Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon

by Mary Ellen Courtney

  His car wasn’t there. Fear set in. Half my brain knew it wasn’t rational, the other half couldn’t care less about rational. I got the kids out and almost dragged Meggie in the side door.

  Jon was standing on a ladder, holding up a light fixture while Jugs Eli measured the drop. Jon looked down at us and started to lose his balance.

  “Hold on, H. We’re almost done,” he said.

  I stood taking in his living and breathing self. He looked down at me again and squinted.

  “Mess up a table,” he said.

  I cleared place settings and set up Meggie with crayons and a coloring placemat. Chance started rooting around for brunch. He got squally but I didn’t want to feed him in front of Jugs Eli. Jon looked down to see what all the fuss was about. I looked at him with my lips slammed in a straight line. My dilemma hit him so hard he almost tipped over grinning.

  “Where’s your car?” I asked.

  “Getting lubed.”

  Really grinning now. What a hopeless teenager.

  “Where’s your phone?” I asked.

  “In the car.” Then to Eli. “Okay, that’s good. Tighten it up.”

  “It’s long by a sixteenth of an inch,” I said.

  Jon indicated to Eli to keep tightening the nuts. He knew I was the only one who would notice. He slid into the booth with us. Eli stopped to meet Chance and say hello to the family before he sauntered off with the ladder. I snapped my nose at his retreating back.

  “He looks so innocent,” I said.

  “He is. What’re you doing here?”

  “We can’t drop by?”

  “Drop by any time, you own the place.”

  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This has really upset you.”

  He kept looking at me like he was trying to read signs.

  “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

  “How could I be?”

  Meggie’s head snapped up at the sound of a newsflash. She studied our faces then went back to coloring, but not without an ear turned our way and quick glances. I shot Jon a warning look.

  “Maybe we weren’t as careful as we thought,” he said.

  “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “You got like this with both of them. You have to admit, you’ve been a little off balance.”

  “I’m not off balance. I’m mad.”

  He looked off into space and started to smile. I didn’t like the look of it.

  “Better wait to call Anna,” he said.

  “I swear, if I am, I’m going to call her twice. I’m going to the grocery store.”

  “I’ll go with you. The car’s ready.”

  He moved all the baby debris off the passenger seat, got in and we took off.

  “Do you want me to be?”

  “I got fixed, H.”

  His blue-eyed laser beams scanned traffic. I’d never been in an accident, but he still hated it when he wasn’t in control.

  “So you don’t want more children with me?”

  He turned his beams on me.

  “Pull over,” he said.

  I parked under a tree and looked out the front window. I could feel him looking at me.

  “Okay. This is getting scary,” he said. “Did you hear what you just said?”

  “I sound like I am. I don’t want to be. Not now.”

  “I know. It’ll be okay.”

  I looked at him. “You always say that.”

  “It will be. Don’t panic.”

  “I never panic. I just eat Oreos.”

  He looked out the window and said, “I know, H. I was talking to myself.”

  “I think I’m just way too upset about Celeste.”

  “I don’t know which is worse, but I guess that would be better.”

  We looked at each other.

  “You eat Oreos?“ he asked.

  “It’s my settle down food on shoots. Not when I’m pregnant though.”

  “Pregnant. Jesus,” he said.

  “Yeah. Exactly,” I said. I pulled away from the curb. “Jesus and Hannah. Every damn time.”

  Meggie took a shot at saying Jesus and damn. They came through loud and clear. Mercy mercy on us.

  I dropped him at the car place, and then went to the grocery store, ran errands, tightened bolts and cleaned house. It took five minutes, that’s how it felt. I was trying to mind read my belly, but it had thrown up a heat shield. I could have sworn I felt a distant electric spark with Meggie and Chance. After all the excitement of big pings, it had been like a pinpoint exploding star in the distant universe of my belly. The last month had been big pingy, but I couldn’t remember any sparky pings. There was hope.

  ∞

  Just in case, when Jon came home, I went body surfing. My grandmother had talked about men in her mother’s generation who drove their wives and girlfriends down train tracks in Model Ts, trying to shake loose the accidents. Body surfing was what I had to work with. Unfortunately the surf was freeway flat, so I floated and tortured myself with worst-case scenarios.

  The worst thing was that we’d have another baby eleven months younger than Chance. I’d sink under the weight of dirty diapers and sleep deprivation. My mind would blow. My hair would stand on end like our accountant’s wife with her too many kids. When I stopped by their house to drop off a gift for baby number eight, there’d been an electric toothbrush whirring round and round in the toilet bowl.

  I’d never work again in my so-called chosen profession. With our luck, we’d get a shrieking, neck clutching farter. Jon was no youngster. He looked tired after two months with two. He’d said it was late for him to have more children, when we met, six years and two children ago. We were out of names. He could be a grandfather any day now. Talk about hillbillies. We’d have to line our entire bedroom with mattresses and smoke corncob pipes. Okay, maybe not the pipes, we both hated smoking. But who knows what we’d do to survive? Jesus, Hannah was right. Three kids, and I’d never even played with dolls.

