Later, when the nurse brought him to her and laid the baby against her breast, Maria said, “He’s beautiful, isn’t he.” The nurse said nothing at first but then, embarrassed, she said, “He’s a healthy baby, thank God.” She paused for a moment. “And yes, he is beautiful.” Later still, when Maria was leaving the hospital, the baby in her arms, the nurse said, “It’s an Irish thing, you know. My mother always used to say that if you praise a baby’s beauty, you invite the jealous gods to put a curse on him. I know it’s silly, but I always think of her when I see a baby like yours, that looks too beautiful to live.” The baby spit up then, and they laughed.
The baby’s beauty was not what fascinated Maria; it was the firmness of his flesh, the shape of each tiny feature, and the recognition in the baby’s eyes. She spent hours each day just gazing at him.
She spent hours, too, remembering her old, nearly forgotten life. Her silly high school ambitions, her friends who were never really friends at all, and her old determination to get away. From what? From this good, full life? She realized now that a woman could have no higher ambition than to be a mother. She was ashamed that she had always taken Ana Luisa for granted, had been so mean to her about her clothes, her hair, her little shrine. There was a lot to be said for the old-fashioned ways.
When she thought of Russell—big, dull, loving Russell—she wondered how it could be that at some point she’d stopped loving him and started to hate him. Why was that? she wondered. What had he wanted and why hadn’t she been able to give it? He was such a good man.
She was glad all that was over.
They were husband and wife again, loving but not crazy in love, and they had this beautiful child, John. Who could ask for more?
. . . . .
The baby was a kind of miracle in Russell’s life. A tiny thing, perfectly formed, with fat little fingers and toes, he was a miniature person in every way, a miniature Russell Whitaker, but flawless. Russell was mesmerized. Weeks passed, and John’s eyes turned from pale blue to a deeper blue and then to brown. His yellow hair fell out and grew in black. He had Maria’s nose, her chin, her large expressive eyes. Russell watched, and marveled, but he did not seem to understand the change that had taken place. John was Maria’s child now, and Russell didn’t know it.
Russell could not get over the wonder of the baby: John sleeping in his cot, John waking up happy and surprised, John breathing, John crying, John’s sudden smile at the sight of his daddy. Sometimes in the night when Russell got out of bed to change John’s diapers or to give him a bottle, he would finish up whatever he was doing and then kneel beside the crib with his head resting on the mattress so he could watch the baby sleep, his little belly rising and falling, his clean sweet breath on Russell’s face. At these moments, time came to a stop, and there were just the two of them in this world, face to face, breathing each other’s breath.
Russell had determined to be good, and he was good, and the baby made it easy. No more jealousy, no more fits of impotent rage. It no longer mattered that Maria had lost herself in the baby. Russell had lost himself in the baby too. They scarcely noticed one another.
The house next door to Ana Luisa’s was up for rent. They needed the space for the baby, they were agreed on that, and so Russell got a Sunday job at PayLess, and they scraped together first-month and last-month rent, and a security deposit, and they moved in. The house was even smaller than Ana Luisa’s and it needed all kinds of repairs, but it was their own and they could spread out in it and there was a little sleeping alcove for the baby. Russell left the outside the way it was, raggedy-ass stucco that had begun to crumble, but inside he painted the walls a dazzling white. He sanded the floors and stained them and sealed the stain with polyurethane. He hung wallpaper with teddy bears and rocking horses in the alcove they used as the baby’s room. Anything for the baby. It was all for the baby.
Whenever Russell found himself thinking of Maria and how she had left him for the baby, he told himself this: nothing mattered except the baby.
John fussed only when he was hungry. He gurgled and cooed and let out shouts of joy, but he almost never cried. “What a beautiful baby,” people said. “What a happy baby.” He kicked his fat little legs and smiled.
