by Lori Carson
“Say ‘okay’!” He commands.
“Okay.” My voice is barely audible. My head is down. He walks off and I start counting. I get to seventy before I look up. He’s gone but I finish counting. I get up slowly, gather my things from the sidewalk, and go inside. That’s when I notice my pants are soaking wet. At first I think I’ve peed myself, but then I realize that my water has broken. I think about whether I should call the police to report the mugging or an ambulance to take me to the hospital. I remember my insurance card is in the wallet.
I’ll go to the hospital. I’m shaking as I dial 911. “I need an ambulance, please.” I give the operator my address.
I call Dr. Nancy and tell her answering service that I’m on my way.
I call Alan and tell him, too.
I try to reach my parents, but their phone rings and rings.
I pour out a couple of bowls of food for the cats and refill their water.
The buzzer sounds. The ambulance has arrived. I don’t have a bag packed. I have no wallet, and I’ve just been mugged. Still, all I can think about is that soon I am going to meet you, Minnow.
I lock up the apartment and go out to the ambulance. They have me lie down on a stretcher. Take my blood pressure and my temperature. They close the doors.
“Are you going to turn on the siren?” I ask the driver.
“Sure,” he says. He’s kind of cute.
The siren begins to wail as we take off. Speeding across town, to get you born.
Part 2
Minnow
Twenty-five
On a late November morning, in a chilly delivery room lit by overhead fluorescents, at an East Side hospital, after eight and a half hours of labor, the older nurse, the one with the Polish accent, says: “One, two … Push, Lisa, now push.”
I push through the count of ten, and rest.
“Good,” she says.
Then we do it again, and again.
I cry for my mother. I hold on to the nurse so tightly her fingers turn white. I keep waking from a dream and falling back into it. I can’t tell the difference between dreaming and being awake. The contractions come closer and faster. The hands on the wall clock don’t seem to move. I’m aware of Dr. Diamond’s voice, the green and blue scrubs, the circular overhead light. Later, it will be hard to remember any of it.
I’m given an epidural for the pain, but by then, I’m so tired.
“I can’t,” I say weakly.
But they say I can.
“Keep breathing. Keep pushing. Good. Good.”
“One more time. That’s right. Now push!”
Finally, the doctor says, “Here we go.”
The first thing I see is your tiny hand like a star. You come out, arms waving, and let out a cry.
Dr. Diamond cuts the thick blue cord with a pair of scissors, and smiles down at me. He looks tired. “You did good, kid,” he says.
“You, too, Doctor,” I say, and they laugh. I can’t believe they do this every day.
I feel the awe of it, nature, or God, or whatever it is we’re all a part of.
The other nurse, the young one, cleans you of the afterbirth and puts you on a scale. “Six pounds three ounces,” she tells me.
“How is she?” I ask, reaching for you.
“She’s perfect,” the young nurse says. I’m filled with love for her round, angelic face as she places you across my chest.
“She looks like a plum,” I say, exhausted, delirious. I don’t want to ever let you go, but then the older nurse, the one with the Polish accent, is taking you from me, and I can’t remember what happens next. I guess I fall asleep.
Twenty-six
Late that afternoon (how can it still be the same day?) my parents and Alan crowd the hospital bed. My sister has already come and gone. She’s on her way back to Miami, where she has to work in the morning. My father seems happy. I think I see a tear in his eye.
We marvel at the miracle of you. Your eyelashes. Your toes. The perfect shape of your head. I see Gabriel in the line of your brow and your Cupid’s-bow lips. I close my eyes and send him a telepathic message: She’s born. I have no doubt that one day he will meet you and be amazed.
Late at night, after everyone has gone, another nurse brings you to me and leaves you in my arms. It’s just the two of us and the nighttime sounds of the hospital. The only light comes from the hallway. I’ve been shown how to get you to attach to my breast, but it’s hard to do and you don’t want to do it. You seem to be looking around for something else to latch on to. I’m starting to panic when the nurse comes back to check on us. She shows me again, and finally we get it. Your tiny pink hand wraps tightly around my finger.
