Other People's Children

by R. J. Hoffmann

“We could have blocked her number.”

  “I held her off for a day. Best I could do.”

  “We could move,” Jon said. “Run away. Somewhere she can’t find us.”

  “Mexico,” Gail murmured. “Or Canada.” Gail pulled her phone from the pocket of her jeans and frowned. “Paige called.”

  “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know. You feed Maya, and I’ll find out.”

  Gail left, and Jon looked helplessly around the room. Finally, he set Maya back into the crib where she’d be safe. He grabbed a bottle, scooped formula into it, and ran to the bathroom to fill it with warm water. He could hear Maya begin to squeak and raced back, shaking the bottle as he went. He set the bottle on the windowsill next to the rocker and then rushed to the crib in time to pick Maya up before she started to cry. He sat down in the rocker and held her awkwardly on his lap. He eased the nipple between her lips, and she sucked greedily. He wondered what Paige wanted. He wondered how he was going to manage when Gail left the house, because she would leave the house eventually, probably for hours at a time. He wondered if this was the panic that sent his dad west before Jon could crawl. But Maya’s eyes closed, and she sucked, and one of her tiny little hands rested on his forearm. Then she patted his arm just a bit as if to say, Daddy, everything’s going to be OK.

  Carli

  Carli climbed the stairs carefully, gripping the rail. The blood had dried crusty, and her sweatpants stuck to her legs. When she pushed through the front door, she found Randy still scorching earth. Wendy had moved on to her toenails.

  “Did you get my cigarettes?” Wendy asked.

  “I forgot,” Carli mumbled.

  “What about the Red Bull?” Randy asked, leaning forward, eyes locked on the TV, thumbs pumping.

  Carli ignored him and walked down the hall to the bathroom, where she stripped, careful not to look at herself in the mirror. She stepped into the shower, and scrubbed her thighs and calves, her tears mixing with the blood. When she was clean, she stood under the water with her eyes closed until it ran cold.

  Back in her room, she put her sweatshirt back on and another pair of black sweatpants. She wanted to lay down on her bed and curl into the fetal position, but she knew that she would only cry some more and squeeze that empty place just beneath her ribs. She might not get back up for a long time, so she forced herself to pack her backpack. Her phone vibrated on the dresser. She saw it was Marla, so she ignored it, because she couldn’t deal with that right now.

  Wendy didn’t look up from her toes as Carli passed through the front room. “Where you going now?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna study.”

  Wendy made a face. “Have fun. And don’t forget my smokes this time.”

  “And the Red Bull,” Randy said.

  “And call Marla. She keeps calling me asking where the hell you are.”

  * * *

  Carli started going to the Denny’s up by the interstate a couple of weeks into the semester. It was impossible to study at home. And Denny’s was all truckers and old people, so she could eat and study without seeing anyone she knew. She turned off her phone and slipped into her regular booth, grateful for the padded seat. Anita, her usual waitress, drifted over, chewing gum, her eyes glazed. She pulled a pen from her helmet of black hair and flipped open her order pad.

  “The regular?”

  Anita was another reason Carli came to Denny’s. Anita didn’t ask unnecessary questions. “Yeah. The regular.”

  Anita drifted back to the kitchen without another word, scribbling the ticket. Carli cracked her textbook open to the chapter on social psychology. She had a lot to catch up on before her next class. Anita brought her a cup of coffee, and Carli picked up where she left off.

  The section about social roles was easy reading. Carli had been living this section since third grade when her best friend, Kelly, moved to Morris. Kelly was short and loud and smiled a lot, and her last name was Benedict, so she sat near Carli in nearly all their classes. The textbook said that each social situation entails its own set of expectations about the “proper” way to behave, and ever since Kelly arrived, she set those expectations for Carli, Andrea, and Madison. She set expectations about how to wear their hair and which shoes were cool and which boys were OK to talk to at recess. In high school, she set expectations about which parties were worth attending and which boys were worth sleeping with. Kelly did not expect Carli to get pregnant, and she certainly didn’t expect Carli to stay pregnant. Kelly made it clear without saying anything that she didn’t expect to spend much time at parties with somebody wearing maternity clothes. Carli learned to expect fewer and fewer responses to her texts and calls until they dwindled toward none. Andrea and Madison fell away with Kelly, just as Carli expected. She still wasn’t sure what to expect now that the baby was born and gone.

