She worries the start of labour will be so small she’ll miss it while she’s doing dishes or cleaning the bathroom, and so she does nothing. She worries today will be the day, but still she feels nothing. When Marla can’t stand the waiting anymore, she calls the only person she can think of to come pick her up.
Hannah bumps her SUV up the driveway, and Marla clutches her belly. Their house number is 455. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“Definitely. Josh took Brady to the park, so we have all morning.”
There were no house numbers of any kind in the info binder, which makes sense, really. Not that Marla would just show up whenever she’s lonely. She’d call first, for sure, like today. Marla loves Hannah for making this seem normal, giving Marla her number like they’re friends.
Hannah seats her on a wicker chair and pours lemonade. Ice clinks in the pitcher. “How are you?”
The pretext of this meeting is to discuss Marla’s latest ultrasound, but she can’t resist the openness of Hannah’s face. She has these huge eyes. “Not great, actually.”
Hannah leans forward, still holding the pitcher of lemonade. She looks afraid. Marla shakes her head. “Not with the baby, I mean. Everything was normal this time. He’s a rock star. I was talking about me.”
“Oh.” Hannah sets the lemonade down on the round glass table. “Is there something I can help with?”
Marla thinks about the cigarettes she smoked with Dani. “Well, not really. The flooding and everything.”
“That must be very difficult.” Hannah looks at a spot behind Marla, then seems to interrupt herself. “But the baby’s doing well?”
Didn’t Marla just say that? “Yeah. Definitely fine. I asked about the gender, and they said they sometimes can’t tell this far along because of the position of the baby. So, it’s a surprise, but I think it’s a boy.”
Hannah smiles. “That’s exciting. You know we will love any baby, right?”
Is Hannah trying to reassure her? Marla wants to scream, I chose you! I’m giving you my flesh! Instead, she takes another sip of lemonade. Her words feel like bricks that drop on the patio one by one. “Yeah. I’m sure you will. Look, I don’t want to put my shit on you. I don’t want to do that to anybody.” She realizes she’s come to the wrong place. “I should go.”
“No. Please, stay.” Hannah scooches her chair closer to Marla’s.
Marla looks at Hannah’s bright white slacks and her snappy bracelet and wishes someone would come in or the phone would ring. Neither happens. She shakes her head, feeling like she’s going to unravel.
“You haven’t had it easy, have you?”
Marla likes the way Hannah said that. It makes it sound like it’s no one’s fault, and it would be okay to start over, or at least start from here. And it’s true. Marla pictures everyone she knows and how they get up every day and try again, even Candace.
Hannah allows Marla to cry, handing her a tissue to wipe her nose. Then she says, “I’m not perfect, you know.”
“Yes, you are.” Hannah is the epitome of perfection.
“No. Listen: I did drugs in high school, not just pot. I had a suicide attempt and three miscarriages. My uncle went to jail for vehicular manslaughter, and we have a huge mortgage on this house. Huge.”
“Really?” Marla feels a tickle of delight, like there might be a breeze blowing. If she had any niggling doubts about Hannah being the right mother for her child, they are gone now.
“Yeah. Really. And I’ve spent the last ten years trying to have a baby, which seems like the simplest thing in the world until you can’t do it.”
Marla hadn’t thought of it that way, that there are all these women out there like Hannah who are humping every night and peeing on sticks every month. “That sucks, too. I mean, it’s not fair.”
“No. But it’s what led us here. Marla, I’m so grateful to you. More than that: I’m inspired by you.”
Marla’s never heard anyone say that about her in her entire life. There is something tall inside her, a feeling she hasn’t had in a long time, and it’s coming from the way Hannah looks at her. Marla smiles and rubs her hand on her warm belly before she remembers what it’s called: pride.
