Shout Her Lovely Name

by Natalie Serber

  “Your daughter startles easily. The smart ones do. They sense any change in their environment.” She pinned the bandages together across Ruby’s back. “I leaned over the bassinet, and her eyes flew open.”

  “How long will I have to wear this?”

  “They’re brown, your baby’s eyes, like bark.” Sister Joseph tied the hospital gown together and patted Ruby’s shoulder. “Dark eyes are unique. Most babies have blue, you know.” Before leaving, she mentioned that Ruby would be uncomfortable.

  Uncomfortable did not begin to describe the heaviness and burning Ruby felt waiting in her bed for her milk to vanish. She stared at the worn floorboards of the charity ward, wincing each time she shifted. The green curtain drawn around her bed did little to keep out the sounds of the Puerto Rican girls on the ward with her. At first, the shrill newborn cries, interrupted by heart-stopping lulls as their babies sucked air into brand-new lungs, frightened Ruby. But as her stay lengthened, she found herself sitting up in bed, listening. The mothers spoke Spanish to their babies and one another, sealing Ruby’s isolation. She did not see many men pass by the crack in her curtains—just three boys with flowers, daisies, daisies, and daisies. Yet all the girls, even those who might be alone in the world, resisted when the nuns came to take their bebés to the nursery at night. ¿Solamente diez minutos, por favor?

  Marco visited in the mornings, clean-shaven, his cuffs buttoned. The skin beneath his eyes was scuff marked, as if he hadn’t slept well, and Ruby clung to that. He asked how she was and brought her mascara, a bottle of shampoo, a pack of cinna-mint gum, and cigarettes, which she wasn’t allowed to smoke. Though he never said it, he was ready to finish things. Just seeing him sitting there, with his long legs stretched across the space between Ruby’s bed and his chair, with square hands folded over his fly, she knew he’d signed the papers.

  “Her eyes are the color of bark,” Ruby offered.

  “I know.”

  “You’ve seen her?” She pushed herself up in bed.

  Marco nodded. His cheeks were smooth as marbles. She imagined him staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, watching the sweep of the razor along his chin. There were specific things about Marco that she missed: his smell, wool and mint. By not seeing her daughter, she was protecting herself from future missings as yet unknown to her.

  “I looked in,” he said.

  “Did you hold her?”

  “Ruby.” He closed his eyes. “They make you, before you sign the papers.” His lips continued to move, steadfast, determined. “We’ve been over this.”

  “I thought now things would be different.”

  “You’ve got to decide.” Marco stood and stepped to the side of her bed. “She won’t be motherless.” He lifted Ruby’s bangs from her forehead, and then brushed his lips across her skin. “Have you called Sally?”

  She felt his kiss, like a phantom limb, above her left eye. She wasn’t ready to let her mother know she’d delivered. Buried beneath the weight of Ruby’s dead sister, Sally had opinions about babies and responsibility.

  Marco lingered, his hand on her hair. She leaned the curve of her head into his cupped palm and closed her eyes. More than anything, she wanted to sleep right then, to drift off beneath Marco’s palm. The babies on the other side of the curtain were quiet. What must the mothers think of her and Marco?

  “You’re tired, Meep.”

  Hearing his whispered voice made the backs of her eyes and her breasts sting. She nodded, ever so slightly, so she wouldn’t disturb his hand.

  “You’ve been through . . . I know it must . . . it’s . . .” His voice drifted off. He was right. There was no way to describe what was happening to them. When she opened her eyes, he was staring at the buttons that raised and lowered her bed. “Are you comfortable?”

  How in the world could she even come close to comfortable?

  “I saw a mouse yesterday,” Marco said.

  “In the apartment?”

  “Ran out from the kitchen and under the sofa.”

  She pictured the exposed mouse scurrying across the floor.

  “I thought I’d better check underneath. There’s a nest, or a litter, whatever you call it.”

  “In the sofa?”

  He nodded. “Don’t worry. I bought poison.”

  “It’s a nest?” She shook off Marco’s hand.

  “You know, pest spray, Raid.”

  She sat up. “Raid?”

