Before Everything

by Victoria Redel

  Restless Everything

  The hospice nurse took vitals. Anna didn’t ask what the nurse wrote in the spiral notebook.

  She’d stopped trying to remember the nurse’s name.

  The hospice nurse was petite, kind, soft of foot. “We try to keep your body quiet. You’ll sleep more and more.”

  Anna was good at sleep. Another of her great shames, her love of sleep. Reuben had always been up, up, up—pleased with everything he’d done in the hour or two before she’d risen from bed. It drove her crazy. She jarred herself into each day. Face scrubbed, teeth brushed, school lunches, jackets zippered, notes for teachers. She kissed the children; she kissed Reuben. While she cooked breakfast, she listened to everyone’s last-night dreams and worries. She dreaded having to speak. On days when she didn’t have to open the math center or didn’t have an early tutoring session, she fought the urge to slink back into her darkened room. Once a social worker pulled aside the hospital curtain and said, “You look like you might be struggling with some depression.” Without opening an eye, Anna lifted her hand and flipped the social worker the bird.

  “Do you have pain?” the nurse asked now.

  “Not pain so much as restless everything.”

  “That’s normal,” the nurse said.

  There were more questions. Anna couldn’t find all the right words anymore. The nurse repeated, “That’s normal.”

  Everything she said, the nurse said, “That’s normal.”

  What seemed less than normal to Anna was a young, pretty nurse tending to the dying. These acrid smells. The soured blue of her skin. A job for old women.

  Art History 3

  The Gathering will be the first painting. All women. From all of Anna’s worlds.

  But no prayer flags.

  And, So, Then. This is what Helen will call the next painting. A painting of Anna alone on the hospital bed. She thinks of Lucian Freud’s studies of his mother. What Monet said about his painting of his wife, Camille: I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife’s dead face and just systematically noting the colors according to an automatic reflex!

  Or maybe the dog on the bed with her.

  Helen will call it Anna with Zeus. The metallic railings of the hospital bed. That slightest disturbance of an off-white sheet that was both their absence and their shape.

  Anna, Other Shames Known and Otherwise

  She hadn’t ever really read the newspaper. Forget daily, not even twice a month.

  She hadn’t always voted. Technically, she’d only voted twice. She’d no taste for politics. Greed and power. Why bother learning the names of despots?

  She believed Democrats nicer than Republicans.

  She never understood the Electoral College.

  She’d only ever been tangentially interested in money. She wanted to have its security, but she couldn’t be bothered with investing or saving. What was a 401(k)? She’d let Reuben do all that. And the daily management—electric, phone, heating oil, credit card—he wrote every check.

  She’d lied. To Reuben. About that summer, the child they did not have.

  She bought shoes at thrift stores. She never bought bottled water. Yet she saw a chandelier in an antique shop and didn’t think twice about spending fifteen hundred dollars on it.

  She’d preferred attractive people. A lot more. When she’d made friends with a woman who wasn’t beautiful, she felt embarrassed to be out with her. But also a little proud of herself. As if that showed largesse.

  She hadn’t read enough books for someone who considered herself cultured. There were years she didn’t read at all. She wasn’t interested in difficult narratives. She liked stories where you got close to a character.

  She saw everyday situations hierarchically. Whose kids were smarter? Whose kids struggled more socially? Who were the athletes, the artists?

  She didn’t care about being rich, but she didn’t want to be the poorest of her friends.

  She didn’t return phone calls. Sometimes she lied and said she hadn’t gotten the message. Sometimes she erased messages without even listening.

  She had no sense of direction.

  The Scribe

  “Do you want a scribe? Someone to write down any notes or wishes. A letter, even.” The hospice nurse packed up.

  There seemed so little in her bag. A blood-pressure cuff. A thermometer.

  A scribe, wasn’t that ancient! Anna saw the unrolled parchment, deckle-edged. A long beard and a quill.

  She thought she was done having any last words. Still, she tried it out. In her head.

  Darling children.

  Dearest Reuben.

  No. What she wanted them to know, she believed was known. But still there was something she wanted to say.

  5

  Worn

  Anna’s rockaRoo went to Caroline, then to Helen, who gave it back to Anna when she had her second. There were strollers, outgrown, circulated till a wheel fell off. Travel cribs traveled between homes, and the green vest Helen knitted for Ming’s first was worn by most of the other babies. Onesies, drawstring gowns, snowsuits, winter boots, pull-ups, snap-legged overalls, T-shirts, sweatpants, jumpers—all the clothes sorted, washed, boxed, and sent on till they were sorted, washed, boxed, and sent again. Cotton pj’s worn to almost-worn-through silky perfection, until worn wholly through, reluctantly tossed out. A dress with appliqué lilacs was a favorite of each of the girls, and who knew where the navy velvet blazer first came from, but it came in handy for more than one school assembly. Even this year Caroline had sent the group a photograph of her youngest, abroad in Prague, wearing the hand-me-down woolen peacoat of Helen’s son. Helen wrote back, It fits yours better than it ever did mine.

