Only Children

by Rafael Yglesias

  Eric thought: this is the first night home. It won’t be this way forever. Luke’s eyes closed while he sucked. The rigid board became flesh again. Eric leaned his head back on the rocker. He was so tall it provided little support. Eric moved his ass forward so he could catch wood for his head to rest on. Luke started and moaned during Eric’s shift, and then relaxed again. At that, Eric allowed his own eyes to close.

  The numbers of the ticker rolled by. The symbols were magic: they marched the world to poverty or wealth, executing dreams and tiring reality. Eric knew this wasn’t his life. In time, when he was stuffed with money, his body calm, his boy grown, his wife respectful, his name would roll by on the ticker with the equanimity of the numbers, the assurance of place. “One million,” he mumbled. “One point six million,” he whispered, a lullaby. “Two million five hundred thousand. Annual income. Net assets, forty to fifty million. The Wizard of Wall Street.” He would be picked up each morning at the door of their town house by a sleek limousine, its smoky glass revealing to the curious only their own ignorance and, inside, him, invulnerable, pampered, envied, his ideas (conceived in the quiet of his graceful life) assuaging panics and igniting booms.

  A weight fell into Eric’s lap, startling him. The bottle had slid out of his hands. Luke was asleep, his mouth open, his body flat with relaxation. Success had come at last and Eric had missed the moment of its achievement.

  But what had Eric achieved? If he got out of the chair, to place Luke in the carriage, wouldn’t the movement waken Luke?

  I could stay here, holding him in my arms, lean my head back and sleep. He tried that. But Luke, despite his smallness, weighed in the crook of his arm. And keeping still was a distraction; the doing of nothing became an effort. He decided to risk moving Luke. He started to sit up.

  The initial motion forward, the tightening of his stomach muscles produced an immediate reaction. Luke moaned, his head twitched, and his lips pursed. Eric froze in position, his back no longer leaning against the chair, and held his breath. Luke quieted, settled in; only now Eric had lost even the relative comfort of his former posture. He had begun the process of rising from the chair, and to give up, sagging back, would be as much of a jolt as continuing.

  If I do this fast, with confidence, sure of myself, sure of my control of him, he will stay asleep. Eric committed himself to this notion and after a pause to ready himself, rose in one quick movement.

  Although Luke’s head rolled in his arms and Eric tightened his grip around the body, there was no reaction. Luke remained passed out, his toothless mouth open, his neck retracted, the lids of his eyes shut, tiny blue veins made distinct by the translucence of his freshly made skin.

  Luke sighed.

  Eric stood in front of the carriage. How could he put Luke into it smoothly? Nina had said Luke must be put on his stomach—so as not to choke from spitting up—and that meant flipping him, like a pancake. Surely the splat of contact would rouse him.

  But if Eric simply laid him down as he was, faceup, removing the mattress of his arms only a second before the real one, the transition would be less felt.

  Could Luke really choke if he slept on his back? Eric had asked Nina that before, and she’d answered, irritated, “I don’t know! At the hospital they put them on their back sometimes, but the book said they should be on their stomachs. Just do it that way.”

  He was exhausted. He couldn’t face another round of back and forth, back and forth. He leaned over the carriage, his arms extending, lowering Luke. Eric released Luke’s bottom and paused. No reaction. With his free hand he supported Luke’s head and slipped the other arm out. Luke’s eyes twitched, then were still. Gradually Eric allowed the head to rest and Luke was asleep in the carriage. Faceup. But asleep.

  Eric covered him with the blanket and turned out the lights in the hall and in Luke’s room. Then he carefully maneuvered the carriage from the living room to the nursery.

  There was a blissful quiet. A rest in the household that had had no peace since they arrived.

  Could he really choke, I mean, choke to death, because he’s on his back? To risk flipping him seemed insane. Luke was at peace, at last; why bother him?

  Eric went to bed. Nina slept stretched out, sunning herself in the night, a position she had gotten used to while big from the pregnancy. She used to sleep curled up, shrinking into infancy. Now she lay like a continent, floating on the world. One leg crossed onto his side. He nudged it to get room. She stirred, angrily (that day everything from her was either angry or hysterical), and he turned on his side, hugging the pillow.

