Three-Fifths

by John Vercher

  Maybe Mama could watch the kid during the day and I could get a real job, maybe finish up those credits so I could be something, maybe even a role model for this kid.

  For instants of time as tiny as that new life inside of her, Isabel felt happy.

  But she liked her life. Liked that she answered to no one. The only appeal school held for her rested in the parties and when she discovered she could enjoy them without the burden of classes, she found a job waiting tables on campus, a roommate in one of the waitresses at the diner, and dropped out to carefree days and quick money. The idea of “adult” responsibility petrified her, but then, she didn’t have to do this alone. Until she realized she did.

  She found him in the game room at the student union. When she reached for the door, she saw him. And her. Short shorts revealed long legs of deep brown skin, darker than Robert by far. She leaned on his shoulder while he chalked the tip of his cue. Her hand trailed down his back as he bent over the table to take his shot, her eyes travelling down the length of his legs, until they looked up to meet Isabel’s, staring from the doorway. Isabel stepped to the side, flattening herself up against wall next to the glass double-doored entrance.

  Tell him you’re pregnant and he’ll be with you. He’ll have to be. But he’ll resent you forever.

  Resent you? Who is he to resent you? He’s in there with another girl and didn’t even have the nerve to tell you to your face. He’s no father, and you can’t do this on your own. That’s no life for a child.

  She stood up straight, another wave of nausea cresting.

  You know what you need to do. What you have to do.

  Her eyes burned. She ran for the exit with her hand over her mouth and pushed through the doors to the outside. The sky had yellowed. Muscular clouds rolled over each other. Lightning flashes lit their billows and the quiet thunder rumbled like a slow rolling bowling ball. Another wave of nausea and she swallowed back hot bile. A drink didn’t sound so bad anymore and a smoke sounded even better. She lit up from a smashed pack in her back pocket and took a nice long drag. She knew where she had to go next, so what did it matter?

  She parked the car outside of the clinic and kept it running. A coffee stained napkin stuck to the inside of a cup holder next to the steering wheel and she pulled it away. Some of it stayed stuck to the plastic. She tore it obsessively into browned confetti that littered her legs. Fat drops of rain thumped the windshield before a downpour washed the pollen from the windows in yellowish-green streaks and beat the car roof so loudly it almost drowned out the radio. She turned it up, heard Croce’s “Time in A Bottle”, and turned it right off.

  She unlatched her seatbelt, untucked her tank top and pulled it up over her stomach, pushing out her hollowed belly. A little mound formed and she traced circles on it with her index finger.

  She sat up and pulled down her shirt.

  The drops hit hard as hail. Isabel drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in time. The cracks of thunder were the only thing louder than the rain.

  It wouldn’t be fair to keep it. Boys need a father

  Oh, a father like yours? Would that be fair? You can do this better than he did.

  In the passenger seat, three fifths of vodka sat in paper bags. Isabel’d bought them before she went to find Robert. She hoped to get drunk with him one last time and fall into bed with him where he’d kiss her stomach before moving further down. She pinched her arm hard so the memory of how good he could make her feel would be replaced with pain, like the slap in the face of seeing him with that girl’s arm lingering on his back, where Isabel’s hand once rested. Where it belonged. She laughed, then cried, then screamed. Who was she kidding? What a fucking mess. She couldn’t be a mother to a son.

  A son. That was the second time she thought of the baby as a “him.” She didn’t know why. She just knew. With that, her reasons not to keep him didn’t matter anymore, because there was no little atom anymore, there was a “him.” She smiled and giggled and couldn’t stop doing either.

  She put the car in drive and pulled away from the clinic.

  On the drive home, though, her mind changed in time with the traffic lights.

  Green. This is the best thing ever, he’s a gift.

  Yellow. But maybe not now. Maybe now that you know you really want a baby, you should wait until you get a little more stable. Don’t keep this one. You don’t really know it’s a “him.” Hell, you might only want him because you think deep down you can still get Robert to stay with you. Jesus, settle down, girl, and think a little bit.

  Red. You are out of your fucking mind. Call Robert. He doesn’t want a baby and neither do you. Maybe he’ll even pay for the procedure. Get rid of this thing and live the life you enjoy. You want to be up all night? You want to give up partying? Can you? Get real.

  She hit a number of red lights on the way home.

  Isabel and her mother cleared plates from dinner when her water broke. A dish hit the tile and shattered, sending ceramic slivers across the floor. Her mother started the breathing exercises while she set the kitchen timer for the contractions. Isabel watched a crescent-shaped shard rock back and forth on its curve like a bassinet. Her father yelled from the living room and broke the trance.

  Isabel grabbed her belly and pleaded for the baby to stop knifing her from the inside while she stood in a puddle of herself.

  Just give me one more week, because I’m not ready, not now.

  She realized then that she wasn’t ever going to be ready because it wasn’t just the baby coming. Now came sleepless nights, a sagging stomach, and someone else’s everything to clean up. She had to love it, love him, more than herself and she didn’t know that she could. She leaned against the counter and leaked on her parents’ linoleum while she mimicked her mother’s breathing, less to control the pain, because it didn’t, but to keep from having a panic attack. It failed at that as well.

