Shawna

by Maggie Wells

  Shawna looked over at Jack who was still asleep. “Jesus, we have been asleep for over an hour. I should wake him up or he will keep me up all night.”

  “I brought home Mexican,” her mom said. “Let’s eat before he wakes up.”

  Shawna scrambled to her feet. “Mexican! I’m starving.”

  They sat at the kitchen table and Shawna wolfed down a burrito.

  “Did you eat today?” her mom asked.

  “Um.” Shawna couldn’t remember. Jack had woken up twice in the night to nurse. She had slept through her alarm and didn’t have time to shower before dropping Jack at the on-campus daycare center and dashing to her first class at Berkeley.

  “You need to eat,” her mom said. “You’ve lost so much weight. How much longer do you plan to breastfeed?”

  “The book says a year would be ideal,” Shawna said. “But already I feel like I can’t keep up with him. He’s always hungry. I bought some formula today. The kind the doctor recommended.”

  “I’ll fix him a bottle,” her mom said. “Why don’t you jump in the shower?”

  “Thanks, Mom!” Shawna said, exhausted. “I’ll get the dishes and start a load of laundry before Dad gets home.”

  “Don’t you have homework?” her mom asked.

  “Yeah, that too,” Shawna said.

  When Shawna got out of the shower, her mom was sitting on the sofa with Jack, reading him a Pat the Bunny pop-up book. She had bathed him and changed him. He was contentedly patting the furry pages and nuzzling his head against Vivian’s chest. He didn’t even look up when Shawna entered the room and she felt a pang of jealousy.

  “Mom, I can do that,” Shawna said.

  “No, you need to do your homework,” her mom said. “How are your grades this semester?”

  “Dad’s not home yet?” Shawna asked to change the subject.

  “He’s in Sacramento, working on a case,” her mom said. “I’m not sure if he’ll be home tonight.”

  “He’s out of town a lot these days,” Shawna said.

  Her mom shot her a sharp look so Shawna quietly retrieved her backpack and retreated to her bedroom to study. She fell asleep with her Shakespeare book splayed on her chest and all the lights on.

  When Shawna dropped Jack off at daycare the next morning, Mrs. Brawley, the director, stopped her at the door.

  “Shawna, did you bring extra diapers today?” she asked. “You forgot them yesterday.”

  “I know,” Shawna said. “We were out. I bought some on the way home yesterday. See?” Shawna brandished a bundle labeled with Jack’s name. Several other moms walked in while they were standing there. The other moms all greeted each other and their babies. All of the other moms and dads were either graduate students or employees in their late twenties and thirties. Nobody ever greeted Shawna unless it was Mrs. Brawley scolding her for some new infraction. She felt like she was invisible. Only the girls who worked there were close to her age and at least once a week some parent would approach her with their snotty-faced kid and ask, “Do you work here?” No! I don’t fucking work here, she wanted to scream.

  SEVENTEEN

  WHEN SHE WALKED INTO HER LITERATURE CLASS, everyone was already engaged in a lively conversation about Iago being just another side of Othello’s character. Shawna ducked her head and hoped the instructor wouldn’t call on her. She kicked herself for falling asleep the night before and not finishing reading the play. She vowed to do better—to get Jack on a sleep schedule so she could put him down at a reasonable hour and she would have time to study and still get enough sleep.

  At noon, she ran back to the daycare center to nurse Jack. Judy, one of the workers, had him sitting in a high chair munching on Cheerios.

  “Isn’t he cute?” Judy asked.

  Actually I think he is fucking brilliant. It seemed like just yesterday he had been lying around on his back, hitting himself in the head with his own fist. Now, here he was picking up a Cheerio and sucking on it. She felt like she was missing out on everything. One minute he was smearing juice and crackers in his hair, and the next he was feeding himself Cheerios.

  Shawna’s breasts were full and aching. “I need to nurse,” she said to Judy.

  “I’m not sure he will be hungry,” Judy said. “But you can try.”