  He listened. He would hear choking.

  The ticker began. ITT ANNOUNCES BUYBACK, TRADING CLOSED, ITT REOPENS AT 50. The options would be worth fifteen hundred each and he had paid two. They would be worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Silly. A boy’s dream.

  Nina woke him with a yell. “Eric! Eric!”

  Eric stumbled on his way out of bed, his hand on his soft penis. He usually wore his underpants to sleep.

  “Eric! Come in here!” She was screeching in a high pitch.

  “What?” he asked, coming into Luke’s room. The sunlight glowed in Nina’s hair. She was crying.

  “I can’t wake him!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face.

  And there in the carriage was Luke. Dead.

  Eric woke up.

  He woke up gasping for air, his head thrust forward.

  It was still night. Outside he heard a car alarm wailing for its owner. His heart pounded in his chest, rapping out its criticisms: put Luke on his stomach, you selfish pig.

  There would be no rest anyway, he realized, lying there, his ear aching to hear sounds from Luke.

  He got up, went inside, and stared at the motionless body. For a moment he thought the nightmare had come true: the chest was still. But he finally saw a slight rise and fall.

  He pulled the blanket off.

  He put his hands under the little arms.

  He turned Luke. The legs curled; the head nosed into the mattress. For a moment Luke rubbed his face sideways, settling in.

  Then the little empty mouth opened. A silent yell.

  Eric nodded to himself with dismay.

  Now came the scream.

  Luke was up again.

  5

  NINA ACHED for bed. she begged her body for more energy. She peered past the nursing head of Luke to look at her thighs, studying the flab squashed out by the hard wood of the kitchen chair, and wondered if all her muscles were gone. She closed her eyes, her hot eyes, watering to relieve the harsh sandpaper lids, and felt her neck go liquid, her weighted chin sag. One deep breath and she would be asleep.

  Sleep.

  Dark.

  Warm.

  The dance of dreams. The storytelling of memory and desire.

  Luke’s hard gums slid down onto the nipple and pressed together, pressed together with slow cunning.

  “No!” She was awake again, her poor boneless body in retreat from her baby’s evil intent. She pushed a finger into the corner of Luke’s mouth. The hard, mean little gums were closing. “No!” She forced him off with her finger. He wailed immediately. “Don’t bite!” she said to the senseless creature, its face nothing but a gaping mouth. “Goddammit!” She got to her feet. Luke’s head flopped back, screaming. The thing had no understanding: it yelled with the conviction that it was entitled to all her energy, to all her milk, to all her love. It had no inkling that her servitude was voluntary.

  She paced, letting Luke screech in her arms. She paced, cursing the walls. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She passed her reflection in a little mirror, seeing a flash of her own face. Her eyes stared with rage and hopelessness; her jaw was slack, her mouth open, her hair dull and disarranged. She looked wild.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” she said to the screams of her son. Calm down, she told herself. She walked rapidly to the couch, sat, and offered her breast again, holding his head fast against her so he wouldn’t clamp on her
red and tender nipple.

  Sighing, hiccuping, farting, jawing, Luke settled in. His rage ebbed, his eyes closed, he relaxed. She did not. Her head pounded from the suppression of the pulsing blood of her anger. She tried to fix herself in time, to remember where she was by a logical procession of events. But the disjointed sleeping schedule made her stupid.

  Luke never slept. Her mind fought to understand how that could be. How could an infant sleep only four hours out of every twenty-four? How could this baby stand to be awake, fussing, crying the second his body wasn’t being rocked or moved? She had read explanations: he had colic, he was in pain, an almost continual pain that kept him awake; the motion soothed him, reminded him of the womb, calmed him. He did need sleep, but his digestion wasn’t permitting him the rest. The book said he couldn’t wake himself up any more than he could prevent himself from falling asleep; those perverse abilities came around eight months. This was out of his control. It was not Luke’s fault; he was an innocent in pain and all her patience was required.

