Kay hangs on to Dr. Schirmer’s every word of advice. If she thinks Kay should nurse, Kay will nurse, although privately she prefers the idea of the glass bottles lined up in her refrigerator, ready to heat, and doesn’t much like the thought of exposing her breast all the time, even with those drapes and shawls.
So now the nurse gives Kay some cotton balls dipped in antiseptic to wipe her hands. She raises the back of the bed a little higher, then pulls back the coverlet, exposing the clean side of the top sheet. Then she disappears for a few moments and reappears with Kay’s daughter, a compact swaddled pod, with a pink face screwed tightly closed in a deep sleep. This is her daughter. She feels nothing.
“Why wake her up?” Kay asks. “She looks so peaceful.” Kay knows that when the little mouth opens, the cries will demand, demand, demand.
“Oh, you’ll want to get her on a schedule,” the nurse says. “Ever nursed before?”
Kay shakes her head.
The nurse explains about the latching-on process, and maneuvers the baby into place as she talks. Her daughter’s mouth opens, and Kay feels a tingling sensation, then a needlelike pain.
“Oh!” she cries.
The baby’s eyes open. She stares fixedly at Kay, her mouth ajar.
“Well, that got her attention. Was it hurting you? It shouldn’t hurt. It will take a while for both of you to get the hang of it. Let’s try it again.”
This time goes no better. Kay sucks in her breath and the baby stops cold.
“It hurts like the blazes!” Kay said.
“Well, I used bottles myself, because of my work schedule, but I’ve seen a lot of women nurse, and it doesn’t hurt, once they’re used to it. They even seem to enjoy it. It’s a question of technique. Keep at it, just the way I showed you. I’m going to check on another patient and be right back.”
The nurse leaves them to each other. Kathryn and the baby—Samantha—gaze at each other.
“Are you ready?” Kay asks. “Okay, here goes.” She cups her breast, bringing Samantha up to it, the way the nurse did. The baby’s mouth opens, and Kay gets the nipple in, but the baby’s mouth won’t close around it. When it finally does, the sensation is the same, sharp and painful. Kay holds her cry in, but tenses, not breathing while the baby’s mouth works. Her daughter stares up at her, then opens her mouth, releasing the breast.
“Oh, you poor thing. I can’t do it right, can I?” Kay asks her, the tears threatening to come. “I’ll do it this time. Come on, let’s try again.”
They go through the same maneuverings, but always with the same result: a pain that makes Kay flinch, and it’s the flinching that makes the baby give up. Then Samantha stops trying to latch on. Her daughter is only hours old, but it’s as if she’s already tuned herself to her mother’s feelings, and refuses to hurt her.
The nurse comes back again, and Kay confesses that they never got going, and that it hurt the whole time.
“Well, maybe that’s enough for the first effort. We’ll try again on the other side in four hours.”
“Do I have to?”
The nurse regards her over her half-glasses. “The doctor wrote on your chart that you wanted to.”
“I did, but I don’t think she’s interested.”
“Well, you haven’t given it much of a try.”
“I bottle-fed my son, and he’s perfectly healthy, so I’ll just do what I’m used to.”
“It’s certainly up to you. We’ll get her going on formula in the nursery.”
“Can you leave her with me a few more minutes?”
“Of course, I’ll be back shortly.”
Kay covers herself up, and feels immediately more whole and in control. Her arms make a circle around her girl. “I’ll make you very good bottles,” she tells Samantha. “We’ll rock in the rocking chair while you drink them.”
Samantha looks pensive. Her eyebrows dance up.
“And your brother, Stevie, can give you a bottle sometimes. And your Daddy.”
Samantha’s mouth opens, a tiny O.
“They’re going to be delicious. And I can tell you’re going to be a very good girl. You’re already a good girl. So considerate of your mamma’s feelings. Such a perfect angel.”
