Our New Normal (ARC)

by Colleen Faulkner

  At three forty-seven, Charlie was born. Without a penis. With a vulva. When the nurse midwife held her up in the air, still wet, Hazel was crying. Then she laughed. “A girl? Charlie’s a girl?”

  I kissed my daughter’s cheek. “Guess she needs a new name,” I whispered, choking up.

  The nurse midwife walks out of Hazel’s room. Dr. Gallagher was off today, so Lacey, from her office, was here for the birth. Lacey is a cheerful young thing who has probably had several more cups of coffee than I have.

  “She did great.” She pats my arm. “Congratulations, Grandma.”

  Grandma. I groan silently. I’m not ready to be a grandmother any more than Hazel’s ready to be a mother. And I’m certainly not ready to be called Grandma by anyone.

  I wait until bubbly Lacey is gone, then knock on the door frame. “Okay if I come in?”

  “Only if you brought food. They’re supposed to be delivering a tray, but I bet it will be full of additives and food dyes.”

  Hazel’s sitting up in a bed that doesn’t look like a hospital bed. Because she had no complications during labor and the delivery, she was able to stay right here in the birthing room that looks like a hotel room. Except for the baby in the bassinet on wheels on the far side of the bed.

  “What did you bring me?” Hazel asks, holding out her hands to receive the bag and shake.

  I hand them over. “You said milk shake, so I got a milk shake. It’s dairy. You’re not going to find a dairy-free shake around here. And a salad and a banana. I just went across the street to that little deli.”

  “Thank you, Mom!” She looks into the bag.

  I cross my arms over my chest, feeling awkward, and I don’t know why. I’ve just shared with my daughter one of the most intimate events a woman experiences in her life. During the labor and delivery, none of the distance I’ve felt with Hazel, none of the anger, was there. I didn’t even feel as if we were mother and daughter by the time she got to the point that she was ready to push. I was just one woman trying to support another as she brought a life into the world.

  I clear my throat, hoping I’m not coming down with something. I think I’m just tired, though. It’s been an intense day. “Your dad is on his way. He’s feeling really guilty that he didn’t get here sooner. They had a bad car accident on Route 1 involving a tractor-trailer and several cars. Someone ended up being airlifted out.”

  “Straw?” Hazel asks me.

  I pull it out of my back pocket.

  She rips the paper off the straw, stuffs it into the lid, and sucks on it. “Oh my God, that’s good. Is this what vanilla shakes made from cow’s milk always taste like?”

  I laugh and come to stand beside her bed. I’m purposely not looking at the baby. I don’t know why. It’s not her fault her parents were foolish.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  She’s wearing her red hair piled on top of her head in a tangled bird’s nest, but little wisps have fallen and frame her face and trail down the back of her neck. When she was in labor the bits of hair were damp with sweat and stuck to her face. Several times I pressed a cool washcloth to her face and brushed the hair back.

  “My V still feels like it’s on fire,” my daughter tells me, sucking so hard on the straw that her cheeks are concave.

  The baby fusses.

  “That will ease up,” I say. “Not even any stitches. That’s amazing. You were amazing. I was so proud of you, Hazel.”

  The baby is squirming now. Making the mewing sounds a newborn makes.

  Hazel holds up her hand to me. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to give me details on how many stitches you had to get in your V after you had me. Criminy, two different nurses had to give me their stories in agonizing detail.” She begins peeling the banana. “No thank you.”

  I smile. At her sassiness. At the fact that she said criminy. It was something my dad used to say. In the last two weeks since he died, she’s been using a lot of his silly words. I’m surprised that she remembers so many. Pleasantly surprised.

  As Hazel takes a big bite of banana, the baby wails. Chomping, Hazel glances her way. “You want to hold Charlie? I’ve got to eat.”

  “Charlie? You’re still going with that name?”

  “Not Edward, obviously, but I kind of like Charlie for a girl.” She smiles at me and takes another bite of banana. “I haven’t decided what her middle name will be. Or even if she’ll have one. She might just be Charlie Ridgely.” She makes a face. “But that’s kind of singsongy, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t have to decide today,” I hem. All the while I’m thinking, My granddaughter’s name is Charlie? This is why seventeen-year-old girls shouldn’t have babies.

