Lifelines

by Caroline Leavitt

  Duse leaned down and whispered names, waiting for that tiny red mouth to open, for the hands to ball up and the toes to fan. She had pulled pictures of people and of things out of the magazines and had collected them in a box she put under the crib. She reached down and plucked out a handful. She trapped some beneath the bulk of the baby’s diaper, waiting to see if any of those pictures would fret her girl, if any name of someone would affect the baby.

  Duse experimented a lot. She would pop the baby into her bed to give herself room to hide things in the crib. She hid dancing shoes under the pillow, a rose by the slats. She even sometimes tied things to the baby, names she clipped from magazines that she had threaded with soft yarn. She was always careful to untie, untape, and remove everything before Martin came home. The baby never flinched, never seemed to mind, but she thought that Martin might.

  She thought he was funny with the baby. She didn’t really see him pick it up very often. Once she had heard the baby wailing, had dropped her cooking spoon to go and see what was the matter, and she had found Martin there, bent over the crib, his hands dangling, making ineffective furrows out of the air. She had stood in the doorway, waiting for him to pick up the baby and rest its head along his shoulder, and when he just stood there, helpless, trying to talk to the infant, she went over and picked up the baby herself. As soon as she had her hands about it, it stilled. “She knows me,” she told Martin. He reached out his hands for the girl, but Duse said simply that she was quiet now and there was no reason to split apart that peace.

  Martin sometimes brought home presents. Rubber balls with blue stars inked on them, dolls, a set of wind-up clacking teeth. He was itchy for a name. “People want to know,” he said. “Even my patients keep asking. I can have their mouths filled up with half the dental equipment this side of the Mississippi, and still they manage to ask. What am I supposed to say? Nothing? We have a baby named Nothing?” He wanted to have people in, to show off his daughter, but Duse kept pushing him off; she kept saying there was time. She never felt well, she said; she had to lie down, to rest. He wanted a name for the baby, some kind of birth certificate, proof that the child was his as much as it seemed to belong to Duse. He said he felt humiliated taking an unnamed baby to the doctor for a checkup.

  “The baby’s fine,” Duse said. “She doesn’t need any damn doctor. I can swab her down with some white vinegar, give her cod liver oil.”

  Duse was too preoccupied to pay much attention to Martin. She cleaned his clothes, she fed him his meals, and at the same time, hidden in the kitchen, she would take sipfuls of baby formula herself and then feed it to the baby in a kind of nourishing kiss. She was sure her own mouth carried enzymes the baby needed, and she liked the connection, liked touching that small mouth with hers. She knew Martin wouldn’t approve. She told him that she always fed the baby before he came home so they could eat in peace, that she kept the baby in the kitchen simply for a bottle later on.

  It was another month before Duse found a name. She was in the kitchen reading an old issue of Collier’s, the sun very hot on her back, when she saw a picture of the dancer Isadora Duncan. The woman was drifting right off the page, trailing a long white scarf across her body, uplifting those colt legs of hers, fluttering her hands. Duse, seeing that scarf, felt a sudden ghost pang, felt the same feel of Martin’s white scarf twisting about her neck that first day she had met him. Duse touched the picture and then she carefully tore it from the magazine and went into the other room to the baby.

  “Hi, dumpling,” she said, leaning into the crib, smiling at her girl. Neither she nor Martin ever called the baby “it”; they said “pumpkin” or “little prune,” they made up different fruit and vegetable endearments.

  Duse carefully tucked the picture inside the baby’s diaper. “Yes?” she said, waiting. The baby sputtered and wagged its small fingers, then it rolled over. “Isadora?” said Duse, and the baby promptly wet its diaper and Duse lifted her up, cradling the head against her breast, not caring that the infant was damp. “Isadora,” Duse said, firming the name up, getting her teeth around it.

  Martin didn’t much like the name. “I don’t know, it’s so fussy,” he said. “It sounds like it belongs on some old maid aunt or something.”

  “It’s her name,” said Duse.

  He didn’t argue. He reasoned: after all, a name he disliked was at least better than no name at all. “Isadora,” he said, holding out his hands to Duse for a hug.