  Her father parked the car while her mother wheeled Isabel into the emergency entrance. A nurse took the hand-off and rolled her back to Labor and Delivery, wincing at Isabel’s shrieks for an epidural. Every contraction felt like a tidal wave, rising and smashing down into her stomach. She threw up all over herself. She wanted to take the face of every customer at the diner where she worked who told her how lucky she was, how beautiful childbirth could be, and shove it through a plate glass window. Why hadn’t she gone into the clinic and take the next available appointment? Whatever it would have taken to keep her out of this moment, as this baby pulled her apart from the inside. She didn’t want this anymore.

  It was too late for the epidural. They wheeled her bed into the delivery room and placed her heels in the cold steel stirrups. In between contractions she thought about the ruin this baby would make of her body and how no man would ever want her again. Pain spiked and she screamed for them to get him out of her. She started to hyperventilate with panic.

  How do I get out of this? Who can I leave him with? Who could I convince to take care of him?

  They said push, and she pushed, and she smelled shit and started crying.

  It’s crowning, the doctor said, in a voice as excited as she knew she should have been.

  When he told her it was a boy, all her doubts went away in a breath, a candle extinguished. She inhales and it didn’t hurt, not like before. A calm, almost alarming in its immediacy, overtook her, and in that moment, she took it all back, everything terrible thing she’d thought.

  She asked to hold him, but the doctor turned his back to her and walked the baby to a table. Two nurses huddled around him and another nurse came to Isabel’s side and took her hand. It was so quiet. The nurses breathing rasped loud through her mask.

  “Why isn’t he crying?” Isabel asked.

  The nurse stroked her hair.

  Then it wasn’t quiet. Isabel heard wet sucking sounds like the plastic hook they used at the dentist’s office and there was still no crying.

  “Is something wrong?” Isabel asked.

  The
nurse gripped her hand tighter and Isabel’s tears fell unbidden. She regretted every drink she told herself she shouldn’t have, every cigarette she promised was the last, every late night. She just wanted to hear him cry. The doctor murmured and one of the nurses left his side to pick up a phone in the room. The sucking sound continued and the nurse pulled down her mask to speak into the receiver.

  Then he mewled like a kitten. Her nurse’s cheeks rose up over the border of her mask and turned her eyes to slits. She sandwiched Isabel’s hand between hers and rubbed the back of it. The warmth of it spread up her arm and into her chest. The doctor turned from the table with her little man swaddled and resting on his forearm. He could have fit in one of the doctor’s hands. The doctor held him out to her, and though she’d never held a baby, her arms knew what to do. His little red wrinkly face looked mushed and bruised. He had a nest of straight black hair and Isabel let out a breath of relief that, at least for the moment, he didn’t look like his father, at least not in the ways that would matter to her father. He yawned big and made little pig snorts and his tiny hands opened and closed. Isabel couldn’t stop giggling.

  “He’s beautiful,” said the nurse.

  “Oh, God, no, he’s not.” Isabel smiled. “But you have to say that.” The nurse batted her shoulder. “He’s ugly, but he’s mine.” The nurse who picked up the phone came towards Isabel and reached for the baby.

  Isabel pulled away. She told her no.

  The doctor stood from his table and another nurse joined him. Isabel held him closer. Why did they want to take him from her? Isabel looked up to her nurse and pleaded for her not to let them. The doctor stood next to her and said they needed to take him to the nursery for additional measurements and that he’d ordered a respiratory consult because of all the fluid they’d had to suction. His snorting and his weak cries and his weight and his breathing all were reason for concern. Isabel didn’t want to let him go but her nurse had kind eyes. She trusted her when she held out her arms for him.

  “Don’t you worry. He’ll be in good hands,” she said. “And then he’ll be in yours.”

  His tiny neck muscles flexed with each small breath, and he whistled when he inhaled. He struggled for air. Isabel swore she’d throw out her cigarettes. When she looked into the eyes of her doctors and nurses, no judgment resided there. She cradled him in her hands and handed him to her nurse. She thanked Isabel and handed him to another nurse who put him in a rolling bin and wheeled him out the double doors.

  “Did you pick a name?” she asked.

  The doors swung shut and she ached to see him again, an ache so similar to when she realized Robert was gone. But her child wouldn’t leave her. He would come back. He would love her forever.

  “Bobby,” Isabel said. She laid back and closed her eyes, and fell asleep before she reached her room.

  THE DASH CLOCK read ten past noon when they pulled in to the far end of the parking lot next to the Schenley Park ice rink. Isabel checked her face in the mirror and saw Bobby watching her from the corner of her eye. She pulled her hair back, then let it down, then pulled it back again. She turned to Bobby who continued to gaze at her in confusion.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You tell me. What are you doing?”

  “Just a few more minutes, hon, I swear.”

