'Round Midnight

by Laura McBride

  “Del’s pleased about the baby. He thinks it’s a girl.” Cora slipped a cigarette between her lips, offered another to June, then placed the pack on the table where she could easily reach for it.

  “Yeah, he’s sure it’s a girl. He says I look different than I did with Marshall.”

  “I don’t see that, really.”

  “I feel different. I feel bigger. Like a car.”

  “You carry your babies right up front. From the back, you don’t even look pregnant.”

  “Well, from the side . . .”

  “From the side, you look pregnant.”

  “I look like a car.”

  “Or a train.”

  June snorted. Cora could make her laugh.

  She was huge. Twice, she’d hit her stomach on the side table. She grew so fast, she couldn’t figure out where her body started and stopped. Marshall could crouch directly under her belly, and she couldn’t even see him. She’d told him this, and after first saying “I don’t like it, Mommy, I don’t like to be inbisible,” he decided it was funny. He would slip underneath her and yell, “Daddy, look! Mommy can’t see me here.”

  And then he would peek out, give her a long sideways glance—his lashes so lush they looked fake—and say, “Hi, Mommy. It’s your Marshall.”

  In the evenings, June sometimes lay next to Marshall in his bed. Stroking her belly with his fat, soft fingers, he placed his ear on her stomach and said, “Can you hear me, baby? Can you hear me, my brother?” One time Del was there and whispered, “What if it’s a sister?” And Marshall said, “It’s not.”

  Which was why June tended to think it was a boy too.

  She did feel different this time. Not just wider. But different. She was queasy every day.

  Still, it seemed as if Marshall might know. Her son was so aware of the baby. He would talk to him while he played with his cars, or ask if the baby liked what June was eating. Maybe almost-three-year-olds had some special knowledge. From the day he was born, June could sometimes look in his eyes and think that he saw things, that he knew things, she didn’t see or know.

  “Daddy, is Chuck coming?”

  “Chuck?” June asked.

  “A runner at the Sands,” Del told her. “He brought some papers here last week. You were home.”

  “Oh, yeah. I didn’t see him.”

  “Chuck has red candy, Mommy.”

  Del winked at June.

  “That’s right. He had candy. He gave Marshall a piece. I might have told him not to tell you.”

  June smiled. She had thought there might never be a time like this again. And yet here it was. Even after Eddie. Even after Ray. An easy moment, just the three of them. It was Marshall who made this possible. And maybe there would be more moments like this. Maybe they would come more often. She placed her hand on her stomach and found the lump of her baby’s foot. Please, she whispered to herself, please.

  Marshall stood up on the bed and jumped.

  “Hey, little man,” Del said. “Let’s read a book.”

  “I Know a Lot of Things! Let’s read I Know a Lot of Things.”

  “That’s just the one I was going to get. Up you go.”

  And Del carted Marshall off to the big chair where they liked to read, and June got up and poured herself a glass of wine. Then she straightened up the kitchen, and thought about two little boys, riding their bikes, and kicking a ball, and going off to school hand in hand.

  Her pains came early.

  The baby was Del’s.

  That was her first thought.

  She waited with them through the day, and when they seemed to ebb at dinnertime, she didn’t mention them to her husband. She’d had contractions for a month with Marshall, and it was early. Del put Marshall to bed, June ran a bath. Getting into the tub was a bit of comedy; things like this made her laugh. She concentrated on her balance as she stepped in, but from the corner of her eye, she could see the absurd watermelon of her stomach, and the dark line that divided it vertically. It was funny being human.

  It happened all at once. The baby kicked, her belly contracted sharply, her foot slid on the damp tile floor. Painfully, bent forward, June started to fall, grabbed wildly at the air, caught her legs on either side of the bathtub rim, and slipped sideways into the tub. A surge of water landed on the floor. She could not catch her breath. Her stomach hurt, her private parts hurt, she had twisted her back, she was panting heavily, afraid. She gripped the edge of the bathtub and pulled herself upright, willing herself to relax. Breathe. Relax.