  “And no nicknames, either,” said Duse.

  “Anything,” he said, nuzzling her shoulder, biting through the thin fabric of her dress to get at the heat of her skin.

  With the baby named, he felt a little easier. He felt he could restake some claims. He missed their lovemaking. He hadn’t forced anything because he knew she was weak after the birth, he knew she was preoccupied with the child. He had really expected her to take the initiative anyway, to fall upon him, and when she didn’t, when her first impulses were still directed toward Isadora, he took action. One night he began stroking her, insistent, unstoppable. She sat up in bed a little, balancing herself up on her elbows, blinking at him. “Wait,” she said. He did wait, and when she didn’t return, he pulled himself free of the covers to retrieve her, to make her hurry. He wanted her. He needed to be a part of her for a while.

  When he found her, though, she was in the small corner room they used for Isadora. Duse was dozing in a chair, her head balanced against the cribside. His want cooled. He pulled Duse up and then Isadora started crying.

  “She’s hungry,” said Duse, pushing the sleep from her, starting for the kitchen. “Martin, you look beat. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? I can take care of all of this just fine.”

  He never gave up. He bought her a black filmy negligée. “Isadora’ll teethe right through this thing,” she said, fingering the silk, the shine of it, the rough edging of lace.

  “No, she won’t,” he said. “Put it on. Go ahead. I bet you look terrific in it.”

  She looked at him and then she began dropping her clothes, peeling off her shirt, her skirt, her slip, unhooking her stockings and then lazily tossing them against the wall. “The blinds—” Martin said, half watching her, half watching the sudden slabs of neighborhood light coming into the room. He tugged at the Venetian blinds, closing out the light. “You keep on, I’ll check Isadora,” he said.

  Isadora was sleeping. He lazily dangled a finger into her crib. “Sleep tight, tomato,” he said.

  Duse was sprawled on the bed when he got back, her hair flaming across the white sheets, making all that white look blinding. He wouldn’t let her alone. He was all hands, all mouth, groping, ignoring the sudden way she stilled her spine, the way her gaze was abruptly cool and untouched. He pulled himself on top of her and when she kept her arms at her sides, he said, “What’s the matter with you? Why are you being like this all of a sudden?”

  “I keep thinking about Isadora,” she said. “I just don’t feel like it right now.”

  “What?” He toppled from her. She trailed her hands along his shoulders, down his back, until she felt him relax a little under her.

  “Was she sleeping okay?” said Duse. “What was she doing?”

  He couldn’t help it. He’d never forgive himself, never, but he burrowed into her, he forced her to move, to flinch, to do anything to make him think she acknowledged his presence. He seemed aware of nothing but the heat moving and beating inside of him like a heart. He told himself that she was moving with him, pacing herself, that she was quiet only because she was tired, because he hadn’t told her that Isadora was sucking her fingers. When he was finished, he fell to the side of the bed, glancing toward her, trying to snag an even breath. Her eyes were shut, her breathing rapid. “Okay?” he said, and then she got up and he could hear the water in the bathroom running.

  He raised himself up and padded into the bathroom. She was in the tub, the water sliding along the bottoms of her thighs as the tub kept filling. “Duse,” he s
aid, but when he touched her, when he traced his name along her pale back, he felt as if he were writing on paper and not living flesh.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, and then he turned and went back to bed, but before she slid her body beside him, still water damp, he was sleeping, dreamless and uneasy.

  She made him take hundreds of pictures of Isadora. “She’ll know what she looked like right from the start,” said Duse. She hung the pictures up beside her own; she covered every spare inch of wall. She wouldn’t let him use a flash because she was afraid the sudden light might blind Isadora, and she wanted that one to see everything. She mailed pictures to Anna, who wrote back that the baby was beautiful, and that she herself was thinking of marrying her boss, Stan Morgan.

  Thinking about marriage made Martin wistful. He felt Duse drawing closer to Isadora, further away from himself. He needn’t have worried. In the end, really, it was Martin’s devotion to Isadora that won Duse back for him, that reflamed her passion.

