Hold Still

by Lynn Steger Strong

  Bryant holds the baby, who has begun to stir again but seems content once repositioned, and Alana sits back, weightless suddenly. Maya watches Alana watching Charles. She’s very still and seems to be willing him to look at her again as her husband caters to their baby. She twists her hair around her hand and knots it on top of her head. It stays that way only a few seconds, then slowly, over the next few minutes, loosens and unfurls itself, finally falling down her back in heavy clumps.

  Maya turns toward Bryant. He’s settled into the chair next to her and he’s still careful, a little awkward, cradling the girl.

  “How is it so far?” Maya asks. She nods toward the child.

  She realizes she’s whispering. “You know,” he says. The baby squirms and she watches Bryant try to keep her steady. Her eyes are open, big and blue, long lashes. For a moment Maya doesn’t envy them the years ahead. “All the adjectives are shit in trying to describe it,” he says. “My wife has become this other person. I sleep a little and she doesn’t sleep at all.” He’s old, Maya thinks, older than Maya, and he’s starting this. He looks as if he’s lived as much life as his years suggest, if not more. But he has somehow just now discovered there’s something to be made here. He’s like a person who’s been trapped inside a darkened room and not allowed to interact with others, now suddenly trying to live in the world, to help to teach someone else. “Every second,” he says, “is consumed by this thing that really contributes nothing to the conversation. And yet, when I really look at her, I think, how did I live so long without her? And I mind much less how long the days feel.”

  Maya nods. She’s not sure how to hold it, this rush of honesty. Slowly, having to look down at her plate a moment, she takes a bite of food and grabs hold of her glass. She’d expected him to say, Wonderful, amazing. She says: “That sounds about right.”

  Maya nods toward Alana. “She seems wonderful with her.”

  He’s emphatic now, comes outside himself. “Unquestionably,” he says.

  “Have you two been married long?”

  He shakes his head. “Four months,” he says.

  Maya watches the baby’s eyes as cars pass by the window: her gaze follows the shadows they make along the wall.

  “I was a mess before I met her,” Bryant says. “I know I’m too old for such things, but I’ve always been a mess. It took me this long. Or maybe it took all of this happening.” He looks, careful, down at the baby as he whispers this. “It’s cleared me up, I guess,” he says. “Lana.” He’s talking to himself now. Maya watches Charles in the corner, where he’s followed Alana. They talk quietly. She’s tying her hair up again; he’s wiping his glasses with his shirt. Caitlin lays out the steaks on a fresh plate and sets them on the table. “All this,” Bryant says.

  She and Caitlin could be like these two: this new life, this new baby, it could clear her up. But then the baby would get older. She would resent them, hate them. She would have too many questions about what happened to her dad. There would be hell to pay for all the thousand million things that they did wrong as she grew and formed before them. But, Maya thinks, even with all of it coming out terribly, she’d be willing to do it over. Maybe so things would turn out differently. But also, only for the in-between time, the brilliant promise of incompleteness, that smell, that warmth, that soft, soft skin up close.

  They pass around the steaks and the quinoa. Alana and Charles sit down again. Caitlin stands up. Charles tings his wine glass. Whatever is about to be announced, he already knows. Maya feels briefly nauseous. She might be losing him as well.

  Maya only realizes it seconds before Caitlin starts speaking—Caitlin’s had a glass of wine now, she’s yet to place her hand on her abdomen again—how wrong she’s been. And she feels her body fold in on itself as if she’s been exposed. As if all of them see and know the fantasy she’s been quietly entertaining as they’ve talked and eaten: Caitlin isn’t pregnant. There will be no starting over here.

  “Book,” Maya hears, and she has to play back in her head what’s just happened. She registers through the reactions of those around her: Charles is standing. Alana keeps her eyes toward her plate. Bryant offers his hand awkwardly to Caitlin, his back tall and firm, brushing past his wife as he stands. Maya realizes Caitlin’s the only woman Bryant has failed all night to address. A book. Maya listens intently to the murmurings, the exclamations; Charles catches Maya’s eye again and says, while still holding her, “Caitlin, this is wonderful!” Caitlin demurs, then reaches toward Charles before seeming to forget what she meant to do once she had hold of him; she sits back down in her chair instead.