  A contraction came again, so sharp she let out a sort of whistle. This didn’t feel the same as Marshall. She’d had an easy birth. He’d come quickly. Dr. Bruno had said she was made for giving birth; that not many women had such a simple time with a first child.

  Again, a contraction.

  “Del!”

  “Del!”

  Where was he? He couldn’t have left. Had he fallen asleep next to Marshall? Suddenly Marshall’s new room all the way down the hall seemed like a terrible choice. They couldn’t leave Marshall on the other end of the house. What if he cried, and they didn’t hear him? Another contraction. June gritted her teeth and watched it grip its way across her belly. It was something separate from her, this force that kneaded her from within, that was making it so hard to breathe.

  She couldn’t stay in the tub. Were babies born in tubs? Hadn’t she read that? Well, she couldn’t stay in. She’d drown if she slipped underneath; if she loosened her grip on the rim. June was beginning to panic, the panic was rising in her, she couldn’t stop it. She could drown, the baby could die, was the baby coming, why was this so different from Marshall, where was Del, couldn’t he hear her, if she tried to get up, she might fall, she would fall, she could hit her head, what would happen to the baby? And another contraction. And another. What was this? Her body was bucking in the tub, and she was screaming, and holding onto the side, and suddenly, finally, there was Del.

  “June! What’s happening? Is it the baby?”

  “The baby’s coming! I feel his head. He’s coming right now.”

  “He can’t be coming. You haven’t even been in labor. Just breathe. Take a breath. I’ll get you out of the tub.”

  June screamed.

  Del lifted her, wet and slippery and awkward, her belly bucking again, again, from the tub. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, held her upright, half carried her, half walked her toward their bed, murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s okay, June. We did this before. I’ll call the doctor. I’m going to set you on the bed, and I’ll call Dr. Bruno, and you’re okay, we did this before.”

  The bathtub was pink and red with blood, her legs ran with blood, there was blood on the floor, there was blood on Del’s light-brown pants. June closed her eyes. It was too early. It was too fast. Something was wrong. She had never felt this kind of terror.

  Del laid her on the bed and piled the pillows behind her. When the contraction came again, he held her shoulders with his hands and stared right into her eyes. He said, “You can do this June. It’s okay. We’re having a baby. It’s going to be okay.” And she was hoping he was right: they were having a baby, this was somehow normal, but she was also afraid, and she had lost control of her body, and this baby wanted out, and Del needed to call the doctor, and she needed to get to the hospital, and how would she possibly get to the hospital? Would they take her in an ambulance? Oh, the pain. Would the baby be born in the ambulance? Was the baby okay? This was not what she had planned. Why was this happening so fast?

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know you are. But you’re okay. I’m going to call the doctor. I’m just going to the hall. I’m calling the doctor.”

  Another contraction came, and this time June felt the head. She remembered Marshall’s head, and there was no doubt: she could feel the baby’s head.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming now.”

  “June, I’m just going to call the doctor.”

  “Now!”


  And she arched her back, and gave one great long push, and the baby’s head was out; she could see the wet black crown between her legs, but not his face, and she was crying, and Del was saying, “Oh! Oh!” and he was holding the baby’s head, and now he was afraid—more afraid than she was—and she pushed again, and the baby turned slightly in Del’s hands, and then his shoulders slipped out, and then one last push, and he was free: a glistening, perfect Negro girl.

  The next seconds were all feeling—exhilaration (a baby), shock (this was not Del’s baby), chaos (June’s body was still heaving, she was pushing, there was everything else to be born)—and Del was gripping the wet, slippery baby, and he was crying, and he was holding the cord and watching as everything else came out. He looked at June, and there was so much there, in that look, in that instant; June would never forget it. And then the baby hiccupped, and Marshall opened the door, said: “Mommy, I’m scared.”

