Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  “It won’t be the same without him. Who’s going to show all the new babies the ropes? Who’s going to teach them all to cry and fuss and jam as many fingers as they can into their mouths?”

  She put a hand on Gary’s shoulder. “You have a car seat, right? He’s not going anywhere without a car seat.”

  “Brand-new.”

  “You hold on, then.” She bent and picked up his son. She fit Otis into his arms. Otis stretched and yawned and blinked up at him.

  She helped him put the clothes on his son. “Well, aren’t you the cutest thing.” She gave Otis a resounding kiss. “I’ll miss you, honey bunny,” she whispered to him. Then she gave Gary a pat. “Wait,” she ordered.

  She was gone for only a minute, and when she came back she handed him a small blue case printed with yellow smiling rabbits. “Our goody bag. Diapers, formula, even a pacifier and an infant tee. Everything you need to get you started.” She gave him a half smile. “I put in some extra surprises. Nipples. Bottles. Changing pads and receiving blankets. Now you go ahead and take him before the other babies know their leader’s missing.”

  In the elevator, two very pregnant women smiled and cooed at the baby. Their fingers floated up in greeting. As soon as Gary stepped outside the hospital’s revolving door with Otis, he felt the air clamp around him. “Here we go,” he said.

  Otis was silent when Gary gently lowered him into the car seat, facing backward by law, which disturbed him because how could he tell if his son was all right if he couldn’t see him? He seemed too small for the car seat, sinking down, his head lolling. Gary tried to prop the baby up better. He tightened the straps.

  Gary usually drove a neat, zippy speed, darting in and out of other cars, taking chances, but now he drove so slowly and carefully that the other drivers became annoyed. They honked their horns, they shouted at him. But Gary kept going slowly because even though his son was buttressed in a padded car seat, he was taking no chances.

  Gary was halfway home when he began to be worried by Otis’s silence. Didn’t newborns cry and fuss and carry on? Was this normal for a newborn to be this still? Was something wrong that the hospital had missed? He began to feel a twist of fear, and then abruptly, he veered to the right, pulling over, the other cars whizzing past him. His heart knocked against his ribs. He jumped out of the car and opened the back door and leaned into the backseat of the car, over the car seat, ready to pull his son out, to give CPR or rush him back to the hospital or whatever else he needed to do, and there was his son, peaceful, mouth open, asleep, his tiny chest rising and falling.

  Gary got home fifteen minutes before Gerta was to arrive. The neighborhood was empty except for Belle, jumping into a car, who didn’t see him.

  “Here we go,” he said to Otis, trying to sound hopeful because he had heard somewhere that babies could read the emotion in a voice. “Home sweet home.” He bent to open the car seat, to pick him up, and as soon as he did, Otis’s small perfect face bunched into a scream.

  Inside the house, Otis was inconsolable. His face pinched in misery and grew red. His hands fisted. He screamed. Gary checked his diaper, which was clean. He patted his son’s back and tried to rock him, but everything he did seemed to make Otis shriek even more. Desperate, he turned on the radio. Opera flooded the room. Verdi. He turned it up, hoping the music might soothe his son, he sang to attract his attention, but nothing seemed to calm his son’s squall. When the doorbell rang, Otis’s wails rose another decibel.

  Juggling Otis, he opened the door. There was Gerta in her white coat, carrying two blue plaid suitcases. She looked from Otis to Gary and back again, and then she said something in a voice so low he couldn’t hear her. She stepped inside and clapped her hands at him. “Give him to me.”

  Otis stiffened. “What should I do?” Gary said, panicked. “Should I get a bottle?”

  Gerta ignored him. Instead, she reached for Otis. She started to murmur something low and soothing and pretty. She cradled him closer to her.

  “What’s that?” Gary asked.

  “German lullaby. Babies love it.” She looked around. “Shut off that opera, please.”

  He clicked the radio off. She swayed with his son, back and forth, keeping time to the lullaby she was whispering, and after a while Otis’s screams began to slow into sobs and then into whimpers. His fists relaxed, the red in his face began to fade into pink. She nodded at Otis. “Yes, I agree wholeheartedly,” she said. Otis whimpered once and then suddenly seemed to take note of Gerta. His eyes, grave and gray, grew rounder. He stared up at Gerta and then, to Gary’s astonishment, he yawned, and his lids fluttered shut. He slept in her arms.