  “It really isn’t much money,” Caitlin says. “And, you know, it could turn out to be nothing.”

  Alana has not stopped staring at her hands in too long. Bryant shakes his head, his shoulder turned toward his wife. “This is an accomplishment,” he says steadily. His words are whole objects that he’s handing carefully to Caitlin. He’s not seemed such a sturdy presence all night. Caitlin flattens her napkin back across her lap.

  “Thank you,” she says. Just as sturdy, just as firm.

  Maya feels small and impossibly matronly. She gets up to hug Caitlin. She’s tearing up, though she can’t tell why. “Oh, honey,” she says. “Honey, this is wonderful.” She buries her head a moment too long in the soft warmth and curve of Caitlin’s shoulder, the embroidery of Caitlin’s dress rough against Maya’s skin. She thinks of the baby they have lost one more time, then pulls away, puts a knuckle to the corner of each of her eyes, and sits.

  Summer 2011

  “The kid hates me,” she says. It was another twenty minutes getting him strapped into the car and back to Annie’s. Ellie’s not sure how she made it back without driving into another car. She’d tensed up, hunched over the steering wheel. He’d screamed the whole way until they were back in the house and he very quietly and smugly crawled into his mother’s lap. The rest of the night she couldn’t look at him. His eyes were red and swollen and each time she got too close to him she felt chastened, wrong.

  “He’s a kid, El.” She wishes her brother were here instead of at his stupid college. Jack would love Ben. Jack might love anyone but her.

  “He’s not, though. He’s smarter than me and he hates me. And all he wants is for me to take him back to his mom and dad.”

  “You just have to give him things they can’t give him. Take him out. Have fun with him.”

  “Oh, please, Benny. He’s not fun. He’s a spoiled little brat.”

  “Does he like to swim?”

  “It’s been raining. We’ve been trapped inside.”

  “That’s not his fault. He’s a kid, El. He’s probably going nuts.”

  “I’m going nuts.”

  She listens to her brother’s drawn-out sigh. He sounds like her mom when he does this. “Just be good, El. You need to make this work, okay? Somehow. Okay. Just make this work.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, El. She’s just exhausted, I think.”

  “Just tired of me.”

  “Tired of worrying about you.”

  “Right.”

  Four years before: Ellie walked from the Lower East Side over the Brooklyn Bridge and to the park to watch her brother play soccer. Dylan was pissed. She’d taken both the pills he’d bought, when they’d agreed that they would share.

  “Selfish bitch,” he’d called her.

  She’d flipped him off. Her arm felt heavy and she’d only lifted it halfway as her middle finger rose toward him. “Fuck you,” she’d mumbled back. She left her backpack and her phone and walked the six miles, three hours, to her brother’s game.

  She saw Ben light up when he saw her. She thought he did, then wondered if it was the drugs mixed up with her joy in seeing him. “Benny,” she said, suddenly breathless. Though he was across the field and only smiled and waved.

  Her mom was there as well, right by the benches where the team sat. She’d supplied the snacks that week and was collectin
g granola wrappers as the boys tightened the laces of their cleats, their backs all rounded in a row. Ellie waved to her mom, but stayed far away. She lay down on the grass and felt the prickle of it and the dampness. A couple people turned from the game to watch. The high was drifting slowly from her, but she held tight to it and breathed in and out, marveling at the sweetness of the air.

  She turned over on her stomach. She placed her elbows deep into the dirt and kicked up her feet. A whistle blew. It screeched between her ears and she buried her head more deeply in the grass. She got soil, rich, dark-smelling, on her lips and in her nose. And then her brother, running up closer, on the right side of the field. The whistle blew again. The ball was kicked from center field. There was a thwack. And then Ben ran toward it, feet pounding against dirt and grass, legs like long, sinewed sculptures, still-twiggy stretched-out graceful arms.

  He came upon the ball, no one close to him, and made easy careful contact. Black white black white black white. She wished that she could hold tight to her brother’s ankle and ride along with him as he ran.

  “Benny,” she said again.

