to stay the cashier’s hand.

  The cashier looked confused. “But I have to staple the receipt to something—”

  “No, no you don’t.” Suzanne grabbed the cans, the pacifiers, and the receipt.

  The cashier blinked at her. “You have a nice day,” she said finally.

  You eat dirt, thought Suzanne.

  She ran out of the store and there was the car, all four doors wide open, just like a mouth telling her something. There were two cops, one of them holding Otis who was screaming, his little face bright red. There was a purple mark on his forehead, like an exotic blooming flower, which made Suzanne stop short. There was glass sparkled all over the street. The side of the car was bashed in. And Ivan was nowhere in sight.

  Suzanne looked at Otis in horror. “Oh, my God, is he all right?” Panicked, she reached for Otis and the cop pointedly stepped back from her. Otis screamed louder. “What happened? Who hit the car?” She looked around. “Where’s Ivan—the man in the car?”

  She tried to reach for Otis and again the cop stepped back. She felt her panic accelerating. “What are you doing! I need to look at him!” She looked wildly around. “What is going on here? Why won’t you let me take him?”

  “Is this car yours?”

  “No, my brother-in-law’s, but I—”

  “And is the baby yours?” the cop interrupted.

  “Yes. No. I’m his aunt. I take care of him.” Something cold and damp prickled along Suzanne’s spine.

  “Where’s his parents?”

  “His mother’s sick in the hospital. His father’s visiting her. What’s going on here? What’s happened?”

  He looked at her with disgust, like she was the gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe. “Maybe you should tell me. You leave an infant alone in a locked car with the motor running?”

  “What? I didn’t do that—he wasn’t alone—”

  “You got a little sideswiped. Hit and run. Nobody saw anything. You’re lucky there wasn’t more damage. Even luckier this baby wasn’t hurt seriously.”

  Suzanne’s heart jumped. “I want to take Otis to a doctor. Right now.” Suzanne tried to sound firm.

  “Doesn’t look like this car is going anywhere. We can call an ambulance, get the paramedic to take a look at him, but once we do that, you got to take him to a Pediatric ER. Let the doctors there check him out, too.”

  “Call.”

  One of the cops went back to the police car. She watched him and then there at the end of the street, she saw Ivan walking toward her, smoking a cigarette. “There!” she said to the cop. “I left Otis with him!”

  “Jesus Christ, what’s this?” Ivan said when he got there. He frowned, taking another drag before tossing the cigarette. “Who the hell did this?”

  “You left him!” Suzanne cried. “There was a car accident! They’re calling an ambulance! You left the baby!”

  His face changed, working itself into something she didn’t recognize. He glared at her. He acted like it was her fault. Otis screamed louder. She looked at the car and then back at him. She tried to imagine such a thing, and then, she felt herself turning desperate. She waited for him to tell her that of course he hadn’t done such a thing, he was a father, too, for God’s sake, he was responsible. She waited for him to deny it, to make an excuse at least. She looked helplessly at Ivan again and he looked away.

  “Endangering the life of a child,” the cop said flatly.

  Ivan shook his head. “I ran to get cigarettes—I was gone for all of two minutes.”

  “Ten from when we got here,” said one of the cops. “Who knows how long before that.”

  “Ten?” Suzanne looked at Ivan in astonishment. “Ten minutes?”

  Ivan glowered at Suzanne. “For Christ sake, everybody is acting like it’s World War III here—look, the kid looks all rig
ht.” He stayed back. He didn’t touch Otis. He didn’t even look at him, the same way he hadn’t back at the house, and suddenly Suzanne felt something uncoiling in her, springing up, sharp as a wire.

  She shoved Ivan, so roughly he stumbled. “A car banged into him! They’re calling an ambulance!” she screamed.

  Ivan stepped away from her. “You”—he angrily pointed at her—“are nuts.”

  The cop wrote up something on a pad. “What are you doing?” Suzanne said, panicked.

  “This goes to Child Protection. They’ll be paying you a nice little home visit. Checking for neglect.”

  “Child Protection! You can’t be serious!”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing?” the cop said. “Could I have your license?”

  Suzanne fumbled in her purse and handed it to him. It unnerved her the way the cop wasn’t looking at her, the way he kept writing. She knew what he must think. That she was disgusting. That she didn’t care. When the truth was, she cared more than anything. She couldn’t swallow. Her breath seemed stuck in her throat.

