by Rachel Yoder
Sal worked at the community gallery where she had been director before she stepped down. It had been the right choice. It had. Being at work while her infant lolled on the day care’s linoleum floor had been agony, but being at home was also agony, just of a different sort.
She wanted to tell the girl: It’s complicated. I am now a person I never imagined I would be, and I don’t know how to square that. I would like to be content, but instead I am stuck inside a prison of my own creation, where I torment myself endlessly, until I am left binge-eating Fig Newtons at midnight to keep from crying. I feel as though societal norms, gendered expectations, and the infuriating bluntness of biology have forced me to become this person even though I’m having a hard time parsing how, precisely, I arrived at this place. I am angry all the time. I would one day like to direct my own artwork toward a critique of these modern-day systems that articulates all this, but my brain no longer functions as it did before the baby, and I am really dumb now. I am afraid I will never be smart or happy or thin again. I am afraid I might be turning into a dog.
Instead, she said, smiling, I love it. I love being a mom.
* * *
—
I’VE BEEN TRYING TO come up with a new project, she said, standing in the bathroom doorway that evening—Friday!—as her husband dumped warm water over the boy’s head. Something that has to do with smashing things, maybe? I’d love to use a bat. Or an ax.
Ooh, what about painting with a mace? her husband said.
Yeah…, she said, unconvinced.
He laughed and sudsed the boy’s hair.
Something about moms and rage and smashing stuff, the mother continued. But, you know, artful.
Moms, he repeated.
They’re angry, she said.
Angry? he said.
Never mind.
If I had to guess what your next project was, he said, I would say you’re training to be a butcher, because we have a fridge full of meat.
Not full of, she said. There are other things.
Do you still think you’re turning into a dog? he asked, eyebrows drawn up in that way he had that communicated, I am totally joking but also think you are sort of a dumbass.
Shut up, she said. I’m fine. We even went to Book Babies this week. Well, we saw Book Babies when we were at the library.
How was it?
Unbearable, she said, and they both laughed.
She was grateful he was bathing the boy, though during said bath he had asked that she put the boy’s towel in the dryer to warm it, that she bring in a piece of toast for the boy to eat, that she fetch the boy’s pajamas from his room, all as the man sat on the closed lid of the toilet, next to the tub, reading something on his phone. Sure, she would do these things, even though all week she had done them herself, without even the option of help, and wouldn’t it seem petty to point this out? She really just wanted to sit on the couch and stare blankly out the window for a time—even for just ten minutes—but her husband liked it when she was upbeat and talkative upon his return. He had, after all, just been in the car for hours, all the way from Minneapolis or Chicago—and he, too, was exhausted, for he had stayed up late that week at the hotel, reading or looking at the Internet, or he had simply not been able to sleep for any number of reasons—the room was too quiet, or he had ordered room service too late, which caused indigestion. Really, it was a challenge to be in a hotel all the time, he reported.
If, when he arrived home, he was greeted with the mother’s complaints or the boy’s perturbed demeanor or a house that was a mess, it stressed him out, and couldn’t he just have a calm re-entry, some time to decompress from driving, an hour or so on his computer. The mother had been indulging him for years now, and she reminded herself—again and again and again, she simply must remember—he was not a bad man.
She did night-nights after the bath, for the husband needed to wrap up some work e-mails, even though he had had the entire week to do so. Really, she would have liked to leave the house altogether and go to the coffee shop for the entire evening the moment her husband got home, either that or shut herself in the guest room and simply imagine—art projects or outfits, a future vacation. She wanted to exit, but it would really be inconvenient for her husband, for the entire family, as he put it, so she stayed.
Maybe she actually was in a good mood, even though she thought she was pretending? Maybe it was actually fun to stay and be together as a family as soon as her husband arrived home? Each week, she considered these potentialities, trying to convince herself.
After she coaxed the boy to sleep, her husband said how happy he was to see her happy, how much he just wanted her to, you know, find her groove. They sat on the grungy old couch as the television murmured a foreign movie that her husband had selected. He stroked the soft hair on her forearms, then reached beneath her pajama pants to feel the hairs on her shin, running his fingers up to her thigh—not prickly, as they usually were, but lush with regrowth, for even though she had shaved her legs at some point that week, the hair was already back in full force and then some.
Mmmm, he said, burying his head in her neck and taking the back of it in his hand, a fistful of hair in his hand.
Oh, he murmured as he kissed her, surprised.
Just…, she said, moving his hand to her waist and offering only tight-lipped kisses, for fear of slicing him with her canine teeth. He moved his hand to the small of her back, and she squinched her face and pushed him away.
The cyst, she said, scooching away from him to the other end of the couch. I just feel out of sorts. I’m getting my period.
Well, how about…, he said, pulling at her waistband and bowing his head with that sly smile on his face, but the mother said no and smiled and kissed him and turned to the TV, and that was that. How could she show him the four new spots on her torso, raised and pink? Surely he would just say they were moles, but she knew better.
Nipples. They could only be nipples. Six now in total, including the ones on her breasts.