  She looked over at her mother, who was trying to focus on the game, but her eyes kept wandering to Ellie across the packs of boys in white and blue. Ellie waved to her, smiling. She turned over on her back again and listened to the cheering of the smattering of parents as her brother scored.

  Her whole body felt heavy. The walk had been exhausting. She usually liked to lie and stare, walk slowly, watching lights, when she was stoned. And now she was paying for the extreme exertion of her walk. She thought she’d sleep forever, settle slowly into the damp grass.

  There was a blank then. She heard pounding, feet against grass and ground, whistles blowing, boys yelling to one another, her brother’s name, she thought, more than once. She held the grass and smelled it. She slept and drifted in and out.

  “El,” she heard. The game was over; she saw feet walk past her, sandals, sneakers, a pair of large black steel toes with matching heels. She saw her brother’s cleats and the socks that reached up high to cover his shin guards. They were royal blue with a bright white stripe around the top. She wanted to touch the hairs popping up over the socks with the bottom of her chin and then her cheeks and then her forehead. She wanted to burrow her head back in the grass and go to sleep.

  She felt a little nauseous, bleary. “Yeah,” she said.

  “Elinor,” said her mother. She leaned over and pulled Ellie up by her arm.

  Ellie stared at her. She felt a blank space where the words to answer might have come from.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with you?” her mother hissed, half worried, half angry, all not sure what to do.

  “Nothing,” Ellie said. She turned to Ben. “You win?”

  “Yeah,” he said. His voice was quiet.

  Maybe she’d ask him to carry her home, to let her climb up onto his back and wrap her arms over his shoulders, to lay her whole self against him and rest. “Congrats,” she said.

  Her mother shook her head. She handed the cooler of snacks to Ben, who repositioned his soccer bag across his chest, over one shoulder, and took the cooler with both hands. The last bits of ice and water swished and clunked inside.

  Her mom took hold of Ellie. She brought her face up close. “What’s wrong with you?” she said.

  Mommy. She wanted to sit her down and crawl into her lap and never leave her. She wanted to tell her she was sorry for everything, sorry that she’d turned out to be the girl that she’d turned out to be.

  “Nothing,” said Ellie. It came out slower than the first time. She dragged out the vowels. It might have been the only word she knew.

  “El, listen,” her brother says. “Call her, okay? Call her and tell her everything is wonderful. Tell her the kid’s a brat, but you’re making it work. You’re so happy to be near the water. Annie’s great. Whatever. Just let her think that you’re okay. And then just be okay, all right? You’re a mile from the beach and all you have to do is play with a five-year-old all day. Life’s just really not that hard. Just don’t fuck this up.”

  Ellie’s quiet, tearing a piece of paper into tiny thumb-sized pieces, then rolling them into tight balls with her fingers on her desk.

  Ellie knows nearly from the beginning the mistake she’s made, not knowing enough, pretending, flirting with the boy behind the desk in the collared shirt and hat, the sunglasses resting on its brim, with the red face and small flakes of skin peeling off his nose, so that he would let her take one of the sailboats out without his help. She has to sign a waiver and pretends she’s Jack’s mom, another thing the boy allows himself to be convinced is true. His eyes wander down Ellie, from her forehead to her feet. She wears cutoff shorts and a beige tank top. She has on her black bikini underneath. He says he’ll take her through a quick refresher, but she doesn’t want him to come with them. She thinks if she can show Jack this he’ll warm to her, maybe, finally. If he likes her, it will prove something sure.

  Ellie hasn’t cleared this trip with Annie. It’s only her third day alone with Jack. Annie’s starting to get ready for the fall rush and Jeffrey’s patients have begun to come back from their summer camps. The seasonals and tourists have begun to filter in. The only other time besides the bookstore, Jack alternated between silent petulance in his room with his bugs and asking to call his mother. But they’ve spent this morning discussing different sailing tactics. Jack has made a list about lines and gibes, sheets, mainsails, jibs, and tacks.

  He lit up at the mention of their maybe going sailing. Ellie was trying to convince him of her knowledge, telling him stories of sailing with her mom when she was small. It’s been years now, but she remembers the water in her eyes and the burn of lines between her fingers.

