Look at that. That can’t be me, Kim says. I would never do this alone.
How do you know she’s alone? I say. Could be the dad couldn’t make it. Stayed in the car. This place ain’t exactly male-friendly.
You see a ring? she says. Where was the ring?
One has to know when is when and when is now, so not another word from me. Instead, I grab a magazine. The cover girl is a pregnant girl wearing a bikini. She’s posed with an arm above her belly and another near her navel and her smile’s a normal smile on narcotics. This is the kind of picture that misleads, that makes pregnancy seem like one glorious journey for all parties involved. I peek up from the cover and see another couple enter, the man carrying a detached car seat, AKA a walking, toting sign.
As if I need one.
Every week she announces what’s new: He’s got a brain and spinal cord; by now he’s got hands and webbed feet; he’s not an embryo anymore, he’s a fetus. Updates I’m guessing are meant to beguile, but instead keep me awake late nights, staring at the swell of her belly, the broadening of her dark areolas, that, many-a-night, have shot me out of bed in sweats, my heart sailing like a souped-up metronome.
Right, my silly ass should’ve seen this coming.
Right, my silly ass didn’t see this coming. After she’d broke it off with her ex, after she and I began claiming one another (I shouldn’t have to tell you what a big step that was!), she duped me with that line of questioning that has sent many a believes-he’s-keen young skirt-chaser hightailing for an exit. We were at the open-air hot tub spot where I’d taken a few prime prospects, drinking white wine from smuggled plastic cups.
Are you the type of man to leave after the chase? Is this all about a challenge? she said.
No, not at all, I said. I really like you.
You do? she said. How long does that last?
Saecula saeculorum, I said.
What’s that? she said.
Forever and ever, I said. To the ages of ages.
And peoples, let’s admit that line sounded real slick, ultra-suave if I do say so myself, which I do. And where I’m from, the suavest shit you ever said to a chick is a superhero’s superpower.
Kim rummages in her purse and I scan the office playing the game where I imagine lives for absolute strangers. The guy in the mesh hat was a high school football star stiff-arming his way to the NFL till word leaked of test scores even a D-1 coach wouldn’t fix. Now homie hangs drywall to pay the rent and scrimps all year for fishing trips. The chick in the corner answers phones at a downtown dentist office, drives a minivan, cooks her husband two unappreciated meals a day, and sends him to work with a slapdash sack lunch and, every season or so, a shot of half-ass head! The female by the cooler is a former coed who volunteers at shelters and spends her weekends rock climbing, kayaking, hiking the Cascades.
I’m just about to dive on someone else when another nurse pushes through the door and calls Kim. We follow the nurse to a scale in the hall and afterwards to an empty waiting room, where Kim climbs on the table and kicks the shoes off her swollen feet.
Have you started prenatals? she says.
Yes, Kim says.
Great, she says. Concerned today about anything especially?
No, not that I can think of, Kim says.
The nurse checks the rest of her vitals, marks them in her chart, and sets the chart on the counter. She fishes a gown from a top drawer and tells us the doctor will be right in. Kim strips, folds her pants and top, and gives the neat stack to me. She turns in the mirror in her bra and panties and it reminds me of the cover girl. Before this, seeing my girl in any degree of naked would excite me to off-the-Mohs-chart stiffness, but today she inspires not even a tingle. She puts on her gown, unhooks her bra, slips out of her panties, and I’llbedamned still nothing.
Why are you so quiet? she says.
There a law against quiet? I say.
You aren’t any other time, she says. Why now?
Let’s not do this here, I say. Not now.
You almost don’t hear the doctor come in. The doc’s got silver hair above floppy ears but most noticeable is that he’s huge. I’m talking retired-hooper-big, alien hands and feet.
How’s my favorite patient? he says.
Hey, Doc, she says. I’m great.
And you must be Shawn, he says. I’ve heard good things. Good, good things. Doc seems intent on turning my fingers to mush, waits waaaaaay too long to let me loose. He stoops to tie a faded off-brand running shoe, and a thatch of surly chest hair sprouts from the V of his V-neck. He picks up the chart and reads. Okay, okay, okay. All is well, he says. You’re a few pounds off weightwise, but no worry.