FLEXIBLE FLYER
Timberline, 1959
They go super fast, he and Mom, on the Flexible Flyer he got for Christmas. At the top, Mom plants her boots on either side of the sled while he sits crisscross in front, then she brings her legs around so he’s snug in the warm cave of her, then she gets them going with a little forward jerk. Both of them like to go straight down. Steve gets blinded, so he shuts his eyes against the white blur and lets the wind and ice crystals and belly drop happen to him. The steel runners hiss through the snow. Sometimes he feels the ground drop away when his eyes are closed, then it comes back with a hard bump and that’s scary, but fun-scary. Mom is steering and Mom is not blind in her dark glasses. Other sledders’ cries have nothing to do with them; the mountain is theirs. Snow comes in at the wrists and neck of his snowsuit when they tip over, but they don’t tip over much. Dad went on the sled with him, too, earlier, but Mom likes it better, and fits better on the sled with him, and Dad seems to like it fine sitting in the lodge drinking coffee. They left his baby sister, Samantha, at home with Auntie Vera, even though Steve thought she’d like the sledding too. She can’t crawl or walk yet, but you don’t need to do those things to be held on the sled. Steve would put his arms and legs around her carefully, the way Mom does for him.
Up they trudge again and again, snow coming in over the top of the boots no matter how much his mother tightens the string at the bottom of his snowsuit. He doesn’t care. Mom usually says things like “just two more times” or “let’s take a little break,” but today she wants to stay in motion the whole time like he does, in fact she almost runs up the hill, and he pants a little to keep up behind her. Always the tippy feeling getting on the sled, like he doesn’t know if it will take off without them, or take off with just him on it, or take off before Mom has her legs and arms completely wrapped around. But each time they manage it, and each ride straight down the hill is as fast as it can be, and when they fly over the bumps they both cry out, but Mom doesn’t try to avoid them. He can’t think of any other mother who would go as fast as his.
Now there is Dad at the bottom of the hill with a big smile for him as they coast to a stop on the level stretch. He looks at his watch. “Let’s get going, Kay,” he says. “It’s late.”
“Not yet. Come on, Stevie, race you!”
So Steve races her up the hill, and wins by a single boot, and she says “Attaboy!” and holds the sled while he arranges himself. Before they take off he waves to Dad, whose arms are folded across his parka, and he thinks this will be the last ride, because Dad won’t go back in the lodge with the light purple and dim like this, and if he doesn’t go back in the lodge, Mom will give in.
But at the bottom, Mom surprises him by ignoring Dad again, whose voice now has gone soft, saying, “Kay, you’re overdoing it. It’s getting dark.”
“We’re having fun! The lights are up, it’s no problem.”
The lights make bright circles on the sledding hill, while the fir trees on either side gather the dark and grow taller and thicker, no space in between.
“You want to, right, Stevie?” she asks.
“Sure!” he says.
So Dad stays at the bottom like a small plastic soldier, straight and unmoving, and Mom whoops on every bump, though a tiny worry has begun to nibble at Steve, silencing him. The white carpet where the lights shine is a different world now, and he’s stuck between wanting to stay forever in the speed and the shining and his mother’s laugh, and wanting to go to the warm car because the black fir trees are leaning in and his father is by himself at the bottom of the hill.
Dad doesn’t speak now when they come down, watching with his arms still folded, and Mom just grabs Steve’s hand and keeps movin
g, not asking if he wants to go again. Now his legs are heavy and he notices that his feet are cold and he has to pee, and that they are among the last to be sledding, just one other family who came later, a mom and a dad and three big kids all laughing together, each on his own sled. As they begin the walk up, Steve looks back over his shoulder at his father and, as if in answer, his father shouts at his mother’s back, “I’ll be warming up the car.”
Steve says, “Mom, can I go to the bathroom after this ride?”
She looks down at him, her dark glasses zipped away now in her pocket, and seems almost surprised to see him there. “Of course, honey. Of course you can.”
So at the bottom they get off the sled and Mom pulls it behind her to the curb where Dad has their Chevy idling, and without a word he puts it in the trunk, and Mom tells him Stevie has to go to the bathroom, so Dad takes him into the lodge to the men’s room, and when they come out he sees the sharp lines of his mother’s face looking straight ahead in the dark like the silhouettes they cut out at school, featureless and black.
