I called out as I went up the stairs, and Maria stuck her head out of Miki and Dad’s bedroom. “In here,” she whispered. “Boone’s sleeping. Miki’s down in that little room again.”
I tiptoed into the bedroom and gagged. It was stifling and smelled like rotten fish; the curtains were drawn against the summer sun, and all the lights were off. I could make out my dad in the rocker, with Boone asleep in his arms. Maria was tidying—throwing little sleepers into a basket, stuffing used diapers into a garbage bag. I bent over to kiss my dad and he whispered, “Give Maria a hand, okay? We’ll talk later.”
I nodded, took a laundry basket from Maria and headed downstairs to the laundry room. Maria joined me a few minutes later, dragging two full garbage bags.
“What’s going on, Maria?” I asked as I started the first load of laundry.
“Miki’s having some problems,” she said. “I thought she was okay—she never called and I got busy—all my babies came at once. Your dad called this morning.”
“What kind of problems?” I asked as I loaded the dishwasher. Maria hauled the bags of garbage to the back door and started filling another bag with half-full cartons of what looked like congealed pad thai.
“Problems feeding the baby, problems with her moods, problems with anxiety.”
“But she seemed so happy before,” I said. “I mean, she was okay for a while, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Maria replied, “at first everything was fine. She had some problems feeding Boone, but lots of first-time mothers struggle with that.”
I thought of Jane at Ruth’s breast—the ease and contentment blazing on Ruth’s face. Ruth had told me it was the best feeling she’d ever had. Way better than sex. I hoped that part wasn’t true.
Maria continued. “I checked up on her fairly regularly, and I knew she was having a hard time, but she was adamant that she wanted to keep trying to nurse him. I don’t need to tell you, Miki’s a pretty determined woman. I didn’t have any reason to think she and Boone wouldn’t get the hang of it. A couple of days ago your dad realized that Boone was starving. Crying all the time, even when Miki tried to nurse him. Then Miki refused to nurse him at all, and she locked herself away in that little room. Your dad has been trying to cope ever since. But Boone isn’t taking to the bottle too well either.”
“Is Boone okay?” A vision of my baby brother laid out in a tiny coffin, wizened like a prune, took my breath away.
Maria put her hand on my arm. “Yes, Julia, he’s okay. A little underweight, but he’ll be fine as soon as he gets the hang of the bottle. It won’t take long, I’m sure. Today was better than yesterday. I’m more worried about Miki, to be honest.”
I glared at her as I ran water over the dishes in the sink. “Why? She’s the grown-up. Boone’s the helpless one.” Even as I said it I knew it was unfair, but I didn’t care. Helpless adults are scary. I needed Miki to get better. Not just for Boone, but for Ruth and Jane. And for Dad.
“How have you been?” Maria asked. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to debate Miki’s fitness to be a mother. “I hear you and Ruth were up at the lake. Must have been fun.”
There wasn’t even the tiniest hint of sarcasm or irony in Maria’s voice, nor was there a smirk on her face. I figured everyone must know about Jane by now, but Maria was clearly out of the loop. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, if you call being a midwife to your best friend fun, then, yeah, it was fun.”
Maria dropped the dirty coffee cup she had been holding. Fortunately, its fall was broken by a bag full of dirty diapers.
“You delivered a baby? Ruth’s baby? By yourself?” Maria sat down hard on a kitchen chair. She grimaced and pulled a pizza box out from under her and threw it to the floor.
“Yup,” I said, suddenly feeling as proud as if I’d given birth myself. “A baby girl named Jane. Ruth calls her JJ. She’s awesome. And Ruth—Ruth is an amazing mother. And Jonah helped.”
“You’re pretty amazing yourself, I’d say,” Maria replied. Her eyes narrowed. “All that stuff about school reports— total bullshit, yes?”
“Yeah, but I really was—am—interested. A new life, helping that happen. It’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah, it is,” she said. “But you took a lot of chances. What if the baby had been breech? What if...”