  Interpersonal perception—how people form beliefs about one another—was just as easy to digest. Everyone she knew had been forming beliefs about her for the last seven months. Kelly and Andrea and Madison and Marissa and Rick and Marla and Wendy and Randy and even Anita, leaning against the counter now, whispering with one of the other waitresses, had formed their beliefs. A whole bunch of beliefs were formed on Wednesday when she waddled out of class dripping water on the floor.

  She also knew too much about fundamental attribution errors—the idea that people blame mistakes on your character rather than your circumstances. Wendy thought she was a fuckup. Madison thought she was a fuckup. Marla thought she was a fuckup. Pretty much everyone she knew thought she was a fuckup. She had a little more trouble sorting through self-serving bias—the idea that individuals tend to credit their character for their success and blame their situation for their failures. She couldn’t think of any recent successes, so she set that part aside. Mrs. Axelrod, her high school counselor, had prattled on about intergenerational teen pregnancy and broken homes before Carli earned her GED and dropped out, but Carli never bought into that bullshit. Truth was, she agreed with Marla and Wendy and Madison and the rest: she was a fuckup.

  Carli was swimming through a dense section about self-perception and introspection when Anita finally delivered the plate of eggs and toast and hash browns. “Who’s watching the baby?” Anita asked.

  Carli blinked up at her. Just like that, Anita had ruined it. Carli would have to find a new place to study. She searched for an answer, and Anita waited. “My mom,” she finally said. “My mom’s watching the baby.”

  Gail

  That first afternoon passed in a blur. Before Gail knew it, she was sitting in the armchair in their bedroom, feeding Maya her last bottle before bedtime. She read Goodnight Moon while Maya lazily sucked the formula. When the bottle was done, Gail put it and the book on the floor, and settled in to hold Maya until she slept. The sunlight had given way to dusk, but the small lamp on her dresser glowed yellow. Jon sat propped on the bed in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, watching them. Maya yawned and squeezed her eyes tight. She squirmed, pushing her arms against the blanket, working to get comfortable.

  Gail’s own arms were still, relaxed, more relaxed than they’d been in the years they’d been waiting. She felt like she was finally taking her life off pause. They had moved to Elmhurst too soon. She knew that now. Ever since they moved from Paulina Street she’d fallen into an endless loop of lists and anxiety and waiting that consumed her in a way that she hadn’t fully felt until Paige placed Maya into her arms at the hospital. As Gail accepted that eight pounds, when she smelled that ripe pear smell, it was like life sharpened, like it shifted back into balance, like all her expectations had hardened into certainty. Maya would free her to reconnect with friends and start running again and read a novel instead of another book about what to expect or another website about grief. She felt greedy as she sorted through the possibilities.

  When Paige called earlier to see how they were doing, Gail wanted to tell her that everything was different now. The porch was where she would feed Maya when th
e weather was nice, and Maya would play there when she was older, and she might even kiss a boy on the swing. The TV would now play more Barney than Blackhawks. The kitchen, where two people used to eat by themselves, largely in silence, would now echo with squeals and laughter. The table would be smeared with mashed peas and carrots. They would sing “Happy Birthday” and talk about homework and soccer and ballet and boys.

  She wanted to tell Paige that the nursery seemed especially transformed by Maya’s arrival. While they waited, it had seemed so terribly empty, an open sore, reminding her that she couldn’t bear a baby of her own, that she must wait for someone else’s baby. She wanted to tell Paige that when she placed Maya into the crib for a nap, the nursery felt suddenly full and complete. The green of the tortoise on the rug, and the yellow on the giraffe that formed the letter X on the border around the top of the room, and even the stripes on the Cat in the Hat’s hat seemed perfect.