The heat in the car feels good. Dad helps him tug off both boots and both wet socks, then he rubs each of Steve’s feet briskly, long enough for some of the warmth to transfer from Dad’s hands. Then Dad rummages in their bag and finds his wool socks and Steve puts them on.
“Better?”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Mom glances back to flash him a smile, then returns her gaze to the front.
“Gonna catch some shut-eye?” Dad asks. Earlier, Mom put a blanket and a pillow in the backseat for the ride home.
“I want to watch for a while.”
“Okey-dokey, pardner.”
The chains make their thumping noise as Dad noses carefully out of the parking lot. Steve sits on his knees in the backseat so he has the view between his parents’ heads. It’s started to snow lightly, and when the windshield gets ruffled with flakes, Dad sweeps things clean again with one flap of the wipers. Mom rummages in the sack at her feet and twists around to offer him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrapped in wax paper. He takes a bite and finds out he’s starving. Mom hands him oatmeal cookies in another package, and a thermos.
“Hot chocolate?” he asks hopefully.
“No, we finished that at lunch. This is water. Don’t make your cup too full.”
The laughter is gone from Mom’s voice, like it’s all dried up.
“Does Dad want a sandwich?” Steve asks.
Mom says nothing.
Dad glances back at him. “That’s okay, pardner. I ate mine in the lodge.”
They thump along. Steve finishes all of his sandwich but the crusts, which he wraps back up and hands to his mother, then he starts on his cookies. He’s started to get mesmerized by the narrow white road unspooling through the dark and the forest. No headlights coming toward them, but pinpricks of red taillights in front. He’s warm and cozy, and starting to think about his pillow and quilts.
“Next time let’s bring Sammy,” he says, leaning in against the front seat. “I could hold her on the sled.” His baby sister has just learned how to laugh, and Steve can make her do it anytime he wants by razzing her stomach, or making a face, or popping out from behind something. The sound she makes is loud and wild, little screams of happiness, and if they took her sledding he’s sure she’d do it all the way down the hill.
Mom doesn’t answer, so Dad says, “She’s still kind of little. We wouldn’t want her to get any bumps.”
“Next time after next time?”
“Sure,” Mom says. “That will be when she’s your age at the rate we get up here.”
Steve is silenced. Does she mean it? Will they have to wait that long?
Dad lets out a breath like all the air is coming out of him at once. Mom pounces like she’s waiting for it. “Did I say something wrong?” she asks him. “I’m sorry. I forgot that you’re always so willing to get off your ass and do something with us.”
“Kay,” Dad says, his voice sharp.
Steve leans away from the front seat, sitting back on his heels. He hates it when the voices get like this. He doesn’t understand how Mom can sound so happy one minute and then be completely mad the next. It’s like she’s been mad all along and then suddenly shows it to you.
“Kay,” Mom repeats, her voice mean. “Kay.” She’s mocking, doing what she tells Steve never to do.
“What do you want from me? We were here today.”
“Yes, today.”
“Didn’t you have a good time?”
“I had a wonderful time. Wonderful. That’s the whole damn point.”
“Stop it!”
“The language? Well, who the hell taught it to me?”
“It doesn’t matter who taught it to you. Who’s using it now? In front of Stevie?”
At the mention of his name, Steve wants to say that it’s okay, it’s fine, they can talk with any words they want as long as they don’t use the angry voices. He’s wide awake now, and chilly. He pulls one of the blankets up around him. Dad has the wipers fully on, because the snow is falling harder. They drive a few minutes in silence, just the whap whap of the wipers and thumping of the chains, and Steve begins to think it’s over, though he’s still shivery and braced and alert. It must have been his fault, because everything was quiet until he said the part about wanting Sammy along.
When his mother starts up again, he burrows deeper in his quilt.
“I’m fed up living like this. Diapers, cooking, cleaning. That’s all I have. Can you blame me for wanting to do things on the weekend?”
“We are! We did!”
“Because I nagged you into it! Made you call your sister to babysit!”
“Well, it’s a long day for her.”