In the morning, my parents come to pick us up. My mother pushes the wheelchair the hospital requires toward the big double exit doors. You’re bundled snugly in a yellow blanket. I watch my father’s back as he leads the way, walking three steps ahead. He’s wearing a brown leather jacket. His pants are riding low on his skinny hips. “Wait here,” he says to my mother.
We wait while he goes around to the parking lot to get the car. In the vestibule, between the two sets of doors, the cold wind blows in from outside. My mother rifles through her big bag, looking for a sweater, but can’t find it.
“Don’t worry about it, Ma,” I tell her impatiently, thinking, I’ll do better, Minnow. I’ll always keep you warm.
We see my father’s Buick pull up to the curb, and I stand, slowly. My mother follows with outstretched arms as if she thinks I might drop you. After ten minutes of trying to figure out how to use the newly purchased car seat, we get you strapped in, and I slide in beside you. My father pulls out into the stop-and-start of rush-hour traffic. As we crawl along, I can hear the sound of his worry. He takes a breath, holds it too long, and lets out a sigh. I feel a little queasy and think about how I used to get really carsick when I was a kid, but now, mostly, I don’t anymore.
We arrive at my building and find a spot across the street. I haven’t told my parents about the mugging because I know they’d freak out, but I can’t help but think about it as I give my dad the key and he holds the front door open. For a second, I clearly remember my mugger’s angry face.
My mother brings her overnight bag inside. She’s going to stay with us for a while.
At night, she crowds me to the edge of my narrow bed, but I’m thankful to have her there. You wake up hungry every hour. I’m so tired, it feels like I’m hallucinating or dreaming. “Sleep,” she says, and I close my eyes under the warm blankets. I know it won’t be long before you need to nurse again.
I listen to her change your diaper. She covers your belly with noisy kisses. She calls you butterball and sweetie pie.
After the first couple of days, we start to argue. She wants to do things her own way, and I want them done according to the books I’ve studied and my own good sense.
“There’s nothing wrong with her. It’s just gas,” says my mother.
“Oh, baloney. I tested it on my wrist,” she says.
“She’s in pain, Mom,” I tell her.
“It’s too hot, Mom,” I say.
I’m easily annoyed and she’s always wrong. That’s the way it feels.
The pressure of my irritation continues to increase, until one morning I go too far. I raise my voice and say something awful. “Just give her to me!” I say in exasperation. “Why can’t you ever make things easier instead of harder?!”
There seems no way to take the awful thing back once it’s said. I’ve hurt her feelings but I can’t bring myself to say I’m sorry. For a whole day we look after you in silence, both feeling dreadful, until finally we resume talking, tentatively, carefully, and decide together that she should go home for now.
The days are a blur after she goes. I’m always sleeping and waking, feeding you, changing your diaper, walking you in circles, singing to you, telling you everything is going to be all right. I go days without showering. I don’t leave the apartment at all.
/> When my mother calls to check on us, I try not to take out my exhaustion on her, but she is often my involuntary target. I don’t know why. Shouldn’t having my own daughter cause me to be kinder to my mother? But my anger is irrational and quick, as if she’s to blame for something.
My sister calls from Miami. I tell her our mother is driving me crazy, but she only wants to talk about you. She asks me to hold the phone up to your ear so you’ll remember the sound of her voice. “I don’t want her to forget me,” she says.
I remember when she was a baby. I used to climb into her crib. I used to yell to my mother, “Ma! The baby’s crying!”
Now you’re the crying baby, Minnow. I pick you up and hold you. Usually you’re just hungry, but sometimes it’s a bad dream, or some other mysterious reason. You fit perfectly in the curve between my jaw and shoulder.
I sing you the songs my father sang to me when I was small. He had the sweetest voice. I gave my love a cherry without a stone. I gave my love a chicken without a bone.
Your crying wears us both out. I take you back to bed with me so we can sleep for an hour or two.