  Thanks! Shawna fumed. Why are you feeding my baby fucking Cheerios when you know I’ll be here at noon to nurse him? Why does it seem like everyone, including my mother, is undermining me, making me feel inadequate, let’s face it—irrelevant?

  That night, Shawna was trying to simultaneously breastfeed Jack and read Shakespeare when the phone rang.

  “Hey. It’s me,” Philippe said.

  “Hey.” Shawna cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear and closed Shakespeare. “What’s up?”

  “I had this great idea,” Philippe said.

  Shawna smiled. One thing she really appreciated about Philippe was his enthusiasm. “What’s that?” she asked. She leaned over and wiped Jack’s face with a wet washcloth.

  “I was thinking we could go to the Dreadmau5 concert on Treasure Island this weekend,” Philippe said.

  Jack had grabbed the washcloth and was sucking on it. Shawna immediately thought of all the reasons that she couldn’t—she’d promised to vacuum and clean the bathroom. There was laundry, homework, Jack. Worst of all, she had no money. This seemed like a terrible time, but she had to bring it up.

  “Um, Philippe,” she said. “That sounds like so much fun but I’d need to find a sitter and um . . . ”

  “You need money,” Philippe said flatly.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Shawna said.

  “What if my mom takes Jack this weekend?” he asked.

  Shawna panicked. Leave Jack with Mrs. Henri? “Really? She said she’d do that?”

  “My mom’s been asking me to ask you for a while,” Philippe said. “I think she wants to share custody.”

  The words were stuck in her throat. “What do you mean, share?” Shawna was finally able to choke out.

  “You know,” Philippe said. “Like joint custody.”

  “Do you have any idea what you are asking?” Shawna exclaimed. “You would be the one that I would be sharing custody with. Do you even know how hard it is to take care of a baby? I haven’t had more than four hours of sleep since Jack was born.”

  “I thought your mom was taking care of him,” Philippe said.

  “Sure, she helps feed him and bathe him, sometimes,” Shawna said, now angry. Why does everyone assume I am incapable of being a mother? “I drop him at daycare on campus every morning. I nurse him three times in between classes and then I pick him up by five every night. He wakes up at least twice in the middle of the night to nurse some more. Are you up for that? Is your mom really going to get up at one a.m. to give him a bottle? Are you?”

  “How are you getting your homework done?” Philippe asked.

  There was silence on the line.

  “Are you still there?” Philippe asked.

  “I’m not,” Shawna said. “Getting my homework done, I mean. I keep falling asleep in the middle of doing my homework. I think I’m going to need to drop a couple of classes this semester. I am so far behind on the reading.”

  “Wow,” Philippe said. “I had no idea.”

  “Tell your mom, if she wants to babysit on Saturday while we’re at the concert, fine,” Shawna said, wearily. “After babysitting for one day, she may change her mind about custody. Especially if you make it clear that she would be doing all the work so that you can stay focused on your school work.”

  On Saturday, Philippe picked up Shawna and Jack. Shawna handed him the car seat and the stroller. She had Jack strapped into his Baby Bjorn and had an enormous diaper bag slung over her shoulder.

  “What is all this shit?” Philippe exclaimed.

  “Babies have lots of baggage,” Shawna said. “We should also grab the playpen and bouncy seat. Your mom will need a place to put him if she needs to pee or answer the p
hone or whatever. Of course, if your mom wants to make this a regular thing, she can buy her own crib and stuff so we won’t have to lug everything over there every time.”

  While Shawna strapped the car seat into the back seat, Philippe loaded everything else into the trunk of his car. When they arrived at his house, he reversed the process, making three trips to the front porch to deposit everything.

  “Hey, Mom!” he yelled through the screen door. “We’re here. Where do you want all this stuff?”

  His mother came to the door. “Oh my goodness! What is all this?”

  “Baby baggage,” Philippe said. “Where do you want it?”

  “Put everything in the living room,” Mrs. Henri said. “Did you bring diapers and a change of clothes?”

  “Everything is in here,” Shawna handed Mrs. Henri the diaper bag. “Hi, Mr. Henri!”

  Mr. Henri didn’t respond. He stood up from his chair and stalked into the kitchen, deliberately ignoring all of them.