  Charlie is really squawking now. And pumping her little fists.

  “Mom, she’s crying. Get her. I’ll eat and then I’ll try feeding her again. The boob nurse said to just keep putting her to my nip and she’ll latch eventually. She told me not to get all worried or anything if it takes a few tries. She said no baby will starve itself to death with mother’s milk right there.”

  I glance at the baby and then back at Hazel. “Boob nurse?” I’m just stalling now. I don’t know why. Even though I’ve made it clear to Hazel, and to my husband, that I’m not taking care of this baby when she and Hazel get home, I’ll still hold her, of course. She’s still my granddaughter. I just . . .

  “Mom,” Hazel whines. “Get her.”

  I take my time walking around the end of the bed. I don’t know why I’m so apprehensive. Maybe all the old anxieties I felt when we first gave birth to Sean are coming back. At the bassinet, I look down. She was wet when she was delivered; then, when Hazel was holding her, she was wearing a cotton cap to keep her body heat in. But she’s not wearing a cap now and her head is covered in red fuzz. Red, just like my babies.

  A lump rises in my throat as I reach out for the squawking little thing. She was seven pounds, seven ounces, and twenty inches long. A perfect-sized baby, round cheeks and so precious that . . . Tears slide down my cheeks as I reach for her, and draw her close.

  I try to resist the surge of emotion I feel rising in my chest. An overwhelming feeling of what can only be love for this tiny little creature who I didn’t want to keep.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I coo.

  Charlie is still fussing, but not so loudly. Holding her in one arm against me, I reach into her bassinet and retrieve a pacifier. I jiggle her, making soothing sounds. “How about this? Would you like this? Oh, I know, you’re hungry, aren’t you?” I whisper, trying to get her to take the Binky. “Shh, you’re okay, you’re okay. Your mama’s going to feed you in just a minute.” I turn and walk toward the window. When Hazel was a newborn, she wanted to be walked constantly. I walked her by the hour. It was the only way to soothe her. “That’s right,” I say softly. “Mama just needs a little something to eat first, that’s all.”

  The baby takes the pacifier in her rosebud lips. “That’s right, thatta girl,” I murmur. “That’s my girl, that’s my Charlie.”

  My back to Hazel, I hold the baby tightly to my breast and sniff her. I take in her newborn baby scent that resembles newborn creatures of every species on earth. What is it about a newborn that makes you want to protect it, at the risk of your own life? A chick, a kitten, an elephant calf, it doesn’t matter.

  A tear falls from my cheek to Charlie’s. I give a little laugh and brush it off, feeling silly. And completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the events of the day and overwhelmed by the powerful love I unexpectedly have for this baby.

  32

  Hazel

  “What? What do you want?” I don’t yell at Charlie, but I say it kind of loud.

  She won’t stop crying. So now I’m crying.

  I flop down on my bed beside her, which makes her bounce a little bit. It’s not like she’s on the edge of the bed and is going to fall off or anything, but I think it scares her because she cries louder. Now her face is turning red, she’s screaming so hard. And
I feel bad because I think I scared her.

  “Charlie,” I say, lowering my voice, because I don’t want Mom and Dad to hear me. If they hear her crying, one will get up to help, but no matter who it is, there will inevitably be an argument between them tomorrow about it. Or even tonight in the hall. Dad says Mom isn’t helping me enough. Mom says Dad is helping me too much. I think Mom used the word enable at dinner last night. She thinks Dad and Gran are both enabling me. I think Mom and Dad are both right.

  I close my eyes and Charlie’s cries wash over me like a tide of water. Of lava. This is sooo much harder than I thought it would be. I mean, I love her. I love her like I never thought I would. And my love for her is different than it was when she was just floating around in my belly. Now that she’s here, it’s the kind of love that makes you know that if something happens where one of you has to die and I have a choice, it would be me every time.

  But Charlie doesn’t know that. And she won’t listen even if I try to tell her. She just keeps screaming. And kicking her legs and shaking her little fists.