  Instead, Gail just told Paige that they were fine.

  Gail slowed her rocking as Maya’s breathing slowed. She looked up at Jon, who was watching her, watching them. He still looked terrified. He seemed afraid that he would break Maya, afraid that he’d fail. It reminded her of when he taught himself “Sultans of Swing.” He struggled with that one. His usual dexterity seemed to desert him. It took him two weeks of YouTube videos and constant noise from his office before he finally conquered it, and for those two weeks he wandered the house cursing Mark Knopfler and muttering about selling his guitar. She would be his YouTube for this. She would help him melt the fear. She would convince him that he wasn’t his mother.

  Gail stopped rocking, stood, and carefully placed Maya into the bassinet at the foot of their bed. She squirmed a little, but then settled. Gail climbed into bed and snuggled up next to Jon, where he lay in the middle. They’d spent too long curled on their opposite edges—ever since those raccoon eyes had started flitting about, Jon had crept away from the center. This, too, felt right—meeting in the middle again.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  “Huh?”

  “Sitting there. You and Maya. So beautiful.”

  Gail smiled into his shoulder. For the first time in a long time she felt beautiful. They lay quietly. Gail matched her breathing to the rise and fall of Jon’s chest. She thought about her notebook on the bedside table. Every night she reviewed her lists, checked things off, added new items. Not tonight, though. There were still a few calls to make, a few loose ends to tie up, but for now, they could wait. All the important things were lying in the room with her. She closed her eyes and breathed Jon’s musky scent, and for the first time since they moved from Paulina, she fell asleep in his arms.

  Jon

  That first night home, Maya woke every two hours. They took turns feeding her, but they both woke up every time, and every time it took Jon a while to get back to sleep before the next squall came. Gail seemed to expect this. All the books must have told her to expect it, but Jon had read none of the books, so he wondered how long it would last.

  The hospital was so polluted with the odor of disinfectants and latex that he couldn’t properly smell Maya there. At home, though, Jon could filter the familiar smells of their house from the smell that was Maya. Milk Duds. He turned on the tiny lamp on the dresser while he fed her. He studied her features, trying to sort out what she’d look like when she was older. Other people’s babies all looked the same to him. It wasn’t until after a year or two that they became distinct humans. But the slope of Maya’s nose and the furrows on her forehead when she took the bottle couldn’t belong to anyone else. And those fingers. They gripped his pinky so tightly that it almost hurt.

  Halfway through the night, Jon finally saw the point of a bassinet. They didn’t quite argue about it, but in the previous months he had asked Gail again and again why they needed two places for the baby to sleep. Her explanations made no sense, and after a while, she just smiled and said, “Trust me.” It seemed foolish to park a crying baby closer to their bed, but now he knew that he would wake at Maya’s slightest noise, no matter where she was in the house. Best to have the baby handy when he rolled out of bed, groggy. Besides, with Maya in the room, he could smell the Milk Duds as he drifted off to sleep.

  The last shift came a little before dawn, the gray light prying through the blinds. Jon was exhausted, like after a hockey game with a short bench, but he was starting to make out the shape of what would come next. Maya’s fingers tugged at him. And when he put Maya into the bassinet and fell back into bed, he spooned up against Gail. All night they had touched. Gail’s hand against Jon’s hip. Their knees kissed. Both of them far from the edges.

  Carli

  Carli studied too long. She drank too much coffee, which just made it all worse. Still, her eyes kept closing. She could hear every fork click every plate and every mug clatter onto its saucer. And the laughing. Everyone in the restaurant seemed to be laughing, but when she opened her eyes, the people at the other tables all looked angry or sad, like late-night Denny’s people always looked. She started to pack her books into her backpack when Anita came toward her. Anita was laughing—that’s who it was—but she wasn’t carrying Carli’s check, she was carrying a baby.

