I close the gate behind us and we make our way to the park by the river. Sam is sitting up front, bouncing her head on the green nylon sling of the somewhat rickety umbrella stroller. Next is Riley, fastened against my chest in his faded black carrier. He is still too small to face forward, so his cheek is on my chest and he has pulled his arms in from their slots to curl into his ribs. His legs bounce in rhythm with my steps, and his knees push slightly into my stomach on the beat. This is almost like having him back inside me again, curled and kicking, but with his weight on the opposite side of my skin. This is the only time I can remember what it really felt like to be pregnant, and the feeling is gone as soon as I tune into it. It shimmers on the air just out of my reach, surrounding me but no longer a part of me.
I push everyone along from behind, and Sam talks about the boats and the fish and the trees and the squirrels as we wind along the river path. This really is a beautiful day for a walk, and I am enjoying it even with the extra freight. When we reach the slides, Sam jumps out and runs, and I sit down heavily on a bench, glad to release some of the strain of the shoulder straps. There are other mothers here, in slim-fitting jeans and ballet flats, carrying shoulder bags full of juice boxes, goldfish crackers, sunscreen, diapers and wipes. They are properly equipped. Sam gallops back to me, bareheaded and uncombed, and grabs my hand.
“You take Kelsey. I’m playing with that girl now.” She points to a thin, freckled girl in a pink sundress and runs back to the slides again, hand in hand with her new and temporary friend. The adult version of the freckled girl walks over to them, puts some sunscreen on her daughter, and kneels down in front of Sam. Sam shakes her head and points to me. I wave, and the other mom waves back. Sam hates sunscreen, and the greasy struggle to protect her is one I reserve for the beach and the very hottest of days. The woman points to the bottle and then to Sam, miming her willingness to cover my daughter too, but I shake my head no. I add a carefree, loose-wristed sideways wave to lighten my response, to show that I’ve already taken care of this. Not to worry. The mom sees over Sam’s shoulder that another freckled kid is grabbing fistfuls of sand and squeezing it over his head, where it cascades down his smooth hair and over his face. Into his eyes. The mom jumps up and runs over to save the boy from himself.
I let out my breath and am glad she is busy. I don’t want to talk about formula versus breast milk and Baby Einstein and preschool. I move into the shade and watch Sam play, watch a sailboat float by on the river, watch the light turn a little more golden and the shadows of the maple trees stretch across the mulch under the swings. The other mothers pack up their bags and their children and head down the path to the Wetherbee School; an empty yellow bus rumbles past in a cloud of diesel. Soon the sidewalks will be filled with children laughing and prancing and swinging their backpacks at each other, shoes still squeaky-new.
Sam squats in the mulch and jumps up, reaching for the sky. She is smiling, and I can see the dimples in her cheeks even from my seat under the tree. She waves to me and calls out, “Mommy, look at me! I jumping so big!” She jumps again, and when I applaud, she claps along with me.
“Great job, Sammy! That’s really good jumping!” She jumps again and again, making her way across the open space between the jungle gym and the slides. In the warm sunlight Sam’s dark hair looks reddish, and her smooth skin takes on the golden glow that you usually only see in the types of movies that look at the Depression with nostalgia. I wish I had a video camera to save just a piece of this, to catch her in motion in the changing light. In profile Sam looks thinner, much older than she is, and I get a sense of the woman she might become: focused vivacity, a smiling dynamo. Tiring, she flubs a jump and lands on all fours in the scratchy mulch. She turns to look at me, unsure whether to laugh or cry, and she is two years old again. I wave and nod vigorously, showing my biggest smile and my widest eyes. “You’re okay! Just brush off the dirt!” She hits her brown knees with her hands a few times, checks her palms, and runs away past the baby slides to climb to the top of the big, echoing, tubular one.
Sam goes up the ladder and down the biggest slide a few more times, then wanders around the sandbox, looking a little bored and a little lost now that the playground is empty. Riley shifts, and it is time to go before he wakes up squawking for milk. “Sammy, come on! Let’s go!” My voice stretches out on the air and sounds cheerful, genuine.
