Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  I had everything perfectly calculated. I’d use five vacations days from work after giving birth and then add a couple of sick days onto that if needed. Then, on the seventh or eighth day I’d return to work, leaving my baby in the matronly arms of Marlena and hire a nanny to take over once she left. It was the perfect plan. I just hoped Marlena was still resting on Sanibel before flying off to London to direct another film. And that she wouldn’t be too disappointed by my pregnancy.

  When I still didn’t hear back from her one week later, I started calling nannies just in case, and when I narrowed my list, I asked them to stay flexible with me until I knew more and that it all depended on what and when I heard back from Marlena. I didn’t want to call her. I wasn’t good at asking for help and the letter, although it made me wait for a reply, was my most comfortable way of asking.

  But then, as I was quietly talking to one of the prospective nannies on the phone at work, I got a sharp spasm across my lower back. My stomach had been tightening in bursts since I first woke, but I assumed my body was just rehearsing for the big day.

  “Hola?” the nanny said in the phone. “Que pasa?”

  “I don’t know,” I managed to say five seconds later. “I just had a spasm in my back.”

  “Oh dear,” she said. “You’re in labor.”

  “I can’t be, not today.”

  “Si, si.”

  “No, no. I’ve got another week yet. I’ve got a ton to do. I was planning on shopping this week—diapers, bottles, baby clothes,” I whispered into the phone, my words coming out choppy.

  “You need to get to the hospital,” she said. “Dear? Are you there?”

  “No,” I said. “Yes, I’m here, but it’s coming back again. My back …”

  “Another contraction. Start counting! Uno … dos … tres … How far apart they are, dear, and then get some help.”

  Help? I didn’t have anyone to help me. As I fought the excruciating wave of pain darting across my back, the piles of work on my desk looked taller than ever, and I had to close my eyes. I told myself, “Stay calm and collected. You can do this. No problem. Just breathe.” I imagined the white sands of Sanibel and the turquoise waters. The contraction subsided.

  “I don’t have time to talk,” I said. “Thanks for your time, and I’ll be in touch if I decide to further pursue a nanny. You are most certainly my first choice.”

  “Gracias muchacha. Gracias.” I hung up the phone. There were more questions I wanted to ask her, but time was running out and I felt all kinds of troublesome deadlines hitting me from every direction. First and foremost, I had to finish the story I was working on for the paper.

  Between contractions, I typed as fast as I could, a story about the new generation of women preparing to push down doors that a former generation of women had been pounding on with regard to womens’ rights.

  When another contraction came, I stopped typing, closed my eyes once more, and there I was, rolling around in the warm white sand with the birds overhead chirping, “This is why we lay eggs. It’s simpler,” I think I heard one of the birds whistle down to me. “You ladies should try it.”

  I opened my eyes and made a phone call to a woman I had been meaning to include in this story. “Now that women have received federal protection from discrimination, are they content?” I asked her.

  “Hell no,” she shouted. “There’s more worth fighting for.”

  I could feel a contraction coming on. I thought contractions started light, then progressed. It wasn’t fair that I was getting hit hard, like a major earthquake. Then again, I had done my best since five o’clock this morning to ignore the simpler tremors I had felt within me. I had been in denial that this might be the day.

  “What about benefits for working pregnant women?” I blurted out as I bent over in my seat.

  “It’s criminal,” she said. “That they should lose their jobs or not get hired or be told their careers are over because they’re pregnant.”

  My contraction had reached its strong point, and I was sliding down my chair, almost to the floor. I tried returning to the beach in my mind, but it turned into a dangerous place, with stingrays whipping and jellyfish stinging. “Damn!” I shouted into the phone.

  “Exactly,” said the woman on the phone. “The majority of men in this country have no regard for women’s rights.”

  “Damn,” I shouted again. “They have no idea what we go through. I hate them all!” I could hardly bear the pain across my back. Maybe if the contractions would switch to the front it might be okay. “I’ll tell you what I’d like to do to those men,” I said, taking a deep breath in. “I’d like to make them stay home all day and bake the meatloaf and scrub the toilets and beg us for a little extra money so they might be able to buy a new lamp for the house. But most importantly, let them give birth! I wonder if there’s a way for that to happen! Male seahorses do it. They’re the ones to carry the eggs.”

  “You are good,” she said. “Have you thought of helping us kick start our movement? Organized feminism has practically been nonexistent, but now we’re …”

  “Dang!” I cried, feeling something starting up again. “I could be president of your cause, but I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for the …”

  I hung up just before the next wave of pain reached its peak. And when my phone rang, I didn’t know whether I should answer it, but I did. It was Marlena.

  “I can’t talk now,” I said in broken breaths. “I’ve got to turn a story in and get to the hospital. Call me later. I should be back to work in a couple of days.”

  I staggered through the newsroom, one time dropping to my knees pretending to tie my shoelace while waiting for the contraction to subside, then I continued onward toward the editor’s desk. When I saw him, I was out of my mind and yelled, “Catch,” and then, like a kite, I sent my story gliding through the air, apologizing and then racing out of the room. “I’ll explain later, but I’m in a hurry,” I said before the next contraction.

