Three Women at the Water's Edge

by Nancy Thayer

  “Dumb old baby,” Jenny said, and shot Susan a resentful glare. She took her new doll off to hide behind a big stuffed chair, and Daisy could hear her crying quietly to herself. If it hadn’t been for the nursing baby, Daisy would have gone over and taken her elder daughter in her arms, but Susan was really engaged now in the business of getting her food, and would have been enraged to be disturbed. So Daisy had to sit and listen to Jenny sniffling behind the chair, and to Danny making his new toy clack and whistle, and she worried that once again she wasn’t doing the perfect thing. It was so hard to keep three children happy at the same time. And Daisy was actually worried about Jenny. Danny was okay, he was not going to have the same problem with jealousy, but then of course he had the preschool. He was able to leave the house every day, to leave the baby’s presence, and to enter a world of his own where people had never even seen the baby, where people knew and loved and played with him. He had all of that to sustain him. But Jenny was just two, too young yet for preschool, and used to being the baby. Now here was this new baby, this baby girl who always seemed to have the dominant spot in the household. That morning, while fixing breakfast, before Paul arrived, Daisy had turned just in time to stop Jenny from dropping a heavy skillet in the playpen on top of the baby.

  “JENNY!” she had screamed, and rushed toward her daughter and yanked the skillet away. “Shame on you! You must never do anything like that again! Why, you could kill your little sister, or hurt her very badly!”

  Jenny had glared at her mother for one long moment, her eyes full of anger and frustration, then she had run from the kitchen into the family room, where she collapsed in tears.

  Daisy’s scream had startled Susan, who burst into her piercing cry, and the eggs were sizzling in their pan, needing turning, and the toast was drying in the toaster, and the phone rang.

  “Oh, my God,” Daisy said, not knowing which way to turn first. Then she grabbed up baby Susan and tried to comfort her against her body with one hand, while with the other she attempted to turn the eggs, which was almost impossible because the skillet kept wobbling around on the burner. The phone rang and rang.

  “The phone’s ringing, Mommy,” Danny said.

  “Well, it will just have to ring!” Daisy had said frantically. She took the burned toast out of the toaster and threw it in the sink and stuck two more slices of bread in, and cuddled the baby, saying rapidly, “There, there, there, there, you’re okay now.” Then she put the baby back in the playpen and hurried back to the stove to finish the eggs. The phone stopped ringing. Daisy buttered the toast, fixed everyone’s plate, and hurried into the family room. She knelt down beside her daughter, nearly falling over in her awkwardness, and tried to gather Jenny into her arms. Jenny’s face was tear-streaked and blotchy, a sign that she was truly upset.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Jenny,” she said. “Please don’t cry anymore. Oh, Jenny, let Mommy cuddle you a moment. I love you so much, I love you as much as I love the baby, and she will grow up to be a wonderful little friend for you, you just have to give her some time. Come on, don’t let your breakfast get cold. I’ll let you put honey on your toast from the honey bear.”

  But Jenny resisted Daisy’s advances; she pulled away and shrugged up into herself.

  “Jenny, please,” Daisy said. She heard the phone begin to ring again. Who could be calling? she wondered, everyone knew better than to call at this time of day. “Jenny, come on,” she said in a firmer voice. “Your breakfast is ready, and if you don’t eat it you’ll be cranky all morning, and I’m not going to fix you anything else to eat. Come on, sweetie, come on with Mommy.”

  “The baby’s choking!” Danny yelled.

  “Oh, shit,” Daisy said, and left her surly daughter to sulk alone behind the chair. She pushed her weary body back up off the floor and rushed into the kitchen to pick up Susan who was trying to cry with the pacifier in her mouth. “There, there, damn it,” Daisy said, picking the baby up once again. She took the pacifier out of Susan’s mouth and cuddled her against her, and Susan peed through her diaper and pajamas right down the front of Daisy’s robe, soaking through the thick material into her nightgown and onto her skin. How could one small baby have so much urine inside her? Then she smelled the horrid smell and realized it was not just urine; she looked down at her robe and the baby’s pajamas and her hands, and saw everything stained with a mustardy-brown goo.

