The Baby Merchant

by Kit Reed

  She was forty years old.

  Having a baby was harder than she thought. Keeping one was impossible. Daria thought that once she had her baby everything would change, she would stop gnawing at her vitals and suffering over every word; the verse would flow. Sure. Women friends brought presents, but nobody warned her. Why didn’t they tell her what it would be like? Why didn’t they stop this before it ever got started, tie her down until the feeling passed? The learning process broke her in two. She loved the baby. She did, but he was nothing. she could reason with; when she held him he cried, when she fed him he refused. He never slept. When she put him to bed and sat down with her notebook, he shrieked, he shat, he needed! If she didn’t help him he would die. This opened a circle of vulnerability like another circle of hell. What if something awful happened to him? The responsibility overturned her. just having him in the house shattered her concentration. Didn’t God know she was an artist? Did she have to do this too? Why didn’t somebody help? She couldn’t think. She couldn’t think! She couldn’t work; she couldn’t sleep; after a while she couldn’t manage to feed herself, all she did was tend to him. Again. Again. The job never stayed done. The endlessness sent her into a spiral. One desperate night she sat down with her notebook listing alternatives, scribbling and scratching out until she came up with a plan. She printed it at the top of a new page, in big block letters. It seemed like a good plan. Reasonable.

  Later Dr. Furman told her that when she tried to hand the baby off to the attractive, astonished couple in the Quincy Market, she was suffering from postpartum depression.

  At the time it seemed right! At the time in her condition it was inevitable. Get up. Dress the baby nicely, anyone can see he is extremely pretty even though to you he is like kudzu, blind growth stifling your creativity. Put him in the backpack you bought because you thought you would enjoy long walks with him, back before you knew. Explain, even though he listens without understanding. Go.

  They rode all the way downtown on the T.

  The rest is confusion. All she remembers is sitting on the curb sobbing until they came and took care of her, whoever they were. Winter. Both times it happened in the winter because for a poet, winters are the worst, remember poor Sylvia, only a little older than me. It was days before she asked who had the baby— name? She thinks she was holding him on her lap after she gave up trying to hand him off and plopped down. By that time she was at the Riggs Clinic. Located in Hong Kong, Peter paid. Imagine, the Riggs Clinic. She felt singular. Honored. Some of America’s major poets did time there; she smiled through tears at Dr. Furman when the clinic called him in for a consultation and he came.

  “Excuse me, Doctor, don’t you think I’m in good company? Anne Sexton was here, I think, and I think Robert Lowell, and I don’t think she ever came here, but Sylvia Plath, see, Sylvia Plath had a breakdown too. I’m in extremely good company, can you see what I’m saying here? Every great artist pays a great price.”

  He gave her a tight, gray smile and left her to the staff psychiatrists. “You have my best wishes,” he said in a formal, almost rabbinical way. “Take advantage of this gift of time.”

  Thank you, doctor. Without the baby screaming she could write! At Riggs she started a verse cycle but she couldn’t think. She blamed the baby but by that time he was in other hands. It had to be the meds. Hospitals, the good thing about hospitals is, they’re safe. The bad? They rehabilitate you. They rehabilitate you and turn you back into the world. When she left Riggs she had a new set of coping skills. She also knew touch typing. On her next visit they would offer courses in computer skills, but at the time nobody predicted a next visit since everything Daria said and did led them to believe she was cured. Clever girl. Forty-two, but girl. No worry wrinkles or laugh lines on this soul.

  At discharge they supplied meds that smoothed the sharp edges but unfortunately kept her from seeing clearly, which meant that as long as she took four pills a day she felt fine but her vocabulary was scattered and her perceptions blurred. They also referred her to a clinic-endorsed agency for a reassuringly undemanding job. If Daria managed well, they said, she would have her baby back within the year. They never asked whether she wanted him. You are expected to want the child you willed into existence, doesn’t everyone? She never told them otherwise. It was like a death sentence, division of death of the soul: Do well and you’ll have him back. She did, and she did. To all intents and purposes she was cured.

  Not so bad when he was very small and spent most of his waking hours in daycare, but the weekends were hard. He was always there. She looked forward to Mondays but of course at the office she had no time for poetry. No space in her head for half-formed verses to take shape. Bitterly, she saw other poets half her age winning prizes while she coped, but at least she coped.