Maria’s milk was not sufficient for the baby, and her breasts were sore and red, so after a couple weeks the doctor suggested bottle feeding. Maria missed that feeling of deep peace and surrender that came with the first warm tug at her breast, but it was a relief not to feel she was being devoured each time the baby nursed. And it was nice not to worry about what she ate and drank. And not to have something clinging at her all the time, even when she wasn’t in the mood. Bottle feeding was probably better for the baby anyhow. A perfectly balanced formula, better than mother’s milk. Nor did she feel any less a mother because Russell got up in the night and gave the baby his bottle. This was just sharing. She had John, after all, every day from morning to night, day in, day out, Sundays and holidays included. Not that she didn’t love him. She loved being a mother.
John was a year old and had begun to walk and talk a little, and in all this time Maria had not asked about the fiery scar on Russell’s chest, nor had he offered an explanation, nor had they once made love.
Ana Luisa mentioned casually that Maria had put on weight, and Maria got very angry. “Have you ever had a baby?” Maria asked her. “This is what happens when you have a baby. I’ll lose it later.” But months went by and she continued to gain weight. She began wearing peasant blouses with lots of ruffles, and big skirts in bright colors, and distracting earrings, but there was no hiding the fact that she was getting fat. “Do you think I’m fat?” she asked Russell, in a way that told him to answer no, and when he smiled at her and said, “No, I think you’re beautiful,” she shrugged and said she would go on a diet.
She began to sleep late in the morning. She would get up when Russell left, change John’s diaper, give him a bottle, and then go back to bed, taking the baby with her. She liked to lie beside him, rocking him a little, stroking his back, and when he fell asleep, she too would fall asleep. But after a while she’d just take him to bed with her and say, “You sleep now, chiquillo, while Mama takes a little nap.”
Sometimes she did not get up until noon. Then she poked around the kitchen for a while, fixing a late breakfast for herself and heating up baby food for John, and after that they’d watch television and have a snack, and before she had a chance to get the place straightened up, the day was nearly gone. Ana Luisa would be home next door and might come over at any minute. Or Russell might show up early from work. Maria would begin to rush around the little house. She washed her face, combed her hair back and plaited it in a single braid, put a clean playsuit on the baby. She tried to look her best when Russell got home.
The house was a mess, but what could she do about it? They didn’t have a washer and dryer, and she couldn’t get to the laundromat until Ana Luisa took her on Friday afternoons, so it was no wonder the house always smelled sour. And it was too small. There was no place to put anything, the playpen stood in the middle of the living room, and there were toys everywhere. She couldn’t be picking things up every hour of the day. She was exhausted. Why couldn’t everybody just leave her alone?
John lay in his crib singing to himself. “Mommy, Daddy, Daddy, Mommy.” He had a high sweet voice, and he sang the song over and over again. “Daddy, Mommy, Mommy, Daddy. Mommy, Daddy, Daddy, Mommy.” Sometimes he would pause, as if he were thinking, and then he would sing four Grandmas to make up for leaving her out. “Grandma, Grandma, Grandma, Grandma.” It was a song he made up to sing in the dark.
The next time she took John for a checkup, Maria asked the doctor for some pep pills. He looked at her and then at the baby, who had a diaper rash and needed a shampoo, and he shook his head.
“Look at this rash,” he said suddenly. “Babies get a rash like this from sitting around in wet diapers. Buy some Vaseline and some baby powder. And use it, for God’s sake. Take him
out in the air. He’s pale. He needs some sun. Does he cry a lot?”
Maria sat there, confused.
“Are you depressed?” he asked. “Is that what’s going on?”
She nodded.
“Is it sex?” he asked. “Is your husband catting around?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, it has to be something. Look, you’re not taking care of yourself.” He leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees, sincere. “You ought to talk to somebody. You need some help. You want to see a therapist, I can set it up on your health plan. Five sessions. What do you say?”
She was back in school suddenly, being bullied. “I don’t need help,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me except I’m tired. I’m exhausted, that’s all.”