  Somehow, Del put the baby in her arms, and he hoisted a fascinated Marshall on his hip, and went to the hall to call Dr. Bruno, but he didn’t call an ambulance. And Dr. Bruno, who had known Del since he was a child—since Del’s grandfather Nathan had helped him lay pavers in his carport—came by himself. He cut the baby’s cord, and he washed her gently, and squeezed something into her eyes, and estimated that she was small, perhaps six pounds, but healthy. He left the baby at June’s breast, with Marshall asleep on the pillow beside her, and he and Del went in the living room. June could hear the low rumble of their voices, and the doctor giving Del instructions, and Del saying something else. The conversation lasted awhile.

  For three days, June and the baby stayed in the bedroom. Del did not go to work. He took care of Marshall, and of June, and of the baby. They didn’t say anything about a name. He didn’t call his grandmother. Nobody from El Capitan phoned, at least that June heard. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that the three—no, four—of them could live entirely in a bubble alone, even for three days, but they did. Dr. Bruno came each afternoon. He was cheerful. He said nothing about the baby’s skin, her hair, her face. He didn’t ask her name. He came to see June, and he checked her carefully, and he was kind to all of them, but he didn’t say anything.

  Marshall stayed in the room with them for hours. He brought in all his cars, and his stuffed animals, and his favorite books. He chatted to his “brother sister” as he always had, telling her which car was fastest, which one she could drive, how many races he had won. He liked to watch the baby while she nursed. He would stroke her head, and say, “Did I do that, Mommy? Did I eat you too?” And June would pull his blond curls away from his forehead, and nod, and say yes, Marshall had done everything just like baby.

  Marshall seemed to think her name was Baby, and did not ask for any other.

  Del was the most surprising. He held the baby tenderly. He sat and rocked with her in the chair in the nursery, and June could hear him humming, and she could hear him talk to the baby while he changed her diaper, while he carefully washed the skin around her cord, while he jiggled out a burp.

  He did these things with love.

  This was what June remembered.

  This was what she would cling to for all the years after. How Del had loved the baby. How Del had been tender.

  And for three days, they lived in this way, and Del did not say anything about how the baby looked or about Eddie, and June began to believe that it was going to be okay—that as impossible as it seemed, this too was going to be part of the deal between her and Del.

  Perhaps they were never going to speak of it. Perhaps it would just be this little girl, a little bit different, who was their daughter, who was Marshall’s sister. Would they name her Cora? Did Cora know yet?

  On Sunday June dared to hum to the baby. Until now, she had cared for her almost in silence, talking with Marshall as he played, answering Del’s questions about what she needed, but caring for the baby, holding her, nursing her, dressing her, washing her, in silence. It was as if her voice could break the spell, and she couldn’t risk it. But by Sunday, she’d begun to relax. She loved Del more than she had ever imagined she could love him. And even the love for Eddie seemed small, seemed tawdry, next to this: next to a husband, a proud man, who was singing to their baby girl—their Negro baby girl—in her nursery.

  But that night, Del came into the bedroom with a basket. She had never seen it before. A baby basket, with a beautiful pink blanket. And her heart stopped.

  “No.”

  “There’s no other way, June.”

  “No! Never. This isn’t the Middle Ages. You can’t take my baby.”

  “I can take Marshall.”

  June was standing, her body swaying, unsteady beneath her.

  “Del, you can’t possibly mean this. You wouldn’t do this.”

  “What do you think we should do, June?”

  “Keep her. What do we care what people think? What do you care?”

  “What about Marshall?”

  “What about him? I don’t want him to be like these people anyway. You don’t want him to be that way.”

  “That’s not the point. What about Eddie?”

  “He’s in Cuba. He doesn’t even have to know.”

  Del shook his head then. He looked away from her as she said, “It’s better if he doesn’t know. It’s safer for him.”

  “Nothing’s safe for him now. Not now. Not with her.” He motioned to the baby. “This he would not survive.”

  “But why? If you accept it?”

  “It’s not what I accept. It’s the way it is.”