17. BABY
THE PAIN IS NOTHING at first, because Marla forces herself to think about women like Hannah who will never get pregnant no matter how hard they try. But it’s worse than she thought it would be. She squeezes Liam’s hand at the beginning, then doesn’t want anyone else touching her. Soon she can’t think about the baby, because there is only searing pressure and heavy mashing muscles. When the nurse checks the baby’s heartbeat, Marla remembers again how Hannah and Josh are going to be such good parents and they want a baby so bad. How someone has called them by now and they’re waiting by the phone, thinking of her, waiting to hear what they’re having and when they can come in their fancy car with big balloons and stuffed toys for the baby. And the pain again.
Marla thinks if she could just sleep for five minutes it would be the most amazing thing she’s ever felt. Just five minutes, but then the thought is gone. It’s winding up again, rushing at her, and she lets out long, low sounds she didn’t realize a woman could make.
“You’re doing it,” Liam tells her, and his voice brings her back. He holds a straw to her lips and she sucks on it, feeling horribly vulnerable, yet all taken care of. Safe. Liam supports her under the arms, and Marla leans into him, swaying her hips like they taught her in baby class.
People move past her and touch her and Marla doesn’t see them, hardly feels them. Liam is there with his hands on her back, but it’s as if her body doesn’t really belong to her. It’s become abstract and yet perfect. Like a goddess. There is only strength and gravity now, inevitable and perfectly right. She hollers, feeling pain and pride and sheer force.
As the baby is crowning, she reaches down to touch his soft hair, then like magic, the pain is all gone.
The baby is soft and warm in Marla’s arms. She shakes with shock and feels like she might throw up as nurses cover her and wrap the baby. They prod her, and something happens down there with the placenta, but none of that matters at all. There is nothing so real as this, so right, so deserved. A daughter, her black eyes open and staring. Of course. It has been this way all along.
“Can I hold her?” Liam’s voice is softer than she’s ever heard. His arm on her shoulder is disorienting. She had forgotten anyone else was there.
Marla nods, and Liam takes the baby awkwardly, as if he is afraid of her just a bit. He cradles the baby’s legs back into her body and speaks to her as if she is a kitten. “You are a good baby,” he says, stroking her. Crying.
Their daughter is weighed and checked and wiped while nurses badger Marla about eye drops, stitches, bleeding. It means nothing to her. “Give me my baby.” As soon as she says the words she hears how wrong they are, even before the nurses look at her with both pity and alarm.
Baby niece. Healthy, beautiful. Here.
In the middle of the night, Gavin gets out of bed and scrubs Marla’s baby things by hand, water full of vinegar and baking soda that he’s crying into.
When Marla and Liam are finally alone with her, their baby is two hours old, and they have less than a day to say goodbye.
“I have to go home,” Liam says.
She finds herself holding onto his shirt sleeve. “You can’t stay?”
“Hospital policy,” he says. “I can come back at six tomorrow morning.”
Marla consults the ticking clock. “That’s only three hours from now.” She is thankful he doesn’t ask her if she thinks everything will be alright.
“I’ll see you soon.” He takes the baby to kiss her, to uncurl her little fingers and smell her hair. He sets her in the bassinet, then swallows, standing up straight. And then he is gone.
Marla makes sure the door is closed and takes her daught
er back into her arms. She tries not to sleep, to spend this time memorizing, to keep this image of her daughter with her kiss-shaped mouth slightly open and her black baby hair tufted and softened by vernix. She strokes every part of her baby, loving her until—
Suddenly she is awake because the baby in her arms is crying, not just whimpering, but really screaming. The door is still closed. Marla looks around like someone should be here, but she is alone. The baby arches her back, and Marla shushes her, jiggling her on her lap. The sound of her baby is tremendous, getting right inside her head. Her baby crying is the most horrible sound in the world.
Marla sticks a finger inside the baby’s diaper, and yes, it is puddly, as are her clothes. She takes all of it off, not even throwing the diaper in the garbage, just letting it drop beside the bed. She wraps her daughter in a blanket, naked and screaming, and remembers what to do. She takes the baby close to her, folding the baby’s body around her own and opening her gown to nurse.