  “I’m thirsty, Mommy, where’s my juice?” Danny asked. He had already seated himself at the table and had finished his breakfast.

  “You’ll just have to wait,” Daisy told him. “I’ve got to go change everything, this baby just pooped all over me.”

  Danny thought that that was hysterically funny, and Daisy trudged out of the kitchen and through the hall and up the stairs to the sounds of his silly laughter, and Jenny’s persistent sobbing, and the shrill ringing of the telephone, and over it all, the baby’s angry yells. She changed Susan and deposited her in her crib, then went into her bedroom to strip off her murky clothes. When she got back downstairs, she found Jenny still crying, her own breakfast turned cold and congealed on the plate, and Danny standing in a puddle of orange juice because he had tried unsuccessfully to pour himself his own drink. His pajamas were soaked with orange juice and he was crying. And it was only eight o’clock in the morning.

  That very afternoon, there Daisy was again, listening to Jenny cry as she hid behind the chair. Paul’s presence had been only a momentary fluke in the pattern of the day; he had not changed a thing. Daisy took Susan off her right breast and held her over her shoulder to burp her, and the baby expelled such a quantity of milk that Daisy felt her blouse totally soaked; she had forgotten to put a diaper on her shoulder. She glanced behind her to find that some of the fluid had hit the sofa, too, and was sinking in fast. Oh, the mess of it all, the mess, she thought. She had forgotten the mess of it all. Each morning she awoke with aching breasts and her nursing bra and nightgown and sheets dried to a starchy stiffness from the milk she had leaked in her sleep. “I should wear paper clothes and sleep in the bathtub,” she said to no one in particular. Susan started to fuss again, so Daisy fastened her onto her left breast and just sat there, letting the milk dry on her blouse and on the sofa, listening to her other daughter cry.

  Now Daisy stood in the laundry room with a diaper in her hand, remembering yesterday, which with the exception of Paul’s visit seemed like all the other days, which were scrambled together in one jumbled blur. And she thought that Paul was a fink, that he had cheated, that he had encroached on her emotions with a cheap and maudlin trick by bringing her that tacky sentimental record, by telling her he loved her. If he loved her, he could show it with actions instead of words. She had let him get away with a trashy trick, she had let him go off with a soothed conscience, and here she was left in the ruins. Daisy had tried to comfort herself since Paul’s visit, had tried to support herself by thinking that in some way Paul still loved her. But he did not, not in any way. He did not make one minute of her life any easier. He was not in any real way there. And what she needed from life at that moment was not that particular lie. Daisy dropped the diaper on top of the dryer and went into the living room. She picked the record up off the stereo, carried it into the kitchen, and swiftly snapped it in half, then dropped it in the trash. For some reason that deed gave her immense satisfaction.

  Movement out the window caught her eye, and she saw that all four upstairs girls were settling themselves on the back lawn in different poses of hedonism. They had brought out blankets and towels and were lying on the ground, letting their bodies soak up the new spring sun. They had a portable radio, and cheerfully chatted above the sound of the music; they had glasses of Coke and a tray of cheese and crackers and apples nearby. Oh, it looked so nice, it looked so pleasurable. But Daisy turned away with resentment: it was her lawn, and yet she would have to stay away from it today; it wouldn’t be fair to spoil the girls’ day off by bursting into their luxurious afternoon with
three noisy rambunctious children. The girls were really such nice girls, and she was so glad to have their company—and their rent money—that she didn’t want to strain their relationship in any way. She decided to put Susan in the carriage and take all the children for a walk. But first she really did have to finish folding the laundry so that she could put the clothes from the washer into the dryer. She still had a pile of wet smelly sheets to launder: Danny had started wetting the bed at night, and in addition to the extra work this caused, having to carry the soggy sheets and mattress pad down the stairs and back up again, she had the burden of worry: perhaps Danny was in his own way jealous of the baby, too, and this was his way of expressing it. She turned back wearily to the diapers. After a while Danny and Jenny clamored into the laundry room, screeching at her about a toy they were fighting over, and Daisy really could not get too angry with them, for they had played very nicely together all morning while she did the necessary housework.

