Here to Stay

by Suanne Laqueur

  In mid-October, a thick envelope addressed to Erik arrived in the mailbox, postmarked Alexandria Bay with Mike’s return address.

  In it, a bundle of smaller envelopes, held with a paperclip and a note:

  Erik,

  Cleaning out Mom’s house, I found an old box of my papers. In it were three of the letters your dad wrote me. Reading them was bittersweet. But in a weird way, it felt like closure. I hope some of the same is in them for you.

  I’m doing all right. Strange to be an orphan. It hits you at weird times, like on Sunday nights when you’re used to checking in. I still keep Mom’s number in my phone. Sometimes I send her a text. Hey, you never know…

  Kirsten was up visiting a couple weeks ago. She seems diminished. One lonely pea in a pod. She and Mom really had an extraordinary friendship and I feel terrible for her. But she’s bravely planned a European cruise and even made a crack about having no competition in the casino. Maybe she’ll meet a nice fellow she can travel with. She deserves companionship. Someone like her isn’t meant to move about the world alone.

  Give Dais a hug from me and I’ll talk to you, hopefully sooner than later.

  Love ya,

  Mike

  Erik sat on an overturned bucket on the concrete slab to read. All around him were raised the studs of the new screened-in porch, which he was building himself. Red, yellow and orange foliage ringed the lake’s shore and reflected in its surface. He’d have to hustle to finish before cold weather came, seal it up and nail weatherproof plastic over the mesh openings.

  May 17, 1974

  Dear Mike,

  Sorry I haven’t been in touch, but you probably heard the news from Trudy. Pete’s gone deaf. Apparently it was him having the mumps last year that did it. I had no idea it could affect your hearing. I thought it just one of those nuisance childhood illnesses you suffered through and came out the other side.

  Anyway, we saw a half-dozen specialists in Rochester and the unanimous verdict is the damage is near total. As far as they can tell. A one-year-old can’t exactly raise their hand when you play a tone. They do turn their head toward sound but it’s not too scientific. We have to wait and see how bad it is. It kills me. Waiting for what you already know is bad news.

  It’s devastated Chris, but Kirsten and Trudy have been shoring her up, alternating tea and booze. Listening and talking. One last, long cry in the bathroom and the next day Chris emerged like Clark Kent transformed into Superman. Cape on, head down, in pursuit of knowledge. She’s been at the library and on the phone finding out everything she can. She’s driven from Watertown to Potsdam, brought home fifty books and pamphlets on deaf education, hearing aids, speech therapy, sign language.

  Meanwhile I’m angry.

  Man to man, Mike, I’m so pissed off I’m useless. I feel like the floor had just gotten assembled under our feet after Xandro and Elsa died. Now this. My parents finally coming back to life a little. Now this. I’m caught between being a good father—hauling up roots and going back to Rochester where they have the best Pete could have… And being a good son and staying put to take care of my parents because I’m all they have. I end up being no good to anyone.

  It’s not all grim. Dad’s been surprisingly helpful to me. We know he’s economic with words, even more with emotions. But we’ve had some good talks and he’s made me feel better. Which was a pleasant surprise—comfort coming from where you least expect it.

  Mom…well, you know Astrid. She does, not says. I don’t think Chris has made dinner once since we got back from Rochester. We don’t run out of milk or eggs, the wash gets done. Without a word. Astrid works invisibly. You try to thank her for it and she brushes you off. “It’s nothing, älskling.”

  It’s everything.

  We’ll be all right. Pete’s still a happy kid. Follows Erik around everywhere. Reminds me of you.

  You take care, cousin.

  Byron

  July 1, 1976

  Dear Mike,

  You’ve got to get a trip home. Clayton has been transported 200 years back in time. It’s unbelievable what the historical society has done for the bicentennial. Trudy says the atmosphere reminds her of when the war ended. Every night some kind of party, either planned or spontaneous. Music is playing constantly at the gazebo in the park. The river looks like a regatta. Little boys in tricorn hats, running around with their pants tucked into their socks. Fireworks every night on the river. You just go down around sunset and wait and eventually, they start going off. Pete loves them. Cripes, you never saw anything like his face with the colored lights in his eyes, and those little hands signing away. “Look, Mommy. Stars.”