It’s harder than it looks. Marla tries to wait until the baby’s mouth is open, but feels like she’s suffocating her. How can the baby breathe with so much flesh in her face? The baby screams. Marla’s breasts don’t feel any different; maybe there’s nothing in there. She squeezes her other nipple, just to see, and feels somehow very gross.
Nurses power in, two of them. One is releasing the brakes on the bassinet, because it apparently has wheels and is a baby transporter. The other looks at Marla with a horrified expression. “There’s no need for that,” she says, gesturing to Marla’s open gown. She takes the squalling baby and places her gently in the bassinet, then pulls her hand back and gives Marla a dirty look. The blanket is wet. The nurse diapers the baby with brisk efficiency, talking to Marla the whole time. “Go to sleep. We’ll bring her back in the morning.”
Marla is sitting up, then following them to the door, her eyes on her daughter. She didn’t know this is how the baby wriggled inside her, with fists waving, legs jerking. That was such a comfort, the baby growing and moving inside of her. But the sound of this baby, the horrible redness of her face, the way her cries carry down the long hallway to the nursery pulls Marla down. She sinks to the floor as her daughter turns her head from side to side, looking for Marla. Looking for a mother.
When it is light out, Marla wakes with only one thought. I will see her again. I must see her again.
She hurries down the hall in bare feet, worried she might be late somehow, the nursery filled with other women cuddling her baby.
Her baby is asleep. “She just took another bottle at five,” the nurse tells her. “She should sleep for a few hours.”
Marla reaches into the bassinet to pick her daughter up and thinks Liam is right. They absolutely should have chosen a name, because this is a person with fingernails and a ferocious amount of black hair, not just a bump that gave her heartburn and a lower centre of gravity. Hannah and Josh no doubt have their own names picked out. She clenches her jaw, and surprises herself with how much she hates them, their perfect life, and the kid they already have. Their money and their wicker furniture and their jobs.
The baby cries as Marla walks back to her room—not at all like a grownup’s wail or wet hiccup—instead, a panicked series of sharp yells with each breath. Marla smooths her hands over her baby until the screaming stops and the baby stares at Marla, taking her in. Her lips are soft and round, and Marla worries one day she’ll have a boyfriend who will dump her or the people she thought were her friends will laugh at her. How can she stomach her baby out in the world without her?
A nurse brings her a note. “Phone message for you.”
“You guys still do that?” Marla asks, glancing at the phone on the bedside table.
“It’s from last night. Breakfast is in an hour.”
Marla folds the note in her hand, knowing what it says. She strokes her baby’s face, her soft, downy cheeks. There’s a tiny blister on her lip from where she took the bottle. A bubble of spit at the corner of her perfect mouth. Marla feels like the luckiest person in the world holding the only miracle that could ever happen, and she doesn’t want to be alone. Everyone should be here.
She calls Liam. “We’re awake.”
“I’m just parking right now. I’ll be right up.” His voice fills her with relief. As an afterthought, he asks, “Did you sleep?”
“Sort of. You?”
“No.”
“Please hurry.” She strokes the baby’s face, the same arch as Liam’s eyebrows, his earlobes. Perfection.
“I will.” There’s a staticy space. Then: “I love you, Marla.”
In this moment, those words lift her, envelope her in ways she didn’t know possible. “I love you, too,” she says, trying it on again because it’s something they can both hold onto.
The note says Hannah and Josh would like her to call them when she can, and so Marla does.
Hannah answers right away. “Marla,” she says. “How are you?”
Marla blinks. “Fine, I’m fine.”
“No, tell me everything.”
Marla does, about the back labour and being afraid to go poo. About the baby peeing on the scale when the nurse weighed her and about Liam crying. About being afraid. “I’m holding her right now,” Marla whispers.
Hannah is calm, an ocean. “What would you like from us today?”
The baby sighs in her sleep, and Marla feels a jagged feeling in her stomach: ripping love. “Please come in the afternoon. Like we said. I think that would be best.”
“Of course. We’ll be there whenever you like.”