  Next Generation

  Here we go. Rico, Lily, Julian, Harper, Andy, Lucinda, Rusty, Tessa, Shana, Lewis, Maggie, and Eli. Who could keep all the names straight? Who didn’t—calling out for one kid—wind up mixing it up and rattling out another kid’s name? Sometimes even the dog’s name. It was enough when they were all together, running berserk, the littlest chasing the big ones through rooms, everything verging on toppling and crashing—it was good enough to shout, “All of you numskulls into the backyard!”

  1994, Donor

  “We’ve got a situation.” It’s Molly, her ultra-uptight, serious voice.

  Anna hears Serena in the background. Maybe laughing. But maybe not.

  “It’s Tim,” Molly says, sotto voce. “It’s all gone wrong, Anna.”

  “Slow down.” Anna motions for Reuben to pick up the second phone on his side of the bed.

  “Hey, Moll,” Reuben says. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up? Tim’s bonkers. And he’s downstairs. In our house.”

  Originally Tim was part of Anna and Reuben’s college gang, but Molly and Tim had been pals since the summer a motley crew chipped in for a house on Lake Winnipesaukee. So it wasn’t out of line that when Tim visited Anna and Reuben, Anna mentioned that Serena and Molly were having a hard time finding a known sperm donor. Reuben held up his barbecue tongs and declared it was a royal waste of time and the donor bank was obviously a much cleaner way to go. All through dinner Tim argued that a known donor made good sense, genetically speaking. So no one was surprised a week later when he stepped up to say he’d help. It made sense. And not just because Tim had solidly maintained he had no interest in ever having children. Solidly, as in since freshman year. “It also makes sense,” Molly explained to Serena before the first face-to-face, “since as far as we know, he has no interest in sex—not with animal, vegetable, or mineral.”

  Reuben maintained his donor-bank position, but Anna insisted he was being a predictable pessimist, unable to consider that some people can actually make selfless gestures.

  It seemed perfect. As for the genetics. Tim was a computer genius and handsome as all get-out.
He was a racial blend that he liked to call a what-am-I-not. His brother and sister had brilliant, gorgeous children. Tim was solid. Responsible. And not looking to co-parent. Unlike earlier prospects, Tim hadn’t raised the worry about what he’d feel if the baby looked like him. He never even mentioned sharing holidays or a special uncle role.

  “You got to understand everything was set. He’d shown up with his health papers like any good stud.” Serena was clearly enjoying the lesbian comedy aspect of whatever drama was unfolding.

  Suddenly—and here Serena and Molly, crammed close to the phone, talking practically in unison—at the eleventh hour, at the pre-conception final-checklist, candlelit celebration dinner—health and genetic testing done, plans to sign the legal agreement scheduled for the next morning—declared he’d gone weird on them.

  “Pretty much out of nowhere, while we’re eating the strawberry tart, he announces he needs full responsibility for the spiritual upbringing of the baby.”

  “Tim? When did he go spiritual?”

  “Exactly. How had Mr. Computer Tim, Mr. Logical Tim forgotten to mention over two months of conversation that he’s had a religious conversion and become Mr. Spiritual Tim?” Molly says.

  “Apparently he hasn’t just taken refuge with the guru,” Serena chimes in. “Turns out he’s a one-man world religion—some creepy amalgamation of Buddhist, Mennonite, Catholic, Sufi, and Native American.”

  “Where is he now?” Anna says sufficiently creeped out.

  “Downstairs.” Molly’s back to a whisper. “We argued for a while. Then we said we had to call it a night.”

  “Yeah, we sure did. In the middle of us insisting that he would not ever have any responsibility, spiritual or otherwise, he takes out a hand-stitched suede bag with God only knows what inside it. ‘This is my medicine bag.’ He waves it and says in this super-serious voice, ‘A baby comes forth from great cosmic energy,’ and then declares that right there in our living room he wants to actually show us how he plans to bless his precious seed gift.”

  “Whoa, he whipped it out?” Reuben says, his delight way too obvious.

  “Stop it. That’s gross.” Anna falls back into Reuben’s lap. He slips a hand down the V of her T-shirt and palms her breast, mouthing, This is getting me horny.

  Anna rolls her eyes, and he nods goofily. Super horny.

  “Oh, yes, my dear, I plan to stop it. I’m driving him to the train station in the morning.” Serena hams it up. “With my mother insisting we bring our baby up Methodist in the AME and Molly’s mom sending us pamphlets quoting Pope John Paul’s position against circumcision, we sure as hell aren’t going to have a donor who goes religious psycho on us.”

  “That is if he doesn’t do some ritual cult-murder impregnation tonight.” Molly tries to sound like she’s joking, but they all know what a squealing slasher-film fan she is.

  “Ladies, I’m not saying the obvious ‘told you so,’ but can you now promise you’ll go anonymous donor?”

  “This is not about you, Reuben.” Anna sticks her tongue out at him. Then, vamping, lazily drags her tongue across her upper lip.

  They all know how much Reuben loves to be right. And Anna knows how much Reuben wants to get off the phone and jump into playing medicine man.

  1995, Potion

  The child parade is led by Ming’s and Anna’s eldest boys, Rico and Julian, hauling a bucketful of half-used bottles gathered from the bathroom cupboard.