So, Shawn, he says. How’re the studies?
Good, I say. Pretty good, I guess.
Looking forward to the Christmas break? he says. You two have any plans for the holidays?
Just dinner, I say.
Nice, he says. I love holiday meals. So, Kim tells me you finish this year. Have you decided on a grad school yet?
Not yet, I say. Not sure about grad school.
He gazes at me through what must be the clearest Aryan blue eyes in the hemisphere. You should make that a surety, he says. You know a bachelor’s is just the start these days. Besides, this new life will need an example. Gorgeous girlfriend, new baby, you are one lucky young man, my friend. He stuffs his hands (it’s miraculous they fit) into a pair of rubber gloves. Enough about school, he says. Let’s have a look at that uterus. He turns his head and slips under her gown. Ahh, this feels like ten weeks, he says. Feels like eleven weeks, he says. Maybe twelve.
Sixteen weeks, state law, twenty-four if there’s a grave risk to the mother. This kind of info is everywhere in those cheerless clinics. We last visited one not enough months ago. I dropped off Kim, gave her a knot of fifties, and, with a tornado whipping my guts into a FEMA site, waited some safe blocks away. They called for pickup, and I drove to the clinic’s back lot, where a frowning woman wheeled Kim down a ramp and helped me load her into the car. Kim grabbed my arm before we left. That’s it, she said. That’s it and I mean it. No more.
Doc snaps off his gloves, trashes them, marks notes. Well, we’re far enough along, he says. How’d you two like to hear the heartbeat? Kim, of course, says we’d love to, and while the doctor is gone, she puts on her pants and inspects herself in the mirror. She catches me gazing. In truth it is half at her and half at what could be the rest of our days.
Please tell me why you don’t seem excited, she says.
You’re excited enough for us both, I say. But I don’t know.
Don’t know what? she says.
About this, I say.
You are not sayin what I think you’re sayin, she says.
Life has options is what they preached in my old youth program, but to keep it all the way funky, options are forevermore my trick knee.
But like I said in so many words, maybe my affliction’s a product of genes, biology.
Dude was a magician, my biological pops, showed up when Moms was in labor but when it came time to sign the birth certificate: POOF! For the better half of my life the nigger was a hocus-pocus Harry Houdini. But check it, don’t throw me no pity parade, nor chasten Pops too tough. There’s no doubt at all a third baby in less than a year was not, if dude had any, part of his plans; plus, with the efficacies of Big Ken, there’s a chance things worked out fine, finer, the finest.
The silence is an overripe piece of fruit between us yearning to be split wide. Let’s talk, I should say, gash the gushy quiet right down the center and seize this fleet-footed moment before it puts on track shoes and sprints off.
They’ve told me for most of my life that my life is optionful, but what they should’ve said was this: You’ve got a choice, youngin, till you don’t.
Doc tugs in the Doppler (it’s a machine resembling an oversized CB), and tells Kim to lie down. He spreads gel over her taut belly and circles it with a wand. He turns a knob and the room fills wi
th a swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh.
Now, there’s a healthy heart, he says.
We listen. The light in her face says it’s an all-around charm for her. It’s a charm for me as well (how could it not be, this living being that we made?) but also a dread.
Doc kills the Doppler, scrawls more notes, tucks Kim’s file under his arm. You be sure and take good care of her, he says. You be sure and take great care of her.
No hype, there might be a curse in how hard he slaps my back.
My girl sits up, yearns her head at me. Her eyes could spark flames.
Say it, she says. Go ahead and say it.
There are options. There are choices. There are chances. There are last chances. There is the last chance of the last chances—the end.
Outside, a hall scale clanks, a baby wails, someone calls a name.
Look, I’d like to believe that about mines, about the one who’d burst squalling and splashing into the world, that we (me and you, you and I) could bet breath, that I’d be no spine-chilling or mind-bending nothing, no part voila or poof, not one scintilla of abracadabra alakazam.
Or would I be?
