Chill Out, Josey!

by Susan May Warren

  “Not in Russia. I saw it at the International Food Store for about eight hundred dollars per kilo.”

  Daphne laughs.

  “I s’pose if they made it locally…” I lick the butter knife and finish putting the bread on a tray. “I’m going to check out my room of babies. Can you handle this?”

  Daphne nods as I exit.

  The baby room is simply a room full of cribs. The nurse who tends the room is a woman who looks as though she might have tended Stalin (which accounts for how he turned out). She’s board thin, with dark eyes, pursed lips and not a hint of a smile line. We met when she yelled at me for coddling the babies.

  Is that possible? Really? To overlove a baby?

  Her remedy to noncoddling is to prop bottles in their mouths four times a day and let them sleep soggy.

  Mine is to pick up each baby and coo and play the way I would with Amelia. It’s when I’m with these babies that I believe I might have the remotest possibility of conquering this motherhood thing.

  Today, Nurse Stalin looks up and sort of shakes her head, as if I’m beyond hope. I smile at her. Probably I should give her gloves, too.

  Or maybe a nice scarf. Warm her up a bit.

  I enter my room, and am surprised to see another woman in the room. Wearing track pants and an enormous old parka, she bears a resemblance to the bus lady. She is bending over Ryslan’s crib. Ryslan is my adorable eight-month-old with dark hair and stunningly black eyes.

  I’m about to ask this interloper who she is when she picks up Ryslan and turns around.

  Silence fills the room as Sveta and I stare at each other. Apparently, she didn’t expect me, because she not only doesn’t look her sexy self, but she’s quickly turning the color of borscht.

  She is holding Ryslan over her shoulder and patting him as though she knows him. He curls into her, sucking his thumb.

  I’m feeling really weird. As if I’ve interrupted the movie at the best part. Like I shouldn’t see her here.

  “Prevyet,” I say. My “hi” falls flat as Sveta bursts into tears. Turning, she lays Ryslan in his crib, then holding her hand to her mouth, brushes past me and out of the room.

  Ryslan is crying, which has started Boris crying. Sasha is soon to follow. She cries at everything.

  I turn to follow Sveta, but she’s gone.

  Striding up to Nurse Stalin, I ask, in my broken Russian, “Kto?” Who was that?

  And, for the first time since I met her, Stalin’s stoic exterior cracks. She sighs, and her eyes look past me, down the corridor where Sveta has vanished.

  “Mat Ryslana,” she says.

  Ryslan’s mother.

  “She probably didn’t have enough money to take care of the baby.” Daphne is sitting beside me as Igor drives us home. The snow is heavier on the windshield and for once, I’m grateful not to have to take public transportation.

  “So she leaves him in an orphanage?”

  “Mothers have up to two years to claim their child. After that, the state can sever rights, if they so choose.”

  “So Sveta could lose her baby if she can’t provide for him?” I’m suddenly wondering if her size six is from not eating. Well, I know it’s from not eating, but I mean starving. I feel ill for consuming all that caviar in front of her.

  Daphne nods.

  I sit back, my hand on Junior. I couldn’t imagine leaving him behind in an orphanage, seeing him only when I can take two hours out of my day, knowing that I might lose him forever.

  “What if someone wants to adopt him?”

  “He won’t be adopted out unless her rights are severed.”

  “Which means he could sit in limbo for two years, growing up in the orphanage while Sveta tries to make a life.”

  “Or struggles with letting him go. By that time, he’s two or three or even five, and his chances of adoption decrease each year.”

  But to lose your child because you can’t feed him? I remember stories of the Great Depression, of parents selling their children into servitude. In fact, I know it happens today in Cambodia, or India or even Burma. But to see it up close, well, I suddenly have a mission.

  Sveta will get her child back. I have enough Lara Croft in me to guarantee that.

  Daphne and I swing by the grocery story and since Igor is driving, I pick up potatoes, carrots and a hunk of what looks like pork.

  Tonight, Chase and I will have a nice dinner. And I will tell him what I discovered at the orphanage. And we will make up. And then Chase and I will solve this problem.