  Gary was astounded. “What did you do?”

  Gerta glanced over at Gary. She sat down with Otis on the couch. “Babies pick things up. You were getting more nervous, so he got more nervous. I was simply calm. I am always calm.”

  She stroked Otis’s hair. “And I listen to what a baby tells me. This one has told me many things already.”

  “He has? What things?”

  “That he needed stillness.”

  Gary smiled dumbly. “How did he tell you that?”

  Gerta looked down at Otis. “Babies have their own language. I just know how to translate.” She rocked Otis in her arms. “We are going to get along just fine.”

  The first morning Gerta was there, the commotion in the kitchen woke him up. He felt funny about appearing before her in his robe, so he quickly showered and dressed and came into the kitchen to find her, in her nurse’s whites, which troubled him because they reminded him of the hospital. She was feeding Otis his bottle, settling him on her lap.

  “Good morning.” Her voice was clipped and serious.

  “Hey, how are you, Otis?” He bent to see his son, but Otis’s eyes were on Gerta.

  “You don’t have to keep wearing the uniform if you don’t want to—” he started to say, but she looked at him as if he had suggested she fly to Mars.

  “Certainly I do. It’s professional. Cleaner.”

  He nodded. “I’d like to hold him.” Gerta frowned, but she pointed to a chair. “Sit.” She lowered Otis into his lap, and fit the bottle into his hand. “Don’t tilt the bottle up too high.” She stood in the kitchen watching Gary and his son, her arms folded, and then abruptly she turned to the sink and began noisily washing bottles.

  He wanted to be at the hospital by ten. It gave him only a few hours with Otis, and when the baby fell asleep in his arms, he couldn’t help feeling a raw despair that they were wasting time. Gerta leaned over him and picked Otis up. “He’s a good sleeper. I can tell already.” She rocked Otis for a moment in her arms. “Let’s take you to your crib.”

  Gary didn’t know what to do with himself while Otis slept. He didn’t want to leave after seeing his son for only a half hour. He went upstairs to his office and tried to do some work, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept listening for Otis’s wake-up cry. He kept straining to hear, and in the end, he clicked the computer off. He came back downstairs. He’d come back for lunch. He’d call and see if Otis was up.

  He went to find Gerta, who was in the kitchen boiling bottles. “I’ll call you from the hospital.”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  “There’s a spare set of house keys hanging in the kitchen,” he told her. “And please, make a list of what foods you’d like for yourself, what things you might need, and I’ll pick them up for you.”

  “I will be fine.”

  The whole way to the hospital, he felt nipped with guilt for leaving his son. He felt eaten away with worry. What if something happened? What if Gerta stopped being concerned the moment he was out of the house? People snapped like dry twigs.

  A car behind him honked and he speeded up. You’re being an idiot, he told himself, but he couldn’t help stopping at a convenience store, running out to a bank of pay phones and dialing. There was a pebble of pink gum wedged up along the metal.

  “Just checking.” He tried to s
ound cheerful.

  “Everything is fine. Otis woke and had a wet diaper. Just as he should. I’ll take him to the park later.” She was silent for a moment. “He knows you are at the hospital seeing his mama.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He tells me, Mama is sick. What can I do? He is so little, it’s frustrating for him.”

  After Gary hung up, he rested his head against the phone. His legs buckled beneath him and he gripped the phone for balance.

  Gary called Gerta two more times that day, once when he first got to the hospital, and later when Molly was wheeled down to get another CAT scan. Each time he called, Gerta answered on the second ring, sounding more and more annoyed. “I’ll be home around one to see Otis. Will he be up, do you think?” Gary asked.

  “It’s possible.”

  At one, Gary drove home. He didn’t know what to expect, but as soon as he opened the front door, he nearly stumbled. She had spread a sheet across the living room, and lying across it was every single toy of Otis’s. “Hello?” he called.

  Gerta came out, Otis on her hip. “I washed and sterilized the toys,” she said. “I aired out his room and washed his baby blanket.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Germs.”

  “I want to take Otis for a walk.”