  Erik marched in the parade with his gang. Full colonial dress, tugging a cannon. The cannon was our masterpiece—we rigged it up to shoot candy into the crowd. Erik had a pack of girls in petticoats following him the whole route. He better get used to that. Hell, I should get used to that. Chris is going to be beating them off with a stick.

  Pete’s doing well. He started nursery school two mornings a week and has an aide with him the whole while. He actually calls her his assistant. Ever hear a three-year-old bust out that word?

  He wears a real strong aid in the left ear and a slightly less strong one in the right. They’re wired to a clumsy contraption that has to strap on his chest. It’s temperamental to moisture, gets full of static if you even think damp thoughts. But Chris is on top of all the latest research and says big advances have been made. They’re devloping multi-channel aids so you can change the amplification to match whatever environment you’re in.

  Chris drove down to Syracuse back in June. She attended a talk given by some guy named Daniel Graupe who’s at the forefront of all this technology. Computers and microprocessors mean eventually, aids will be more powerful, but smaller. She saw a few prototypes for ones that fit inside a person’s ear rather than behind it. No trailing wires to a central device you have to haul around with you. Sounds all space age and far in the future. I want Pete to have these things now.

  It’s hard.

  But Pete’s signing all the time and thanks to speech therapy, he speaks well. Chris stays on top of him with diction. Erik, naturally, picked ASL up in about an hour. All right, I’m exaggerating. A week. Now I think he and Pete are devising their own secret version. They have each other.

  I got all moody and despairing the other night, wondering what kind of life Pete is going to have, always dependent on others when others aren’t always dependable. Or even kind. Erik is both, though. He has my father’s dependability and his kindness reminds me of Uncle Emil. Emil and my dad always had each other. Peter will always have Erik. And that comforts me like nothing else.

  Anyway, come home if you can. This place is fantastic this summer.

  Miss you, kid

  Byron

  August 1, 1976

  Dear Mike,

  What started out as a celebration summer has turned bitter. I’ve had it. I tell you, Mike. I can’t take one more helping of shit served up on a plate and thrown onto my family’s table. And be expected to choke it down…

  Pete has meningitis.

  He’s so sick. So little.

  He’s fighting, but he’s so little and

  Plates get thrown down on your table and it’s

  Sorry I was short on the phone. It wasn’t me. I’m not angry at you. You know that.

  It’s not who I am. I can’t explain just

  Sorry, Mike.

  Sorry about that, kid. It was a tough night. I’m going to try to finish this.

  I tell you, Mike, it’s hard to be a man when your child is suffering. Pete’s getting better—the fever is coming down which means the infection is clearing up. He smiled at us the other day. He’s alert and aware and he’s with us. But whatever hearing he had is gone. Left ear is now a total loss, and he hears only the most high-or low-pitched sounds in the right. He’s in silence now. The river got him and my heart’s broken.

  You do everything and any
thing, Mike. You look at life as a system of points. I suffered X so I’m owed X amount of reprieve. The scales should balance. It’s only fair.

  Nothing’s fair.

  I lost my brother and Elsa to the river, the same river that took so much of my life away. I keep getting dragged back into the water, feeling I’m meant to pay for something I never bought. I paid. I still pay. We Fiskares paid, goddammit, but the bills keep coming. It’s never enough. What I did and what I do isn’t enough so now Pete has to pay. I can’t do

  I got interrupted. Pete had a bad day. He’s in pain and I want to tear the world apart to stop it.

  Chris is sleeping at the hospital tonight. I came home and talked with my dad a long time. Again and again, he surprises me. Comes through for me just when I think I can’t do anymore.

  We sat on the veranda and he had Erik asleep in his lap while he talked. He loves that boy. But Erik is easy to love.

  Dad told me something I didn’t know: his army unit liberated Mauthausen in the spring of ’45. I was astounded not to have known this, and almost a little put-out he never told me. But when I stop to think about the scale of the atrocity, I realize it’s not something you can touch on a little. You either have to tell all, or tell nothing. And what went on in those camps… Cripes, even if you wanted to tell, it seems the words just don’t exist.