Twenty-seven
Jules sends an enormous fruit basket, wrapped in cellophane, with a tin of sugar cookies at its center. After I polish off the cookies, I live on the apples, oranges, and pears. My hunger makes it the most delicious fruit I’ve ever tasted. Then another big package arrives from her. Inside is an exquisite dress for you, Minnow, purchased at Harrods. Jules has been living in London, in Kensington or Chelsea, since her film wrapped, but the enclosed note says she’ll see us soon. She’s coming home to spend Christmas with her family.
When she arrives with a grocery bag full of Christmas dinner, I’ve got you in the dress. We greet her at the door, and she laughs out loud, the way she does. I can’t argue when she says you aren’t merely beautiful, but radiant and dripping in charisma. It’s so good to have her company. I’m hungry for our talks. She decides we have to have a tree and goes out into the cold, alone. When she returns, she’s got two young guys trailing behind her, carrying an enormous blue spruce between them.
The tree practically fills the room with its long branches and heavy scent. We drink hot tea and string popcorn, sit on the floor and dissect one another’s problems until they’ve been cut up into nothing.
When Jules ducks outside to the garden for a smoke, I take a peek at you napping in the nursery and find you awake, resting peacefully. You look up at me with serious eyes. I pick you up and kiss your warm forehead. Through the window, I can see Jules, glamorous in her camel coat with the fox-fur collar.
When she comes back inside, rubbing her hands together to warm them, she takes you from my arms and tells you the story of how once we found out we had the same boyfriend. She calls him Bighead.
“Once upon a time, Minnow, there was a man named Bighead who loved your mommy and loved me, too, but your mommy and I loved each other more.”
I think of the first time I ever saw Bighead, jogging along Central Park, on the cobblestone sidewalk of Fifth Avenue. I remember he glanced back over his shoulder, to give me a second look, and caught me slack-jawed, in awe. He was ridiculously handsome, a six-foot-four actor with thick, wavy hair and twinkling brown eyes.
“He played us the same song on his guitar,” she says.
“It was the only one he knew,” I add.
“And told us the exact same stories. But we laughed when we found out, and if it hurt our feelings, we let our friendship make us feel better, because that’s what friends do for one another, little Minnow.”
Jules’s laugh is like a bell. After she leaves to catch her train, the apartment feels very quiet. I eat the turkey dinner she brought straight from the containers and sing all the Christmas songs I know: “Silent Night,” “Come, All Ye Faithful,” and the rest. The only Chanukah song I remember is the one about a dreidel, and I sing it to you, though it’s not as pretty as the others.
I watch you try to stay awake. Your eyes drift closed and open again, but finally you give in to sleep.
There’s no word from Gabriel. At first, I jump like Pavlov’s dog when the phone rings. I figure someone is bound to tell him, and even if they don’t, it must occur to him that you’re here by now. But as the weeks go by, I begin to wonder if he’ll ever call.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve, I wake up feeling hopeful. All day I’m jumpy with anticipation. The phone rings and it’s Jules, and then Alan. My sister calls from Miami. But there’s no call from Gabriel.
In the original 1982, I call him. I leave a rambling message on his machine and he calls back from Caracas, where he’s gone to play a New Year’s show with Eddie’s band. He has to shout to hear himself over the festivities. “What are you doing?”
“I’m on my way to a party,” I say, shouting, too, though in fact I’m in my pajamas watching Dick Clark on TV. We speak for barely a minute before he says the fireworks are starting and he has to go. I hear a woman’s voice and laughter and feel unbearably lonely. Then he’s gone, and the year is gone, confetti falling, and Dick Clark saying good night.
This time, I don’t even think about trying to call him and, though I miss him, I don’t feel lonely. I roast a chicken for dinner and open a bottle of red wine, have only a single glass because I’m still nursing. I rock you in the red rocking chair, listening to Rickie Lee Jones sing “Company.” She’ll remember him too clearly. Her voice is like a sob.
In the last minutes before midnight, I wrap you in a blanket and take you out to the garden to look up at the stars. They’re hard to see in New York City because of ambient light and clouds. But the night is crystal clear, and I locate one at the edge of Orion’s belt. I point it out to you and make a wish. “Please let us run into him,” I say out loud. The wish fills me with excitement as if it actually brings him closer. Then I kiss your soft cheek and we begin 1983 together, just the two of us, in our garden under that pale star.
