Beholden

by Lesley Crewe

  Gran shook her head and dabbed her eyes.

  “She took a picture of me. Said it was for her album of dresses.”

  “An album of dresses?”

  Aunt Betty made sure she was with Gran when I got ready for the big night. “I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a girl get ready for the prom. My neanderthals didn’t even go. No wonder they don’t have wives.”

  A rap on the door. Jack was here. Gran ushered him in. Taking one last look in the mirror, I pulled on short white gloves, which Barbara told me were the height of fashion. On my feet were a pair of pink strappy slingback shoes that were actually called “Twiggy” in the catalogue. They were obviously meant to be.

  At this point I was so excited, I fairly bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen. Gran, Aunt Betty, and Jack stared at me.

  I held out my arms. “What do you think?”

  I heard a babbling of voices and Aunt Betty started sobbing right away. She couldn’t see to take the pictures, so Gran had to do it. If Jack had smiled any wider his face would have split in half. I was over the moon with how he looked. I was sure his mother was very happy tonight. Oh, why weren’t Mama and Pops here too? Don’t think of that. Don’t think of that. Be happy.

  Gran and Aunt Betty kissed us both goodbye and then we ran out and got in Jack’s car. He turned to me before he started the engine. “If I don’t kiss you this minute, I think I’ll explode.”

  “You can’t mess up my Yardley London Luv Pink lipstick. Barbara found it for me.”

  “Do you have more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m kissing you.”

  I finally made him drive away; Aunt Betty was trying to peer out the kitchen window, no doubt wondering why we hadn’t left yet.

  Now I know why proms are so special. You can forget who you are for a night. I had the best time. I was the only girl with a short dress on, which was odd. Didn’t Nell tell her other clients about short dresses? But she was right. I looked young and carefree, while some girls looked like they were playing dress-up in their mother’s closets.

  Jack spent the whole night looking at me, which was terribly sweet. He was proud to have me on his arm.

  It was nice to feel I belonged with someone.

  17

  Patty had her baby the first week of July.

  “You have to come and see him!” she cooed over the phone. “He’s perfect. He looks just like Daddy, but Ray thinks he looks like his father. I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Raymond George Albert. Ray Jr. for short.”

  How original.

  Gran was excited to go and said we could stay with Uncle Donny. Not a pleasing prospect, but what could he do with his mother sleeping beside me?

  Then Aunt Betty wanted to go too. Gran and I were realizing that she was a very lonely woman who would go anywhere just to get out of the house. So I asked Patty if I could bunk on her sofa.

  “The baby might keep you awake. Mom has a couch too, if you’d rather.”

  Mavis or Uncle Donny. Tough choice.

  We arrived in Sydney before noon on a Saturday, all of us with a gift in hand. Ray opened the door, still flushed with excitement over having a son. We hugged him and he led us into the baby’s room. Patty was in a padded rocking chair, holding the little bundle. She’d put on a huge amount of weight since the last time I saw her.

  “Come look,” she whispered.

  We tiptoed over and peered down. A tiny, wrinkled old man looked back at us. He even had a comb-over.

  “How darling!” Gran exclaimed. “He does look like George, when he was a baby.”

  There was hope for this kid after all.

  “He’s pretty small,” Aunt Betty noticed. “With the amount of weight you put on, he should be a bruiser.”

  Patty gave her a dirty look. “Thanks, Betty. Like you should talk.”

  “He’s lovely, Patty,” I said. “Does he cry much?”

  “I don’t know who cries more, him or me.” And she promptly burst into tears. Ray came running and took the baby from his mother and scurried out with him. Patty searched in her bathrobe pockets for tissues. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I love him to bits, but if I’m left alone with him for too long, I start blubbering. Mom said she had the baby blues when I was born, so maybe this is genetic. I feel so stupid! Mothers are supposed to love their babies, not be afraid to hold them. I’m a failure!”

  Gran put her arm around Patty’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “This happens all the time. I remember Joe telling me about new moms who had a terrible time in the beginning, but it’s just hormones and it will ease after a while. Go to the doctor if it gets worse.”

  Patty blew her nose. “My doctor is an idiot! When I told him I felt crummy, he said I should be happy that the baby was born alive because some women don’t get that lucky. How was that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Where’s your mother?” asked Aunt Betty. “She should be here to help you.”

  Patty sobbed. “She’s only been here once! She says she’s too afraid of the baby. They make her nervous and she can’t handle it.”

  “What about Ray’s mother?” Aunt Betty said. “Surely she can help.”

  “She works. She’s the only mother I know who works, and I was lucky enough to get hitched to her son. I have no one!”

  Poor Patty-Cake.

  “I’ll help you,” I said.

  She stopped mopping her eyes. “You will?”

  “Of course. Aunt Betty can drive Gran home and I’ll stay here for a couple of weeks. You don’t mind, do you, Gran?”

  “Not at all.”