  Winter, these psychic breaks always came in the winter, and only in the years before the child got old enough to understand the rules, after which they coexisted. When he was big enough to understand, she and the boy revolved in the tall house like Paolo and Francesca or orbiting satellites that pass repeatedly but never touch. That last bad winter he was home with the flu. It dragged on for weeks. She had to take off work to take care of him. They were together all the time. The child rattled around the house all day when she most wanted to hide in her work. She couldn’t write. She couldn’t think! She did what she had to, to get back her concentration, because art matters more than life. She went off her meds.

  Daria changed but he was the same. He was there, he was always there! With the drugs cleared out of her system she was exhilarated and tense; every interruption sank claws into her belly, every sound magnified; all her perceptions were heightened, the suffering was acute and the verse still didn’t come. She tried. She did! Since they were trapped together she sat the child down and read her work aloud to him, what little she had. She read to him thinking, if I read to you, the least you can do is listen, I need audience. He tried to pay attention, but what could he say when she battered him with questions? This word, Tommy, or this one? This rhyme scheme? When he couldn’t answer she fretted. Every night after soup and canned biscuits she tried again. He was four, she thinks. She had to read; how else could she prove that she was a poet? She’d read to him and then she’d ask questions; Tommy was desperate to please her but he always said the wrong thing; she should have stopped but she had to keep going and by the end they were both howling with grief.

  It was the vulnerability that destroyed her, she thinks. She doesn’t know whether she means hers, or his.

  Either way, it was impossible.

  When the couple at Star Market wouldn’t take him she blew apart; she doesn’t remember much, just the child blubbering in the cold wind and her hand flying out somehow, before she fled in a sleetstorm of tears. She left in a cab; she saw Tommy standing behind her in the snowy parking lot— she can’t remember, was there blood? Four years old. With Peter writing checks from Jakarta, they kept her at the Riggs Clinic for a year. Electroshock therapy this time. This time in the exit interview they did more than question. They grilled her. Like any prisoner, Daria said what you do, to convince them she was well enough to go free. Last time she felt protected in the hospital; this time there was electroshock. Rude. Violent. Extreme. They strapped her to the table and put the rubber guard in her mouth and hit the switch; it hurt! She would have promised anything to get away. She dressed carefully for the exit interview. Made a smile. Sweetly, she agreed that she and her therapists had worked hard and that the electroshock had, if not cured her, thoroughly rearranged her. For the better, she assured them, exaggerating the smile. She agreed that she was a new person and together they planned her life after the release. This time they offered her a new kind of freedom: the child was happy enough in the home where they’d placed him, the foster parents wanted to adopt but. Chronic A student that she was, Daria knew what she was expected to say. She protested with tears in her eyes and they gave her what they thought she wanted. They gave him back. Hom
e visits, of course, from the hospital social worker, who would find everything as it should be although for Daria it was a tremendous effort, pursuing her hopes with the clumsy intruder in her house.

  Job as receptionist in a women’s clinic, to keep her grounded.

  For the first few weeks after her release she thought she could be herself even with the job. She wrote poetry at night. She was like a moth, blindly following the flame around the house— the idea for her greatest work— and this is the sad, truest thing about Daria Starbird: every time she sat down she imagined that this was her masterpiece. This, that she was doing now. She’d fret for hours. Then in a flash she’d see the finished poem shimmering, unformed but beautiful. Just then the boy would scuttle past on his way to the bathroom or kitchen— shit, did I forget to feed you?— with that agonized, apologetic grin and it would evaporate. There was no getting it back. Trying, she bore down so hard that her ballpoint ripped the first sheet and she’d tear it out and go on, with that starshaped crack in her concentration, as if the child had smashed it with a rock. Oh, it’s you. Hurrying past with his elbows tight to his sides, like a polite stranger in her house.

  How could she think with him lurking with that needy little frown, willing her to look up and speak to him?

  When he went away to school they were both relieved.

  Well, everything is going to be different now. Her boy is a finished product out on his own. He’s a success in the world. Handsome, she knows, from the snapshots. They don’t see each other but he has kept in touch. Cards on her birthday. Presents at Christmas. The checks, which are sizeable. His way of letting her know that he is doing very well at his job. And didn’t he call the other day?