  “Let him cry if you can’t take it,” her pediatrician had advised over the phone. She had called the doctor a few hours ago, in a desperate state, exhausted by five hours of walking Luke in the Snugli. The Snugli was a womb made of fabric, a carrying pouch which put Luke’s face into her chest, and curled him up against her stomach. Inside it, Luke was quiet and even got snatches of sleep. But the Snugli gave her no rest; on the contrary, its cross straps bit across her back and strained muscles which had escaped the ravages of pregnancy. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she had said to the doctor. This was the first week Eric had gone to work and left her alone with the baby. Today she had broken down and called Eric to ask if he could come home early. Eric said no, the market was very active, and suggested she phone his parents, but she declined. This was the first goddamned week. She couldn’t ask for their help so soon. “I feel like I’m going crazy,” she repeated to the pediatrician. “Isn’t there some medicine you can give him?”

  “Colic lasts three months. And then it goes away. It doesn’t do him any harm. His digestive tract needs time to mature. Comfort him as much as you can, but let him cry if you can’t handle it.”

  Let him cry! Who raised these people, these doctors? she wondered. Did they all go to military school?

  So she went back to pushing the carriage, harnessing herself into the Snugli, rocking Luke in her arms. The moment, the instant, the split second, sometimes even a fraction before she stopped the various movements, he cried, he raged, his legs pulled up, his face distorted in pain, his rear end expelled gas, his stomach compressed into a tight ball. Why does it only hurt him when I stop moving? She began to suspect Luke. He knows. He knows. If he pretends to hurt, I’ll pamper him. He knows.

  Can’t he tell he’s killing me? He’s breaking me; he’s making me a failure.

  Tears came from her as she sagged into despair. I can’t even be a mother. The simplest goddamned thing in the world. A peasant, an idiot can do it. While Luke sucked, tears collected at Nina’s jaw and formed a large drop, which then fell on his stretchy. Luke chewed away, unconcerned.

  Nina studied him. He was content now. His curly black hair was damp from the humidity; the oppressive weather, the hot gray stifling days, drained her energy.

  Luke peered blankly at her while he sucked her dry. There was no apology in his eyes. No sheepishness in his chewing. No fear of reprisal. Only suspicion, a wary surveillance of her. Don’t you make a move, his expressionless blue eyes seemed to say. You stay right here for me.

  She hated him; from her soul a loathing for Luke’s selfish little body arose. Her disgust shot through her like a current. She could feel the rage in the metal taste of her mouth; she could spit her fury at him. She wanted to bash sense into him. “You have to go to sleep,” she said, leaning into his face.

  Luke blinked and pushed into her breast for protection from her looming head.

  Luke’s neck, creased by rings of baby fat, attracted her attention. Maybe he was damaged. Maybe the traumatic birth had done something. The doctors might even know that was the explanation of Luke’s behavior but not want to tell her yet.

  Maybe there’s something wrong with him.

  Luke pulled off her breast, yelping. His legs retracted to his stomach, his face went red, and he shrieked.

  “Okay, baby,” she said, and put him to her shoulder, patting his back (so small, and his bony spine was spineless), patting hard to force out a burp. Luke squawked, squealed, complained. No burp. He never burped. Almost never. Sometimes she thought that was his problem: three weeks of gas trapped inside. He’s got a Jewish stomach (Eric burped as often as he breathed) with a Wasp throat (Nina’s mother had made her feel burping was as bad as murder).

  Luke’s stomach convulsed and she felt gooey liquid on her shoulder. “Oh, God!” she moaned, and glanced to see what she already knew was there—white and sticky spitup.

  Vomited on, she thought—this is my life. Her mind spun through the days and nights. Up at 4:00 A.M., unable to send Eric in with a bottle since formula might make the colic worse, her head nodding into sleep while Luke chewed, then punching Eric (sometimes quite hard) to rouse him so he could walk Luke around, lying in the dark desperate for sleep but constantly wakened by the noise of the carriage in the hall or Luke’s squeals whenever Eric would try to stop or had to change Luke’s diaper. And finally out of bed at 8:00, again to be gnawed on, then showering unhappily with an ear listening to the moans and squeals that soon would be her problem, showering with hot water even in this heat, to soothe the sore breasts, burning eyes, dented back, and puffy, swollen feet. To have the luxury of a quiet bath, not a bath with distant sounds of screeching and complaint, but a restful stay in a warm pool and a silent apartment, seemed like a distant memory of youth. So she showered hopelessly, with eight hours ahead, eight hours of fighting the urge to kill herself or Luke or both, eight hours of facing her inadequacy, her son’s misery, the apartment’s mess, and a world filled with smiling faces that assumed she was an ecstatic mother blessed with a glorious child, and not being able to tell, to say: this is hell, this is prison, and I may die from it. Or kill to escape.

