Only Children

by Rafael Yglesias

  DIANE STOOD at her apartment door after finishing work, key in hand, ready to enter. She had arrived home in the same condition for years: her back ached; her neck was stiff; her legs were bloated; her head was dull, ready to throb with a headache. She was bloody but unbowed from the struggle of work, from the pressure of producing for the partners, a pressure made more intense by the recent absence of her maternity leave, ready to enter her home, her haven, to rest, to recollect herself, to catch up on unfinished paper work—but now she came home instead to more work, to a husband who expected food, to a four-month-old baby who had to be fed, changed, bathed, played with, and put to sleep. At the end of her ten hours at the office she had four more hours of labor at home.

  She understood now why there were so many magazine covers about working mothers.

  But she would not be beaten. Not by sexism, circumstance, or tradition. She held the key to her apartment and gave herself, her body, a moment to feel the fatigue completely, surrendering to it. She closed her eyes and rolled her head back. She let her leather briefcase drop. She listened for sounds from her apartment. It was quiet.

  Diane had had a bad day. Stoppard hadn’t liked her draft of the brief. He had put his criticisms gently, acknowledging her currently difficult conditions, but it was the gentleness that worried her. Stoppard was usually brutal with those he treasured, unself-conscious in his attacks, as though the victim were a part of himself. When he treated an associate in a sympathetic and kindly way, you could be sure his trust and approval were at a low ebb. Stoppard liked the intimacy of the team where there was no ego but the group’s; if he had to think about you, he didn’t want you around.

  “Maybe this is too much for you right now,” Stoppard had said at one point. “I can bring Didi in.” If he had meant that as a threat, Diane wouldn’t worry. But Stoppard had been serious, was concerned. He thought about Diane as a “special situation,” a new mother who had to be pampered, which meant, of course, that she couldn’t be relied on. Disaster. She had to stay up tonight and revise the brief, knock Stoppard out with a rewritten draft first thing in the morning.

  The decision to take on more work, to give up sleep entirely, energized her. She couldn’t stand the effort of her life as a lawyer and a mother if she were merely going to be good at it. She had to be the best to attempt the task at all.

  Diane entered her apartment. She heard Francine (despite some misgivings, Diane had hired Francine because of Pearl’s recommendation) laughing at Byron. Byron was on his back, a fine down on his head (like a boot camp marine), kicking his short, chubby, powerful legs.

  “You ticklish?” Francine was saying. Byron answered her with a throaty chuckle. He kicked at Francine, excited. His mouth opened wide. He hooted at her. His chubby cheeks widened. His lips spread farther and farther apart. Francine signaled to Diane to look. “Yes, you’re smiling!” My God, he was. Smiling his head off, his stomach convulsed with laughter. His eyes, which had dulled from blue to gray in the early weeks, were now rich with brown; they still stared at objects with intense concentration, but people were greeted with sparkles of interest. They glittered at Francine, speaking to her. Byron’s entire body yearned to communicate: his legs thrust forward; his mouth opened with the ache of pleasure; his small fat hands, like pats of butter, slapped at the air; his stomach, ballooned with milk, rippled at Francine’s playful fingers.

  “Abba, abba, dabba, dabba,” Byron cheered, thumping his heels on the floor.

  “Your mama’s home,” Francine said, and pointed to Diane, who moved into his vision and knelt in her gray skirt beside his head.

  He blinked at her appearance with momentary confusion. Then he recognized Diane. He very clearly saw who she was.

  At the realization that it was Diane, Byron stopped his animated delight. His legs stiffened, his open, welcoming, joyful mouth closed, his hands rested at his sides, his eyes were dulled by hostility, his melodic voice shut off, and he turned away.

  Diane couldn’t believe it. She looked at Francine for confirmation, as though they had both witnessed a supernatural event. How could a four-month-old baby reject a mother? How could Byron even know enough (recognize Diane, be aware that her absence had been long, realize what a turned head meant) to hurt her?

  Francine was embarrassed. “He’s getting tired,” she said, but that was an obvious lie.

  Diane reached for Byron and lifted him. His face was solemn. Byron glanced at Diane when she put the tip of her nose against his and pursed her lips to kiss him. At the offer, Byron turned his head and gave her his cheek. Then he looked at Francine and once more the miracle happened.