* * *
—
SATURDAY MORNING, AND THE mother jumped in the shower, for how long had it now been since she bathed? Three days? A week? Before she could even glob a pile of shampoo in her hand, her husband was in the bathroom, saying they were out of milk, and then the boy was crying and pulling at the shower curtain before he picked him up and whisked him away. She could hear her husband in the kitchen, telling the boy to calm down, while the boy screamed MAMA! in response.
One minute! she sang, scrubbing furiously at her scalp. Take care of your child, she wanted to scream. Just take care of it! What was so hard about it? Give him something, anything. Make a silly face. Put on a goddamn cartoon.
She could not comprehend her husband’s great expertise with complex machinery yet complete inability to troubleshoot their child. She hopped from the shower before she’d properly washed her face.
We’re out of milk, her husband said again.
I know, she said, taking the crying boy from him and kissing him on the cheek.
Why are we out of milk? he asked.
Because he drank it, she said, gesturing at their son.
Milkie, the boy said.
Well, obviously, he said, an annoyed edge in his voice, as if she were wasting his time instead of the other way around. But did you know?
I knew we were running low, she said. She focused to keep her voice even and calm. It was on my list. But somehow I overlooked it. He sighed and went back to his laptop, open on the kitchen table.
Wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, she held the boy, who was reaching for his father.
Dada, the boy said.
Why don’t you just leave? she thought. Go away. In some ways, it was easier with him gone. She could take care of the child without a constant stream of commentary, questions inspired by thinly veiled judgment, condesc
ending soliloquies on how her husband would do whatever it was she needed to do if it were his job, how he really had it all figured out, how it was simple, just a matter of some perfectly reasonable X, Y, or Z.
Sure, yes, in retrospect, it wasn’t that big of a deal for him to ask her about the milk, to need her help with the child since he had not developed her same skills in all his time away, but couldn’t he see how she struggled? Was he capable of acknowledging all she did? He made it seem as though she were on an extended holiday. If he could not offer his actual hands-on help, at the very least he could offer his gratitude with a shower of thank-yous every waking moment he was home. Instead, when she tried to bring up the division of labor, the invisible labor of her life, the psychic load, he would offer something like I suppose the money I make means nothing, and of course that wasn’t what she was saying, not at all.
She carried the whimpering boy upstairs with her and positioned him at his train table in his bedroom, then found a sports bra, comfy pants, a tank top. This was what she wore every day.
On Monday, after that weekend spent abiding her husband, for that’s truly how it felt, she hugged him unenthusiastically and directed a psychic fuck you as he pulled from the driveway. She collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table with her lukewarm coffee to collect herself and watched the boy as he methodically pulled a baking sheet, a muffin tin, a skillet, the grater, from the cabinet next to the oven. Though she did not want to and would never admit that her husband’s advice regarding happiness and schedules could perhaps be of the good idea sort, she did not want to begin her week and then continue forward in her current state, in this sour anger, so mad she found herself on the verge of tears. Not productive. No good for anyone, really, most of all herself.
Okay. So maybe there was absolutely nothing wrong other than she had too much time on her hands. That was the problem. Not that she had time to actually do things she enjoyed, like make art or read or exercise in a meaningful way. Rather, she had time—so much time!—to take the boy to the play area at the mall and take him to the play area adjacent to the pool and take him to the Tot Lot at the community gym and take him to a morning or afternoon story time—Why not both?—at the public library.
I’d be ecstatic if this is what I got to do all day, her husband always said whenever she complained, which she didn’t even really do anymore, because she was trying to embrace his perspective and truly be ecstatic for her stay-at-home lifestyle filled with a toddler and lots of time and kid-related activities.
This week, she would try even harder to get out of the house and connect with others. She would remain positive. She packed the diaper bag and hummed to herself as she dressed the boy and tapped his nose to make him laugh and then brushed her hair.
She was doing This old man, he played one with the boy as she exited the house, bag on shoulder, boy in arms, and then stopped short and gaped at what she saw on the lawn.
Dog, the boy said, pointing.
Yes, three dogs in fact, in the shade of the silver maple: a golden retriever, a collie, and a basset hound. She had always thought of these breeds as dogs that girls in the 1980s loved. She had, in fact, in the 1980s, loved such dogs and, as a child, fantasized about brushing their hair with a pink hairbrush and decorating the dogs with lavender bows and naming them Lisa or Gem or Mr. Belvedere. Also, the dogs would save her if she ever accidentally tripped into the street in front of an oncoming car or fell into a very deep hole.
But now they were there, on the lawn, and all turned, panting, to look at the mother and her child.
Oh, come on, she said aloud.
Yes, it was a ridiculous sort of situation, but, truly, her heart thudded with a horrible terror, a horrible delight. Was she, in fact, going insane? Did domesticated dogs roam in packs? And why were they on her lawn, as if they were convening some sort of society and wanted to initiate her into its ranks? The boy wiggled against her hold, she let him down, and he bounded into the yard and right up to the dogs, who wagged their tails wildly. They pushed their wet noses toward his face, and he squealed and turned and ran back to his mother, who waited for him, speechless, on the porch.