  She nodded. “I’ll get him ready.” He trailed her into the baby’s room. He stood watching her put on Otis’s little jacket, his tiny shoes, and then he followed her out again and watched her put him in the stroller. It wasn’t until she began pulling on her coat that he realized she was coming along, too.

  “Please, take a break. You must be tired.”

  “Oh, no, no. I have to stop and pick up a few things at the market anyway. Plus, it looks like such a nice day. I’d like to get out.”

  She put her hands on the stroller. “I’ll do it,” he said, taking the stroller from her, but as soon as he did, she moved closer to him. He felt her watching him, as if any moment she expected he might do something wrong.

  He didn’t relax until Gerta stopped in front of the Thrift-T-Mart. “We’ll wait out here,” he told her. She hesitated. “It seems a shame to take him out of the fresh air.”

  She nodded, considering. “I won’t be long,” she said.

  Gary wheeled the stroller to a green bench and sat down, angling the stroller so he could see his son. “Let’s live dangerously.” He bent down and unhooked the straps. He lifted up Otis and held him in his lap. “Here’s Daddy.” Otis blinked at the sun. He scrunched up his face and waved his hands. Gary held the baby close to him. Molly had stopped wearing perfume because she said it confused babies, they needed to know their mother’s scent. He hadn’t put on aftershave that morning. He’d do without it from now on.

  “Oh, Daddy’s a fool for his baby—” he sang and then suddenly, there was Gerta standing in front of him, a plastic bag in one hand. “How are we doing?” he asked her, teasing, trying to be light.

  She studied Otis. “You’re holding him too tightly.” She reached forward, trying to adjust his grip, and Otis suddenly spit up, a rivulet of cream down his sleeve. “You see?” Gerta said.

  “He’s a baby. Babies spit up,” Gary said, but Gerta bent down, examining Otis’s diaper.

  “He’s soiled his diaper. Didn’t you notice?” She took Otis from him. Otis belched, loudly and noisily. Gerta smiled. “Oh, that wasn’t you, was it? That must have been the baby next door who burped so rudely.”

  She turned back to Gary. “Babies tell you things. He probably made a small face, or didn’t seem comfortable. You are going to have to learn to pay more attention.”

  Gary had expected there would be an adjustment, a getting used to each other, to the house, but Gerta seemed as if she had never lived anywhere else or been with any other baby. She didn’t ask Gary where the bottles were, the nipples or the toys, because she somehow seemed to know. She snapped about the house, talking constantly to Otis, singing, and when Otis slept, she cleaned bottles or napped herself in her room, the door firmly shut.

  Every morning at exactly seven o’clock Gerta got up and she fed Otis and then he had his nap and then each and every time she gave him a bottle, she marked it in a little notebook. There were pages and pages of times and ounces and none of it meant anything to Gary except that Otis had been fed.

  She criticized everything. “You have the wrong bottles,” she warned.

  “I do? What’s wrong with them?”

  “You have to get the kind made in Germany. With a knob instead of a loop so the baby can’t grab on to it and fling it to the ground.” She hated the diapers he chose, with the Velcro close. “Cloth is handier, cleaner, and more economical.” She even distrusted the bottle warmer, preferring warming the bottles herself in a pan of hot water.

  “You talk to Otis wrong,” she announced one evening. “Your tones are too low. Children like high sounds, you should raise your voice.” She shook her head. “In Germany, children are raised better. We know they try to get things over on us, and because we love them we don’t permit it. Even a newborn is manipulative. Look how little Otis cries to be picked up. You think he doesn’t know his tears can move mountains as well as hearts?”

  Gary looked over at Otis who was having a sudden squall. “I think he knows only he wants to be picked up.”

  “Wrong,” Gerta said triumphantly. “This baby, he understands what is going on. He knows his mother is sick. He knows you are upset. He wants to help but he knows he is just a small baby and cannot do much of anything. He tells me these things.”

  Gary thought of his friend’s child Stella, balancing on her stocking legs, casually sucking her thumb as if it were fine wine. I talked to God, she had said.

  Gerta nodded vigorously. “This baby prays for his mama. I hear him at night. Come home, Mama, he says. Get well and come home. I miss you, Mama.”