  His eyes glittered, his legs kicked, and his hands, the fingers spread wide, groped for Francine’s face; his mouth, gaped, the nude gums exposed, the soft pillows of his cheeks puffing out into an enormous smile: a welcome from his entire being, from the tips of his toes to the rippling veins of his almost bald head.

  “Hi!” Francine couldn’t help responding.

  Byron’s stomach trembled and the musical laughter echoed from the deepest part of his soul. Laughter of delight and love. All for Francine.

  Diane turned him sideways so his beaming face would confront hers. Byron arched his back in protest. “Hi, Byron,” Diane said in a high, pleasant tone. “Mommy’s home!” Again Byron averted his head, his mouth closed tight, and a dull glaze, like translucent lids, covered his shining brown eyes. He was rejecting her.

  She stood up. Byron tried to escape from her arms. He leaned his head back, arching away from her, his hands out to reach for Francine. “Where’s Peter?” Diane asked Francine.

  “He called to say he would be late. Said he tried to reach you at the office.” Francine was sweating. She was dressed in a dingy white T-shirt and in washed-out blue jeans that were pulled tight across her big ass and bloated stomach. The middle of her body was much wider than her legs or upper torso. She looked as if she were walking around with a flotation doughnut. Nevertheless, Diane had been glad to get her instead of Pearl. Francine shared her friend Pearl’s cheerful voice; but Francine’s accent was New York, not southern, and her tone was casual, without a trace of Pearl’s deferential modesty. She made Diane feel less like a plantation owner and allowed her to be demanding, since she knew Francine would complain if the requests were unreasonable.

  But Francine wasn’t pretty; she stood there like a badly made sausage, her kinky hair dyed a strange orange that was meant to be blond, her skin a filmy, uneven brown, her face dotted with pimples, and sweat oozed from her forehead, neck, and underarms. How could Byron prefer Francine? He doesn’t. He’s just punishing me.

  Byron whined, his little hand out for Francine, the fingers calling for her. Diane kissed his stomach, rubbing her mouth into his navel, knowing that would tickle him into laughter and cover the embarrassment of this scene. His stretchy was soft and smelled of Byron’s life—formula, Francine, and baby powder.

  Byron did laugh, but only reflexively. The moment Diane pulled back to look at his delighted toothless mouth, he stopped, his cherubic fluted lips closing tight. He pushed out with his legs and arms, trying to swim away from Diane. He groaned with the effort as if to say to Francine: take me back, take me away from this witch.

  Francine smiled at him and shook her head. “Oh, you’re a bad boy. Now don’t tease your mommy like that. She has to work just like everybody. She’d stay home with you if she could.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Diane said.

  “No?” Francine laughed, uneasy, but pleased by Diane’s honesty.

  “I’d go crazy stuck home with a baby.”

  “I don’t mind,” Francine said, patting the protrusion of her stomach, upholstered in denim. “Only problem is it keeps me too close to the refrigerator.” Throughout all this Byron continued to squirm recklessly, willing to hurl himself out of Diane’s arms to reach Francine.

  The doorbell rang. Francine answered it and Peter entered, his voice loud with greeting, walking in wide paces
, steadying himself on a rocky boat. He’s tipsy, Diane thought. “Hello, hello!” he called to them.

  Byron jerked himself in Diane’s arms, attempting to sit up. His feet moved rapidly, walking in the air. His hands shot out in spasms of excitement.

  “Hey, fella!” Peter said, and once again, the glorious sunrise of happiness dawned in Byron, his head rolling from side to side, his mouth open with ecstasy.

  “O! O! O!” Byron hooted.

  “He’s saying hello!” Peter bragged to Diane, obviously expecting this would delight her. “He’s saying hello to me!” he repeated with naïve pride. “Hey!” Peter said to Byron, rubbing the little ball of a stomach with his hand. Byron arched with pleasure, hunching his shoulders, his chin doubling, his mouth smacking open and closed as if Peter were a delicious food Byron hoped to eat.