  Duse fretted when Isadora teethed. She didn’t know what to do, how to stop that pain. It was Martin who brought home the clear tiny vials of oil of cloves, who sat up half the night rocking Isadora in his lap. He would touch his finger to Isadora’s gums, would wait until she made her soft sucking sounds, and then he would repeat the whole procedure. She stopped crying almost instantly. Duse was astounded by the way that tiny face changed, by how quickly Isadora would fall asleep, her head against Martin’s good white shirt, dribbling oil of cloves across the front of it. Once, too, Isadora swallowed a button, and it was Martin who grabbed her by the heels although Duse screamed at him to stop, although she struggled with him to make him set Isadora down. He had wrenched his hands free of her, he had pounded the baby on the back, ignoring Duse. He thwacked and thumped until a tiny copper colored button fell to the floor. He had set Isadora down on his lap in the kitchen, singing the only songs he knew, rough sailing ditties, anything to calm her crying, and when she had stilled a little, he fed her honey. He sauced his fingers with the honey, he let her suck it right from his flesh. All the time, he kept murmuring to her, that he knew, he knew, her throat hurt her. Duse had stood against the wall and watched the two of them. She had seen the way Isadora wrapped herself about her father, the way her legs looped over his. She saw the way he wiped up the drips of honey with the edge of his finger against Isadora’s cheek.

  Duse let him put the baby to bed and then she waited for him and kissed the sleep from him. She felt the pull again, the love resurfaced and she tugged him down onto the wood floor, she thrashed into lovemaking. In the morning, he found the broken pieces of an ashtray on the floor, sectioned in passion, and he saved those pieces, he kept them in his coat pocket. He carried the pieces with him for days, always reaching into his pockets to touch the glass, feeling the weight of them against his thigh whenever he moved.

  He brought home a toothbrush for Isadora which delighted her. He could spend hours just watching her sleep, watching her wriggle from Duse’s diapering hands. Isadora began smiling when she saw him, and he, in turn, never stopped talking about her. He and Duse could go through an entire dinner just trading Isadora stories, each marveling at the girl.

  He thought Isadora was fabulous because she had come from Duse. There was a connection, he said.

  “Well, of course,” said Duse.

  Duse brought Isadora to Martin’s office, grinning at the way he showed the baby off. When he had to work on Duse’s teeth, she put Isadora in the pram and made him maneuver around her, so she could rock the baby with her foot. She wouldn’t let him hypnotize her and she didn’t want gas. He told her how safe hypnotism was, how he could make her feel absolutely nothing.

  “That’s not why I don’t want it,” she said. “I have to keep an eye on Isadora. Anyway,” she said, “you’re a wonderful dentist. You won’t hurt.” He smiled at her, pleased. He became so involved with her teeth, her mouth, that he didn’t see how sharply her fingers gripped the leather armrests, how deep.

  Martin began to notice just how much Duse was isolating herself. “Where’s your friend, what’s her name, Amelia?” he asked. “I never see her around here much.”

  Duse continued fixing dinner, snapping yellow beans into a shallow pan of water. She couldn’t help any of it. With Isadora, she suddenly didn’t want anyone else in the house. Another presence was an intrusion. She had even lost her hungry yearning for palms. She read her own, and she was always content to read Isadora’s, to see how it was shaping up. Amelia had appeared at her door a few times, just after Isadora’s birth. She had bought cookies and set them on a good plate, and she came with a toy for Amos so he wouldn’t bother them while they talked. Duse didn’t know why, but she felt Amelia crowding her, using up her air. She had invited Amelia in, had sat her down at the kitchen table, but then she had excused herself, she had said she wanted to check on Isadora. She had put the baby on the bed and had lain down beside her, just for a moment, curling that tiny living thing up against the curve of her hip. She crooned to it, she broke up the silence. She hadn’t realized the time until she saw Amelia standing in the hall, her face hard.

  “Amos ate half the cookies and now his stomach hurts,” Amelia said. “Did you forget us out there or what?”