Or would we all?
Chapter 21
Can I ask a question?
—Grace
Some people are latecomers to themselves, but who we are will soon enough surround us.
Kim stands back. She’s wearing pajamas and an apron over them that reads CHEF. STAND BACK. She wishes me a merry Christmas and helps me with my bags—the gifts and desserts. Soon as my hands are free, I hike for the bathroom, where I run the sink till the water steams and run my hands in the hot stream and rub my hands on my face to unthaw. When I come out, she’s laid my desserts on the counter. She stands by the stove with a rolled bundle under her arm. She snaps it open, shows off an apron that says NUMBER ONE CHEF.
How about that? I say.
I’ve been making holiday dinners since Mom was alive, and I wonder when was Kim’s first dinner, how much she knows about these kinds of meals.
I should get to it, I say. Or we’ll be eating at midnight.
Don’t you need help? she says. I was hoping I could help, she says.
Later, I say. I do my best work alone.
Don’t mean to exclude but what could she know about the frying or baking or broiling, what it means to season with heart? Go ahead and rest while I get things going, I say. She skulks into the front room and sprawls on the couch and powers the TV (the screen’s so big the actors are life-sized!) and raises the volume to a level that might peeve the neighbors. Champ lazes in a commercial or so later wearing long johns with his hands dug in his crotch. He stoops by Kim and whispers in her ear and she sits up and shakes her head. He calls me into the room and I take seasonings out of the cupboard and follow him. He mutes the TV and throws his eyes, those big innocent eyes, from me to Kim, from Kim to me. Kim has something she wants to tell you, she says. We have something we’d like to tell you, he says. He pushes Kim closer and takes my hand and lays it on her stomach. Feel, he says. Can you feel it?
Her stomach is firm and swollen.
I drop on the couch and shake my head.
This is a blessing, I say. Such a blessing. How far are you along?
Sixteen weeks, Champ says.
Amazing, I say. Your first child. My first grandchild.
One look at them together and you can see into their trials. How tough it will be to hold a baby above all else. But they will have me. This is another shot for me.
I get up and go into the kitchen and Champ follows. He stands behind me, his chin on my shoulder, while I prep. Mmmm, can’t wait, he says. He turns me around and pecks me under an eye. He grabs milk from the fridge and gulps and puts it right back on the shelf—a sin in my home. He smirks, a little rim of white over his lip. Yeah, I know, I know, he says, wiping the white with his shirt. But I’m grown, he says. Overgrown.
So grown you lost your manners, I say. I sure hope that isn’t what you teach your own child. That’s not what I taught you.
Geesh, so serious, he says. He does a shuffle. It’s the dance he’d do when he was young and wanted something I couldn’t afford. Before there was little I could afford. Before he stopped asking me for anything at all.
Boy, stop, I say. It won’t work.
It’s Christmas, Mom, cut me some slack. And a little time too, he says. I need to let some water run on this overnight funk. Let me shower and dress and it’s Chef Champ at your beckon.
This is a joke. He has to know he’s no help whatsoever in the kitchen. It’s a miracle that he and she don’t eat out evermore or starve. His brothers have been cooking full meals for years, but Champ might burn down a house, though you can’t blame anybody but me. Frying a burger or boiling wieners is about all I ever tried to teach him, which almost doesn’t count since I never let him practice. He’d amble into my room at all hours—mashing a fist in his eye and complaining he was starved. Whenever he did, I’d stir and fix him a snack or meal or whatever he thought he wanted—a response, God knows, that never once felt wrong.
A firstborn could be the most we’ll ever see of bliss.
The food cooks, and I stroll into the living room. The tree’s decked in gold and silver, and presents that match the color scheme. This sure is a beautiful tree, I say. You think you guys bought enough gifts? I lift a box tagged for KJ and feel its bulk—pounds of it.
You know your son, Kim says. Too much isn’t enough.