  Oh, and I’ll tell him the truth. Because even though tomorrow is Christmas Eve, it’s time he finds out about Junior. Really.

  Igor drops off Daphne, and then helps me upstairs with the food. As he’s leaving my flat, which is clean, with a pile of fresh blini in the fridge—what, did Sveta run back here?—I hand him the package of gloves.

  I’m expecting him to nod or something and simply walk out the door. I mean, it’s not like we’re deep friends or anything. But he stares at the package. Then looks up at me, and in crisp, clear English says, “Zank You.”

  Huh. “You’re welcome,” I say.

  Can it be that Thug understands English? He smiles and opens the door to leave.

  Methinks I need to watch what I say in the car.

  I wash the pork, peel the potatoes, the carrots and stick them in the pan, light the oven and set it cooking.

  You have to admit, I’ve got this cooking thing down.

  I pull out the table, set it, adding candles. Then I wrap the cute little shoes I found at the apteka which I’ve been saving just for this event.

  Enough is enough. I love Chase. He loves me.

  At least, I think he loves me. He did agree to love me in sickness and health, for better or worse. And while I’m not sick, I have been better. So here’s hoping he’s a promise keeper.

  I can see Chase’s face when I tell him the happy news. Chase, I’m not moody, I’m not fat. I’m carrying your child. Your son. Or daughter, I’m flexible.

  Josey, I’m so sorry I’ve been ignoring you! Why didn’t I see this sooner? I’m sorry I’ve been so blind! He’ll drop to his knees and hug me and tell me that I’m the best thing that ever happened to him, the perfect wife.

  He’ll rise up and call me blessed.

  I need to be looking my best, so I run a mineral bath. An hour later, the flat smells delicious and my makeup is on, and I’m smelling clean and my hair is done and I’ve lit candles, and where is Chase?

  I look out the window. It’s dark, but if I flick off the lights, I see an eerie orange glow outside. Snow falls past my window and I see that it’s accumulating quickly.

  I flick the lights back on, grab the phone.

  Chase isn’t picking up his cell.

  I call WorldMar.

  “Allo?” answers a perky Underfed.

  Glancing at the clock, I’m a little surprised to hear someone at work this late.

  “I’m looking for Chase. Is he there?”

  There’s a muffle, then a pause. Then, “Nyet. He and Bertha are in the village.”

  “Oh.”

  “There is a snowstorm. They called to say they are staying there for the night.”

  Oh. I don’t know why, because you know, I trust Chase, but I feel weak. And I sit, hard, on my sofa. “They called?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  I was in the tub, but still didn’t hear the phone ringing off the hook.

  “If he calls, will you tell him to call home?”

  “Konyeshna,” she says and hangs up. She said “of course” as if I call all the time, bothering them. Bothering Chase.

  It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps they need to hear from The Wife more often.

  Or maybe, The Wife needs to take her role more seriously. Maybe I need to remind Chase exactly why he should make it home for dinner. Because his wife and his baby love him.

  I set the phone back on the cradle. Turn out the lights. Blow out the candle. Tak
e the shoes and set them on my belly.

  Watch the snow drift from the eerie orange sky and wonder where my husband is sleeping tonight.

  Forgiveness happens in Russia with every new snowfall. Redemptive white covers the blemishes, turns a bleak landscape into a snow globe, complete with hope and life and new beginnings.

  I’m sitting on my bed, my knees drawn up under the covers as I watch white flakes drift from the gray sky. The sun has been up for hours, as have I, listening to my heart thumping, asking how I let things go this far. How I tore down my house with my own hands.

  I actually searched for that verse in my Bible, and while I couldn’t find that, I did find a Psalm that spoke to the moan in my heart.

  Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

  Covered, like snow covers the trash, and broken pipes, and cracked pavement, the gray sidewalks and weeds that overgrow the dry flowers. I put my hand over my stomach, wondering if God can cover my sin. My lies.

  When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

  If I were to put one word to my marriage, my relationship with Chase, it would be groaning. A pain that seems to only deepen with each day.