  I went in the house, got dressed, and sent Jon back to work. He looked roosterish. Maybe I was imagining that. If he started acting solicitous he might have to die. I got the kids fed and into bed. Chance was fussy. Get used to it kid, you’re about to get shoved out of the nest even sooner than your sister.

  I lay in bed in the dark, CD remote in hand, and listened to Richie Havens sing “Helplessly Hoping” over and over. And over.

  Jon came home, washed off the smell of broiling Mahi Mahi, and lay down next to me. I got very scent sensitive when I was pregnant, even so, his coconut shampoo could be mistaken for butterscotch.

  “Did you notice the track is stuck?” he asked.

  “I wore a groove in it.”

  “You can’t wear a groove in a CD.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What is he helplessly hoping for?” he asked.

  “Nobody knows. I’m taking it literally.”

  “Did you get a test kit?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t want to know until we decide what we’ll do.”

  “We’re already five.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I said.

  “Six sounds like critical mass.”

  “Six sounds like chaos, Mr. Math. A total reorder of the universe. I may not let you touch me again, ever. If we become six, we won’t have time.”

  “Victor and Kaia are eight, they find time.”

  “Victor and Kaia are three hundred. They have help from the largest extended family on the planet. Tutu lives with them. Grandma is not going to live with us, we can hardly stand it when she visits.”

  “Then how about tonight?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Why not? Horse could be out of the barn anyway.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “I got tested. I’m safe. We can celebrate.”

  “Did you even work today?”

  “Not a lot. I had t
o do the test. They gave me magazines as encouragement, but I just thought about you.”

  “Good save. You still have the energy?”

  “Do I ever.”

  “Oh, all right. I guess I need to keep you happy so you’ll stick around and kill food.”

  “Anthropologists are so romantic.”

  “You want romantic? You spent the afternoon with porn at the doctor’s office. You take Jugs along? Company retreat?”

  He was already unbuttoning my nightgown and watching my face.

  “I want romantic,” he said.

  I have to admit, he looked romantic. He’d always been the romantic one. His coconut head went for my breasts while his hand went looking for natives to study. Or in his case, count. Man knew what he was doing.

  “Oh god, Jon,” I whispered. “Do not say Jesus or Hannah.”

  He lifted his head and smiled at me. “I won’t.”

  “Or okay,” I said.

  His response was muffled. Good thing. I think Okay slipped out.

  He kissed up my throat to my ear, “Can I see the tattoo?”

  I rolled over.

  “One of these years I’m going to stop being such a good sport,” I said.

  “Mmmmm.”

  “What’s mmmm mean?”

  “It means we’ll see what it means,” he said.

  “I haven’t heard you say that in years.”

  “Can we stop talking now?” he asked.

  He was holding my hip and running his thumb around the fading moon.

  “Do you remember the time you told me I talked so much you thought your ears would fall off?” I asked.

  “I’m reliving it,” he said. “Does this chatter mean you can’t switch gears here?”

  “I think I can,” I said. “I should be on top.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  I rearranged myself on top. Tattoo to him.

  “How about this?” I said. “Can you see it?”

  “Jesus, Hannah.”

  “I’m going to stop talking now.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t know exactly what happened, except that he growled some very appreciative things in my ear before we fell asleep with our heads at the foot of the bed. We slept like stones. Well, as stone-like as one can sleep while still listening for squawks and shrieks.

  ∞

  Tap… . . tap… . . tap… . . 6:00 a.m. Meggie was kicking the bed rhythmically, and ever so gently, with her little Chinese water torture foot. Jon opened his eyes and smiled at me with that look. He must be kidding.

  “Papa.”

  He realized it wasn’t me kicking him awake.

  “Morning, Megs,” he said.

  She stopped kicking. He kissed me and said, “Morning,” in my ear.

  He was a happy man about to start another productive day. I started crying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Mama’s crying,” said Meggie.

  Then she started crying. Then Chance started in after being quiet in his basket all night. The dreams he must have. At least his parents didn’t fight, though it might have sounded a little like it a few hours earlier.

  Jon pulled on pants and shepherded the crying Meggie out to the kitchen. I put on a robe, propped pillows against the headboard and put Chance on a breast. He was looking at me with Jon’s saucer blue eyes. It was a whole new day for him too. A day to make synapse firing connections while he lounged, nursed, kicked in his bath water in the kitchen sink and watched the sun flicker on palm fronds in the breeze. My tears soaked the front of his tee shirt.

  Jon came in.

  “She can stay at school all day if you want. I packed a lunch,” he said. “I’m going to ask Kaia to take the kids for a while tonight so we can talk.”

  “Don’t tell them,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to know about this.”