  “Well, since he’s saying hello to you, why don’t you change his diaper?” Diane snapped, and offered the squirming, chuckling Byron to Peter.

  Peter stepped back, alarmed, shying away from Byron like a timid man confronted by a wild animal. “I just got in.”

  “So did I,” Diane answered.

  “I’ll change his diaper,” Francine said.

  “No.” Diane sneered at both of them. “I was just kidding.” She marched out of the hallway to Byron’s room. The baby’s quarters were the smallest in the apartment, twelve feet by six feet, designed three generations ago to be used by a maid. Byron really ought to be in the second bedroom, she thought for the millionth time. Peter had insisted on keeping that space to himself for use as a study. Peter’s study, she repeated to herself contemptuously. I’m the one who has the real work and I get a small desk in our bedroom.

  Byron had moaned while she carried him away from Francine and Peter and, as she laid him on the changing table, continued to grumble with complaints.

  “Let’s find you something nice to sleep in,” she said.

  Byron averted his face, turned to the wall, and groped it with his left hand, cooing at the shadows.

  “Bye!” Francine called into the room. “Good-bye, Diane. Bye, bye, Byron!”

  Byron swiveled his head and bounced his legs. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!” he went on and on, an owl high on speed.

  “Good-bye, Francine,” Diane said, and lifted the excited Byron by his feet, sliding a fresh diaper under his pink bottom, leaving it open and unfastened for the moment to let him air—the best protection, she had read, against diaper rash. She bent down to open the drawer with his outfits and found herself at a level with his body, staring directly at Byron’s genitals.

  His pencil stub of a penis was rigid, pointed at the ceiling, framed by his tightly packed testicles. The hairless arrangement was white and pure, unlike the muddy, overgrown garden of semen-bearing men. And yet this prepubescent creature was erect. Usually, his penis was soft, the head hiding like a turtle, melted into the pillows of his balls. Not now. It was straight up, divining to the heavens, while he thrust his legs out, his arms also rigid, the fat hands, with dimples for knuckles, grabbing for things out of reach—the edge of the diaper, the blue box of wipes, the pink bottle of powder. He seemed fierce with desire and strength, comical in such a small body, but impressive also for the same reason.

  She told herself the erection was caused by the cool air, a physical reaction to temperature, not a sexual statement. But she was frozen in position, her mouth only inches from his little flag of sex. I’m here, I’m here, it seemed to say. I’m also this, his wide brown eyes and pursed lips insisted. I have a cock, I have a cock, the tough little body proclaimed. Absurd but frightening, too. Does it begin that early?

  Who is this erection for? she wondered. Me or Francine?

  She shuddered at herself. And then quickly fastened Byron’s diaper. She closed him up so hard she got an image of the stiff penis snapping off, an icicle yanked from the eaves.

  Wanting to obliterate these pictures, she searched for the softest and bluest of his stretchies. Her favorite, a deep navy blue outfit with red feet and a bear stitched on the chest, was getting tight on Byron. She had to bend his thick thigh forcefully to get his second leg in, and even then, when Byron stretched full out, the material was pulled taut at his groin—the puffy front of his diaper gave him the look of a sumo wrestler wrapped in a loincloth.

  Byron whined impatiently while she closed the snaps and picked him up. She hugged him close. She put a hand on the back of his bobbing head and tried to urge him into the crook of her neck, to snuggle him, to feel the quiet warmth, to caress what he had once been: tiny, adoring, senseless.

  But his strong neck pushed against the hand. His feet kicked at her belly, thumping her like a drum. A hand reached for her mouth, pushing open her lips. The fingers grabbed her teeth, the nail digging into her gums like grappling hooks, and his toes poked her ribs, feeling for a foothold—she was the mountain he wanted to assault and conquer, the height he would use as springboard to leap off into the world.

  “Diane!” Peter called from the living room. “Diane!”

  Byron kicked harder at the sound of his father’s voice, excited, his legs bicycling as if to power her forward. Diane carried him out. “Yes?” she said on seeing Peter.