There was a time when Thanksgivings Champ would produce a Christmas list with his gifts ranked. He’d give me the list and ply me with the sweetest gapped smile and I’d appease him with the promise that I’d do what I could. Every year for years too, that’s what I did. Why wouldn’t I? He kept A’s in school, never got time-outs or notes home or suspensions, not to mention in those days Kenny was paying most of the bills. If ever there was a time, that was the era when the world felt abundant. When I felt big in the world.
Champ lazes out and we open gifts. You should have seen me last night wrapping and rewrapping what I bought, fussing over the tape and folds. Kim opens hers first, detaching the bow with care, pulling the tape gentle. Not the fancy you’re used to, I say. But it’s the best I could do on a budget. She pulls out the pants and rubs the cotton against her cheek and tells me they’re so soft and kisses me on the cheek. Thank you, thank you. I love them, she says.
Champ don’t go at his gifts like he used to; he used to shake the box and guess and guess what it was, but now he peels the tape back slow and lifts his gift into view—a Bible. He touches the gold-painted finger tabs and fans the pages. Oooooh, good-lookin, he says. The Good Book. Been looking high and low for a new one, but my fair luck, they been sold out since Black Friday.
Funny, I say. But I was hoping you’d think it was thoughtful.
Sheesh, Mom, he says. Where’s our sense of humor? Thank you. Thank you so much for the gift.
You’re welcome, I say, and ask him if he remembers our Christmas Eve plays, how he used to whine and pout the years he wasn’t cast as Jesus.
Sure do, he says. Jesus of Nazareth, that was me. But now I know for sure that paying for the next man’s sins ain’t the shot.
There’s snow left from last week’s storm and winter’s glow is a presence among us. Champ hands me a long box topped with a yellow bow and I strip the wrapping as if I might reuse it—waste not, want not—and uncover a three-quarter-length lamb’s-wool coat, dead-on the one I’ve been eyeing for months.
Only the best for me and mines, he says. He leans back, full of himself, a munificent smile. You shouldn’t have, I say, and trace the arms and the shoulders and around the collar. He helps me try it on, tells me to go into the room and check it out in the full-length mirror. I flit in his room and check myself in the mirrored closet doors, turning one way and then the other and flipping the collar and fingering the buttons, having my moment.
He or she has left one side of the closet half closed and you can see an open
safe on the floor among boxes. Easy, I slide the door to get a better look inside, see stacks and stacks of bills—not sure how much, but I’d guess more than I ever made in a year of work—see gold jewelry, see what could be hard dope wrapped in plastic. Of all what I see the drugs are what shoot the air right out of me, and all the light.
I am new.
I am good.
I am strong.
I am powerless over people.
I am powerless over my children.
I drag out working to fix my face.
So what’s the full-length verdict? Champ says.
Can I ask a question? I say. How much did you pay for this?
Mom, it’s a Christmas gift. A gift. Asking about price is bad etiquette.
Champ, how much?
It’s a gift, he says. He makes a face he made as a boy. And I’d give the world for him to be that boy again, without ever worrying when I might come home, whether or not I’m safe, where I’ve been, without ever the wonder of why I’m not myself.
Okay, I say. You’re right. It’s Christmas. I’ll let it go for now. Let’s enjoy.
Later, Champ sets the table and Kim serves the drinks and I bring out the food, the turkey and dressing, the candied yams, the macaroni and cheese, the collard greens, the roast, the deviled eggs—a feast to last for days. He carves the turkey and says grace as well. We eat with the TV showing sports. They don’t have much to say and I have less to say than that. It takes much too much strength to fight what I see. My son on a corner, his pockets swollen with a sack of shards, or him holed in a dank house. You wonder if he treats them as the worst of them do. How could he let me see it when I told him not to let me see it; now how can I ever see past it? Canaan and KJ call after dinner and wish us all aloha. I leave with unopened gifts under the tree.
New Years, the morning of my first day off in forever, and this return is a resolution. I lug a Hefty bag laden with all Champ has bought me these last months into the building: the coat, the clothes, the clock, everything. He answers wearing a wrinkled V-neck T-shirt and tuxedo pants, a gold chain lying over his shirt, bright diamonds in his ear. I drop the bag by his feet and by his eyes he can’t believe it.
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