  “It’s important,” Ming’s son, Rico, declares. “Not just a game.” Rico is always the leader. “The benevolent dictator,” the moms all call him. He declares that the kids want—no, they need—to use calamine lotion, a long worm of Neosporin. There’s a blue bubble bath and shampoo. The younger children nod with proud intent as the older kids make their case for potions. “We need certain potions,” Rico says, twisting open a container of baby powder, a cloud of talc poofing up.

  The children scan. Everything in the kitchen looks necessary, absolutely essential for the sake of scientific progress. Is there anything that could be taken from the refrigerator? Cheese? Mustard? The jar of olives on the table?

  The mothers sit at the round table—cheese and crackers, a bottle of wine—the afternoon reward. They’ve been talking about—what else!—the lives of these very children who tangle together looking keen and expectant.

  Yes to mustard. No to olives. The mothers manage a unified serious face.

  “And no tasting any potions,” Helen says which the other mothers punctuate by eye contact with their respective offspring.

  “Absolutely no tasting,” Caroline cautions her daughter, who’s snatching a cereal box off the shelf. “And remember, you big kids are in charge of the little ones.”

  “To our Einsteins,” Helen toasts while the kids pack like puppies through the doorway.

  “Or Strangeloves,” Anna says, and they clink glasses. They can’t get over how lucky they are. To go through this together. How else could they figure any of it out? No need to appear like they know what they’re doing. If disaster is coming—and which of these women ever breathes a breath free of impending disaster?—it isn’t here yet.

  Down the hallway the kids chant, “Pour more, pour more!”

  And then there’s Lily and Rusty marching back into the kitchen.

  “We need two eggs,” Lily announces, wrangling her fiercest smile. How very canny those older kids are, sending out these two cuties. The mothers can’t resist Lily’s dark eyes, her tangle of curls, her limping, determined gait. Brave Lily, twice-a-day doses of Tegretol, still seizures breaking through. Yet always insisting herself into the center of the big-kid games.

  Of course the big kids have sent Rusty as Lily’s protector—a perfect choice to show that mad scientists though they might be, they have some wits about them.

  “Why eggs?” Anna asks with scientific formality. “And why two?”

  “The egg is our binder. We’re interested in watching bubbles react with a binder.” Rusty raises his hand in mid-lecture.

  Can they, the women, refrain from bursting into laughter?

  They want to hold Rusty there forever, their little scientist, his voice with the springy lilt of a four-year-old. This boy of theirs—not just Helen’s younger child—because these children are all their project, their great potion, something these five friends dreamed up as teenagers, all those evenings debating questions of nature and nurture—this boy of theirs who protects Lily and follows the older kids—squinching up his pretty lips and setting his face not to cry.

  “It is important,” he announces.

  “Well.” Anna nods respectfully. “You’ve made an excellent case. Actually, I’ll give you three eggs. On the condition that you alone break the third one.”

  Always Anna who bolsters a child’s courage. Who believes it will all work out. “Just give it time,” Anna says when one of the others worries about getting a child to sleep on schedule or give up the bottle or later when a teacher voices concern about late reading or class behavior. When Helen points out Anna’s hypocrisy that she fretted about both Julian’s and Andy’s quietness, Anna holds up her hands. “Shoot me if I’m inconsistent.”

  Anna whispers to Rusty and hands him two eggs. He nods solemnly. “I promise.”

  Then she kneels and puts the third egg into Lily’s hand, helping close Lily’s stiff fingers around it.

  “What did she say?” Lily bumps close to Rusty as they head back to the big kids.

  “Yeah, what did you say?” Helen asks watching the proud set of her son’s back.

  “Nope. My secret with your boy,” Anna says. “Right, Rusty?”

  “What?” Lily whines. “I want a secret.”

  “I can’t tell.” Rusty glances mischievously back at Anna. “But I promise that’s it’s good for both of us.”

  Those Years

  On blankets,
in slings, strollered, nursing, put down for naps, waking, hungry or never hungry. There was the messy child, the fussy child, the incessant talker, the drifty child, the one who cried over nothing, the milk-spilling child, the tantrum child, the silent, the fevery, the rashy, the easily startled—angels each of them when they slept.

  1997, Lily

  Before Lily’s brain surgery, there had been two months in the hospital, Lily’s head fitted with a plaster cap, probes drilled into her brain charting seizure activity and location. Ming and Sebastian alternated weeks staying in the hospital. Sebastian turned over the restaurant’s kitchen to his staff. Ming ran her law practice from the waiting room. “Steady wind and lightning,” the young doctor said. The data showed seizure activity like lightning across a lake. Miles of printout, jagged lines of storm in the right hemisphere. “It is astonishing, really, Lily’s attention span, not to mention her sense of humor and charm, if you consider the constant static distraction.”

  Ming saw a wide, murky lake and began to cry. She would not have the strength to paddle out and save her daughter as the lake roughed with swells.

  “We can do this,” the doctor said, and explained how the hemispherectomy gave Lily a chance to live seizure-free. “The child’s brain especially has such plasticity that we really can expect many left-lobe functions to be integrated by the right side.”