  He couldn’t have phoned at a better time.

  Just as Daria is getting some recognition, with the promise of more to come; didn’t the producer tell her this TV show would make her name a household word? Interesting, she thinks, how the conversation with Jake Zorn opened up during their second meeting. He would do the show on resources for women in the Boston area, of course, but he was more interested in her! It was sheer luck that she was also a major poet. He was making her the subject of a Zorn Extra, in a sidebar dedicated to her work. She agreed to the interview after he promised to let her open the discussion with a reading of “Torn Hopes,” an early poem that may be her best.

  Fortuitous, she thinks, that Tom called when he did, She takes it as a sign. Of course they had a hard time talking, they always do, but that will change. Daria is coming into her own now that he is grown. They’ve never known each other very well but now that he is successful and no longer needs her, that will change!

  Coming home from the studio, she was excited. She seldom thought about Thomas but she was thinking, how wonderful it would be for him to see this! Now he isn’t the only success in the family; her work is getting the attention it deserves. How wonderful it would be if he’d join her on the show— foolish hope, she knows, because Tom is too important to travel on the spur of the moment, too many commitments, he must be working for the government, everything he does is so hush hush.

  So she was thinking about him even before he called— handsome now, with her coloring and her features, and although they don’t see each other very much she thinks they are a good match. She must not have done such a bad job after all. Now that her day is coming, it would be nice have him here with her in the light. She is planning a rapprochement because he does love her, she thinks. And in spite of the trouble he caused as a baby, she certainly loves him. The secret, greedy part of Daria sees herself going out on this handsome boy’s arm; she looks so young that nobody has to know he’s her son. Who wouldn’t want to walk into a party on Tom Starbird’s arm? He can come to all her poetry readings, after this TV show the invitations will come pouring in. She’ll be a poet again. She’ll be reading to hundreds but she’ll be reading for Tom, watching his face shine as the words flow into him. Then he’ll know what it was all about, the suffering they went through for the sake of her art. And when the applause has died and she’s signed all the nice people’s books she and Tom will sit down over drinks, and they can finally say all the things to each other that they should have said. They love each other but all their conversations go sour.

  Naturally Daria was excited when he called. She should have led with the good news but when Tom calls she answers with a tinny edge to her voice. It frightens her because she can’t control it and she doesn’t comprehend the source. All her responses sound artificial, like computer generated speech. He must have caught it because he couldn’t tell her why he’d called. Daria tried to open the conversation, but, God! Patterns: after a flurry of false starts she blurted, “What’s the matter, do you need money?”

  “Is that all you can think of to say?”

  They have never known how to talk to each other, she and Thomas. Had to start somewhere, she thinks. She tried! She did, but he kept asking stupid questions. Making stupid silences. An extension of the long dialog that is their life. She had to turn the conversation somehow. Excitement made her clumsy and instead of leading in gracefully, with an invitation, she blurted: “Tommy, I’m going on TV.” What’s the matter, was he too distracted to read the subtext? After all these years my time has come.

  She thought he would be more excited. She’ll never understand. He should be proud.

  They should be friends!

  27.

  Marilyn Steptoe meant to get down to Fourteen to check on the girl’s baby, she did promise, but things happen when you manage an establishment like the DelMar, diner attached even though Elwood is managing it. You get busy with one of the suppliers. The sweet cracker who brings in spring water once a week, this Todd! Frankly she was pissed when Sasha phoned to ask her because she and Todd were practically You Know, couldn’t the girl tell the difference between good times and bad times to interrupt? She picked the exact moment to phone when Todd was making up his mind whether he and Marilyn would start seeing each other regular; Marilyn could see him thinking about it while he pulled on his socks. It was the give-or-take moment when things can go one way or the other, very delicate, one nudge in the wrong direction and your whole arrangement will go screw-jee and you’re fucked. Doesn’t the stupid thing know how hard things are for a divorced girl over thirty, never mind that she’s put on a little weight? So what? She dresses nicely. She knows how to please a man.

  With Todd in her bedroom Marilyn does what she has to, to get out of this in one piece. She makes promises. To both of them.