  “I’m just tired,” Duse said.

  “Tired,” said Amelia. “I see.” She turned and then looked back at Duse. “You come and see me when you want,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Duse, stroking Isadora’s pale skin.

  She hadn’t. Amelia came back one other time and when Duse got up from the kitchen to go to Isadora, Amelia had followed, had settled herself right on the edge of the bed with Duse. She started to talk a little, but when she saw how it was, how Duse’s whole body was focused in on her baby, she stood up. “You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Amelia said. “What the hell makes you think you can do that?”

  Duse looked up at her.

  “You’re no friend,” Amelia said, her voice metallic. “I’ll see you, Duse Michaels.”

  Duse stayed right there on the bed when Amelia left. She burrowed her face into the crook of Isadora’s elbow, she inhaled the sweet baby smell, the powder, the oils.

  Amelia sifted into Duse’s mind one afternoon when Martin had taken Isadora for the day, when he had said that he wanted it to be just the two of them driving around. She hadn’t liked the idea much, but he had insisted and she was having period cramps besides, she thought she might want to just lie around and read magazines. She grew bored quickly; she missed Isadora with a quick, clean yearning.

  She went over to Amelia’s with a toy mouse a colleague of Martin’s had given to Isadora, a toy she hadn’t really wanted. She could give it to Amos, she thought. But when Amelia opened the door and saw Duse, her face was cold. She centered herself in the middle of the doorway, not letting Duse in.

  “I came to see you,” Duse said.

  “I’m busy,” said Amelia.

  “Do whatever it is later,” said Duse. “Come and talk with me. We used to have good talks.”

  “I’m busy,” said Amelia. “It’s not convenient for me to see you.” Her voice lifted. “Just like it wasn’t convenient for you to see me when I came over your house and just sat in your kitchen like another utensil, just sitting around waiting for you to use me.”

  “What are you talking about—” said Duse.

  “You know,” said Amelia. “Don’t look like that; you know.”

  When Duse left that door, she left angry. She let that selfrighteousness carry her out into the street, and she was at her own door before she felt a wash of guilt, of loss. She glanced back down the street. She could go back there, she could apologize and make amends, they could sit and talk, maybe have some coffee and cake. Amelia was a good enough cook. Then she glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost four and Isadora would be back with Martin soon, so she went inside to set out clean, new pajamas for her girl, she started humming something low under her voice.
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  5

  It was shortly after Isadora’s birth that something else began taking root in Duse, an uneasiness she couldn’t wrench free. At first, she connected it with Isadora, she saw every pinch of tension as an intuitive kind of sign that she should check on her girl. She’d be folding up diapers, washing baby bottles, and she would start sweating, smothering with fear. Sometimes all Duse had to do was place one foot into Isadora’s room, and she would be crowded with emotion. She’d sense her way to the baby crib, patting a pathway with her hands along the wall. She’d crouch right down into the crib until she felt Isadora’s baby breath against her own, then she would take that childish palm and study it. She could calm herself just by seeing the evenness of those lines.

  It bothered her. She couldn’t always be right beside Isadora, she couldn’t always be stopping everything to go and check her girl’s palm. She tried to keep it from Martin. She knew he’d start in on her, how he’d tell her that she was overprotective.

  They were at a restaurant when he saw it happen. Duse was fidgeting her coat from the hanger, running her fingers over the cloth, when she started sweating. Her breath was tightening up within her suddenly, locking up her lungs, and abruptly she let her grip fail, she saw her coat drop to the floor.

  “What? What is it?” Martin said, taking her, settling her along the cool painted wall. He saw how the sweat needled along her skin, and he tried to stroke it from her with the edge of his finger. He was startled at how violently Duse jerked free of him. She made him step back.

  She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t have anything in contact with any part of her; even the very air seemed to be grating against her, stroking her raw. She had to get outside.

  She trembled in the night air, her sleeves flapped with the wind. Martin stretched out his hand to her, with the coat, he let her take it from him with her own hands, he saw how they jerked back before they took hold. He tried to get her into the car, where she could be safe, where he could watch her.