  She had tried to maintain a semblance of competence for the first few days. She made the bed, pushing the carriage until he quieted, tucking in one side (by then Luke was screaming), and then pushing the carriage to gain more calm, only to lose it while tucking in the other side. She learned to load the dishwasher with him in the Snugli, one hand covering his head, the other rinsing plates and stacking them. She closed cabinets and doors with her feet and elbows; she got used to reading while jolting back and forth in the rocker, willing to accept the nausea that caused for the relief of information, distraction—anything that wasn’t about babies. Goddamn babies. Today, however, she had left the bed unmade, the food gelling on the plates, clothes impaled on chairs, and the Times sprawled on the kitchen table.

  Whenever she took Luke out, he fell asleep while they moved, so that the neighbors, the doormen, the storekeepers, other mothers, all believed Luke was wonderful. Asleep, his fair skin (like hers), his tall brow (like Eric’s), his perfect little nose (like hers), his thick, arching eyebrows (like Eric’s), his jutting strong chin (like hers), all spoke of beauty, calm, assurance, lovableness. And the moment she got home, once the motion stopped, Luke was back to yelping and whining.

  The joys of motherhood. Are they all one great lie?

  Are the other mothers that much stronger than I am?

  Are they all so much more giving?

  Is there so little love in me and so much in them?

  By the time Nina had cleaned her shoulder of the spitup and switched Luke to the other breast, her tears had stopped, but her eyes hurt, as usual, from the aftermath of her sorrow. They would swell up until the morning and she’d look ugly. The dark circles were bad enough; now, with her eyes puffy, she’d truly seem to have gone fifteen rounds and lost.

  And she was losing this fight.r />
  She put Luke in his crib after he was fed. He had fallen asleep and stayed that way, his beautiful face composed and saintly. Luke stirred when she laid him down, then sighed and relaxed again.

  Maybe it was over. The doctor had said, contradicting the books which warned colic lasted for three months, that it could end any day.

  She left Luke’s room. She sat outside in the hall, rigid with tension, and lit a cigarette.

  Luke cried. A little cry at first. Then he cried big. And he cried loud.

  Wait it out. She looked at her watch. He wailed. His voice went hoarse with desperation. He wailed. He choked.

  “Goddammit!” She got to her feet. She stormed into the room, yelling. “Goddammit! What is the matter with you!”

  Luke’s cries echoed hers, soaring with her rage, waning with her despair. “I can’t stand it! You have to stop!” She put on the Snugli, grabbed Luke roughly, and pushed him in, yanking his legs through. His head bobbed against her, his open mouth wet, his feet kicking as she fought to zip him up.

  She wanted to smash his hard tiny head. She wanted quiet.

  She carried him outside in the Snugli, frightened to remain alone with him. She went to the nearby church, not to find God but to find the peace and order of her childhood.

  Grace Church was beautiful, quiet, the dark wood benches empty, but alive with the wear of generations, the marble cold and white, but soothing, the ceiling high and vast, but protective, the glass bright with color, but dark with age. Balance. Peace.

  Against her chest, Luke was awake but still, chewing on the pacifier. He craned his neck to peer up at her, his perfect blue marbles querying her. Going someplace? he seemed to ask. Even there, in the house of God, he was shameless, concerned only with himself and her submission to his wants.

  “You have to calm down,” she whispered to him. A prayer to Luke. “I love you, but you have to relax,” her voice hissed in the cool dark of the church. “Please,” she begged to Luke’s little face, his brow wrinkled by the effort to look up at her. “Calm down,” she prayed to the new demanding god of her life.