Hey, dogs, hi, she said, as she approached them, then knelt and held out her hand. The hound was first to trot over, with the collie and retriever shortly after. The hound plopped in the grass between her feet while the others jumped to put their paws on her stomach and shoulders, lick her face, sniff all her parts that needed sniffing. Normally, she would have recoiled at such a show of unrestrained, obsequious affection. Dogs. So easy, so loving. She had grown to have a very certain disdain for dogs and their willing, uncritical love. They should demand more, be moodier, have more conditions. But, no, it was always happiness, an open mouth and a wagging tongue, a light in the eyes that begged to be loved in return.
Something had shifted, however, and these dogs—these 80s dogs—and their wet tongues and needy paws and warm, thudding bodies were so lovely. She opened her arms and drew them in to her. They knocked her on her back, and she lay there laughing, with the dogs walking all over her and wagging and licking and, finally, lying on her. The boy screamed with joy and piled onto her as well.
She would be covered in hair and dog musk and slobber and grass clippings and dirt, but it was okay. She loved these dogs and, my god, what was happening?
She and the boy spent the morning on the front lawn, petting the dogs and asking them questions and telling them they were good. The mother retrieved an assemblage of balls from beneath the couch and in random corners of the garage, and the boy threw them one by one, screaming with delight.
The retriever outplayed the others, a beautiful sight to behold as she leapt in the air, ears alert and eyes bright, to snag a ball midair with her teeth. She landed solidly on the ground and then turned swiftly, sprinted to the boy, dropped the ball at his feet.
After the boy had tired of fetch, the retriever came to where the mother sat on the porch steps and placed her head gently on the mother’s leg. The mother stroked the animal as she watched her son trundle after the collie and the hound, arms outstretched, squealing and cackling. She stroked the retriever’s long silky blond hair, softer than any she’d ever felt, as if it had been shampooed and conditioned, then blow-dried and brushed lovingly.
Did you just get your hair done? she asked the dog, and it nuzzled at her neck, then licked the palm of her hand.
She pulled the body of the dog to her and hugged, burying her face in its fur, which smelled of strawberries and soap.
Strawberries! she said, holding the dog’s face and looking into its soft eyes. What a good, pretty, perfect dog. The retriever smiled, and she could almost see something familiar in her eyes. She squinted, tilted her head, then murmured to the dog, Oh my god, do I know you?
The dog gently fit its mouth around the mother’s hand, then tugged her up from the porch, into the lawn, toward the sidewalk.
Come, it said. The dog’s teeth dug into her skin and she vaguely wondered if it would bite her.
But where would I go? she thought absently. Where would a dog even want to take me? To her home? To a wide-open field full of supple green grass through which we could run and run and run, feeling the full power of our bodies, the blood careening through our muscles and fasciae, a place where our lungs would open and we could take into us the entirety of the sky, a place where there were no humans but just the throb and thrust of life, life, life?
She let herself be led, and shuffled through the lawn, the day now slowed and sparkling with the air of a waking dream.
In the long green grass of the front yard, the boy lay on his back in a patch of shade, collie and hound on either side of him. The collie knelt beside him and placed one paw on the boy’s chest in the same manner as the mother laid her palm there just before he fell asleep. The hound’s long ear swayed as the animal whispered something in the boy’s ear. A story, perhaps. A
lullaby.
Why, they’re putting him down for a nap, she thought. How lovely.
As she passed, the collie and hound both looked her in the eye and nodded.
It will all be okay, they said to her. Go on. And the retriever again tugged on her hand, leading her away from her home and the boy and the life she both wanted and didn’t.
A bird called, high and shrill, and the mother started. She looked down at the retriever, then over at her son, those other dogs. She pulled her hand from the dog’s mouth, horrified, then darted toward her son and yelled at them all as she grabbed the bewitched boy from the ground.
Shoo! she shouted with a flip of her wrists. Go home! she insisted, and they moved toward the street, casting their big sad eyes back to her on the porch. You evil beasts, she scolded, go. And then, without thought, she tilted her head back and howled from the cavern in her chest where everything was, the crushing anger and joy of that morning, the wealth of golden sunlight, how she hadn’t slept a whole night in two-plus years, her loneliness, her ugly desires, how silky her son’s blond curls were—all of that came out of her in one giant sound. The dogs froze in the middle of the street to listen, and then, when she was done, sprinted back from wherever it was they had come.
* * *
—
A PACK OF DOGS? her husband said over the phone. It was late Monday night, and the boy was in bed, and she was scared and crying.
I’m covered in fur and I have a tail, and then these dogs, she said and gasped. I don’t even like dogs, and now I want one.
Honey, he said evenly. She could hear cable news playing in the background. I’m sure this is all just a hormonal imbalance. Have you made an appointment yet with the doctor?
No, she said, blowing her nose. She didn’t want to go to the doctor, have him tell her that everything was fine, that this was all in her head. Everything wasn’t fine. This is what she had been trying to get across ever since that first night, when she had awoken angry and then stayed angry. Nothing was fine, despite how other people reasoned away her worries and anger, said that this was just how things were, that things would get better, that she really needed to calm down and not be so angry, that she really should be grateful and happy, that happiness was a choice, that she was privileged and bratty and wanted too much all at once.