  “For the mice.”

  Her shoulders beginning to shake, Ruby flung back her covers. Her fundus cramped, and her Ace bandage was suddenly, amazingly soaked. Marco laid a hand on her shoulder. Tears and mucus dripped down Ruby’s cheeks and into her open mouth. Marco shifted his weight, and when she didn’t stop, he mumbled her name, sat down on the edge of her bed. Finally, he went to call a nurse.

  “Please, give her something?”

  Sister Joseph wrapped her arms around Ruby. “Leave her be.” Marco stepped aside while Ruby keened. Sister Joseph stroked Ruby’s hair away from her face.

  At two in the morning Ruby called her mother. She had no answer when Sally asked her granddaughter’s name. Sally promised to call Uncle Paul and Aunt Lilly to tell them about Baby Hargrove. Everyone was on the way. Ruby pictured Sally, driving herself to the Amtrak station, her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, her foot pressed firmly on the gas pedal, heading away in her good pantsuit. Her route would take her right past the Avenue and Ruby’s father, perched on his barstool.

  The very next morning Aunt Lilly and Uncle Paul took the train in from New Jersey. They came with buntings, receiving blankets, and hand cream. Aunt Lilly sat next to the bed and removed her talcum-sprinkled gloves to hold Ruby’s ragged fingers. She asked if she was still having contractions and told her they wouldn’t last much longer, her uterus was shrinking. She asked Ruby if she could sleep, and she told Ruby about her beautiful baby. She told her about the baby’s elegant lips. “I’ve never seen anything more perfect.”

  Uncle Paul paced around Ruby’s bed, twirling an unlit cigarette in his hands. “I haven’t seen the boy here.”

  “He’s at an audition.”

  “An actor?” Uncle Paul practically spit the words out.

  Ruby didn’t have the energy to defend Marco to her family. Aunt Lilly rubbed hand cream into Ruby’s cuticles, one nail at a time. Uncle Paul continued to pace, his eyebrows raised in surprise or mild shock. A baby’s whimpering seeped in from the other side of the curtain, and Ruby imagined the Puerto Rican girls watching Uncle Paul’s polished wingtips pacing beneath the curtain’s hem.

  “We have plenty of room,” Uncle Paul told her. “As long as you and the pipsqueak will have us.” She held her free hand out to him, making a V with her fingers, and he passed her the cigarette. Even unlit it tasted cool and vaguely sweet.

  The next morning, Ruby was allowed to shower. She hesitated, not wanting to be gone when Marco arrived, but Sister Joseph insisted, draping a towel over Ruby’s arm, giving her a small bar of soap, a razor, and a gentle push toward the shower room. “He’ll wait,” she said.

  Ruby shuffled down the hall, her legs wide to negotiate the pad. She went the long way around, avoiding the nursery and justifying her route in the name of exercise. The bleached shower room stood empty, and Ruby was glad when the door clicked shut behind her. It was nothing more than a large, tiled closet, the same sickly green of the curtain drawn around her bed for four days now. Three showerheads lined one wall. A drain pierced the center of a sloping floor. Ruby ran hot water, hoping to warm the space. She slipped off the hospital gown, and when she bent to pull down her underpants, her sagging belly reminded her of withered grapefruit peel. Red stretch marks groped upward from the stubble of pubic hair. Carefully, she unwound her bandage, filling the room with a tang of sour milk, and sweat, and dried blood. She had a battered, animal body, torn and leaking.

  Hot needles of water stung her shoulders and back. Ruby closed her eyes. It felt unbelievably good to be
alone in a clean room. Warmth spread to her chest; a germ of energy traveled through her limbs as she gradually soaped her body, ending with her still firm calves. She slid the razor up her leg, over the curve of her knee, and along the skin of her thighs. She still had swimmer’s legs though it had been a long time since she’d entered a pool. She wondered about a Y and the possibility of joining, swimming every morning before her new secretarial job. And then she realized she could, if she had the nerve, walk away completely free.

  “¿Con permiso?” The door swung open. The girl’s belly strained against her hospital gown, two wet spots spread across her chest. A mother. Ruby turned back to her legs.