  “I have to go,” Carli said. Anita must have thought that because Carli just gave birth that she’d want to see someone else’s baby.

  Anita smiled down at the infant. “She’s beautiful. Look at her.”

  Carli zipped her backpack and ignored the pain as she scooted across the bench of the booth. “I really have to go.”

  “Look at her,” Anita said. She blocked the end of the booth with her body, with the baby. Anita seemed confused, hurt even. “Why won’t you look at her?”

  Carli tried to push her way out, tried to stand, but Anita shoved her back into the booth with her hip. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “Before you give her away, you’re gonna look at her,” Anita said, but now Anita’s voice was Marla’s. Carli looked at the baby, and it was her baby, the same blotched, squinting, delicate face that Marla had thrust at her in the hospital. Carli started shaking, and she couldn’t take her eyes off that face.

  “Get up,” Anita said in her not-Anita voice, but Carli couldn’t move. She just stared at the baby’s face.

  “Get your ass up now!”

  Carli woke and saw Marla staring down at her. Carli was still shaking, and in the half-light of dawn she could see the angry cut of Marla’s mouth, but she could also still see that baby’s face, like a bright light had burned it into her retina.

  “Where the fuck were you last night?”

  “Denny’s,” Carli said. She didn’t tell Marla that after Denny’s she went to the ten o’clock movie in Batavia. The latest Batman. Batavia so that she wouldn’t see anybody she knew. The late show to be certain that Marla was asleep when she got home. Batman so that she didn’t have to think. “I was studying.”

  “Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

  Carli said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  “Get up,” Marla said again as she turned to the door. “Get dressed. We need to talk.”

  Carli pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and then drifted into the kitchen. Marla was at the table, wearing a flannel shirt, hunched over a mug. Carli sat down gingerly across from her. A folder lay on the table. The logo on the front had green arms holding a blue baby.

  Marla lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. “How you feelin’?”

  Carli tried to remember the last time Marla asked how she was feeling but came up blank. How was she feeling? She got four hours of sleep, her whole body ached, her crotch felt like it had been weed-whacked, and her breasts were leaking useless milk. Worse, though, was the emptiness. She eyed the folder.

  “Fine,” she said.

  Marla set her cigarette in the ashtray, opened the folder, and took out a single sheet of paper. Carli knew it was the only piece of paper left in that folder, but she read the top of the page anyway: Final Consent.
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br />   “You were one when I left your dad. Wendy was three.”

  “Marla—”

  “Let me talk,” Marla growled. Carli blinked at the piece of paper that Marla clutched between her tobacco-stained fingers. “Your dad came home drunk like he always did, but instead of hitting me, he hit Wendy. Because she was crying too loud.”

  Carli had always assumed that it was her dad who did the leaving. Marla never talked about him. She and Wendy had stopped asking about him long ago, because whenever they did, Marla always fell into a sullen silence.

  “I worked three jobs when you was little.” Marla grabbed the cigarette, took a long drag and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “I wasn’t ever around.”

  Marla held the cigarette between her lips, folded the paper, first in half, and then in half again. “I didn’t get to be a mom,” she mumbled. “Not really.” She looked down at the paper, folded it once more, and then looked back up at Carli. “I ain’t gonna miss out on being a gramma.”

  Marla took a deep pull on her cigarette and held the edge of the paper to the glowing tip. Carli wanted to reach out and snatch it from Marla’s hands, but she couldn’t move. It went black and then red, and then a yellow flame finally fluttered. As the paper burned, the empty place inside of Carli twisted and curled at the edges right along with it. Marla held it until the fire licked at her fingers, and then she dropped it into the ashtray where it crinkled, the flame died, and the ashes, black and orange, flaked and settled into a heap.

  “You woulda regretted this if I let you do it.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready,” Carli whispered.

  Marla looked at her for a long time, and the line of her jaw seemed to soften just a little. “Ain’t nobody ready, Carli.”

  “Marla. I—”