The Sad Truth About Happiness

by Anne Giardini

  Lucy had raised herself up on both elbows and was leaning into Ryan whose arm was around her. He patted her hair and said to her over and over. “You did it. You did it.”

  “Never again,” Lucy said. Her tone was categorical. “I need a drink. No more of those damn ice chips. A real drink.”

  I slid myself over to a spot beside the door and stood up, using the wall for support. My head and hip hurt. I was lost in the shadows. No one had noticed me. The baby was laid quivering and wailing on Lucy’s stomach and I turned and pushed my way out of the room. I walked down the long, impossibly bright corridor back to the waiting room, found the light switch, turned it off, lay down on my side on one of the couches, covered myself with a knitted blanket, and fell asleep.

  Dormer

  What happened next was largely my fault, so it is hardly surprising that I felt compelled to act. Gian Luigi telephoned me. He had likely worked his way through the other Selgrins in the telephone book—there aren’t too many in Vancouver—and he reached me when he got to the M’s.

  “Allo, I am looking for Miss Lucy Selgrin.”

  “Lucy’s not here. She’s still in the hospital,” I said. It was a few minutes before eight in the morning and I was getting ready to go to work. I assumed that this was one of Lucy’s Roman coworkers calling. She had mentioned that they often took advantage of the toll-free telephone line at the office to call her and bring her up-to-date on the gossip. “I expect you’ve heard the news. She had her baby two days ago. A little boy.”

  Gian Luigi is a smart man. There was no hint that this was the first that he had heard of a baby.

  “A boy! Un maschio! How wonderful. Hand the name?”

  “They’ve decided to call him Philip.”

  “Ah, Filippo! Exactly like my padre. Un bel nome. Hand the father of this Filippo, I have forgotten hees name?”

  “Ryan. Her fiancé. They are thrilled. He’s a beautiful baby. Lots of dark curly hair and the most enormous eyes.”

  “Ah yes, Ryan. Stupid of me to forget thees. Ryan. Of course. Senti. We are wanting to send flowers to Lucy. To send our felicitations. Auguri. This is a happy event. But I ’ave lost the address. Can you give it to me please? And the ospedale? It is called?”

  Of course I told him everything. I didn’t think there was anything strange about it. And neither did Lucy when I told her later that one of her friends had called from Rome, although she was annoyed that I hadn’t got his name.

  “It was probably Roberto,” she decided after I described the voice on the phone. “He has a deep voice. And the best English of all the Italian staff.”

  Philip developed jaundice and was kept in hospital for two extra days while mysterious things were done to him involving needles and lights. Lucy stayed too, relishing the bed rest, television, visitors, flowers, presents, and hot meals delivered by Ryan from restaurants near the hospital, even while she complained about the noise, odors, inattentive staff, and other inconveniences. She had, to my mother’s grief and her doctor’s undisguised dismay, elected not to breast-feed Philip. Even Ryan, who still appeared oblivious to any imperfection in Lucy, tried to talk her out of giving Philip formula, but he gave up after Lucy pointed out that Ryan himself had been bottle-fed and had turned out perfectly well, while having been nursed for three years by our mother hadn’t prevented her from being somewhat highly strung.

  I was in the diminutive washroom of Lucy’s hospital room pouring the remains of a bottle of formula down the drain on the morning of the fourth day after Philip was born, when I heard unfamiliar voices. Two people were approaching Lucy’s bed. A man and a woman.

  “Ver is the baby? I insist to see him.”

  “Gian Luigi! What the hell are you doing here?” I heard Lucy’s voice rise. She sounded surprised and alarmed. “And who is this?” I stood still, holding my breath, listening.

  “Lucy, I present you my wife. Ivetta, this is Lucia.”

  “So this is la bella Lucia.” A dry voice.

  “Your wife! What happened to her? She’s not fat! And what is she doing here anyway? What the hell are you doing here? No one asked you to come. You’re not wanted.”

  “We have come,” I heard the voice of the woman who must be Ivetta, Gian Luigi’s wife, announce. “For the baby.”

  “You mean you came all the way from Italy just to see the baby?”

  “Not to see the baby. For the baby.” Ivetta again.