“I know...I thought of all those things too. But her parents would have sent her away. They still want to send her away. So does my mom.”
“Send who away?” Neither of us had heard my dad come into the kitchen. He was standing in the doorway, scratching his stubble and looking from me to Maria and back again. “Send who away?” he repeated.
“Ruth,” I said. “And Jane.”
“Who’s Jane?”
Maria got up and started stuffing garbage in bags again while I made Dad some coffee and told him everything that had happened. When I was finished—well, not quite finished—all he said was “Wow.” I carried on with the cleanup as he sat and drank his coffee. Gradually some order rose out of the chaos: the counter reappeared, sticky with blobs of peanut butter and gritty with spilled sugar, and I scoured it clean; the stink of shit and piss and tears and sweat was replaced by the perfume of Javex and Sunlight and Mr. Clean. Through it all, my dad sat and sipped his coffee. When he was done, he got up, gave me a hug and said, “I have to go check on Boone. We’ll talk later. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too, Dad,” I said as he turned to go upstairs. “Um, Dad? Can Ruth and Jane and I stay here for a while?”
He paused with his foot on the first step. “You don’t ever have to ask my permission to stay here, Julia. You should know that. But Ruth and Jane? I don’t know. What does your mother say?” he said.
I swallowed hard. He’d never asked me that before. About anything. “She said Ruth and Jane had to go somewhere called Hope House unless I could figure something else out. She’s been great,” I added, “but our place is too small. And you’ve got extra bedrooms and I can help Miki with Boone and Jane’s a really good baby and Ruth is different—”
He held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Stop, Julia. I get it. It’s fine. You can come.” He smiled for the first time since I’d gotten there, but there was no joy in it. “It can’t get much worse than this, can it? Just give me a day to break it to Miki. Not that she’ll care. As long as someone else looks after Boone, she wouldn’t care if the combined casts of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera moved in.”
It was my turn to say “Wow,” but not because Miki hated Cats and every other musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I totally got that. No, I said “Wow” because I had never ever, not once, heard my dad sound so bitter.
TWO DAYS LATER, Jonah drove Ruth, Jane and me over to my dad’s. I didn’t plan on staying very long—a couple of nights, max—but I wanted to get Ruth and Jane settled and make sure Boone was okay before I went back to Mom’s. She’d agreed to my plan on three conditions: that Miki and Dad really were okay with it; that I not sacrifice school for playing house; and that the minute the arrangement became a problem for anyone, Ruth and Jane would go to Hope House. She and Dad talked on the phone—and yes, I listened in on my extension— but he didn’t back out and she didn’t preach at him, so, all things considered, it was a success as divorced parent conversations go. Mom asked about Miki, and Dad’s voice broke a little when he told her that Miki spent all day in a small dark room, crying.
“It’s definitely postpartum depression, Sharon,” he said. “If not psychosis. I know it. Everyone knows it—her doctor, the midwife, the public health nurse. But Miki won’t take anything for it. She won’t talk to me. She won’t even look at Boone. She says she’s not good for him.” He sounded like he was about to cry, and I imagined him sitting at the kitchen table, unshaven, in grubby jeans, surrounded by dirty dishes. It broke my heart, and from the tone of my mother’s voice, it was getting to her too.
“Poor thing,” she said. “Miki, I mean,” she added quickly. Not fast enough, Mom, I thought.
I heard it; I’m sure Dad heard it. A hint of ex-wifely concern, a distinct thawing in the chilly atmosphere of their relationship. It didn’t last. When she spoke again, she was brisk and businesslike. “Julia’s idea is that Ruth can help out in exchange for her room and board. Jane’s a very easy baby, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Ruth knows what’s expected of her, and Julia will come on the usual days once school starts. For now she can be there as much as she likes. She can give Ruth a break if she needs it.”
“Okay,” Dad said. There was a pause. “Uh, Sharon? I really appreciate this.”