  Ray gave me a huge squeeze before he left for work, as if he couldn’t believe his luck. Gran decided they should leave, because Patty didn’t need people hovering over her when she felt so exposed. Gran gave me a big hug goodbye. I assured her I’d be fine. Patty had enough clothes for me to wear and I could buy a new toothbrush.

  I didn’t know anything about babies but I knew something of loneliness, and I knew that was Patty’s real problem. She had no one to fuss over her or make her a meal or hold the baby when she had to go to the bathroom. Simple things become gigantic when you’re facing them by yourself.

  Patty showed me the baby bottle paraphernalia and the regimen required to feed the little tyke, and when I felt I understood, I sent her to bed. She cried about that.

  I gave little Sting Ray his bottle, then I burped him and changed his diaper, which was a disaster from my point of view. How did people not stab babies with these so-called “safety-pins”? It’s a miracle I didn’t poke him multiple times. Once he was in his bassinet, I pulled it around with me. I cleaned the kitchen, which really needed it. Then I tiptoed into Patty and Ray’s room and removed the overflowing laundry basket. Patty was snoring like a sailor and wouldn’t have heard a live orchestra rehearsal being conducted in that room.

  Since the washer and dryer were downstairs and I didn’t want to leave the baby upstairs unattended, I picked him up from the bassinette and placed him in the full laundry basket for the trip downstairs. That’s how I did the wash. He loved the warmth and the shaking of the dryer too. I packed all the clean clothes around him for the trip upstairs.

  He went back in the bassinet while I put the folded clean clothes in Patty’s room, and then little Sting and I cleaned the bathroom. After that, he came with me back out to the kitchen and I looked in the fridge for something I could make for supper.

  “We need to send Daddy shopping,” I told him, so I made a list.

  There were enough ingredients to make macaroni and cheese with tea biscuits and an apple crisp for dessert.

  By then, Sting was informing me by silent messages through the air that he needed changing. I got the message loud and clear. Back t
o poking him with pins and then another feed.

  Ray found me asleep in the rocking chair with Ray Jr. on my chest. Patty was still comatose.

  When I finally opened my eyes, Ray bleated, “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to us.”

  “It’s no trouble. But before you come in for the night, I’ve left a grocery list on the kitchen table. Go to the store now, so the things are bought and put away before Patty wakes up.”

  Out he went, and baby and I rocked.

  When Patty did finally emerge, it was to see her husband and me at the kitchen table, eating supper with baby in the bassinet beside us.

  “What time is it?” She yawned and blearily looked around.

  “It’s almost seven. Come eat something.”

  “Seven! At night?” She quickly charged over to the bassinette. “And baby is fine?”

  “Yes. He’s been fed three times, changed four times, and slept all day.”

  “But how come he’s not crying?”

  “Because I wasn’t crying, is my first guess.”

  She slid into a kitchen chair and looked around. “You did the dishes?”

  “She did the laundry and cleaned the bathroom too, plus made this delicious supper,” Ray told her. “I went for groceries.”

  Patty laid her head on my arm and patted Ray’s hand. “You guys are the best.”

  It felt nice to be able to do something for her.

  My bed was the living room couch. It was perfectly comfortable, but I didn’t sleep soundly, being in someone else’s house. I heard Ray cry before Patty did, and I sent her back to bed when she found me rocking him with a bottle.

  “Bridie, I don’t expect you to do everything.”

  “I know. But while I’m here, you might as well get caught up on your sleep.”

  We found a nice little rhythm as the days went by. Patty was able to take a hot shower instead of just rinsing her face under the tap with cold water. She sat under her portable hair dryer one day and put on a dab of lipstick.

  “Now I don’t feel like such a freak,” she said.

  The phone rang when I was up to my elbows in a boiling pot of water sterilizing baby bottles, so Patty answered it with Ray on her shoulder.

  “Hello? Yes, one moment please.”

  She held out the phone. “For you. A nice-sounding boy.”

  I smiled and wiped my hands. Patty held the phone receiver to her belly. “You better tell me everything!”

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s me.”

  “Hi, Jack.”

  “I got concerned when I didn’t hear from you for three days. I finally called your grandmother. I was afraid she’d tell me you’d skipped town.”

  “Well, I have, but only for a little while. I’m helping my sister with her new baby.”

  “You never told me you had a sister.”

  “I do. It’s a weird arrangement. We’re not biological sisters, but I’ve pestered her endlessly and read her diary, so that qualifies me as a pain-in-the-ass little sister.”

  “Gotcha. So, it’s going to be a while until I see you. Napoleon is getting lonely.”

  “Napoleon is just fine.”

  “I’m getting lonely.”

  “You’re going to be fine too.”

  “I’m not sure about that. Let me know when you get home.”

  “I will.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Goodbye, Jack.”

  There was no way I was going to tell Jack I missed him with Patty breathing down my neck. I hung up the phone and went back to my pot of boiling water.

  “Spill the beans,” she said. “Who’s Jack?”

  “He’s a guy I go out with on occasion.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “He’s cute. Blond, blue eyes.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s basically running his father’s ranch, now that his dad is in politics.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Aha! You better bring him for a visit sometime so I can see for myself.”