“Yes, let’s worry more about her! Poor Vera, with all her thousands in the bank.”
“Drop it.”
“No, I have a better idea. Drop me! Right now, right here! I’d rather walk back to Portland than sit beside you another minute of my life.”
Steve sits up straight at this. He sees Dad flinch as if against a blow, though he keeps his hands on either side of the wheel, facing only forward. The wipers beat time, making short spaces of clear viewing. They have come up behind a plow that scrapes the road in front of them, shoving snow to the right. Usually Steve loves the plows. Now he’s frightened. What if his mother gets out of the car and a plow comes and scoops her up?
“Why aren’t you stopping? Stop the car!”
“You’re acting crazy.”
“Because I am crazy! Are you just now seeing how crazy you’ve made me? All around us, families having fun together. While you sit in the lodge. How many brandies did you have?”
His father is quiet, driving slowly while looking through the white window, then the clear window. Steve wants to remind his mother that they only have one sled, so of course they had to take turns. And Mom likes sledding better than Dad, so that’s why he gave his turns to her. He wants to explain it to her, but he’s afraid of his mother turning her mad voice around to him, and he’s also trying to sort through too many things at once: Is something wrong with their family compared to other families? And is his mother really crazy? They both said it, but maybe they didn’t mean it?
“How many?”
“I didn’t have any goddamn brandies.”
“Oh, ho—language! The halo slips. And you’re a liar. I smell it on you.”
He looks at her, and the look is savage. “I had one, early in the afternoon before the driving. I work hard all week and I don’t have to apologize.”
“Who’s asking you to apologize? Just let me the hell out of the car.”
Dad keeps driving. That’s what Steve wants him to do. If Mom is crazy, then the two of them have to take care of her, keep her out of the snow and away from the plows.
“Now-ow!” she shrieks in a long wail. It’s a terrifying noise, like a wolf whose leg has been caught in a trap. He’s hea
rd wolves crying on the westerns he and Dad watch together—Gunsmoke, The Rifleman.
Abruptly, Dad signals—they’re at the turnoff to Government Camp, where they stopped on the way up the mountain for gas—and pulls over. Mom flings the car door open, then slams it behind her and walks ahead. She’s going fast: One second she is right in front of their headlights, her dark hair shining in the flurry, and the next, she’s striding stiffly in the distance, the beam barely reaching her white parka, her legs in black stretch pants disappearing into the night.
“Daddy, don’t let her go!” Steve cries.
“Don’t worry. She’s just letting off steam.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Stevie.” Dad rubs his eyes behind his glasses. “Even I don’t really get it.”
When Mom begins to vanish, their beams picking up only the swirl of snow, Dad puts the car in gear and creeps forward along the side of the road, his blinker still ticking. There isn’t much space because of all the snow piled up there. Sometimes a car starts up outside a restaurant and pulls in front of them. The car’s brake lights flash and then swerve around a darkness that must be Mom. Then Steve sees her again, a figure smaller than you’d think a grown-up should be. One car pulls up beside her and a head comes out of the passenger-side window. Dad sucks his breath in at this, but Mom shakes her head and the car drives off.
Government Camp, with its gas station and short strip of buildings, is almost over; they can see the highway ahead of her, completely dark. She is headed for it.
Dad leans over to roll down the passenger-side window, then drives forward to catch up. When he’s even with her, he stays at her speed. “Kay, please get in.” Steve is glad Dad keeps his voice quiet. He feels like his mother might startle and bound off at any loud noise. She would go lose herself in the black woods, and they’d never find her again.
She walks on, not looking at them.
“Please, Mommy,” Steve says from the backseat. He doesn’t think he is crying, but finds out he is.
His mother looks back. When she sees his face, hers crumples in her hands. “Oh, God,” she says, standing still, so that Dad suddenly has to brake. His father leans over to open the door and she slides in. After she closes it, Dad picks up speed smoothly before she can change her mind. When the wind starts rushing through the open window Mom cranks it up, though she is still crying, still whispering, “God, God.”
Ultraviolet Page 12