  “I’ll take you outside in a minute, kids,” she said. “It’s nice and warm out. I’ll take you for a walk. Danny, you can ride your bike. You’ve been wanting to all winter and it’s finally nice enough out.”

  “Yay! Yay! Can we go now, can we go now?” Danny yelled.

  “In a minute, I have a few more things to do,” Daisy said. “Go play in the family room just a few more minutes.”

  “Will you pull me in the wagon, Mommy?” Jenny asked, tugging on Daisy’s robe.

  Daisy stared down at her blue-eyed daughter, her elder girl, and wanted to cry. Jenny was too young to manage a trike, and last summer Daisy had pulled her everywhere in a wagon. But now she had to push Susan in the carriage; she wouldn’t be able to manage the wagon, too. But that wouldn’t be fair to Jenny; what could she do? It seemed she was continually shorting this second child of hers, this little child, because of the new baby.

  “Sure,” Daisy said finally. “Sure I will, sweetie. But we’ll have to put baby Susan in, too. She won’t take up much room.” She could pad the wagon bottom and sides with blankets, Daisy thought, and there wouldn’t be too many bumps on the sidewalk, and Jenny could sit with her feet scrunched up—

  The phone rang. Daisy halfheartedly plodded into the kitchen to answer it, the two children trailing along beside her. Both children seemed more than ever jealous of her when she talked on the telephone; the phone ringing acted like a radar on them, drawing them to her, causing them to cling and pull at her arms and legs.

  “Daisy? This is Jim Duncan,” a man said. “How are you?”

  Jim Duncan, Daisy thought, Jim Duncan; who in the world is he? “I’m sorry,” Daisy said, trying to keep the long phone cord from strangling Jenny, who was tugging on it and managing to get it wound around her neck.

  The man laughed. “Dr. Duncan,” he said. “I sort of delivered your baby.”

  “Oh!” Daisy said, amazed. She had often thought of the man after she left the hospital, smiling at herself to remember how nice he had been, how special he had made her first night in the hospital with his present of hot cheeseburgers. And when she had gone to the enormous doctor’s clinic for her recent checkup, she had asked her old obstetrician if he knew the young doctor. But he hadn’t, and Daisy had let the idea of the man fall away, thinking she would never see him again. She couldn’t imagine why he was calling her now. Danny and Jenny began to squabble loudly right at her feet, and Daisy made hideous faces and gestures at them, trying to get them to be quiet and back off so that she could hear and think and carry on an intelligent conversation. She was glad Jim Duncan couldn’t see her now; he would think she was mad, but she could think of no other way to suggest silently to her children that they let her talk. So she spoke pleasantly to Jim Duncan, and simultaneously grimaced and lunged at her children, who fortunately went completely still with wonder at this strange sight.

  Jim Duncan was calling to invite her out to dinner! Something a little better than cheeseburgers this time, he said. And perhaps a movie if she thought she could leave her infant for that long a time.

  A bottle, Daisy thought, Susan can have a bottle for just one time, and if she doesn’t like it, tough, she’ll survive, let the babysitter handle her, she decided with a quick giddy surge of rationality. She had never missed nursing her first two children until they were three months old; but things were different now. The thought of an evening out, a long evening spent entirely with a pleasant adult male, was too enticing. They made plans for the following Friday evening.

  Hanging up the phone, Daisy felt that the world had changed entirely. She sank down onto a kitchen chair and absentmindedly pulled both her son and her daughter onto her lap and kissed them on their necks.

  “Mommy has a date, Mommy has a date,” she sang to her children.

  “What’s a date?” Danny asked.

  “It’s like a fig,” Daisy said, and laughed hysterically at her dumb joke. Something had snapped, or popped, inside her, something had changed. She had been wallowing in her martyred motherhood long enough, she realized, and now she would stop, she would change just a little bit. Now she would be brave and call Jerry; he had called twice after Susan’s birth to say that as soon as she felt like going out or having company in, he would like to see her. So she would see him, and she would see Jim Duncan, and she would let herself add this new dimension to her world, she would force herself to do it. For she knew that in spite of the difficulties of the isolated world she had shared with her three children over the past two months she had still felt safe and comfortable, secure. Now she was ready, perhaps, to feel something else, something a bit more challenging. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps she would even start doing exercises today. But then she looked through the kitchen at the laundry room, and her heart sank.