  And it’s seeped into my bones. I palm the empty place beside me on the bed, my breath short at the gulf between us.

  Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him.

  Not to mention the woman who trusts Him. I’m not a wicked person. Well, if you don’t count the time I “borrowed” my parents’ car one Friday night only to crash it into a light pole. But that wasn’t exactly my fault. Jenny Franklin saw Mike Killman crossing the street right in front of the grocery store, and leaped across the driver’s seat to wave at him, causing me to push her away, and thus jerk the steering wheel hard right, causing the car to plow into the light. I explained this to my father many times over, but apparently he couldn’t grasp my innocence. I was sentenced to a month’s hard time cleaning the Berglund cabins. Which I suppose makes me even more sympathetic to Sveta’s plight, and can be used by God for good, now. See I still have a smidgen of that missionary thinking inside me. But I’m not sure I’ve exactly trusted in God. I suppose that’s clear due to the fact that if I trusted God then I wouldn’t have lied to Chase for three months.

  I close my Bible, aware that the morning is drawing out and I haven’t yet talked to Chase, or even Sveta, who I thought might be here by now.

  I get up and go into the kitchen. My roast turned out perfectly, but I can’t bear to eat it without Chase, so I turn to Sveta’s stack of blini. I put a little butter and sugar on it, roll it up and like how it crunches in my mouth.

  What I wouldn’t give for a microwave.

  Sveta hasn’t shown up yet, an absence that I’m not sure has to do with the weather. Aside from the fact that I’ve gotten way too used to having a cleaning/laundry lady—attested by the stack of dishes I’ve piled in the sink, hoping—I can’t wait to tell Sveta that things will be okay.

  Of course, I have to tell that to myself, first.

  I pad over to the window, and am staring out onto the snow-covered courtyard and it hits me. It’s Christmas Eve.

  The night God revealed His truth to the world. The night He showed us just how far He’d go to love us, and make us a part of His family.

  I miss my family. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours they’ll gather around my mother’s table, eating Swedish meatballs and snowflake pudding and homemade Berglund cinnamon buns.

  I’m eating a cold blini.

  I close my eyes as I lean my forehead against the frozen windowpane. “Lord, I really screwed up. I should have never lied to Chase. Please, forgive me. And if it’s possible…please fix this.”

  I sit there a moment longer, letting the quiet seep through me. And that’s when I feel it. A flutter, like a feather, inside me.

  Junior?

  I put my hand on my stomach and feel it again.

  Junior.

  I’m engulfed by the sudden rush of emotion. Junior is in there, moving around, making himself comfy. He’s in the little world God made for him, surrounded by warmth.

  Surrounded by love.

  I wonder if this is what Paul meant in Ephesians when he said we might grasp how wide and long and high and deep God’s love is. That God’s love surrounds me, on every side, even in the midst of my sin. I can’t escape it.

  I’m reveling in this when the phone rings.

  I sweep it up.

  “Josey?”

  Can Chase hear the relief in my voice? “How are you? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. We got stranded in the village, and I just got back to the office.” Fatigue layers his tone. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

  He didn’t call.

  He didn’t call.

  I’m trying not to let that fact hollow me out, but it’s not working. My voice turns frosty. “That’s okay.”

  Silence. I can sense him turning his back to me, the way he does when he gets into bed. Please, God help me not to tear down my house! “Really, Chase, I know it’s hard to call from the village.”

  He waits a beat, and then, to my relief, “I missed you.”

  Tears mist my eyes. “Me, too.”

  “I’ll be home tonight. And I’ll go in late tomorrow.”

  I frown a little at this, but manage to find my nice voice. “Today is Christmas Eve.”

  Silence pulses through the line.

  “You knew that, right? Tomorrow is Christmas?”

  Again silence, then. “G.I., I totally forgot—not about Christmas, but I thought it was in a few more days. I totally lost track of the dates. It’s not a state holiday, and no one in my office celebrates—”

  “That’s okay, Chase.” Just come home. Please. “I’ll make us a nice Christmas, I promise.” And I will. With superb gifts. Better than gloves.