  “When will they come?” Suzanne asked, and the cop shrugged.

  “They come unannounced. That’s the whole point. And they could keep coming that way for oh—three months, I think it is. Right?” He looked at the other cop.

  “Three. Or maybe four,” the other cop said.

  “No, you’re wrong,” Suzanne whispered.

  “I’ve seen cases where they even take the kid away.” He gave Suzanne her license back. “If there’s neglect.”

  “Give me Otis,” Suzanne said. The cop holding Otis looked at her. “Give me the baby.” She was practically in tears now, about to hurl herself at his feet and beg him. “Please.” Her voice sounded strangled.

  He handed her Otis, who burrowed against her. “You be careful,” the cop said.

  She cradled Otis, talking to him in a low, soothing voice, checking his bruise, his limbs. “It’s all right now,” she said. “I’m here. We’re going to a nice hospital, see a nice doctor, make sure you’re okay.” She kept talking, repeating the same things over and over, not taking her eyes from him, and when she finally looked up, the ambulance had arrived, and two paramedics jumped out, staring at the car and her and the cops.

  Ivan was leaning along the building, his hands in his pockets, staring at her. The paramedics took the baby from Suzanne and opened up the back of the ambulance. “Step on up, ma’am,” one said. He held out his hand. He was so sweetly polite to her she felt like crying. The other started talking to the cops, nodding his head, looking right at Suzanne in a way that made her feel shamed. Ivan took a step toward her.

  “Don’t,” she said. Her voice was steel. He stopped. “Don’t you come near me.” He leaned against a storefront, watching her, his eyes hooded.

  She got into the ambulance. She looked straight ahead at Otis, who was screaming, sitting up. His small face was terrified. The paramedics were busy tying him to a small padded chair with bands of white cloth. One across his small chest. One across his legs. One across his feet. “What are you doing?” she said, alarmed. “Don’t tie him!”

  The paramedic took a strip of white cloth and wrapped it about Otis’s head. Otis screamed and looked at Suzanne. “Don’t!” Suzanne cried.

  “It’s for his own good. Keeps his head steady. Just in case. It’s not hurting him.”

  Suzanne leaped up, and the paramedic held up a hand. “Ma’am. We need you to stay in that seat over here. Buckle yourself in. He’s not being hurt.”

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “Mt. Sinai.”

  One of the cops jumped into the ambulance. “We have to come, too,” he said.

  Mt. Sinai. The same hospital as Molly.

  There were three mothers with kids in the Emergency Room, but she was the only woman with a baby who also had a cop beside her. Doctors swirled around her. Any minute she expected one of Molly’s doctors to appear, to frown at her and Otis in sudden recognition, to see the cop and then ask pointedly, “What’s going on here, exactly?” and she gripped Otis tightly to her. He had stopped crying finally, but his small shoulders shuddered. He sucked in snot. She patted his back, making small constellations with her hand. “You’re okay,” she promised, but she couldn’t help being afraid. Couldn’t help wondering, what if he wasn’t? What would she do then? She held him tighter to her. She felt her heart beating up against his.

  A female doctor in a white lab coat walked toward her and as soon as she saw the cop, she looked at Suzanne differently. “He ever have bruises like this before?” the doctor asked Suzanne pointedly. There was something in the tone of her voice Suzanne couldn’t bare.

  “It was a car accident,” Suzanne said. She tried to make her voice sound firm, controlled.

  “I’ll take care of the paperwork,” the cop said, and left her side, and as soon as he did, Suzanne felt more vulnerable than before.

  “He ever have bruises like this?” the doctor repeated. She looked at Otis’s eyes.

  “No. Of course not.”

  The doctor looked up at Suzanne with a measured gaze that made Suzanne want to disappear. The doctor checked Otis’s signs. She felt his belly, and then she turned to Suzanne. “He looks okay. Just watch him for a few days. Any unusual things, like vomiting or grogginess, you get him back here.” Then the doctor dismissed Suzanne, turning from her with a kind of disgust. The doctor looked to another woman holding a child. “Hello,” the doctor said, and her voice was so suddenly warm, so richly sympathetic that Suzanne wanted to run over there and start pounding at the doctor’s back screaming, How dare you. How dare you. How dare you.