  “There are three bottles of formula in there—you need to refrigerate those. You can warm them in the microwave. He will start fussing around five and then again at eight and eleven. We should be back before the two a.m. feeding, right, Philippe?”

  Shawna went out to the car to get Jack out of the car seat. “Philippe, can you grab the car seat? Your mom might want to go out.”

  Shawna carried Jack into the house on her hip.

  “There’s my beautiful grandson!” Mrs. Henri exclaimed. She took the baby from Shawna and Jack started to wail.

  “Let’s distract him,” Shawna said. She spread out a blanket on the floor and put his favorite stuffed bunny on it alongside a rattle and a ball with bells inside that rang when you rolled it. Mrs. Henri put Jack down on the blanket. He grabbed the bunny and started chewing on an ear.

  Shawna pulled the Pat the Bunny book from the diaper bag. “He loves it when my mom reads this to him. He also likes Wheels on the Bus. I put everything you will need in the diaper bag. But you can call me if you have any questions. You have my number, right?”

  EIGHTEEN

  “HAVE FUN!” MRS. HENRI CALLED AND WAVED AS THEY left the house.

  As they were pulling out of the driveway, Shawna said, “What’s up with your dad?”

  “Man, he is so pissed about all of this,” Philippe said.

  “All of what?” Shawna asked.

  “You, me, Jack,” Philippe said. “He doesn’t want to pay child support. They fight about it a lot. I wish I was done with school and working so they wouldn’t have to be involved at all. What did your mom say about leaving the baby with my mom?”

  “I didn’t tell her,” Shawna said.

  “What?” Philippe said. “Where does she think he is?”

  “I don’t know,” Shawna said. “I don’t care. Jack is my baby, not hers.”

  “What is going on?” Philippe asked.

  “Last night my mom and I were screaming at each other about rice cereal. Can you believe that?” Shawna said. “She bosses me around all day and night, telling me what is best for my son. I am killing myself trying to stay in college and care for him and once in a while she reads him a book or gives him a bath, all the while trying to show me that she is so much better at parenting than I am.”

  They rode in silence for a few miles.

  “The concert should be fun,” Philippe ventured.

  “You remember when she said she wanted to raise the baby?” Shawna said. “Well there is a reason behind that. And you can never share this with anyone. Not anyone, you promise?”

  “I promise,” Philippe said.

  “Not even my dad knows about this,” Shawna said.

  “Whoa. What is it?” Philippe asked.

  “My mom got pregnant at seventeen and she had an abortion,” Shawna said. “She lied to her boyfriend and told him that she had miscarried. Isn’t that evil?”

  “Her boyfriend never even had a say in it?” Philippe asked.

  “He even offered to marry her,” Shawna said. “So now she believes that Jack is God’s little messenger to her, saying that He has forgiven her. She wants to believe that she is raising my baby to make herself feel better, I guess.”

  “That’s fucking twisted,” Philippe said.

  “She is nuts,” Shawna said. “She would have a conniption if she knew your mom was babysitting. Ha! I’ll show her.”

  Treasure Island was a mob scene. Shawna got caught up in the energy of it all. It had been so long since she had just been a kid, dancing with abandon—without a care in world. She wished it could always be like this with nothing else to think about except the music and the crowd and her heart beating inside her chest.

  They got back to Philippe’s house at eleven thirty and Mrs. Henri was pacing the living room floor with Jack in her arms. He was squalling.

  “Mom,” Philippe said, “Is everything okay?”

  “Where have you been?” Mrs. Henry hissed. “He’s been crying for hours. I haven’t been able to console him and your father is beside himself.”

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Shawna asked. She took Jack from Mrs. Henri’s arms and his howling quieted to a whimper.

  “I knew you hadn’t been out in months,” Mrs. Henri said. “You deserved a little time off.”

  Shawna was shocked. She had always thought that Philippe’s mom hated her. Even her own mother would never acknowledge that Shawna needed some alone time.

  “I wish I was a better grandmother,” Mrs. Henri said. “I fed him, I changed him, I rocked him. Nothing seemed to work.”