  “You’re the greatest, G.I.”

  Oh, how I want to be. “See you soon, Chase.”

  Why couldn’t I have been born with the Berglund gene for pastry making? My sister can take a handful of flour, a pinch of baking powder, give it a wink and turn it into award-winning biscuits.

  I can spend three hours reading a cookbook, measure meticulously and still I’m staring at a lump of unleavened bread that would have lasted for the forty-year wanderings.

  However, the kitchen smells of baking poultry and I managed to follow the directions on a pack of Jell-O pudding and made a banana pudding for dessert. Most importantly, there are no flames.

  Well, at least, not coming from the turkey. But the fat girl in the room can’t wait for her man to come home. To relight the smoldering, nearly cold embers between us.

  I’ve dressed up the apartment in twinkly lights I found at the apteka, and am wearing my new holiday attire—the black velour pants and sparkly shirt. I know Martha would make some sort of homemade wreath, or mint candles or something, but—she doesn’t live in Russia, does she?

  The most important decoration sits in the middle of the table, where a tree should be—a tiny wrapped box containing the cutest shoes on the planet. I can’t wait until Chase opens it.

  Oh, Josey, why didn’t you tell me? His eyes will light up, and he’ll wrap his arms around me. He’ll be wearing his jeans and smelling of soap, and as he pulls me inside the cocoon of his arms, I’ll know that all is well.

  Because I didn’t want to put more pressure on you, make your life harder. I’ll say.

  His eyes will turn soft with understanding. Don’t you know that you’re the reason I get up in the morning? You could never make my life harder.

  Then he’ll kiss me, ever so gently, the way he does, and I’ll beg him for forgiveness, but he’ll already be offering it, and then he’ll put his hands on my tiny—okay, not so tiny anymore—belly and we’ll be a family.

  I’m nearly as excited as I was on our wedding day. Then again, that day didn’t play out exactly how I
intended, but I won’t complain about the end result. Anything with me in Chase’s embrace is a perfect ending in my book.

  I finish setting the table for two, and am just lighting the candles when I hear the lock turning at the door.

  I turn, and my heart jumps seeing Chase. He looks tired, and snowy, his hair in curls, his leather jacket shiny from the cold. “Hey, G.I.,” he says with a hesitant grin. And then, to my shock, he drags in behind him…a tree.

  A Christmas Tree! “Oh, Chase, I love it! Where did you find it?”

  “The corner market,” he says, and leans over to kiss me. “I think I got first pick.”

  I hug him around the neck, smelling his two-day-old cologne, rumpled cotton, even pine. A wave of regret nearly overwhelms me. How could I have kept the truth from this man whom I love?

  “Chase, I have to tell you—”

  “Is this Josey?”

  I hear the voice, without an accent, right behind the tree, and I move the branches aside to discover…Carmen Electra.

  No, not really, but she could be her sister, with the caramel-colored hair that curls just below her shoulders, the kiss-me-now lips, the curves that no man can ignore. Even hidden under her black suit, and open wool dress coat, I see plenty of cleavage.

  I’ll bet Chase has noticed it, too. I blink at her, wordless. She looks classy. And successful. And gorgeous. Chase has Bambi for a partner.

  I’ll bet she surpasses.

  Oh please, don’t let her surpass. Not with Chase. My pregnancy nausea is returning, in spades.

  She holds out her hand, and I see a French manicure. “Bertha Schultz. Chase’s partner.”

  Of course. I take her hand, but I’m a fish grip, and I’m still scraping up words when she looks me up and down and I see a strange expression—surprise, delight?—flash across her face.

  “Oh Chase,” she says, looking over at him, her perfect lips pouty. Why does it suddenly burn me, the way she uses his name? “Why didn’t you tell me that Josey is pregnant?”

  My world stops, and although it’s snowing outside, there is a blizzard in my soul. Cold, terrifying. Because Chase turns and looks at me, disbelief and not a little anger on his face.