  Gary blinked at Gerta.

  “You want me to pick him up, I’ll pick him up,” Gerta said. “But you’re wrong. And you’re starting a bad habit.”

  “Pick him up.”

  “In Germany, things are better.”

  Then go back, Gary thought, but he didn’t say it. He couldn’t risk offending her. Another nurse might be better, but she might be worse, too, and he couldn’t take that chance.

  He let her do what she wanted, gave her free rein. She came back with new pacifiers, diapers, wipes, and formula. She was methodical, humorless. He couldn’t help himself, he knew it was terrible, but sometimes, watching her, he had the urge to ask her what she did during World War II, how exactly she had served the Fatherland.

  Gerta kept to herself. As soon as she put Otis to bed, she went to her room and watched comedies on TV or talk shows. She was addicted to the Home Shopping Network, the jewelry and the exercise gadgets, and although he never heard her order a thing, he could hear her intakes of breath, her pleased, lingering sighs. “Oh, look at that!” she cried.

  One night, Gary was coming home, bounding up the stairs when he suddenly noticed two blue casserole dishes on the front porch. There was a small white card attached to one of them. He crouched down and plucked it up. There in firm red lettering it said, “Bake half an hour in a hot oven (425 degrees).” There was no signature. No sign of whom this might be from. He picked up the casseroles, balancing them in both hands, and brought them into the house.

  Gerta was in the kitchen making Otis’s bottle. Otis was napping in the bassinet beside her. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. Neighbors must have left it.” He lifted the lids. Macaroni and cheese. Baked ziti, it looked like. “I guess it’s dinner.”

  “I’ve eaten already,” Gerta said.

  Gary heated up the baked ziti casserole and ate because he thought he should. The pasta was overcooked, the sauce too salty. The food warmed him. It made him feel less alone.

  It began to happen more and more. Evenings, when Gary came home, there was always a covered dish on the front porch. Blue glass
with an aluminum-foil lid, flower-sprigged Corning Ware with a tin pie top. There were never any notes, never anything more personal than cooking instructions.

  He walked around and around the neighborhood, hoping one of the neighbors would come out. They know everything, Lisa had told them, so why didn’t they know he was walking the sidewalks with his son, that he wanted to thank whoever had given him the food?

  He looked for signs of life. The neighbors had sat out nights in the summer, but now that it was fall, the street seemed empty. He could ring a bell if he saw a light. He could make some excuse.

  He was walking around the street for the second time when he saw a car pull up. He took his time, he waited for the door to open, and then a burly man got out, someone he didn’t recognize.

  When he came back inside, Gerta was watching Home Shopping Network, staring at a woman in a red evening gown. “Do you ever see the neighbors?” he asked Gerta.

  She kept watching the TV. “Sometimes. They comment on how beautiful this baby is, they ask for Molly, and for you.”

  He felt a flicker of surprise. Gerta talked to the neighbors. “Really? Who do you talk to? What do you tell them?”

  She waved one hand. “I don’t remember. The woman on the right. A man down the street. I tell them everything is under control. They wanted to know who I was, what I was doing here. They were suspicious.” She looked away from him, glancing at the clock. “I’m too busy to stop and chat.”

  Nothing was under control, Gary thought. Everything was flying away. “Will you thank them for me for the food? Will you tell them I want to thank them myself?”

  “The people don’t want to be thanked,” Gerta told him.

  He never knew what to do with the dishes. None of the neighbors ever called to ask, “So, did you like that turkey noodle stew? Did you finish the pie?” None of them knocked on his door, apologetically asking, “Say, are you done with my blue casserole dish because I could use it to roast a chicken tonight.” The few times he spotted one of the neighbors outside, the most they ever did was nod, so swift and sure and sharp that he didn’t feel he could walk over to them and ask if they were responsible for such kindness. “You don’t want to embarrass someone who has been kind and doesn’t want to be thanked,” Gerta told him. “And worse, you don’t want to embarrass someone who hasn’t been.” Gary washed and dried the casserole dishes and the pots and set them out, empty, onto his porch. Sometimes they disappeared; sometimes, if they remained on his porch for a week, he kept them; and every time he saw them in his cabinet, he flinched because it was another unknown, another thing he had no control over.