  I longed to be invisible, not wanting to talk to anyone as I made my way through the halls, to the elevator and out the front door into the city streets. From there, I flagged down a taxi and went to the hospital.

  XXXIX

  JUST AS A MOTHER DOLPHIN has a nursemaid dolphin there at her side to assist her at birth and protect her from predators, I had Marlena.

  She had arrived earlier that morning to surprise me and, after our interrupted phone call, she headed directly to the hospital mentioned in my letter. The labor was short for a first-timer like me, but that didn’t surprise me. It fit my nature of always being in a hurry.

  But no one had prepared me for two hours of pushing. I imagined three maybe four pushes and out with the baby. I’ve never feared death before, but as I pushed for two agonizing hours, I wondered whether my baby might be without a mother, just like I was as a baby. And in those two hours, I didn’t want to think about anything beautiful or relaxing, and once I wondered whether my boss was upset with the headline I included with the story I tossed his way:

  WHY WOMEN HATE MEN

  Maybe he’d find it comical. It wasn’t my job to write headlines, anyway, so he would know I was only kidding. Someone else wrote the headlines. I just wrote the stories. But as I pushed again and again, feeling the veins under my eyes nearly bursting and wrinkles forming on my face, I couldn’t stop myself from hating Josh more than I hated pointy shoes, sleeping in rollers, making meatloaf, and poking slimy raw bait on a hook. How dare him love me like that, then leave me the next morning, having no idea of the pain he was causing me, or what I was going through because of our night together.

  “I vow I will never go near another man again,” I yelled to Marlena between pushes and breaths.

  “That’s what we all say,” said the nurse. “Give it time. You will.”

  Between pushes, I considered joining that newly organized woman’s movement. I’d give them a call next week. I was angry with Josh
for making me feel pain and with men in general for making me work on the day I gave birth, so I wanted to be one of those women to push the door down.

  Instead, I pushed a baby into the world and suddenly my anger vanished. When the nurses handed me Jack, he was wrapped snuggly in a blanket like a burrito, and I was filled with a kind of love I had never felt before. As I touched his cheek to mine, I would do anything for this little person, anything to make his world good. I cried my eyes out because I loved him. And I loved his father too.

  “Oh, Lydia,” Marlena said as she held Jack for the first time. “He looks like a newborn pelican with the thin white fuzz atop his head.”

  And several weeks later, Jack started eating like a baby pelican. Just as parent pelicans take turns collecting and regurgitating food for their little ones, Marlena and I took shifts feeding him at night. I needed her help with the nighttime feedings. I had returned to work as planned, just a few days after getting home from the hospital, and I was exhausted, drinking way too much coffee to get me through my days.

  I felt bad being Jack’s mommy and leaving him every day like I was. It wasn’t my dream situation. I wanted to be the one to hear him crying when he first woke and to bathe him and rock him to sleep for his late morning and afternoon naps.

  I fought back tears as I kissed him good-bye each morning. And I reminded myself that I wasn’t abandoning him. Rather, like a mother turtle headed out to sea, I was doing what I had to so I could make the money for us to live and eat. My heart beat wildly for my son, and I was happy to have a heart again, but along with a heart comes pain, and I ached for my son every hour I was at work.

  Marlena had extended the roundtrip tickets I sent her and stayed with us through the summer. “You’re good with him,” I marveled one day as she held him a special way on her arms, the only way that would calm his colicky tummy. “How do you know what to do all the time?”

  “I don’t,” she said, her eyes widening. “I’m acting.”

  I laughed. “Then can you teach him to sing like you did those twelve boys of yours in the movie?”

  “I can try,” she said, smiling and pacing around the room with his tummy resting on her outstretched arm.

  We never talked about how long she planned on staying. I think we were both taking it one day at a time, but one evening, when I got home from work, I peeked at Jack who was sleeping, then I noticed enough packages of diapers to last Jack until potty training. And lying on the floor, since I had no closet in this apartment, was a new wardrobe of clothes to fit him until he was a two-year-old toddler.

  “Marlena,” I whispered with tears in my eyes. “What is all of this?”

  “Look in the freezer,” she said. “I stocked you up with meat. It should be enough for six months.”

  “You didn’t have to do all of that. You’ve done too much already.”

  “There’s something else,” she said. “I looked at apartments today. You and Jack need more space. It’s insane that you’re in this one-room place with a baby.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I’m ashamed. I was embarrassed to have you see it, especially since I have no guest room.”

  “No, it’s not about me. The cot has been fine. But it’s time you move.”

  I walked over to the crib and watched little Jack sleeping on his tummy with his little behind sticking up in the air. As usual, he was lying in his favorite top right corner of the crib.

  The apartment I was living in wasn’t the sort of place I’d ever imagine bringing a baby home to. But I had never imagined having a baby. I remembered the look of shock in Marlena’s eyes the moment she first arrived and saw the place, but I hadn’t wanted to discuss it. I was embarrassed that I had invited her here to help me, and then had only a cot for her to sleep on.