Mom laughed. A miracle. “You appreciate having a teenage mother and her newborn baby come to stay with you when your wife is depressed and you’re going nuts looking after her and the baby? Pete and Peggy should be on their knees thanking God that some people know how to do the right thing. And I do thank you for taking her in.”
“You’re welcome,” Dad said. “But I meant I appreciate you talking to me. It helps.”
“I’m glad,” Mom said. She took a breath.
Don’t say it, Mom, I thought. Don’t say I’m praying for you or If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. I squeezed my eyes shut, just like I used to do when I was little and I had to take cough syrup.
“I’m happy to help” was all she said. “We’ll just have to take it a day at a time. Give Boone a kiss for me.”
She hung up, but Dad was still on the line.
“Holy shit,” he said reverently before he hung up. My sentiments exactly.
WHEN WE GOT to Dad’s, he was in the kitchen singing to Boone while he burped him. The song of the day was “Don’t Worry Baby.” A bizarre selection, given that it’s about a guy and his car. Never too early to start the indoctrination, I guess.
“Hey, Julia,” he said as we walked in. “Boone’s holding out on me. Wanna give it a shot?”
“Sure,” I said. I put my pack down on a chair and took Boone from him. “But I’m not singing some lame-ass Beach Boys’ song to him.” I started to waltz around the room humming “Edelweiss,” of all things. What can I say? I love The Sound of Music. Always have. When we were little, Ruth always insisted on being both Captain von Trapp and Maria in our bedroom productions. Jonah, if we could talk him into it, had the thankless role of Rolf the Nazi boy as well as all the male von Trapp children. I was all the nuns and all the girls. Today I was the Captain—firm, sensitive, musically gifted. Ruth came in with Jane, followed by Jonah, who was loaded down like a Sherpa. A hot white Sherpa in Tommy Hilfiger jeans and a tight T-shirt. I stopped singing. The biceps were very distracting.
“Where should I put these, sir?” he asked my dad.
Dad gestured up the stairs. “Third door on the left, past the bathroom.”
Jonah nodded and disappeared up the stairs, with Ruth and Jane behind him. I had just launched into a passionate rendition of “Do-Re-Mi,” when Boone let loose with a huge belch. About a gallon of formula cascaded down the front of my shirt.
“Crap,” I said, reaching for a towel.
“That comes later,” Dad said. “He’s pretty much mastered the sucking part. Now if only he’d move on to actual digestion.”
“How’s Miki?” I asked as I dabbed ineffectually at the mess.
“Pretty much the same.” He shrugged. “Maybe a bit better. It’s hard to tell. She gave Boone part of a bottle yesterday, and at least she’s come out of the depression chamber.”
I laughed as much as his bad joke deserved and said, “She knows Ruth and Jane are coming, right?”
“Yeah. I told her. Her exact words were ‘Whatever. I don’t care.’ Which aren’t words I’m used to hearing from her, as you know.”
I laughed, since he seemed to be trying to make a joke, but it wasn’t very funny. Miki’s indifference was good for Ruth and Jane, but it still wasn’t funny. Boone hiccuped in my arms, and I felt a different kind of dampness spread across my T-shirt.
“Want me to take him?” Dad asked. “I’m an ace diaperer.”
“Me too,” I replied. “Why don’t you go have a shower? I’m going to clean Boone up, and then I’ll check on Ruth. Jonah brought stuff to make fajitas, so just relax.”
He nodded and ran his hand over Boone’s head. “Relax, huh? I’ll give it a shot. See you later, little guy,” he said. “You’re in good hands.”
MIKI WOULDN’T JOIN us for dinner even though she loves fajitas; when Dad brought her tray back down, it looked as if she had picked at the chicken and ignored everything else, even her favorite hot sauce.
I finished burping Boone, changed him and took him up to bed. He slept beside Dad’s side of the bed, in a super-cute bassinet with a Bert and Ernie theme. Miki was sitting up in bed, watching TV. Miki hates TV. Especially reality TV.