  “Listen, Lucy. We have come to talk to you. The baby is as much mine as yours. He’s more mine. He’s my son. My first son.”

  “What the hell do you mean! You have no right to just barge in here. This is a private room. Get the fuck out of here, you shithead. You and your damn, skinny wife. Get out of my room. Get out of my life. Just get out.”

  “Lucy. Senti. We have an order. From the court in Italy. The tribunale has granted what you call custody, custodia, to me and Ivetta. They were very displeased to hear that you left Italy without my consent. And we have consulted with an advocate of law in Canada. He has told me that I have a right to my son. Ugale rights.”

  “Your son? You have your own damn children.”

  “Well, Lucy. Is not so simple, actually. Actually, my wife and I, we have not been able to have children. Is the fault of Ivetta. Her liver. And Ivetta, when she hear there was a child. . . .”

  “The child of my marito. Even if with an American putana . . .”

  “No, no, Ivetta. Lucia non è Americana. Lei è Canadese.”

  “Pero, caro mio. . . .”

  “Ivetta, non puoi stare zitta per neanche un atimo?”

  “Ees Italian child. Italian padre. Italian nome—il nome del mio suocero. Capelli Italiani. Ho aspetata tanti anni per avere un bambino. L’ho voluto sopra tutto nel mondo. E addesso. . . .”

  “Lucia. Sentame. You are young. You will have other childrens. This one, he ees for me. Ees my son. I am hees father. Ivetta and I, when we hear about the baby, eet was like a miracle. We have come to take him home.”

  “Well, you damn well can’t have him. He’s mine. You and your skinny bitch of a wife can just get the hell out of here.”

  “Be reasonable, Lucy. Ivetta and I can give our son everything. I have done my enquiries. This Canadian boyfriend of yours ees not rich. And I am prepared to offer you something, offer you both something. A wedding gift. A substantial wedding gift.”

  “You want to buy my baby?” Lucy shouted. “Are you crazy? Pazzo? He’s not for sale.”

  “I was afraid you might not agree with me at first. So, I have brought these.”

  I heard the rustle of papers.

  “You understand, eet was necessary for me to do something until you are able to think reasonably. Women after they have give birth, they are not so rational. Thees is well known. I have looked after my son’s interests. We have a good Canadian advocate. Very expert. The tribunale in Italy has already granted me custodia. And your court heard our claim yesterday. Here ees an order, an order ex parte that my son no leave, that he stay here, at the ospedale, until a final decision is made. Our counsellor tells us that we have a very good case, that the courts will give us what he calls ‘shared’ custody al meno. And they will also be displeased to hear that you left Italia without consulting me. Lucia. How could you do this? My own figlio? Sangue del mio sangue. Carne della mia carne. You should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me? Madonna, Lucia, perque me hai detto niente?”

  The door of the washroom was wide and heavy. It opened outward, into Lucy’s room, and blocked me from being seen as I slipped out of the washroom into the corridor. I stood still for a moment. I could feel the blood drain away from the core of my body as though a plug had been pulled, and rush into my hands and feet and throat, urging me to action. I half ran down the broad hall to the bright nursery, where I had deposited Philip, wrapped and fed, a warm, calm, sleeping bundle in his Plexiglas cot on wheels, less than half an hour earlier.

  “She wants him back!” I said—gaily, brightly—t
o one of the nurses, skidding into the nursery.

  The nurse pursed her lips and drew down her brow. “He’s sound asleep,” she pointed out.

  “His mother has decided that she wants to try nursing him after all,” I said.

  “Well, that is very good news,” she said. Approval fattened her vowels and spread like a flush across her pink, heart-shaped face. “In that case, he’s all yours.”

  The nurse released the brake at the back of the little glass cot. I wheeled Philip away from the nursery, trying through force of will to remember how to walk normally. My legs were stiff, and my feet as heavy and clumsy as weights. I focused my gaze on the faint tracery of blue veins on the backs of my hands. My hands felt huge and cumbersome. They swam in front of my eyes, too close, then, just as abruptly, they seemed as far away and as disassociated from me as the wall at the end of the ward.