  For me, the place was fine. I had grown used to it and learned that I could add beauty to the most ugly of rooms simply by putting up a border of paper and then gluing seashells to it. And the walls were decorated with torn-out pictures from last year’s calendar, framed. Jack saw blue skies, oceans, boats, and sandy beaches on the walls around his crib.

  Except for the lack of space and of closets for my work clothes, I had forgotten how bad the place truly was. And Jack was too young to care. He didn’t need a fancy nursery, I told myself. Those are for the mothers, mostly. He only needed my love and his basic needs: feedings, diaper changes, a clean environment, and secure arms around him.

  I was doing fine at work, but I was still working to put food on our plates, and until I started bringing home more money I couldn’t think about moving into a bigger place. There were many things I wanted to put my money toward, like a nanny and Jack’s education. And I could tell by the way Marlena had stocked up my apartment with essentials that it was soon time for her to leave and get on with her own life.

  I closed the freezer and turned to look at her. “I will move into a bigger place, but now is not the time,” I said. “I’m planning to move out of the women’s department soon, and I’ll be getting a salary increase.”

  “I can help you,” she said. “I can lend you money in the meantime.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But no. You’ve already helped me by being here all this time. I know you’ve got your own life, and movies to make.”

  “I’m going to miss you and Jack horribly,” she said. “I’m not leaving until you find someone to stay with him during the days. I’ll stay however long it takes you. And then I’ll visit regularly.”

  “I don’t think I can ever thank you enough,” I said.

  “You don’t have to. You have given me a precious gift. I never had any children of my own. You are a daughter to me, and now I love Jack as my grandson. I’ve been wondering how I could thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

  I hugged her, and we both wiped the tears from our eyes. “Did you ever want children?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. I guess I believed that the dreams a girl has for her life are more valuable than anything else in life. I guess there’s good and bad to that. I put so much into pursuing my dreams that one day I woke up and it was too late to ever have a child of my own. But God has blessed me with you. I’m so glad you had him.”

  I felt just as blessed. “What have you got planned for yourself?” I asked her.

  “I’m headed back to Sanibel for awhile, and then I’m off to London again. They’re starting another film, and I’ve found that directing is what I love to do. I’ll be directing the next two films and playing a supporting role in the third. It’s a big lineup, so it’ll be a busy few years.”

  “You’ll do great, I’m sure.”

  And then there was an awkward look in Marlena’s eyes, and she looked uncomfortable with what she was about to say. “Lydia.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you thought about telling Jack’s father?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t go there, Marlena. I can do this on my own. I may not be like Ava, with her rich husband to rely on, but I can manage just fine.” I felt bad not telling him, but it had been his choice that morning to leave without telling me his plans with the Peace Corps. And now, if he knew all of this, he might marry me out of obligation, not love.

  “Okay, dear. It’s your choice,” she said. “Did I tell you that I brought more of Ava’s journal?”

  “No.”

  “I did, and I’ll leave you with it when I go.”

  “How is she?” I asked. “How is Ava enjoying her life of glamour?”

  “I’ll let you read for yourself and find out.”

  XL

  I MISSED MARLENA THE moment she left and couldn’t wait to see her in the next film. It was early morning, and the sun was rising over the city as she closed the door behind her, waking Jack without knowing. She didn’t want his eyes watching her as she said farewell and walked through the door. I watched through the window as she stepped into a taxi and it took off for the airport, and then I walked over to Jack’s crib and lifted him into my arms.
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br />   It was my day off and I was thrilled to spend it doing nothing but loving and holding Jack. I kissed him on his cheek, then his nose, and then his chin. I laid him on my bed and changed his diaper, kissing him on the tummy. His tiny toes kicked with joy as he looked up at me. I pulled a cozy, dry sleeper over his head, and then kissed him again.

  I held him in my arms, walking around the room, stopping to look at the pictures on our walls. He especially liked staring at the one of the boat on the blue sea. Once the sun rose above the building next to ours, I pulled the shade up on a window facing the east and spread a baby blanket down on the spot where a sunbeam had landed. It was Jack’s favorite spot and Marlena used to rest him there every morning at this time. He cooed with delight when I turned on classical music.

  I then pulled Ava’s journal out from the drawer and sat on the warm floor next to Jack and began to read. I was surprised to see that nearly nine years had passed since her last entry. It was like not hearing from a good friend in a long, long time, and there were things I wanted to know.

  NEW YORK CITY

  1914, nine years later

  Ava

  A woman’s life follows a course as elaborate as the intricate interior kingdom of a seashell. At times she finds herself living, working, or spending her energy in a darkened area not to her liking, but soon she backs out of it or turns herself around and heads for another. There are many corridors to explore and experience and a woman doesn’t dwell her entire life in just one. But there will always be that one corridor that she remembers, the one with the glimpse of the sea, and it was the most beautiful of places to be, the one she’d return to if she could.