  “What are we doing for dinner?” he asked. Peter had a glass of ice water in his right hand and a copy of the Times in his left. He had taken off his blue blazer and looked resplendent, although plump, in his pink Brooks Brothers shirt. Peter’s body had begun to show the effects of his sedentary life. A belly had formed, a soft wave ready to splash over the brown leather belt, and his cheeks had settled, thickening his jaw, giving his face a placid appearance of self-satisfaction. His reddish blond hair seemed to grow reluctantly at his forehead; there was no longer enough of a mane to sweep across his brow and a portion stuck out, waving for help.

  “I don’t know,” she answered, keeping the irritation she felt out of her tone.

  “Do you want to go out? To I1 Cantinori?”

  “With him?” she said, ducking away from another of Byron’s swipes at her mouth.

  “We can’t take Byron there. Can’t we get a sitter?”

  “I haven’t seen Byron all day, I’d like to be with him. No, it’s too big a deal. Let’s order pizza or something.”

  Peter frowned. He pursed his lips. Then he looked down at the Times and seemed to become absorbed in an article.

  “Hello!” she called.

  “The theater’s dying,” he said. He looked up at her. “I was hoping for a romantic evening. Dinner. You know.”

  He meant, she knew, that they had made love only once since Byron’s birth. Peter had brought up the subject recently and she had told him that after a day at the office and four hours of caring for Byron she felt tired, and certainly not sexy. Presumably Peter hoped a meal out, just the two of them, would put her in the mood. She hated to think about making love. Before the baby, they had often made love after evenings out, sometimes briskly, even perfunctorily, but that was all right. Planning was not. She hadn’t enjoyed the wait, the pleasantly nervous anticipation, of dating; to experience delayed gratification with a husband of eight years struck Diane as ludicrous.

  “Peter, if you’re horny, why don’t you just say so?”

  He smiled and blinked at her wonderingly. “Well, well. And they say romance is dead.”

  “I don’t have time for romance. Let’s have pizza. We can still go to bed.”

  Peter smiled and sat on the couch. “Will you order it?”

  “Sure,” she said, and handed over Byron, who arched and yearned in his father’s direction anyway. She looked up the phone number and dialed, going through the schedule: pizza arrive fifteen minutes, half hour to consume, one-hour play with Byron, then bath for Byron, and bedtime rocking, forty-five minutes, sex with Peter an hour (make that half an hour), shower (to avoid rushing in the morning), and then to work on the brief. “I’d like a pie with sausage and mushroom, please.” Should be able to get to rewriting the draft by nine-thirty, ten at
the latest. Six hours should do it. I’d even get three hours’ sleep.

  She finished giving the order and hung up. She looked at Byron, held aloft, jumping up and down on Peter’s thighs. She didn’t feel up to a long-winded sexual exchange: necking, massage, genital foreplay, lengthy screwing—the four-course meal that Peter would want.

  I’ll give Peter a blow job right after rocking Byron to sleep, she decided. I can always masturbate later.

  “MARKET’S CLOSED,” Sammy said in the manner of a public-address announcer at Yankee Stadium.

  Joe, Sammy’s father, Eric’s boss, pushed his chair away from his Quotron. “A good day,” he judged. Joe had a pompous voice to accompany his stolid figure and unsmiling face. “I’m going for a walk,” he said, and strolled to the door like a king wandering out of his castle. “I’ll be back at four forty-five. Sammy, have the totals ready.”

  “I’ve already got ’em!” Sammy said, his leg hopping nervously, always the eager son ready to anticipate demands.

  That stopped Joe. “Indeed?” he said, “The numbers change right up to close—”

  Sammy smiled triumphantly; outperforming his father’s expectations was his ultimate satisfaction. “I keep a running total using the spread sheet. Up-to-date every thirty seconds. Want the numbers now?”

  Joe shook his head no. “Very impressive. Print them out for later.”

  Sammy grinned at Eric—exhausted Eric, red-eyed Eric, disgusted Eric, weary of life and of defeat and of these two and their repetitive psychological conflicts.

  Joe continued to the door. “Very impressive.” He opened the door. “But unnecessary.” And left.

  “Fuck you!” Sammy said, furious, without any irony or self-consciousness.

  Eric tried to explain. “He just pretends he’s not pleased, Sammy. He’s very proud of you.”

  “He doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction. He’s a son of a bitch!”