  Dad said what he saw at Mauthausen made him realize the pursuit of perfection is a dangerous thing. He said Mom saw it to a lesser extent when she was growing up in Brazil. Those crazy Finns trying to build a perfect paradise on land all but barren. At least they turned it around and turned a socialist commune into a profit. They didn’t turn it to smoke up a thousand chimneys. They made it good for something.

  Erik is under the table while I’m writing. He plays beneath things—the piano, my workbench. Chris says he’s happiest when he’s underfoot. Always tinkering with something. I wonder where it will take him in life.

  I worry for Erik sometimes. He wants to know how things work and then always wants them to work that way. He gets it from me. It’s such a miserable day in a man’s life when he realizes he can’t always control what life plates up for him. But I guess we sit and survive at the table with whatever tools we have. Pretty china and silverware, candles and good manners. Salt and pepper.

  Life isn’t perfect, Mike. I guess the best you get is a collection of perfect moments.

  You have to somehow turn a profit when the land is barren.

  You have to be good for something.

  Take care and come see us soon.

  Be good,

  Byron

  Erik folded the letters back into thirds and set them down on the rough, sawhorse table. Thoughtless, his elbows on his knees, he stared out at the lake’s smooth, multi-colored surface.

  “Erik?” Daisy’s voice floated from one of the upstairs window.

  “Yeah,” he said, fingering the charms on his necklace.

  “Erik?”

  He turned and called over his shoulder. “I’m right here. What’s up?”

  “My water just broke.”

  “THE NEXT PERSON WHO tells me to push is getting kicked,” Daisy said, falling back onto the inclined mattress, breathing hard.

  Quiet, appreciative laughter from the nurses as Erik wiped her face with a cold cloth. Her cheekbones had a yellowish cast from tiny blood vessels breaking in her face. Likewise her irises were pink and bloodshot.

  “I mean it,” Daisy said, holding up her hand. “Too many people yelling push. I know to push. I can’t stand that fucking word anymore so say something else.”

  Erik sponged the back of her neck, knowing the less he said the better. Daisy was already unnerved from giving birth in front of an audience. She didn’t need him giving more stage directions.

  “It’s close, Daisy,” Dr. Alibrandi said. “Another good set and the baby will crown.”

  Daisy’s hand curled around the front of Erik’s T-shirt and squeezed.

  “Entre nous, this sucks,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, giving her some ice. “You’re amazing.”

  “God, here comes another one,” she said, her face going tight as she sat up.

  Erik took up her leg. Across the bed, Lee Malone winked as she took the other leg. He smiled back, thanking whatever divine, karmic forces had been at work to make Lee on duty when they came in today. It was like an omen. Or a gift.

  “Let Lee talk,” Erik said. “Everyone else just back off. Let’s try it this way.”

  “Deep breath in, Daisy,” Lee said. “Hold it tight and pull…”

  Even Erik felt a difference with this set. More power was in the foot against his shoulder. Something in Daisy’s body seemed more controlled and efficient and her face was narrowed into a pinpoint of focus instead of being scrunched in desperation. When the contraction ended and she lay back, she was panting but she didn’t seem as defeated.

  “That was tremendous,” Dr. Alibrandi said. “She’s crowned, Daisy. Right at the door. One more set like that and you’ll have her out.”

  “Pull works,” Daisy said. “I pull better than I push.”

  “Story of my life,” Erik said.

  She barely got her breath back before it was on her again. The intensity of the room rose up. Voices and sound meshed into a dull roar behind the heartbeat thudding in Erik’s ears.

  “This is the one,” Lee said. “Ring of fire. Just pull as hard as you can to the other side. Don’t back down, don’t be afraid. You have to be bigger than the pain.”

  Daisy’s face went pink. Then red. The sweat beaded up on her forehead and dripped down her temple. Erik couldn’t take his eyes from her. Never in his life had he seen her so concentrated.

  “That’s it,” Alibrandi said. “That’s it, keep up the intensity. Again.”

  “Don’t lose the breath,” Lee said. “Pull your breath in. Pull hard.”

  “That’s it that’s it that’s it that’s it. You’re done.”