  “No. No, Del. I will not give her up.”

  “You will, June. You will. We will.”

  “No!”

  She was crying, she was shrieking, she was holding on to him, with the basket in his hands, with the baby now in it. Marshall wasn’t home. He had taken Marshall somewhere. He had known how this would go.

  But Del didn’t take the basket out the door while she was crying, while she was screaming.

  Like a man shot, he folded. His back to her, he was standing, holding the basket, and then suddenly, he set the baby on the ground, and folded to the floor. She could hear him start to cry, and then to sob. His sobs came in convulsive bursts, and June crumpled to the floor next to him, and they sobbed until they were spent, until the baby woke up. Until one of them—it was Del—lifted her from the basket, and she nursed, and they cried together watching her.

  And then Del took the baby from June, and he bundled her softly in the basket, and June watched, depleted and desperate and silent, and then Del kissed June’s head, and her tears came faster, faster, and he stood, and he took the basket out the door.

  Dr. Bruno came the next morning and showed her how to bind her breasts. He had kept Marshall for the night; he had known what Del was going to do.

  The day after, the doorbell rang and the first of the bouquets arrived. “In Sympathy.” “For the Loss of Your Baby.” “In These Sad Times.”

  Cora came over, but June drew the line. She told Del that she didn’t care what he said, what lies he told, but Cora could not come in. Nobody could come into the house; she would see nobody. She let Cora take Marshall for a few hours every day.

  June understood that she owed it to Marshall to stay alive; the thought of him without a mother was unbearable. But for now, that was all she could do. She was not capable of anything else. She didn’t want Del to tell her what he told people about her, she didn’t want him to tell her how Marshall had reacted, she couldn’t bear to think of the questions or the answers.

  One day, she was able to ask Del where their baby was.

  He said it would be better if she did not know.

  She said that she could kill him as easily as look at him.

  He didn’t flinch. But he told her. The baby was in Alabama. With one of Eddie’s brothers. He was a nice man. It was a nice family. They hadn’t asked many questions. Del had given them money. A lot of money. He would give them more.

  “T
hen Eddie knows.”

  “I don’t know. They haven’t talked to Eddie in years. But they know she’s Eddie’s daughter. And they’re nice people. Two little boys.”

  And June thought about the two little boys she had imagined. Riding bikes. Playing ball. Heading off to school hand in hand.

  10

  “Baboooppboop booopp booopp.”

  That was good. That felt good.

  He could hear it. And the little heat in his veins, that was good too.

  The room tilted oddly, faded and blurred, moving. That was okay too. That was like being in the bath. Warm and woozy.

  And someone was yelling.

  “Eddie!”

  “Eddie!”

  “Eddie, shit.”

  Stop yelling at me.

  “Eddie, damn it.”

  “Eddie, again?”

  “Goldarn it, Eddie.”

  Someone was always yelling. Women were always yelling.

  Mama. The teacher. Wanda and Bertie and Patricia, and on and on and on. Some woman. Mad at him.

  He didn’t want to hear those voices.

  He took another drink. Another.

  The room tipped the other direction.

  His blood still ran warm. It was good.

  He could feel his pants, wet where he had probably pissed himself, and his shoulder against something that protruded hard from the wall, but these didn’t matter. He felt these things, but they didn’t bother him. Like the voices: he heard them, but they didn’t hurt.

  “Eddie, your daddy gonna get hanged. That’s what my daddy says. Your daddy gonna hang.”

  Not that voice.

  “Eddie, Daddy’s gone away. Daddy had to go away.”

  Not that one.

  “You nigga shit. You think you something? You think you can sing?”

  Not that voice.

  “Get your hands off her. Get your hands off before I count one, or you’re a dead man.”

  “Eddie, don’t go.”

  “Eddie, don’t leave me.”

  “Eddie, I’m pregnant.”

  “Eddie, he’ll beat me.”

  “Eddie, stay.”

  “Eddie stay, Eddie stay, Eddie stay.”