  Around the corner from the nursery, I reached a quiet stretch of corridor. I abandoned the cot in a large supply cupboard where I helped myself to three extra blankets from a stack on a wire shelf. I wrapped the blankets tightly around Philip, leaving the smallest of openings for his mouth, nose, eyes, and the narrow band of golden skin in which his barely sketched-in eyebrows fretted and trembled. Philip slept on, oblivious to being plucked from his cot, wrapped in haste. He was sleeping through the unfolding of the second significant event in his life: being snatched away from his mother.

  I had left my coat on a hook in Lucy’s room, so I borrowed another, a blue hooded parka that someone had left on the arm of a waiting room chair. I shrugged it on. It was too short in the waist and too long in the sleeves, but it fit, more or less. I pulled the hood up around my face. Then I turned with Philip in my arms and walked swiftly in the direction of a side exit. My face burned with heated, urgent blood, and my knees trembled. The baby was a concentrated bundle in my arms, like a small sack of warm, wet sand. He felt surprisingly heavy in the thick layers, and he exuded his own hot, damp heat from which my enfolding hands drew reassurance and strength.

  It seemed impossible that no one would stop me, point an outstretched accusing finger at me, raise the alarm, cry out, “What are you doing? Unhand that child!” I slowed my pace again, tried my best to look like a new mother with every right to leave the hospital with her baby. We went out the side door, little used except by staff when they went to smoke cigarettes together, in clutches like geese, beside the dumpsters in the alley. I leaned my hip against the bar to open the door, gave it a hard push, and stepped out into the still, frozen air.

  Philip flinched and began to emit a thin complaint, a noise like a whistling sigh. I held him more closely and turned his face inward toward the blue jacket.

  “Shhh,” I told him. “Everything will be all right. You’re going on your very first walk outside. I’m sorry the snow has mostly melted. You would have liked it.”

  Philip sneezed twice and settled back to sleep. His purple eyelids quivered for a few moments in the bright, cold light.

  I took long strides until I reached the street, and then stood still, trying not to feel like a hostage-taker, trying to think of what to do next. My mind was absolutely blank. I had no plan. Cars rushed past. Their tires made wet, sucking noises in the slushy puddles. Black birds circled and called raucously overhead. Steam and the smell of laundry soap rose up in gulps from a cavernous vent behind me. The file of rusted dumpsters in the alley at my back emitted a sour, rotting smell. I wheeled on my heel and headed south.

  As I approached the street corner, I saw that the girl was back, sitting in her usual place on the pavement. She had a thick square of carpet underneath her, and she was wearing a coat that was newer and more substantial than the one I had draped over her a few weeks earlier. Her hair was combed and a red knitted hat concealed her grown-out roots. There was color in her cheeks and lips. She looked clean and healthy, like an otherwise normal teenager who had decided, in a bid for attention perhaps, to meditate on a bit of rug beside a busy street. I crossed the street and walked up to her.

  “Can you help me?” I asked her.

  The girl turned her head to look at me. She stood up. Her gaze was clear. She held out her arms and I handed Philip to her.

  “He isn’t yours?” she asked.

  “No, he’s my sister’s. He’s newborn. A few days old. Someone wants to take him and I need to hide him. Can you help me? Just for an hour or two?”

  “Yes, of course. Just tell me what you want.”

  I fished in my purse and gave her all the money I had in my wallet.

  “It’s Oriah, isn’t it?”

  The girl nodded. Her eyes flickered. She hadn’t expected me to know her name.

  “Go and buy some formula. They sell it in little bottles, already made up, nothing to mix. At the pharmacy over there—see it? And a large bag of newborn diapers. As much of both as you can get. Spend all the money if you can. Then take him into that church over there, the big one. One of the two big doors will be open. Wait inside. I’ll be back and I’ll meet you there within an hour.”

  “I understand.”

  “Are you able to do this? You’ve been ill. There could be trouble later.”

  Oriah shrugged. “I’m all right. Sad—but OK. I’ll be OK. I can help. You have to hurry.”

  “Yes.” I had decided that I would have to go back into the hospital and create some sort of distraction. “One hour only. I promise.”

  “I’ll be there.” The girl framed the bundle that was Philip in the crook of one arm. Her eyes focused on his crumpled face. She reached out and touched the curve of his cheek with a finger—her nails were not exactly clean, but they had been trimmed—then pulled the blanket closer around his head and turned him inward, as I had done, toward her breast. She drew a deep breath that vibrated roughly at the end.