Twenty-eight
There’s a word for what happens when you stay indoors too long and start to feel you can’t go out, the world is too intense: agoraphobia. I think I have it. I order food in, have groceries and diapers delivered, run to the corner and back, with you in my arms, my coat thrown over my pajamas.
But finally one day I decide it’s time. I bundle you up in a sweater, warm socks, and a hat. I tuck layers of blankets around you in your carriage, put on my heavy coat and gloves. Out into the world we go, north on Broadway to Seventy-second Street and east to Columbus Avenue. The sun is out and it’s not too cold. The light is bouncing off every shiny surface, glittering the way it does in winter.
As we make our way past all the restaurants and bars on Columbus Avenue, I point out the landmarks, the corners where your father and I kissed, or fought, the bars we closed at four in the morning. I hardly notice all the passersby, but sometimes they break into our bubble. They look into the carriage and smile. They make unsolicited comments:
“She’s so beautiful!”
“How old?”
“Congratulations!”
“So precious.”
“Bless her heart.”
I mumble thank you and return their smiles with lowered eyes. I seem to have lost the ability to engage in casual conversation. I wish I had sunglasses to hide behind because my eyes are tearing in the bright sunlight, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m crying.
Soon we’re crossing Seventy-seventh Street, and I see the green awning of the Café Miriam ahead. I’m excited to introduce you to my friends.
When I wheel you inside, Sofia is the first one I see. She’s standing there with her hands on her hips. She’s got a new hairstyle, kind of an asymmetric shag. She screams when she sees us, and reaches down into the carriage to pick you up. “What a little angel!” she says. You’re tiny in her arms. I’m almost embarrassed by how beautiful you are. It feels like it might be a sin to be as proud as I am.
We take a deuce, a table for two, by the window. All the other girls c
ome over to hold you, too. “Have you heard from him?” Nina asks.
“Nope,” I say, and change the subject.
Sofia takes her order pad from her apron. She makes a face, says in a goofy voice, “What will it be?”
I’ve missed her, and the others, and even working at the restaurant. It feels strange to be there as a customer. When the man at the next table asks for a coffee refill, I want to jump up and get it for him. I’m aware of who needs a check and who hasn’t gotten their entrée yet.
I watch as one waitress holds you and passes you to another. Will leans across the bar to touch your cheek. You’re being so good, but finally you start to cry. I listen as they attempt to soothe you and force myself not to come to your rescue. When Vicky brings you back, I realize I’ve been holding my breath. As soon as you’re in my arms, you stop crying.
Vicky sits down across from us. “You ready to come back to work?”
I tell her I think I’ll be ready soon, though it’s hard to imagine being ready.
“You can start off with a couple of shifts,” she says. “Have you looked into child care?”
I’ve been hoping I might be able to bring you to work with me, but can see now that it’s probably not very realistic. “I still need to figure that out,” I say. I don’t feel too worried yet. My parents are still helping with health insurance, and I’ve got some money left in the bank.
By the time my food gets to the table, I think you’ve had enough excitement. It’s time to change your diaper and give you lunch. I ask to have the food wrapped up and say a quick good-bye to everyone.
“Hang on, Little One,” I tell you, pushing the carriage home.
We’re exhausted by the time we get back. I change your diaper and take you into my bed to nurse. When you’ve had your fill, we both fall asleep.
Twenty-nine
In March, I go back to work three nights a week. I put you in your pajamas, the pink ones with the kittens, or the yellow ones with feet, and take you upstairs to Maria’s apartment with your blanket and your rabbit. You’re eating some pureed foods now, and I’ve prepared a bottle. Maria is our neighbor on four. We met her in the basement laundry room. She said she did some babysitting, if we ever needed help. Maria is a grandmother. She speaks to you in Spanish. She gives you your supper and lets you watch TV until you fall asleep.