He continued to look at her in that sincere way, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“What does your husband think?” he asked.
Her jaw tightened and her lips were a thin line.
Finally he sat back. “Lose some weight,” he said. “You’ll feel better,” and he stood up to see her out.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Maria said, blushing, and she thanked the nurse, and she thanked the little boy who held the door for her as she left the building. “Lose some weight. You’ll feel better.” She was still blushing when she reached the street.
In the bus on the way home Maria went over his words again and again, trying to understand what had happened to her. He’d said, practically, that she was an unfit mother. She was neglectful. She was lazy. “Look at that rash,” he’d said. “Buy some Vaseline. Are you depressed? Is that what’s going on?” She blushed as she recalled the sound of his voice, the annoyance, the exasperation. She held John closer to her breast. She shook her head. To hell with the doctor. She’d simply put him out of her mind. She’d forget every hateful word he’d said. But over and over again she heard him say, in that awful dismissive tone, “Lose some weight. You’ll feel better.” It was so unfair. She had been doing what everybody wanted, having the baby, giving up a career, sinking deeper and deeper into motherhood, and now all of a sudden everybody was at her. The doctor, the nurse, her mother, Russell. What did they want? Why couldn’t they just leave her alone?
She began to notice women on the street. They were all fat, every one of them. Fatter than her. She’d never let herself look like that. She resolved that tomorrow—today!—she would go on a diet.
By now the bus had left the deep city and passed through the residential district and come out the other side. There were fewer trees on these streets, the houses were close together, and then suddenly there were no trees at all. She pulled the buzzer to get off at her stop.
The sun was still hot, and where the cement sidewalk gave way to a dirt path along the side of the road, the heat seemed to come up at her from the earth itself. John was heavy in her arms. She wished now she had brought the stroller, but she hadn’t wanted to bother getting it on and off buses. She was tired. She was dizzy. She wanted to cry because of the heat and the dirt and the memory of the doctor’s voice. She hoisted John higher in her arms.
And as she turned into her street, she saw it as she had not seen it since high school—hot and dirty and hopeless. The tarmac was torn up and puddled with oil. Huge old American cars were parked every which way, abandoned in front yards and driveways. No trees. No flowers. Just shitty little houses, skinny dogs, shrunken lives.
She was able to get into the house and lock the door before the tears came. She put John in his crib and pulled the curtain around the alcove. Then she allowed herself a good cry—because she had thrown her life away and because she had a mean doctor and because she was fat.
Afterward, she gave John a bath. She rubbed baby oil on his inflamed skin, she powdered his diaper and his bum. She gave him kisses. She was a good mother.
When Russell got home, he was astonished that Maria ran to him, her arms out, and cried against his chest. She kissed him. She clung to him. And then she took him to bed.
Russell tapped at the screen door, leaning close to it so he could see through to the kitchen. “Hello-wo-wo,” he called, and tapped again. He held a bouquet of daisies in his hand.
“Daddy,” John said. He came across the floor, eager and unsteady, screaming in delight. He was wearing only diapers, and his face was dirty.
“Some flowers for a pretty lady,” Russell called through the door. “Is there a pretty lady in the house?”
“Daddy,” John said, and pounded the screen.
“Oh, for God’s sake, what?” Maria said. She came to the door and lifted the latch. “Why are you being such an asshole? Is that supposed to be cute or something?”
Russell stood there, the flowers in his hand, as she went back to the counter and continued cutting up a head of lettuce. It was not even twenty-four hours since they had made love.
“What?” she said, furious.
He put the flowers in the sink and, very gently, pushed her hair back from her face.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, her teeth clenched. “I can’t stand it. And stop looking at me like that.”
He was thinking, What about last night? We made love just last night.
She looked back at him, thinking, What I hate about you most is those milky blue eyes.
Neither said anything.
“Daddy!” John said, tugging at his pant leg.