  Their distant voices came through the bedroom window. Car doors slammed, tires crushed shell. I wanted to reach out and pull them back. I imagined their blonde heads going down the road in the morning sun. Jon distracted by Meggie’s chatter. He always looked at her when he listened. I imagined a car coming from a side road and smashing into them, the smiling and chatter ending. I didn’t run out of bad imaginings until I had worked my way to outer space and a slab of debris, with Cyrillic script from a 1960s Soviet space capsule carrying a desiccated monkey in a leather helmet, falling from the sky and crashing down on them. A vivid imagination is a blessing and a curse. I cried myself dehydrated.

  I felt guilty keeping Chance in tear soaked darkness, so I stripped him down and laid him on a towel on the lanai where he could watch the leaves and kick his feet. I rocked and stared the morning away.

  I called Jon. He was cheerful out in his world of free agents.

  “How far did you get?” he asked.

  “Space debris with a dead monkey in a leather helmet crashing onto your car. All souls lost.”

  “Okay. I meant on your hike. Did you see my note about hiking with Kaia this morning?”

  “I’m still in my nightgown.”

  “Okay. I’m going to get a kit today. We need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “I want to decide first.”

  “How about we try to decide, but agree to do the test tonight. I need to know.”

  “I think we should decide without knowing, it might take more than one night.”

  “I think if we find out you’re not, you’ll stop thinking about crashing space monkeys and get back to being pissed at me about Celeste. If you are, we’ll at least know the space monkeys thing is temporary, no matter what we decide to do.”

  “I don’t like either option if I am. I’m still going to be pissed about Celeste. Maybe more pissed.”

  “I know.”

  “I think Meggie should stay at school today,” I said.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “A space monkey in a leather helmet?”

  “He was Russian, mid-60s. Am I crazy?”

  “Not completely. You left out the piece of Hiroshima. So test kit? I understand how you feel, but I need to know if we have a decision to make.”

  “Should we ask someone?”

  “Who? Unless they’re going to raise our kids, their opinion isn’t useful information.”

  I called Kaia and apologized for being a flake. Then I called Karin.

  “I might be pregnant,” I said. “Can you talk?”

  “Yeah, they’re lining up a shot. Did you do a test?”

  “No, but I’m talking crazy.”

  “Did you tell Jon, no?”

  “Obviously not,” I said.

  “I meant about Celeste working for him. That could be making you crazy.”

  “I didn’t need to. He decided on his own.”

  “You two are something. Even Oscar and I didn’t get back to it that soon, and we were young.”

  “Yeah, well. The whole fixing thing might have gotten us a little too focused.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “I was being facetious. There’s a question?” she asked.

  “Of course there’s a question. Wouldn’t you have a question?”

  “Not for a nanosecond,” she said.

  “Oscar loves babies.”

  “How nice for Oscar. I’ve never seen him in labor. What’s Jon think?”

  “I don’t know. We’re going to talk tonight.”

  “Huh. How strange is that? He gets fixed and you get pregnant? Is it his?”

  “Very funny.”

  “You visited the truck stop.”

  “And Stroud was in Fresno. Even if he wasn’t, what a way to talk.”

  She was laughing.

  “This is serious,” I said.

  “I’d say so. You’ve got the ex skulking around and Jon could be a grandpa any day now. So how crazy?”

  I gave her the rundown on the space monkey scenario.

  “He still had electrodes taped t
o his head,” I said.

  “You do know it would burn up entering the atmosphere, right?”

  “Not always. Some things make it through. Something about speed and friction. I googled it.”

  “Well, if you have a baby you should name it Chimp.”

  “There’s more,” I said.

  I told her about Celeste’s theory that she was stepmother to Margaret, Chance and Chimp.

  “He better call her,” she said. “Next thing you know she’ll want to move in. I’d be talking crazy too. Actually, no. I’d kill Oscar.”

  “I can’t kill Jon. I’m a terrible liar. I’d end up in jail. And I can’t divorce him. As you pointed out, some witch will swoop in and feed the kids McDonalds. I’m stuck.”

  “Until he gets you unstuck. I gotta run. The actress just stormed off the set. We’re moving to a new set up.”

  I went back to rocking in my nightgown. Mom, Anna, and Penny called. I ignored them. Chana called.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you,” I said.

  “Dad there?”

  “No, at work. He’s on his cell. He said you’re not speaking to him.”

  “He’s right.”

  “How’s Adam?”

  “He’s fine. We’re driving up to Big Sur this weekend, I’ve never been.”

  “That’s a beautiful drive. You should stop at Esalen. I was there once. They have nude hot tubs on the cliffs. It’s throwback 60s. Be careful. A few sections of the road slid last year. Be sure to fill the tank, there’re hardly any gas stations. What time are you going? The sun could be a problem late in the day.”

  “We’ll be fine. How are you?”

  “Fine. Meggie is at school today, it’s quiet around here.”

  “I meant about Mom and her stepmother theory. Or didn’t he tell you that either.”

  “He told me. He thinks she’s just trying to make you feel less secure or something.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with me. My grandmother gave her the idea. She has never understood Mom letting Dad take me. She thinks they should have raised me if she wouldn’t. This way Mom has more kids.”