  “What about your things?” I gestured toward the scrap of carpet and a large black knapsack that remained on the pavement.

  The girl handed Philip back to me and turned and stashed the carpet in a bush behind a nearby newspaper box. She shrugged the backpack onto her thin shoulders and reached for Philip again. I felt an edge of need in the way she took and enclosed him in her arms, and I hesitated, but I relinquished him anyway. I couldn’t think what else to do.

  I left the borrowed parka where I had found it, on the chair in the waiting room, and looked into all of the other rooms on my way back to Lucy. Four doors before hers, I found what I wanted. A dozing mother, her sleeping baby parked in its cot beside her. I crept into the darkened room, released the brake, and wheeled this baby along the hall to Lucy. On the way, I extracted the card that listed the baby’s name and date of birth from its plastic holder, and inserted Philip’s, which I had taken before I abandoned his bed. I dropped the other baby’s card behind a hamper filled with dirty sheets in the hallway. Although I had been gone for half an hour, Gian Luigi and Lucy were still arguing.

  “We must be calm,” Gian Luigi was saying, to his wife or to Lucy; it wasn’t clear.

  Gian Luigi’s wife was standing with her back to Lucy and Gian Luigi. She was looking out the window at the dismal, darkening view of the parking lot and the low rooftops of nearby buildings. Clouds were gathering. It looked as if more snow might fall before the day was through. I walked into the room, pushing the other baby in its cot. Ivetta spun from the window and rushed to look at the baby. She was tall and very thin, with black-lined eyes and a great expanse of black hair falling around her narrow shoulders. She had the deeply lined face of a committed smoker.

  “Ahhhh,” she said. She made a noise like air being released from the tire of a bicycle.

  “Let me see him,” said Gian Luigi peremptorily. He, too, advanced on the baby in the glass box. He bent from the waist and began to examine it. He did not look pleased at what he saw.

  “Don’t you dare touch him,” said Lucy. She raised herself up on one elbow and glared at me.

  “I’ll go and get Ryan,” I said to Lucy. I grabbed my coat from the fo
ot of her bed and ran out of the room.

  I hurried out of the front door of the hospital. It wouldn’t take Lucy longer than a second to realize that the fat, fair baby in the cot wasn’t Philip. She would check his wristband, which bore the other baby’s name. I wasn’t sure whether she would play along, or raise the alarm. In any event, the other mother would have her baby back quickly, perhaps even before she woke up.

  I joined the stream of people on the sidewalk—office workers out early starting on their way home; shoppers headed for the department stores on Granville and the small shops along Robson, or back to their cars weighed down with bags and packages. I allowed myself to be carried along as far as a branch of my bank a few blocks north of the hospital. I went up to the counter and asked to withdraw five thousand dollars in cash from my account.

  The young woman who handed me my money in twenties and fifties had been perfectly trained. She kept her face blank throughout the transaction, her flawlessly plucked eyebrows neither contracting nor rising. After she had counted out the money, and without being asked, she handled me an envelope large enough to hold all of the bills. I stuffed the money inside the envelope, and then squeezed the fat envelope into a pocket inside my coat.

  “I’m going to buy a car,” I told her. “Used.” The teller nodded almost imperceptibly and smiled a thin smile. I turned and walked as slowly as I could manage out of the bank and back onto the sidewalk.

  My unease grew larger and more specific with every step I took as I walked quickly back along Burrard toward the church, somewhat against the general direction of the shoppers. I had been too distracted until now to allow my imagination to add details to my fears that the girl, Oriah, could not be trusted.

  Terrible pictures began to unscroll in my imagination, like a movie coming into focus. The girl would have run off with Philip and neither of them would ever be seen again. Or she had harmed him, either accidentally or on purpose. Perhaps he had woken up and would not stop crying. The girl might have become fed up and shaken him violently, his heavy head snapping back and forward on his thin, wrinkled neck. He had broken limbs. Brain damage. He had been smothered. Sold to baby smugglers. Traded for drugs. Lost. Dropped. Burned. Drowned. Dead.