  She had to call a cab to get home. Had to sit in the backseat with her arms locked about Otis because the seat belts were broken, terrified that any second another accident might happen. She had to call Triple A to tow the car. And then she had to wait for Gary.

  All that afternoon, she cried. She sat by Otis’s crib while he slept, unable to move. Endangering the life of a child. They were right. It was her fault. Her fault for trusting Ivan. The phone rang and she jumped. She’d have to tell Gary. She’d have to tell Molly. They’d never speak to her again. And the horrible thing was she couldn’t blame them. She deserved this, leaving Otis with Ivan.

  She cried a little more and then she gave Otis a bath, cried again, stopping only when she thought Otis looked a little sorrowful himself, and then she put him to sleep. The phone rang four times but she didn’t pick it up once. She turned off the answering machine. If it was Ivan, he could rot. And if it was Gary, well, she wanted to tell him in person. She didn’t deserve the kind of distance the phone could provide. She didn’t deserve to hide.

  At six, when Gary was due home, she was sitting on the front porch, and when Gary came up the walk, she stood. Her eyes were puffy. Her nose was red.

  “What’s wrong?” Gary tilted his head and looked at her. “Where’s the car?”

  “I have something I have to tell you,” she said.

  For a long while, he didn’t say anything, and to Suzanne that was scarier than if he had screamed at her or struck her or hurled her suitcase out the door. Instead, he simply waited until she was finished, and then he slowly stood up. He looked a hundred years old suddenly. He looked at Suzanne as if he didn’t know her, as if she were a stranger who had just come into his house and now he didn’t want her to touch anything. “I want you out,” he said. “I don’t care where you go, where you stay. Get a motel room. Stay on the street for all I care. Go with your Ivan. You just get out.”

  Gary sat in Molly’s room. He had cabbed to the hospital. The whole way in he had debated with himself whether or not he should tell her. Would it make her worse? He hadn’t been sure what he was going to do, even when he took Otis over to Emma’s and begged her to watch him, so upset that Emma didn’t say anything, but just took the baby. He hadn’t been sure driving to the hospital. Not until he stepped into Molly’s room and saw her face and knew that he couldn’t lie
to her, he couldn’t keep secrets anymore.

  The whole time he had told Molly, she had stared at him, and by the time Gary finished talking Molly was so furious she swept one arm across her dresser, crashing books to the floor. “You get her out of our house.”

  “She’s gone,” Gary said.

  That evening, when Gary came back to the house, Otis in his arms, the house was empty. There was no sign of Suzanne. He wandered the rooms. Where were the long black hairs in the tub, the mascara in his office, the glass half filled with now flat soda making rings on the counter? Where was that funny hair color smell, the citrusy perfume of the shampoo she sometimes used? He walked toward Otis’s room to get a few things for him. Emma had offered to sit again tonight. “No problem,” she said. He wasn’t even in the room when he saw it. A clean sheet spread on the floor. Every one of Otis’s toys were damp, drying on the sheet. His blankets and drool cloths were neatly folded on his changing table, and a tiny blue pillow that he had never seen before was propped in Otis’s crib. Gary sat down with Otis in the rocker and rocked him. He kept his arms tight about him. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he promised. Otis began to rustle in Gary’s arms. “I know,” Gary said to him. “And I’m so sorry.”

  Suzanne had no place to go. Not yet. But that didn’t mean she was going to stay with Ivan. She had packed all her stuff and left it with a client. There wasn’t much. Just a suitcase. Much less than when she’d arrived. She’d left a few things with Ivan in the motel room—things she couldn’t afford to just let go. She looked at her watch. Would he be there or not, and what did that matter to her now? She could whisk in and whisk out, and that would be that. She remembered her one client who had the sublet. Suzanne could move in tonight. She had some money saved now. She had work.

  She let herself into the motel room. Ivan was sitting on the bed watching an old black-and-white movie on TV. He snapped it off as soon as he saw her. He sprang to his feet. “I’ve been going crazy waiting for you.” He stood up, awkwardly smiling, and for a moment, she felt the old pull. All she’d have to do is let him touch her and she’d be lost. She’d believe anything.