  The other mother kept her eyes lowered, away from Ruby’s body. She sat on the bench and quickly undid her braid, her upper arms jiggling with the speed of her hands down the length of black hair.

  “It feels so good to shower,” Ruby said.

  “Sí.”

  Ruby scrubbed shampoo into her short hair. She wished she had makeup and Aqua Net. She wanted to look great when Marco showed up. With the water flowing over her, standing on her own smooth legs, she felt the returning pleasure of being in control. Her arms were still slim, and when she could start smoking again, the weight would melt off.

  The other mother slapped her feet across the tile, her towel barely meeting beneath her arms, barely covering her dimpled flesh. When she stood beneath the water, she let loose a comfortable sigh, as if she’d never been more content. She soaped her armpits, and then lifted each breast to wash beneath. She filled her palm with shampoo and began finger-combing suds down the length of her hair. She was patient, took her time with each snarl. “At home, I shower like this never.”

  Ruby closed her eyes.

  “No time with cuatro boys. I am always feeding them. Plus, we have only the tub.”

  “You have four kids?”

  The mother smiled proudly. Her front tooth had gone gray, as if the root had died. She looked too young for four children. “Mi marido keeps telling me to come home but I begged Sister to give me un día más alone with my baby.” She leaned back beneath the shower spray; her brown nipples, big as silver dollars, leaked milk. “How many niños?”

  It was the first time a stranger had spoken to her about her child. Ruby watched her own fingers clasp the handle and turn the water off. She reached for her towel, lifted it from the hook, and began precisely drying herself.

  “You have more children?”

  Ruby shook her head. She continued rubbing the towel over every inch of her skin.

  “I saw your daughter in the nursery. Pequeñita. So tiny in her bassinet.”

  “She came early.” Ruby fumbled with the ties of the clean hospital gown.

  “You have luck.” The other mother reached for her towel in one easy swoop. Her dark hair flowed smooth as mink down her back. “Una hija will never leave you. Girls stick together.” From beneath a mound of towels and hospital gowns, she removed a pack of Winstons and held it toward Ruby.

  “Oh my God, yes.” Ruby slid a cigarette from the pack while the other mother struck a match for both of them. They sank to the floor, their backs against the tile wall, legs extended toward the drain, and smoked. Ruby could not remember when a shower and a cigarette had felt so perfect. “Thank you,” she said. “Gracias.”

  The other mother lifted her chin toward the ceiling, blowing smoke rings into the harsh hospital light. “It is nothing.”

  “Girls stick together” is what Ruby repeated to herself as she walked back up the hall toward her bed. She skimmed her hand along the wallpaper, over the laughing dog, the happy dish escaping with the spoon, the soaring cow, and the moon beaming bigheartedly in the night sky. Her hand left the wall and came to rest upon a window. Five babies slept in soft light. Swallowing down her thumping heart, her gaze racing from one baby to the next, she found her daughter in the second row. Baby Hargrove. Ruby could see the little body, wound tight in a pink blanket, curved like a kidney bean. She could see the downy head, the face turned toward the window, the lips; were they moving? Ruby pressed her palm against the cold glass. Sister Joseph stepped into the nursery, and seeing Ruby in the hall, she lifted the baby and brought her to the window. The baby’s face was scrunched tight, her skin tone blotchy and uneven, red along the chin and across her nose. The baby’s faint eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. Ruby motioned for Sister Joseph to unwrap her daughter. As she did, the baby’s tiny fist flew up and her mouth opened, though she did not cry. The baby had her thumb tucked inside her hand. Her fingers wrapped over the top for safekeeping. Ruby stayed in the hallway, shaking her head no when Sister Joseph motioned for her to come in. Ruby preferred to keep the window glass between them.

  She was having difficulty holding the bottle just right when Marco pulled back her curtain. His smile looked planned. Marco could do that, behave strategically. Her baby slipped in the crook of her elbow, formula dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. “Don’t cry,” she whispered.