Sam plods over slowly, but climbs into her stroller without complaint. We agree to walk past the flower house and the big rock on the way home, so I push the stroller across the street. When the stroller hits the street, Sam is wailing, squeezing tears out of the corners of her eyes in big drops. When we get to the other side I kneel down clumsily, off-balance with Riley strapped to me, and ask her what is wrong. “Mommy Mommy Mommy” she sobs out, hiccupping the breath on its way back in. When she breathes deeply enough to speak again, she cries, “Where’s my Kelsey?”
“She’s right here with us, ready to go home and eat supper,” I say. Whenever Kelsey is with us, she is right next to Sam.
“No! You have to hold her ha-and. You have to hold her hand to cross the street!” Sam is moaning now, absorbed in the rhythm of her crying. I silently push the stroller back across the street where I have left Kelsey stranded. I swipe at the air where her hand might be.
“Here she is. All better!”
“No, I want Kelsey to sit with me.” And we are off again, Sam’s breathing still ragged and Riley’s too, in the effort of waking up and trying to lift his heavy head off my chest. He starts to make his hungry cry, the grinding sound of an old-time fire truck from down low in his throat. I feel conspicuous in the empty street with their cries surrounding me, and I push faster to get home before the school kids break free from their classrooms.
Back at home Riley is fed while Sam and Kelsey watch The Lion King. Again. This is not what I would choose for myself, although I do enjoy the opening scene where all the animals celebrate the birth of Simba. The elephants and giraffes and hippos are joyful in their variety: primal chaos rendered as fable. As the movie goes on, though, I get bored, and after I switch Riley to my other breast, I close my eyes. Maybe I am dozing, maybe I am thinking, but Riley is asleep again, and I should fold the laundry. I place him smoothly, carefully in his swing, switch it on and give a little push. The click-clock sound of the swing is rhythmic, and as I pull tiny onesies and socks from the laundry basket I try to become absorbed in the activity. Zen and the Art of Folding Clothes, the only way to really enjoy and give meaning to the act. Smooth, fold, stack. Again. My laundry rhythm falls in with the sounds of the swing, but the rhythm of my breath pushes against all this, neither hard nor soft, but there. My arms and legs are heavy, but the finger- and toe-tips tingle and try to move without permission. I am thirsty, standing here trying not to think about all these things that want me when I just want myself. Folding clothes to put them in drawers is not the same as folding them for display. Neither satisfies: clothing in drawers is neat but unappreciated; clothing on display tables is fingered and stroked but left in a confused heap.
Once, during the busy season, Jake came to the mall to surprise me for lunch. I was surrounded by tangles of chic grays and sophisticated earth tones, clothing spilling out of boxes and falling in silky ripples across the tile floor. I was pregnant with Sam but still working, no longer nauseated but still small enough to maneuver lightly between the shiny racks of dresses and blouses. When Jake asked me what I wanted, I looked around and said, “This, all of this, to be organized and packed away, and for nobody to touch it for a while. For people to take a day off from needing stuff so it can stay under control. I just want it to be done.” I looked up at Jake, his lip pursed and head tilted, as if to see me from a different angle. He had only meant to ask what I wanted for lunch, but he stepped into the pile of clothing and started folding. Soon we had a silent system, like the way we used to do the dishes or split the dusting and vacuuming. I can’t tell if this was really the last time we had
lunch in a restaurant, or if we used to take our afternoon freedom so for granted that we didn’t bother to remember these moments of just us. This is the only one I remember.
Sam’s movie hasn’t even gotten to the sad part yet when she picks up some of the clothes I’ve already folded, shakes them out, and tries to fold them again on her chest, imitating my stance.
“Sam.” My voice must be too loud, too brittle, because her lower lip pokes out a bit.
“But I wan’ed to help you.” She looks sad.
I do not have the words to explain to her that she is not helping me, so I fall back on distraction. “Why don’t we play Bunny House instead?” She pulls out the plush bunny dolls and their furniture, and takes the role of the Mommy Bunny. The Mommy Bunny tells the other bunnies what to do: now you wake up, now you eat food, now you play, now you brush teeth, now you sleep. My job is to make Brother Bunny go through all the motions, jump through all the hoops. I am bored of this game long before Sam is, and I can’t make myself focus on it for long.