  I cover my ears with my hands. I know it’s juvenile. Not something a mother does, but if she’d just cut me a break. Would she stop screaming for five minutes? Just five minutes. That would give me enough time to pee because I’ve had to pee for an hour. It would give me enough time to go downstairs and make another bottle just in case now she’s hungry even though she wasn’t half an hour ago. It would give me enough time to text Jack and tell him I’m sorry I didn’t text him back tonight, but my BABY won’t stop crying.

  “Dagnabbit!” I tell her, turning my head so I can look at her. She’s dressed in a little lavender snuggly thing that’s so cute. Mom bought it for her and brought it to me in the birthing center after I had her. Because I didn’t have any girl things, just boy things. Because I thought she was a he.

  “Look, buster. You don’t want my boob so I gave you a bottle of formula,” I tell my baby. “I changed your diaper. I put that gross butt paste on your ass in case it was sore. I burped you. I rocked you. I carried you around in the stupid kangaroo-pouch thing you’re supposed to like. I even changed your whole outfit in case something was pinching you.” I take a shuddering breath. “What do you want from me?”

  She just keeps screaming.

  I get up, wiping at my eyes because I feel stupid that a two-week-old baby is making me cry. “You have to do what I say, Charlie, I’m your mother.” I stand there looking down at her, my arms crossed over my sore boobs. I’ve been in my yoga pants, nursing bra, milk-stained T-shirt, and Mom’s old terry bathrobe since yesterday. I look like Aunt Beth after she’s been drinking at home for a couple of days. My hair is dirty and I can smell my armpits because I haven’t had time for a shower.

  I start pacing my bedroom with its Save the Rain Forest and recycling posters on the walls. Where my Science Olympiad medals hang on a shelf Mom made for my American Girl doll clothes when I was little. I’m a nostalgic person. I still have the same blue-and-green quilt I’ve had since I was a baby.

  But everything is different now. The room’s not really mine. It’s Charlie’s. For one thing, half the room is taken up with baby crap: the crib, her bouncy seat, the gigantic empty box of diapers, the pile of poopy baby clothes. Charlie has changed everything. Her fuzzy fleece snowsuit hangs over my first-place medals. She’s barfed on my pretty bedspread. And the room smells like baby poop because I forgot to empty the trash can again.

  “I’m your mother, Charlie,” I tell her again. “You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

  She doesn’t hear me because she’s CRYING SO LOUD.

  Then I start to get angry. Not at her, but at Tyler. What a dickwad. Why am I the one up every night, all night, with our baby? Why isn’t he taking his turn? Why is he sleeping eight or nine hours a night when I figure I’ve gotten nine hours of sleep in the last three days?

  I actually had this stupid idea that when Charlie was born, he’d have a change of heart and want to be a part of her life. That Cricket would want to babysit her granddaughter. That even though Ty and I weren’t together anymore, we’d find a way to parent together. To share the responsibilities. How naïve was I? How right was Mom?

  As always.

  I look down at Charlie. Her face is all red and she’s not even kicking and waving her hands anymore. But she’s still crying. I’m so desperate to shut her up that I pick her up, even though I know it won’t help. I snuggle her inside my robe. I smell gross. It’s the milk leaking out of my boobs. Milk she doesn’t want. Even though it’s good for her.

  I walk to my closed door that leads to the hallway, turn, and walk to the other side of the room. It’s exactly nine steps to the Recycle Earth poster and nine steps back to the door. I jiggle Charlie, one hand on her back, the other under her little butt. I pull back my milk-stained T-shirt so her face can be against my skin. The lactation nurse at the birthing center told me skin to skin was good for new babies. It makes them bond with their mother. Of course, maybe she lied about that because she sure lied about how easy breast-feeding was going to be.

  Charlie doesn’t want my milk and she isn’t bonding to me. She doesn’t even act like she likes me. She likes everyone else in the house: Mom, Dad, Gran. Any one of them can pick her up and she stops crying.

  As I walk past the bed again, jiggling her, I scoop up a pacifier from half a dozen lying on the bed and the floor. She took one in the hospital. Now she won’t. I’ve tried at least six different kinds. She doesn’t like any of them. I think she doesn’t like them because when one is in her mouth, she can’t cry as loud.