  “I’m sure you’re a wonderful grandma,” Shawna said. She cradled Jack in her arms and gave Mrs. Henri a sympathetic look. “This was his first time away from home or daycare. We should have started with a shorter play date to help him get acclimated.”

  “I guess the custody idea is out the window?” Philippe asked.

  His mom gave Philippe a sharp look.

  “It’s okay. Philippe told me that you would like to share custody,” Shawna said. “I am open to the idea, when Jack is a little older. But, maybe we could plan weekly visits for now? You could take him for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon so I could catch up on my homework?”

  “I would love that,” Mrs. Henri said. “But what will your mother say?”

  “She will have a stroke,” Shawna said. She shared a conspiratorial grin with Philippe. “But it’s not really her decision.”

  By Tuesday, Shawna was well in to her routine of sleep deprivation and irritability. She picked up Jack from daycare and schlepped him home for another round of eating and shitting and laundry and dirty dishes.

  “I have to say, baby,” Shawna said. “I am kind of pissed at the way you rule my life; I can’t do anything I want to do for more than three seconds without you flipping out. I am stuck with you all the time while everyone else, including your fucking father, has a life.” Shawna imagined Philippe shuffling across campus in his flip-flops, snacking on his Red Bull and Clif Bars. She was sure he wasn’t thinking about her and Jack twenty-four-seven.

  She put Jack in his bouncy seat on the bathroom floor and ran the tub to bathe him. She was lowering him into the tub when her cell phone went off in her pocket. As she reached for it, Jack slipped out of her grasp and into the scalding water. She had forgotten to test the temperature. Jack started screaming bloody murder and she snatched him out of the tub. His legs were bright red. Shawna dipped her elbow in the water and screamed, “Too hot, too hot, too hot!”

  Shawna grabbed her phone. “Hello, hello,” she screamed.

  “It’s mom,” Vivian said. “Did you . . . ?”

  “Mom!” Shawna cried. “I burned Jack’s legs with hot water. What do I do?”

  “Fill the tub with cold water, and put him in,” she said. “Cool but not too cold. Keep him there for a few minutes if you can. How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Shawna yelled.

  Vivian sounded a little panicked. “Well, call a cab and get him to
the hospital. I’ll meet you there.”

  Shawn drained the hot water and held Jack under the tub faucet by the armpits, almost grateful that he was screaming and crying because it meant he wasn’t dying. At the same time she noticed something weird. She wasn’t panicking. She felt insanely calm and knew exactly what to do. He would be okay. She wrapped Jack in a diaper and a blanket and ran downstairs to meet the cab.

  “Where to?” the cab driver asked.

  “Emergency room,” Shawna said, still calm. Then, “Oh shit, I don’t have any money!”

  “No problem,” the cab driver said and switched off his meter. He handed her his business card, “You can pay me back.”

  A man in blue scrubs met them as they pulled into the carport and pried Jack from Shawna’s arms. He ran inside and disappeared behind some locked doors. She paced in the lobby, pinching the flesh on her arms, saying to herself, please God, please God, please God. The door swung open and in ran her mother.

  Shawna followed her mom along the orange line painted on the tile floor and around a corner where they nearly bumped into a woman in green scrubs. Jack was lying on a cot with metal rails, wailing and writhing.

  “I’m Dr. Tracy,” the woman said. “Did you give him anything? Tylenol?”

  “I tried to get him to swallow some liquid Tylenol,” Shawna said. “Can you give him something for the pain? Something to make him stop screaming?”

  Oh, my poor little Jack! What have I done? Please God, let him be okay. I should call Philippe.

  NINETEEN

  THE DOCTOR WAS HOLDING JACK’S LEG AND STRAIGHTENING it. She inspected his skin, which was still bright red, and dotted with large blisters. “Second-degree burns,” she said.

  “What does that mean?” Shawna asked.

  “First degree is like a bad sunburn,” Dr. Tracy said. “Second degree involves some blistering but will heal by itself without requiring skin grafts. He won’t have permanent scars. It’s gonna be okay.”