  “Half hour, honey, be there at five, five-thirty tops,” she says, pulling Todd into her circumference, like one of those suns around Saturn or something; if you want to know how to generate heat, you just ask Marilyn. On a good day she can pull any man back into the soft and the warm; all right, they both got excited and she lost track of the time. Nothing lost today, in the sack she and Todd are getting down to where it might add up to something, and the girl? Frankly, Marilyn is a little pissed. She thought they were girlfriends and now it turns out all this Sasha sees when she looks at Marilyn is babysitter, well she can go to hell. Damn girl has been at the DelMar for weeks now and frankly, old tenants have a way of getting stale, whatever she wants, it’ll keep.

  After Todd leaves for real, but with a smile that just might be interpreted as loving, she dresses and goes down to Sasha’s unit in a generous mood. She might as well take over for a little bit. Let the poor thing out for a few, Marilyn had Delroy in an hour, no problem no stitches, but this one had a hard time, that baby tore her all up inside and what with it getting sick and all, she hasn’t had a minute to herself. Odd, the place is empty. Everything neat as a pin; Marilyn doesn’t know what neat as a pin is supposed to mean, really, but it’s what you say. Girl gone, baby gone, she must have gotten tired of waiting and left in a snit … In a way, it’s a relief. OK, she and Todd took a little too long getting up to what they were up to, and the last thing she needs right now is sulking and reproaches because she�
�s, OK, she is a little late. Hell, where does she get off? Marilyn is doing her a goddamn favor, so what if she is a few minutes late?

  The unit’s empty but she says, “Where’s my sweet baby?” In case the girl has taken him into the john.

  Nobody answers and nobody comes. Nobody is here. The strange, vacant smell of the place tells her it’s been a while.

  OK, OK, so the girl got pissed off and drove away with him to spite her. Fine. Unless the skinny twit locked him in the car and went bar crawling, looking to score. Easy for her to do. Size two at the largest, you’d never know she just had a kid. As for herself, forget it. She is just Marilyn, hulking and resentful, standing here. Thinking, without knowing what it applies to, serves her right.

  She heads back to the office and pulls out last month’s receipts. If Sasha comes in bitching because I didn’t hop to and do like I promised, she’ll see right off that I’m up to my neck.

  Then fat Delroy comes in looking like he swallowed the cat along with the canary and Marilyn has to sit him down in a chair. She loves the child but she hates that he is getting fat. Thick, sweet breath on him, what’s he been eating now? “Where’ve you been, Delroy, what’s that on your face?”

  “Nothing, Mama.”

  “Hold still.”

  “I can’t, I have to …”

  “I said, hold still!” Chocolate. The child’s mouth is ringed all around with chocolate. She tries to rub it off but it’s crusted dry. “Come on, what you been eatin’?”

  “Nothing. Ow!”

  She loves Delroy because mothers are supposed to but she does not like him. She never has. If only he didn’t look so God. Damned. Much like his father. Every time Marilyn looks in the child’s eyes she sees Del Steptoe, so no matter how nicely she starts, she can’t beat it down; she sees Del peeking out from inside this boy and she gets mad all over again. Decent of Del to put the property in her name so she’ll always be well provided for, but he didn’t do it for her sake, even though she was thinner then. The bastard did it so he could pick up and go, which makes you think twice about shotgun marriages, even though she personally thinks they are a necessary thing. She doesn’t know what’s going on with the girl in Fourteen and the boyfriend, nice enough boy, he hasn’t been around in a while but for a while there cute Gary kept dropping into the office just to shmooze. He played like he was from some insurance company but he’s this sweet baby’s father, that she knows. The girl may fight it but every woman is better off with a man, especially when there’s a baby, her experience with Delroy has taught her that. If Sasha had let that Gary in when he came knocking she wouldn’t be needing a babysitter at all. But it’s still kind of romantic, she thinks, him wanting her back. Then somebody else called, and maybe the voice Marilyn didn’t recognize is some rival; shit, this girl has two men when Marilyn only has one, and only part time? Maybe he ran Gary off because he wants her to himself. Still, Marilyn knows a baby needs his real daddy, why can’t she just mash the two of them together and make them kiss and make up? Better do it fast, before this Sasha picks up and takes that sweet baby away. Cute thing that will not grow up fat and duplicitous like her Delroy, she can tell by the eyes.