  She’s still screaming in my ear. She won’t take the pacifier. I throw it into her crib.

  “Charlie,” I whisper. “Please? Can we just sleep for a few hours?” I keep jiggling her the way Mom does, hoping it will chill her out. “I’ll make a deal with you.” I stop at my nightstand, pick up my phone, and check the time. A pic of her is my screen saver. It’s one forty in the morning. “Here’s the deal,” I tell her, walking her again. I kiss her little head. She has the prettiest red curls. They look like someone drew them on her little noggin with a red Sharpie. And she smells so good. I like to sniff her when she’s sleeping. Well, I like to sniff her for a minute, and then jump in my bed and take a quick nap before she wakes up again.

  “Are you listening to your mama?” I ask her. “You want to hear my deal?” I keep talking because that’s how Gran gets her to stop crying. She talks to her. Mostly about Granddad and how much he would have liked meeting her, but sometimes about her gardening club or the Miss Marple episode she watched on TV. “You stop crying, Charlie, and go to sleep. I put you in your crib and then I get in my bed and go to sleep. And in two hours, you can wake up and scream as much as you want.” I reach the door and turn around to go the other way.

  I think maybe she isn’t screaming quite so loud. I think she might be listening to me. “What do you think?” I ask her. “That a deal?” I snuggle her in both my arms, holding her “football style” the way the nurse showed me. “How about if I sweeten the pot?” I ask her. “You let me sleep for two hours and I don’t care how much my boobs hurt because you won’t drink my milk, I won’t try to make you take my nip. I’ll make you a big, fat bottle of nasty formula and you can be a lazy girl and drink it.” Mom says she thinks that’s the problem, that some babies are lazy. That Charlie’s lazy and doesn’t want to work at breast-feeding. She’d rather just let milk practically drip out of the bottle into her mouth.

  “What do you say to that?” I ask my daughter. “Do we have a deal?”

  I look down at her in my arms. She’s cried so much that now she’s actually crying real tears. “Please, Charlie?” I beg. Now I’m crying again.

  I hear a knock at my door. “Yeah?” I call, swiping my face with the sleeve of my robe to wipe away my tears.

  “Okay if I come in?” It’s my dad.

  I don’t even make an attempt to tie my robe over my wet T-shirt. I’m too tired. “Sure
,” I say, trying not to sound too pitiful.

  He opens the door. He’s wearing his robe and slippers. He just stands there for a minute looking at me, looking at what a mess I am. “How about I take her for a couple of minutes?”

  I hand her over to him. “Dad, she won’t stop,” I whine and blubber at the same time. “I did everything you guys told me. And she wooon’t stop.” I push a dirty hank of hair out of my face and then hug myself. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Dad holds my daughter to his chest and starts to bounce her just a little. She’s still crying, but she’s definitely calming down. “She wet?”

  I shake my head. “I changed her for the tenth time. I’m almost out of diapers again,” I groan.

  “We’ll get some more.”

  “Dad, do you know how much they cost a box?” I’m trying not to cry. “I called Tyler today to see if he could buy some diapers. To see if he wanted to see Charlie.” I press my lips together. I don’t tell Dad how stupid I was to think maybe Tyler would want to get back together with me after Charlie was born. Not that I would have wanted to, but blimey, he doesn’t want to see his own little girl? “Tyler doesn’t want to see her. I offered to take her over so Cricket could see her. Maybe watch her for a couple of hours, but she doesn’t want to see her, either.” I sniff. “Because she wants to support her son in his choice.”

  Charlie starts to fuss a little again.

  “She hungry?” Dad asks. I know he’s purposely not making any comment about Tyler because he gets angry when we talk about him now. Which upsets me because I’m the one who made this whole mess in the first place. And Dad doesn’t want to upset me any more than I already am.

  “I don’t think she’s hungry. I don’t know! She won’t take my—” I start crying again.

  I don’t even care about talking about my boobs with my dad. I’m so over that. He’s seen so much of them in the last two weeks, I think he’s over it, too. At first, he tried to give me space whenever I was feeding her. Trying to feed her. He kept his eyes somewhere else when he was talking to me. But it’s gotten to a point that neither of us cares.