Gavin carries a bouquet, not sure how he feels. He makes a list in the elevator, the feelings like spokes on a wheel, melting into each other in the middle.
•afraid of hating Marla for this
•nervous about holding a baby or (worse) not being asked to
•off-balanced by the antiseptic smell of this place
•hungry because couldn’t eat this morning
•worried that now there’s no reason to be here and Liam will produce a plane ticket to Toronto
He reads over them. None are happy feelings, so he adds:
•honoured to meet my niece
Fifth floor. Liam is there to greet him and gives Gavin a big hug. “This way.”
The little room is full of people, but all Gavin sees is Marla, Marla and a baby. “It’s a girl,” Marla says. Her cheeks are flushed, and, except for her red eyes, she looks radiant. Beautiful.
Gavin leans his crutches against the wall and lays the flowers beside her. He can tell she doesn’t know what to say. He steps back, but she pats the bed for him to sit beside her.
When she looks at him he can feel all of her, the anger and the shame, but also older emotions, stronger ones like courage and love. Things they have shared for a long time. “Thank you for coming,” she says.
“Of course,” he says, signing, “I love you.” She signs back to him.
Gavin’s niece is the softest person he has ever seen. Tufts of black hair, little nostrils that flare while she sleeps. Perfect skin. Gavin strokes the curl of her ear, and she looks at him. “Hello, lovely,” he says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Marla puts the baby in his arms, and it’s as if the world starts over again. He looks at his niece, and then his sister, and knows that everything will get better if he lets it.
Marla watches her daughter sleep in Gavin’s arms and thinks it is the most bittersweet happiness. Her brother has his head up, strong and proud, crying.
Elise pokes her head around the doorframe. “Marla?” she asks, as if Marla might be someone else. She looks out of place, and suddenly small.
Dave is behind her, carrying takeout bags. “We brought burgers and fries because we know you hate hospital food,” he says, trying to smile, but he has to set the bags down and squeeze Elise’s shoulder. She’s frozen
in the doorway, pressing her fingers over her mouth like she will scream.
“I’m glad you came,” Marla says, reaching for Elise. And she really is glad. This woman who used to fashionably rip Marla’s jeans and then sew the frayed bits so the pants would last longer and still look cool is absolutely her mother. They hold onto each other, and Marla wants it to last all day.
But of course, they don’t have all day. As Gavin hands Elise the baby, her eyes flutter open, and Elise draws a finger across her eyebrows, coaxing her back to sleep. Marla is amazed to see Elise do the same thing she’s been doing, memorizing the baby’s face. It must be a mom thing. “She has your ears, Liam, and Marla’s little chin.”
“She’s perfect,” Liam says.
“Yes,” Elise agrees, never taking her eyes from the baby.
In the hall, two voices belt out an inappropriate set of limericks. Dani’s here. “Okay, be quiet now,” she tells Kamon, the door opening. He stands in the doorway while Dani wraps her arms around Marla. “You look bitchin’ for a girl who just gave birth. Sorry we couldn’t get here sooner—we missed the bus.”
“You should have phoned,” Liam says. “I would have come to get you.”
“You’re not staying at Liam’s?” Marla asks.
“No. We’re at your place, fixing the shit out of it. Literally, I think.” She and Kamon both make gross-out faces on cue, and Marla feels tired. Your place.
Dani edges up close. “I’m sorry, I had to bring him. Do you want me to take him downstairs?”
Marla shakes her head, glancing at Kamon, the sweetest boy in the world, who’s mesmerized by the baby in Elise’s arms. He reaches out one finger to touch her. “She’s got white shit on her,” he says, and Elise startles.
“White stuff. You did too, buddy.” Dani reaches for the baby, and Elise gives her up, reluctantly. Dani sits on the bed with Marla to hold the baby and nods, swallowing. “She is fucking amazing, Marla. I mean it.”
Dave clears his throat and opens the takeout bag. “We might as well tuck into this, hey? Lots for everybody.”
A Handbook for Beautiful People Page 25