Russell turned from her finally and scooped his son into his arms and said, “What a big boy you are. You come on with Daddy and we’ll wash your little face and then we’ll see what’s on the news.” He carried John into the bathroom and in a moment there was the sound of water running and then John’s shrieks of pleasure.
Maria leaned over the counter, her body shaking as she sobbed, soundlessly.
He had tried hard for nearly two years. They had made love once, and he thought she had come back to him. Like a fool he had said, “I love you,” over and over all through the night, and she had never said a thing. She’d only fucked him like a demon, up on top of him, grinding away as if she was trying to get a whole year of fucking into one night, and it was fine by him, even though she scared him with her raw hunger and her craziness. And then the next day it was over, for good. She hated him again, and she let him know it. He was fed up. He was done trying. He was going to drink instead.
Maria knew what to expect because she had read the booklet and listened to the tape they gave her. She was in the first trimester and the abortion was by injection of hypertonic saline solution, a simple procedure to produce contractions that would begin slowly and increase in frequency until the fetus was finally expelled. Discomfort, but no real pain. It was as easy as they said. Before Maria left the clinic, they warned her about the dangers of infection and excessive bleeding.
They warned her, too, about the pro-life protesters who were picketing the clinic and about the TV cameras that were there to record the event. They did not warn her—because how could anybody know?—that for a few seconds that evening her look of fright as she left the clinic would appear on television screens everywhere in California. Which was how Ana Luisa learned of her daughter’s abortion.
Ana Luisa lit a candle and knelt down before the living room shrine. Taking the two small stones from their place on the little altar, she clutched them to her breast—one stone for each of her own abortions—and she said a dozen Aves. She touched the shell, a pinkish-gray clam shell she’d picked up on the beach the day she learned that, because of the abortions, she could never bear children again. Then, feeling old and heavy with sin, she got up and blew out the candle and went next door to take care of Maria. She would make her some hot chicken broth. She would make her chicken fajitas. Life would go on.
John lay in the dark, afraid to sing his song, because if he sang it, they might scream at one another and bang on the table and break things, and they wouldn’t love him anymore.
After work, Russell hung out with the paint crew at Antonio’s Nut House or the Old Pro or
Pablo’s. When they’d had a few beers and left to return to their families, Russell would look around for a game of pool or for somebody to drink with. Almost at once he discovered you could always find somebody, providing you weren’t choosy. The idea was merely to drink and keep drinking until you could go home and collapse.
He drank at first to get away from her. And then to keep from thinking of her. And then to keep from asking for her love. He hated her, and he drank some more, and found he loved her still.
Tonight he was drinking with Bog. They had gone to the Miramar Café for Polish sausage and fries, and now they were back at the Old Pro drinking beer. Bog had been stood up by his date.
Russell leaned back on his barstool, staring up. Pinups of naked women covered the entire ceiling—centerfolds from Playboy and Penthouse and Oui, and here and there eight-by-ten glossies of unidentified women. Local talent, most likely.
“Tits and ass, that’s all it is, Bog,” Russell said. In the past year he had learned the language of the Old Pro.
Bog shrugged and drank his beer.
“No matter how you slice it, it’s just another piece of ass.”
Bog looked at him.
“What?” Russell said.
“What’s the matter with you?” Bog asked. “You are one angry sonofabitch.”
“Because I say it’s just another piece of ass, I’m angry?”
“It’s your attitude. You’ve got an attitude.”
“I’ve got the right attitude.”
Bog shrugged and shook his head.
Russell went into the men’s room to take a leak. Afterward, washing his hands, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and sneered. He had put on weight and his face was red and swollen. He looked like a middle-aged drunk. He looked like his father.
At once, before he could turn the thought over in his mind—his father? that bastard?—his fist shot out and struck the metal divider between the urinal and the sink. The metal crumpled and the brackets lifted from the tile. Plaster trickled to the floor.
The Shrine at Altamira Page 5