“No, Mommy, you have to put Bunny in bed now.” Eat, play, bed. Again. A nervous shiver runs down the veins in my arms and I stand up quickly, stepping back from the scene and from Sam. “Mommy! I not mall done!” She isn’t done with the game, but for me the repetition has ground down the edges and brushed away the shine. I pull Kelsey out of the air to take my place while I make dinner.
When Sam was a baby and Jake and I still split all the cooking, on my nights I enjoyed making something semi-exotic, inspired by our favorites from the little Thai or Indian places we could still manage to get to, or maybe from a glossy magazine recipe. At dinner parties and Sunday brunches our friends thought this was so wonderful, so progressive: “You’re so lucky to have a husband who helps out!” I never saw our division of labor as charitable so much as fair, natural, so I could only smile and nod vaguely at their surprise. Since Riley was born, I do all the cooking, and the dishes afterwards. I know if I ask, Jake will reach into the pile of dishes and stand beside me, silent and industrious, but I can’t ask. This is what I do, and I need to do it carefully, competently. Alone. I don’t love these things, these heaps of plates and clothes and toys that grow and shrink but never disappear, but they are a part of me, just like Sam and Riley and Jake and the plaster walls that hold us together.
“Mommy, I want Daddy to put me to bed.” We are eating forkfuls of macaroni and cheese: Sam slowly as she balances the food on her fork, me quickly so I can finish it and get the bath ready, pushing the bedtime ritual along before Riley wakes up for his last feeding. In another two hours they will be asleep, and the house will be, at last, quiet.
I explain that tonight Daddy is working late, and this is met with narrowed eyes and hardened jaw. Anger is almost frightening in a two-year-old in its speed and intensity. Her face turns red. “NO! I want DADDY!” She punctuates this with the bang of her fork.
Of course she wants Daddy; he doesn’t wash her hair in the bath. He thinks that I don’t know this, but I can smell the difference in the morning when she hugs me. Jake skips it because he can’t stand to make her cry when the soapy water runs in her eyes. “Daddy isn’t here.”
I know this will make her cry, and it does. I walk away, clearing the plates streaked with cold orange cheese. She yells out sharp cries, gravelly in her anger as her throat constricts: “Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy.”
When I come back into the kitchen my movements are crisp and sharp, like an emergency room receptionist. I unbuckle her, lift her out of the seat, and carry her to the bathroom on my hip. I have shocked her into a quieter cry, and her shouting has turned to “hnnn hnnn hnnn” in moans as she tries to get her breath. I undress her while the tub fills and drop her down into the bath without testing the water. “Is it hot?”
She looks at me, eyes still pink around the edges, and shakes her head. She sniffles and says, “I don’t wan’ the water in my eyes,” and she closes them, sitting very still. Her shaky breaths gradually smooth out as I wash her face, her hair, her back. I let her do her legs on her own while I go get her pajamas. In her room I stop, open the window a bit, and watch as the sheer white curtain hem sucks into the crack. I open it wider, and it feels like fall slicing through the steamy air from her bath. It is dark. I breathe. Later, after Sam has fallen to sleep, I will sit on the edge of her rumpled, toy-filled bed and breathe again, this time loving her close warm scent, sweat and baby shampoo filling me up. I will watch her eyes flutter in dreams, watch her curl into herself with her arm around whatever animal she loves best tonight, and love her like that: reflexively, possessively. The way I wish I could love her in the busy glare of day.
Sam is cooperative, pliable, for the rest of our bedtime routine: dry off, potty, brush teeth. When she turns off the water I hear the quiet beginnings of Riley’s hunger cries. They are low now, still sleepy, but I don’t have long before he is screaming.
I rush Sam into her room and read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? as fast as I can. She turns the pages, and there is a pause between the last word leaving my lips and her savoring the rhymes and the bright pictures, and then reaching out to pincer-grasp the corner of the thick cardboard page. In each silent, dead spot, I tense my leg to keep from tapping my foot with impatience. I swallow saliva that fills my mouth. I feel my stomach flutter, and my breasts fill and tingle with milk. I hear Riley’s cries cross the threshold from shushable to desperate to shrieks of anguish. Turn the page, read, repeat. Each time it is harder for me to push down the thing that is growing in my chest, lifting into my neck and down my arms to my hands.