  Lord, it was still all there, waiting to be done, the stinky sheets, the mountains of diapers waiting to be folded, the whole bit. By the time she finished that, and finished pulling Jenny and Susan in the wagon and watching to see that Danny didn’t ride his bike into the street, she wouldn’t have the energy to do exercises; if she lay down on the floor to try, she would probably fall asleep. Oh, it was hopeless. Hopeless and seemingly endless.

  “Aren’t you ever coming out?”

  Daisy looked up to see Sara and Allison standing in the back doorway, staring at her.

  “I still haven’t finished the laundry,” Daisy told them. “Besides, I don’t want to bother you girls. You look so peaceful out there.”

  “Oh, God,” Sara said, entering the kitchen. “You sound just like my mother. ‘You girls just go on and enjoy yourselves, have a good time, and don’t worry about me in here suffering away in the cold.’ Geez, Daisy, I thought you were better than that. It’s a good thing you have us around to shape you up before you start doing that number on Danny and Jenny.”

  “I’ll fold the laundry,” Allison said. “It’ll take me five minutes.”

  “No, no,” Daisy said, “I’ve got to wash the sheets, too.”

  “Well, I can probably handle that,” Allison said. “I’ve been known to be capable of such things. A little soap, stuff them in the machine, press a button; I don’t think it will wear me down too much.”

  “And I’ll take Danny and Jenny on outside with me,” Sara said. “You go take off that horrible robe and get into some shorts. You’re beginning to look about as healthy as a slug.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Daisy said, but she had to fight back tears: how nice these girls were, how nice.

  “The kids have some sand pails and shovels in the garage, don’t they?” Sara asked, already heading back out the door, holding each child by the hand.

  “Yes,” Daisy said, “way at the back, by the garden hose. Well, they might be hidden by some boxes, I’ll come help you find them—”

  “Daisy,” Sara said, turning and fixing Daisy with a look, “cool it. Go change your clothes. You don’t have to do everything. Finding sand pails is not a major operation.” And she walked away, leading Danny and Jenny with her.

>   Daisy walked up the stairs, smiling to herself, and slipped into an old pair of maternity shorts and a short-sleeved cotton shirt. She peeked into the baby’s room and saw that Susan was still sleeping soundly, so she went on down the stairs. Allison was still in the laundry room, singing a rock song to herself and folding the diapers with a flippancy that came from knowing it wasn’t the thousandth time that week she had done such a thing. “Go on out,” she told Daisy. “I’ll be through here in a minute.”

  The sun almost blinded Daisy as she walked out into it, and the warmth made her stop still. She felt like an animal, she just wanted to stay there, absorbing the soothing heat.

  “Come on, old lady,” Ruth Anne called. “We’ve got you all set up.”

  And they had. They had dragged out a folding plastic lounge chair from the garage and set it down near the water. Danny and Jenny were already on the sand, building sand castles with the help of Sara and Melissa. Daisy sank into the chair and put her feet up, almost stunned by her sudden good fortune.

  “Here,” Ruth Anne said. “Have a Coke.” She handed Daisy a tall glass filled with icy cola, and a pile of magazines with pictures of gorgeous women in brilliant summer clothes grinning on the covers.

  “This is so nice of you all,” Daisy said.

  “Oh, I know, I know,” Ruth Anne said. “We’re just piling up points in heaven like crazy.” Then she went back and stretched out on her towel.

  Daisy sat for a long moment staring at the magazines before she realized she didn’t want to read them. Later, maybe, but not now. Now she wanted simply to sit, letting herself take in the delicious warmth of the sun. This was a rare day, she knew, for it would be cool and rainy again before it got really warm and bright, but change was in the air: spring was here. Spring was here, and summer was close, and when fall came Danny and Jenny would both be going to preschool. By the time the weary winter rolled around again, she would be able to have some time free to herself while her baby napped and her children were off in the afternoons. She had come out of the winter, she had come out of the worst time in her life, and all sorts of warm and pleasurable things lay ahead. Why, her life was manageable after all; after all, her life was even happy.