  That afternoon, Patty and baby were sleeping and I was copying out recipes from one of Patty’s cookbooks. There was a loud banging on the front door and I ran to get it before the baby woke up.

  It was Mavis. She’d put weight on as well.

  She looked at me in shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m helping Patty. What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting my grandson, since God forbid anyone bring him to see me.” She pushed by me through the doorway and tossed her purse on the nearest armchair. “Where is he?’

  “He’s either in his cot or in his cot.”

  “Nothing’s changed, I see. Always the joker.”

  “Why don’t you wait here until the baby wakes up? I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  “No, thank you.” She blew past me and headed straight for the baby’s room. A moment later, Ray was crying. I could’ve belted her. Both Patty and I reached the door to his room at the same time.

  “Mom! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Mavis was trying to hold the squirming child, and looked none too pleased about it. “What is wrong with him?”

  “Put your hand under his head, for one thing,” Patty cried. “Give him to me.”

  Patty practically ripped the baby out of her mother’s hands. Motherhood makes you brave.

  “How dare you come in here and wake him up? Do you know how hard it is to get him to sleep?”

  “And that’s the thanks I get for coming to visit. You were whining just the other day that I don’t come over enough. If this is the type of reception I get, I don’t think I’ll bother.”

  My childhood came roaring back to me in that instant. “Why don’t I make us all a cup of tea? Let’s go in the living room. I’ll get Ray’s bottle.”

  I watched Mama do this a thousand times. Put everyone in a corner and calm them down with a hot drink and a cookie.

  Things were much better once everyone was fed. Patty put Ray on a blanket on the sofa and mother and grandmother sat at either end, smiling at his antics.

  It gave me an opportunity to collect the dishes and take them into the kitchen, where I washed them immediately. Then I headed downstairs with another load of laundry. It was quite a process to wash cloth diapers. I took a fresh batch out of the washing machine and took them outside to hang on the line.

  When I came back in, Mavis and Patty were already at each other’s throats. Poor little baby was squalling too. I picked him up and bounced him as I walked around the room.

  “You both need to calm down if you want this child to be calm.”

  Mavis looked down her nose at me. “What do you know about rearing a child?”

  “Nothing. But I know that I get upset when you two get upset, so I imagine it’s the same for a little baby.”

  Patty pointed at me. “She’s got more sense than you ever will, Mother. You can’t come here bellyaching about your poor lonely life. I’m too busy to listen to it.”

  Mavis rooted in her purse and took out a tissue. “This is the thanks I get for raising you girls.”

  “You didn’t raise us, you silly woman! Eileen raised us. You spent your time in bed, in the tub, at a luncheon, or drinking your way through another putrid cocktail party. Believe me when I say I’ll be taking a page out of Eileen’s book, not yours, as I raise my son.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard Patty give Eileen the credit she deserved. I was in danger of crying, so I took off with Ray and shut the door of his room. He needed changing anyway. His little chest heaved up and down from his wails, but he quickly calmed himself as I washed his body and stroked his tiny head.

  How could I have called him
an old man with a comb-over? He was precious, with his pouty mouth and little button nose. So sweet and innocent and trusting. This must have been how Pops felt about me when he saved me, as my mother lay dying next to him.

  Oh, my God. The love. The love was overwhelming.

  Ray and I rocked away, listening to Mavis yell her way out of the house before slamming the front door. Patty peeked in and leaned on the door frame.

  “Why did I think I wanted my mother to come over? It’ll be a blessing if she leaves us alone for the foreseeable future.”

  “Your mother is not suited to infants. I believe that’s why Pops had Mama come to stay with you when you were first born.”

  “I shudder to think what life would have been like without Eileen. I wish I’d told her how much I loved her.”

  “She knew.”

  Patty frowned. “Thanks, but you and I both know the truth. I was a brat.”

  Two weeks turned into three, but I didn’t mind. I loved Patty’s baby with all my heart. Being an auntie was an amazing thing, and I knew I would be close to my little puppy for the rest of his life.

  The poor kid. He’d gone from Ray to Sting Ray to Puppy, and Puppy stuck. Even Patty called him Pup. I’m not sure Ray was too happy with it, but he was so thrilled to get his wife back that he would have called the kid Frankenstein if it meant peace was restored to his kingdom.

  Patty herself told me to go home, that she was fine and could handle it from here. When I called Gran to tell her, she said Jack had asked if he could pick me up when I was ready to come home. I told her to call him.

  Patty was pleased. “I’ll have to get out my binoculars and spy on you two in the car before you leave.”

  “I apologize for all that, by the way.”

  “You’ve more than made it up to me. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

  Jack was at the door at eight in the morning, which meant he’d had an early start. Patty thought that was adorable. She peeked through the curtains as he came up the walk. Ray held Pup in his arms. “Get away from the window, woman.”

  “Oh my God! He’s a dreamboat! Are you mad, spending three weeks with me and a mountain of dirty diapers when you could’ve been with him?”