  The rink near overflowed with parents and kids who took advantage of the snow day. Isabel scanned the crowds until she found him. He wore heather gray slacks with a razor crease and a black pea coat. Damn him, he looked good. He leaned on the outside wall of the rink. A father and his young daughter held hands and half-walked, half-skated around the edge. The girl guided her father instead of the other way around. When they rounded the turn and got closer to Robert, the dad lost his balance, eyes wide, feet skittering, and clutched for the wall. Robert shot out his hand to help while the little girl grabbed her daddy by the forearm. She laughed, but not at him. So proud to be his rescuer. Robert smiled at them as they skated off and Isabel watched him watch them. She saw that same sadness from the night before. This was her chance. She turned and stopped in front of Bobby.

  “I need you to wait here,” she said. She pointed to a bench next to them.

  “Seriously, Mom, what is this? I’ve never been on a pair of skates and I’m not in the mood to learn today. Really, I got to get in to the bistro and see if I can get a closing shift.”

  “Just. Sit.”

  He breathed out in a huff and sat. Isabel brought her hands to her mouth in a prayer position.

  “Thank you. Ten minutes. Just give me ten minutes. I’ll be right back.” Bobby nodded his assent, leaned back, and spread his arms across the back of the bench. Isabel backed away a few feet, then turned to walk towards Robert.

  He turned to see her and smiled. Not a big smile, but warm, almost relieved. Her feet and lips felt like they went numb. She wondered if it was possible to scare herself into a stroke, because as soon as he saw her, she felt pure terror. She hadn’t thought this through. Somehow, she had it in her mind that she’d shake his hand, talk about the weather and tell him about his grown son.

  Did I mention he thinks you’re dead because I told him so. Because you broke my heart? I mean, yeah, you’re right, it was my fault, but I didn’t know that at the time, so uh, whoops. By the way, I named him after you since it was the only way to have you around. That’s not weird, is it?

  Oh, my God, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

  He walked towards her. She wiped her hand on her pants and stuck it out for a shake at the same time he lifted his arms. Jesus, is he going to hug me, what the hell am I supposed to do with that? She quickly switched to open arms and he switched to one hand to meet her handshake at the same time and they froze in those positions and laughed. It felt good, a pressure valve opened. Then he really hugged her. Tears welled and she willed them back. She wrapped her arms around his waist, put her head against his chest and inhaled. She realized he let go and that she still held on so she gave him three hard slaps to the back and let him go.

  “I thought you might have forgotten,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I had a thing at a place.” He smirked. “No, I didn’t. Sorry I’m late.” She tilted her head towards the rink. “Want to lace ‘em up?”

  “Brothers weren’t made for the ice,” he said. “Besides, falling is bad for my ego.”

  “Thank God,” she said. “If you said yes, I was screwed.”

  He laughed again.

  “Want to walk, then?” she said.

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  Isabel wanted him to offer the crook of his arm so she could lace her arms through and around it, so she could rest her head on his shoulder as they strolled through the park. Despite the warmth of his greeting, despite the laughs just now, she knew that time was lost to them. She reminded herself, for the final time, that this was not her time. He put his hands in his pockets and she did the same. She swallowed around the tennis ball in her throat and they moved away from the rink and onto the walking path, taking them into the park and towards Bobby. Then Robert’s pager went off.

  When Robert awoke that morning, he almost cancelled the whole thing. Had he thought to get Isabel’s phone number, he would have. It wasn’t about old feelings resurfacing, at least not the ones he needed to be concerned about in that way. It hurt to see her again. To remember the fear he felt of their relationship being discovered. About what her father would do. How hard he worked to not be afraid, and how badly he wanted Isabel to understand that it was no game. How much he wanted to stop caring about her, to make it easy to walk away. That even though it seemed to her that it was, it wasn’t. He didn’t want to remember what that felt like. He wanted to be as angry at her as she clearly had been with him all these years, and yet didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of his anger.

  Still, he told her. He said everything he’d wanted to say so many years ago. It surprised him, the weight those emotions still placed on
him, decades old. He didn’t think it possible for it to still matter. It wasn’t in the instant that he recognized who she was that he realized it, but in the moment, he told her what she’d meant to him. What her dismissal of his fear, conscious or not, meant to him. Why it caused his response to her injury to him was to hurt back. It lifted the load. Set it aside. The feeling almost euphoric, too good not to share.

  Showered and dressed, he walked down the steps and stood in front of the French doors to the dining room. The divorce filings sat in wait, no wishing enough to vanish them from the table. He pulled open the doors and sat. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the papers, flattening them at the crease, until he picked up the pen next to them. He dragged the documents towards him, hunched over them, and signed.

  Pages flipped, signatures scrawled, he left the dining room, walked to his home office, and faxed the paperwork to Tamara’s attorney. A different lightness sat in his chest as the pages fed through the machine. When finished, he folded the papers and walked to the fire safe in the office closet. An empty folder sat just in front of one that contained their medical records. Records that included the report from the final visit to the obstetrician. Robert filed them and closed the safe.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  He walked towards the front of the house. Isabel opened a door, offered a chance to close another, and he needed to walk through.

  THE MAIN LOT at Schenley Park was crowded for a weekday. The snow from the night before had been cleared and the bright afternoon sun melted the snow banks despite the chill in the air. Steam rose from the damp pavement. Robert shielded his eyes from the snow glare and looked around the half-full lot. He saw no sign of Isabel so he walked down the path leading to the ice rink.