  Jack’s small arms quiver in her grasp as she slips the life jacket over his shoulders and snaps him in. “Nor?” he says.

  “We’re good,” she says. “Don’t worry.” Without thinking, she kisses him—the first time that she’s done this—on the top of his head. He smiles and Ellie feels that she’s accomplished something great.

  The sail flops as she uncovers it and pulls the lines. Her arms reach up, one and then the other, full fists pulling down, old metal ratcheting up and up, as sweat trickles slowly between her shoulder blades. The sail jerks into place and fills a moment with a rush of wind; Jack sits quietly near the boat’s front, hands holding both sides of his life jacket, his eyes steady on the sail. The red-faced boy comes out, hat off and sunglasses pulled down, and helps to push them from the dock. Ellie holds the tiller straight and then slowly turns it—the weight of it sluicing through the water is exactly as it was when she was small.

  They drift slowly from the dock out toward the channel. They tack once, and though it’s certainly imperfect, and Jack squeals in fear as the boat dips and lifts, they right themselves and his knuckles eventually hold less tightly to his side of the boat. For a second, Ellie feels full with her own competence. A gust hits them once and the boat dips, water splashing at them, and Jack’s body lurches forward, his face almost falling on the metal wheel that controls the centerboard. But Ellie stays steady, loosening the sail until it luffs and the boat sits flat again. Her forearms and her hands burn with the weight of holding the tiller and the sail.

  Usually, her mom would steer. Her mom would hold the mainsail too and El and Ben would split turns loosening and pulling in the jib. But she’s settled into the feel of both the line that tightens the mainsail and the tiller working in her hands at the same time. It’s almost less frightening, being in control. She smiles over at Jack, as he seems to settle in his seat, watching the thin red telltales fly back straight against the sail.

  They hit a little enclave on the other side of the inlet; the wind is light and they practice turning, catching puffs of wind and moving swiftly for small stretches, then letting the sail luff again and trailing their hands in the water as they drift. Jack begins to shout instructions to h
er as she lets the wind catch in the sail again. They’ve been researching all morning, and he remembers all the proper terms. She calls out to warn him each time she tacks. He calls back in response. She lets him hold the tiller briefly, then they watch together as the sail fills and the boat heels hard with a strong puff that Ellie’s seen headed toward them, picking up speed, Jack holding tight to her.

  She’s sitting lower in the boat to keep one hand on Jack but she can’t see as well as if she were sitting on the rail. They slip into the channel. Ellie isn’t practiced enough to keep an eye out for the powerboats. The wind fills the sail once more. The boat heels, dipping farther down than it has since they’ve been out together. A wave of water washes in the right side of the boat, and Jack’s face transforms to shock as his lower half is drenched. Ellie stops, wanting to reach for him, wanting to pull the boat back flat, but not sure how. She grabs hold of the tiller, but she turns too quickly and another puff fills the sail before she’s able to loosen it. The boat dips hard and suddenly, its edge nearly going underwater, and Ellie watches, too afraid to move, as Jack tips out of the boat.

  Ellie dives in after him and the boat falls behind her, the sail slapping hard against the water, then filling slowly and dipping down. She keeps her eyes on Jack. She’s only under for a minute. She opens her eyes wide—they sting—and there he is, the bright yellow of his life jacket bobbing a few feet from where she is; Ellie scoops Jack into her arms. He isn’t frantic; he looks confused and scared, but too surprised to have reacted yet. They’re in the channel and there are boats coming at them from both sides and Ellie waves, screaming loudly to be sure the people in the boats see them, and finally, bobbing up above the water, Ellie keeping hold of him, Jack begins to cry.

  Winter 2013

  Things devolve quickly after Caitlin’s pronouncement. Maya watches as her food seems to age years over a period of minutes, wilting and congealing, looking suddenly inedible, when just an hour before it had seemed the most nourishing assortment that she’d ever seen. No one’s touched their plate now for a while. Maya gets up and attempts to clear the table before Caitlin tries to stop her. And though Caitlin motions effusively and begs a couple times for Maya to stop, she finally acquiesces and Maya has a brief respite, washing and drying dishes, putting away the pots and dishware for which she can find the proper place.