  “Is she out?” Daisy cried.

  “Her head is out. Rest. Rest, Daisy. Don’t push or pull.”

  She collapsed back, gasping. Her hand seized Erik’s shirt again and pulled his brow to hers. “Is that it,” she whispered. “Am I done?”

  “You did it,” he said, holding her face, kissing it all over. “You did it. It’s done.”

  “Oh thank God.”

  “I love you so much.” He smoothed her hair back, couldn’t stop kissing her. “Jesus Christ, that was incredible.”

  “Holy crap, I think I’m inside-out. Permanently.”

  “No, no,” Lee said, laughing. “Everything will go back the way it was. I promise.”

  Daisy’s clamp on Erik’s shirt relaxed. “Do you see her,” she said. “Are you going to look?”

  “I can’t look,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “Stay relaxed,” Alibrandi said. “We’re just suctioning out her little nose here.”

  Cry, Erik thought. Not looking. Only listening. Cry. Please cry. Come on. Cry for me. Please.

  Silence through the din. Too much like Kees’s deadly silence.

  Cry, honey. Take a breath. Cry. Please. Don’t do this to me.

  “Let’s try a push without contraction, Daisy,” Alibrandi said. “We’re going to get her shoulder out. Strong and easy push.”

  As Daisy bore down, Erik kept his brow on hers, their eyes and hands clenched tight.

  Cry. You can do it. Please cr—

  “Stop,” Alibrandi said.

  A cooing hiccup. And another. Stuttering like a cold engine trying to turn over.

  “Oh,” Daisy cried.

  The stammering sound gained strength and grew into a shrieking wail.

  “Yes,” Erik whispered, the breath collapsing out of his chest, a load of prickling adrenaline coming to replace it. He picked up his head and looked around.

  “Daisy,” Alibrandi said. “Sit up and reach down here. You too, Dad. Take her.”

  “Come on.” His bra
in flying, Erik scooped up Daisy’s shoulder blades. His other hand slid along her forearm as she reached, gasping and crying, down between her trembling thighs to that screaming form still partly inside her.

  “She’s all yours,” Alibrandi said.

  Daisy took the baby under the arms. Erik’s hand slid under that tiny little butt and together they drew her out and up, the cord trailing behind. Up and onto Daisy’s chest they pulled, Erik shouting, Daisy laughing. Lee followed, wrapping baby and arms in a warmed blanket. “Well done,” she said. “Congratulations.”

  Erik put his spinning head down, at eye level with his daughter, who continued to cry. A tunnel from mouth to lungs filled with the most beautiful sound.

  “Oh,” Daisy said softly. “Oh it’s you.”

  Kirsten Francine Fiskare cried louder.

  I can hear you, Erik thought, laying a hand on top of the baby’s head. Slick and gooey and red-faced, she stared back at him and shrieked. Her midnight blue eyes were wide open. Her voice stretching and unfolding. Straight at him she stared, as if testing how much he could take.

  Eyes locked, Erik set his wrist and its tattooed K gently on his daughter’s forehead. A forehead, he noticed, shaped just like his.

  “Hey, little fish,” he said softly.

  Lee ran a cold cloth over Daisy’s face and neck. “Relax as much as you can,” she said quietly. “Relax and breathe. You did great.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” Erik said, leaning to press his mouth against Daisy’s cool, damp cheek. She smiled beneath his kiss, her eyes closed and her chest rising and falling in deep, measured breaths.

  After a few minutes, Dr. Alibrandi called to him. “Got a job for you, Dad.”

  The scissors seemed to move easily in his fingers this time. A strong, decisive snip through the cord, not severing hope but freeing his daughter to come home.

  “Take a seat, Erik,” Lee said. “Have a breather.”

  A wheeled stool was rolled over. He sat, his head nestled by Daisy’s shoulder, his finger in Kirsten’s loose fist. Her crying had diminished to small coos. Her little mouth opened and closed against Daisy’s skin.

  “Your mom smells good, doesn’t she,” Erik said. A single chuckle in Daisy’s chest. Erik’s smile widened until it hurt. The triangle of his little family pulled tight, a bubble within the medical ballet still buzzing around them.