  Marco let the curtain fall behind him. Color drained from his cheeks. He pulled his lips inside his mouth, clamped down, and stood there, pale and lipless, with the curtain skimming his back.

  The baby felt warm against Ruby’s chest. The dark hair at the crown of her head swayed with the rhythm of her heartbeat. Sister Joseph had explained to Ruby about the soft spot, how the scalp was strong and the spot would gradually fuse—nothing to be afraid of. Yet the fact it was only skin protecting her baby’s brain from traumas of the outside world terrified Ruby. So much could go wrong.

  “I got a part. In an orange juice commercial.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “That’s where I’ve been, at the callbacks, getting headshots.”

  Ruby nodded.

  “You look good,” Marco offered.

  “I showered.”

  He held on to the back of a chair, as if seeing her with the baby had caused his knees to go weak. Ruby sat up straight. She readjusted the bottle so the baby wouldn’t swallow air. She had to look great, like she knew what she was doing, with her hair clean, her face fresh. Even though her decision scared her, she felt strong right then. This was a result she hadn’t expected. Marco would have to choose.

  “So, she’s eating okay?”

  “She lost three ounces, that happens. I’m supposed to push the formula.”

  “I’m supposed to drink the orange juice at a breakfast table.”

  “They want us to go home tomorrow. Wherever that ends up being.”

  He blew air out of his mouth, practically erupted with it, and the baby flinched. “I’m meant to smile and say, Healthy start to a happy day.” He held up a pretend glass of juice.

  “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Except I’m fucking miserable.”

  “What did you do about the mice?”

  “Ruby, you’re making a mistake.”

  “How is walking away better?”

  “Someone else can do right by her.”

  “I can too. I can.” She pulled the baby closer, perhaps too close because the baby began to cry.

  Marco said nothing.

  Ruby rocked, forward and back, biting the inside of her cheek.

  Marco stared at his hands. “Happy start to a healthy day. That’s how it goes.”

  “I have to go to sleep tonight feeling okay about myself.”

  “I don’t know what that would take for me.”

  “You’ll get it right.”

  Marco brought Ruby’s suitcase to the lobby of St. Vincent’s. When she and her mother opened it at Aunt Lilly and Uncle Paul’s, her clothes had been washed and neatly folded. Twenty-five crisp twenty-dollar bills and a two-word note lay on top. Forgive me.

  Ruby found a studio apartment, a fourth-floor walkup with a bathtub that doubled as a kitchen table. Marco’s money paid the deposit with enough left over for a babysitter and a skirt suit. Ruby did get a job as a secretary, in an insurance office. She sent her daughter, whom sh
e named Nora, to live with a babysitter Monday mornings through Friday afternoons, when she and Nora took the train to Aunt Lilly’s for the weekend. Monday mornings, Nora watched her mother dress from her high chair. Her large, serious eyes followed Ruby cinching a belt tight around her waist, stroking eyeliner over her lids before a small mirror propped on the kitchen windowsill. “Happy start to a happy day,” Ruby said, wiping banana from between Nora’s fingers with a cool cloth. “Don’t get any on Mommy. Mommy’s got a date.” There was a businessmen’s bar she liked to stop at on her way home; sometimes she ordered a shrimp cocktail for her dinner. She and Nora didn’t have a TV so they never saw Marco’s commercial. He didn’t come to see them either, in their new apartment. Ruby knew he’d returned to Florida. He must have set all the furniture back on the sidewalk. The sofa, the spool; she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to live with that junk.

  This Is So Not Me

  I was climbing the stairs to Walter’s brownstone, Ezekiel swaddled up tight like they showed me three times before I left the maternity ward. You know, how they’re supposed to feel better if their arms and legs are wadded in close like the Baby Jesus lying in the manger. Seems it would make me want to scream, but whatever. So I’m holding him next to my chest when all of the sudden I got this urge, what if I just dropped him right over the side of the banister. Kerplunk, like a chestnut. I could almost see my arms reaching over the edge and letting go and that baby blue blanket careening to the ground and me just turning on my heel. I don’t have to tell you that it scared the crap out of me and I pressed my ass against the brick wall the rest of the way up.