Last page, and I tuck in and kiss and kiss again. Repeat for Kelsey. Turn on the nightlight and the music box. This part used to be drawn out, carry the weight of ritual for us, but I have skimmed it lightly tonight. I close her door and hear the full force of Riley’s needs echoing down the hall. I sprint soundlessly toward him.
When I jiggle off the buckles that hold him in the swing, Riley throws himself forward so hard that I almost drop him. His new power has scared him, and he screams tearlessly. He cries so hard that he hiccups on my breast and can’t keep his latch. Milk is running down my side, but I only feel it as it cools and evaporates on my skin. Riley pounds on my chest and digs his tiny, razor-sharp fingernails into my side. He is sucking me in and pushing me away at the same time. I close my eyes, and tense my arms around him. I arch my back slightly, but he hangs on.
A fast sucking pop and he has let go, leaving my nipple red and shiny in the air. He is shivering on his outward breaths, and I make shushing sounds in his ear, hissing ocean pulling back from the sand, or amniotic fluid on his skin. I rock him, swaying, not loose and bouncy, but long, smooth swings through the air. I imitate a safe place for him the best I can, pretending that I am still a womb for him. His eyes droop. I keep him moving back and forth, at arm’s length, as I take some slow steps toward his room. It is a precarious dance.
I am breathing heavily, panting as if I have been running, and I put him down in his crib. I place my hand on his stomach and wait for him to relax, to be asleep and not notice that I’m leaving. My arm is straight and stiff, and I am afraid I am pushing on his soft belly too hard, so I ease back. He whimpers. I drop my shoulders, let the natural weight of my arm rest on him without pushing, without pulling back.
He is quiet again, and I don’t know how long I stand watching his eyes flutter and dart behind the lids. I lift my hand and tiptoe a step closer to the door, reaching through the dusk for the shiny brass knob. He erupts, a cry that starts low in his belly and moves through his throat to a siren scream. I feel my hand clench around his soft skin and from the pit of my stomach growls my own siren. My ears are hot. The adrenal rush that I have been able to choke back before gushes out of me, racing down to my toes and out to my fingertips. Every hair is raised, every muscle tingling, and I look at my hand on Riley. His eyes are squeezed tight, his mouth is open, but I don’t hear him anymore. Darkness is pushing in on the edges of my vision, and I
can see only Riley, tunneled in front of me and framed by white specks that dance around my eyes. I want to hit him, to push through his belly and feel it balloon out around my hand, hot and soft. I want him to hurt so that I can stop.
The white spots flash at once and I blink, and snatch my hand back from Riley. I am holding my breath, and run for the window. I throw it open and thrust my hands to push the screen out. The screen doesn’t move, and my arms go through, scratching from my wrists to my elbows. I gasp in the cold air, gulping and wiping my sweaty face against the screen. Riley is safe and I am the one bleeding, tiny but real, thin lines of red cooling my skin in the autumn night.
The screen against my cheek smells like rain and car exhaust. My arms are still tensed and reaching, and finally I let them relax into the broken bits of mesh. Out in the street, a pair of headlights flashes over the rise and blind me until they pass our house. When I can see again, my head is pounding and my legs are shaking, almost jumping, like they did when I came down off the rush after Riley was born, when they twitched and leapt in the bed like live things while the doctor tried to stitch up the place where I had torn. He had a nurse press my knees into the bed, but they would not be stopped, and he had to wait until their weird, possessed dance was done. He sighed in impatience, but I watched, fascinated by what my body could do without my permission. In the end, Riley was the one who made it all stop, holding me in his gaze and subduing me when I finally got to hold him, wrapped tight in the hospital-issue swaddling. I remember feeling what power I had over him, so tiny and helpless bound up in my arms, needing me for everything. But it’s this needing that I can’t control, can’t shut off. It’s everywhere, all around me like the air. I don’t get to take a break from breathing, even though most of the time I don’t even notice I’m doing it. Only sometimes, when it burns after holding my breath so I can feel it again, like the first time, like when Sam and then Riley gasped in and then spit out their first helpless bleats.
Both Sides of My Skin Page 6