“Hey, Julia,” she said. “Check this out.” She pointed at the screen. “They’re swimming in a vat of leeches.”
I put Boone in his bassinet and covered him with a soft flannel blanket. The room smelled, as Ruth would say, like ass. A half-empty bottle of Shiraz sat on the night table.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched a heavily tattooed, big-breasted woman in a bikini lower herself into the vat. Gross. I didn’t know what to say. The woman in the bed didn’t look at all like the woman my dad had married. For a start, she was really skinny and her breath was rank. Her skin was pale and flaky. Her teeth were yellow. Her nails were bitten. Her lips were chapped. The shadows under her eyes looked like spilled ink. In fact, she looked as if she had barely survived a dip in a vat of leeches. That whole new-mother glow that was illuminating Ruth seemed to have bypassed Miki altogether. I didn’t get it. Miki had every-thing—money, a loving husband, a great job, a fabulous house. Ruth had nothing. It didn’t make sense. Was it all just a big hormonal crapshoot?
“We missed you at dinner, Miki,” I finally said. “Ruth’s here, with Jane. I, um, wanted to thank you for taking them in. Our place is so small and—”
“I know. Your dad told me. He says Jane’s adorable, and Ruth’s a great mom.” Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away from me and burrowed under the covers. I stroked her leg and watched her back shudder. I couldn’t think of anything more to say. After a while she and Boone both seemed to be asleep, so I turned off the TV and tiptoed out of the room. As I was leaving, a faint and sorrowful voice wafted from the bed. “When something is wrong with my baby,” Miki sang, “something is wrong with me.” It was kind of backward, but I knew what she meant.
Twelve
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
I would have liked to name Ruth’s baby Scout, after the main character in To Kill a Mockingbird, but Demi Moore and Bruce Willis scooped me, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I named a baby after a celebrity’s kid. I also toyed with the name Harper, but in the end, Jane just suited her better. Don’t ask me why. Something about her eyes, maybe. It would be amazing if she ended up writing one of the greatest novels of all time, like Harper Lee, but I sure hope she turns out to be a bit more outgoing. I mean, Harper Lee wrote this one great book and then—nothing. She hung around with Truman Capote while he wrote In Cold Blood, and she won the Pulitzer Prize, but she never published another novel and she never gives interviews. I’m not even sure she’s alive. How sad is that? Maybe I’ll never write another word after I finish this book, but I’m pretty sure that no short guy with a lisp and bad taste in hats will ever replace Ruth as my best friend. And you can be damn sure that, if this book becomes a bestseller, I’ll be selling the movie rights to the highest bidder, giving interviews to Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone and going to as many red-carpet events as possible. Ruth will be my date, and I will name my first son Atticus because by then I’ll be a celebrity and Demi and Bruce will be old news. Maybe they could play Ruth’s parents in the movie.
Two days after Ruth moved in at my dad’s, someone banged on the front door and I opened i
t to find Pete and Peggy on the doorstep, Bibles in hand (I kid you not), flecks of foam on their lips. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit about the foam, but it wasn’t long before Pete was frothing at the mouth in the living room, where Ruth was nursing Jane in Dad’s favorite brown leather recliner, the only evidence of his former bachelor existence. I perched on the arm of the chair, ready to take Jane upstairs if things got ugly, which seemed inevitable. Peggy didn’t say anything; she just cleared a space on the love seat opposite Ruth and fixed her gaze on her granddaughter.
“Cover yourself,” Pete barked as he shielded Peggy’s eyes from the sight of Ruth’s bare breasts. Peggy swatted his hand away and continued to stare at Jane. “Have you no shame? No sense of decency? Who is the father of this child?” Pete continued in classic Pastor Pete style. He remained standing, looming over us like a trailer park prophet in his Wal-Mart jeans and stained white wifebeater. Talk about no sense of decency. “Who planted the demon seed in your tender young womb?”
Ruth laughed, which was probably unwise. “Johnny Appleseed,” she said.
“You think this is funny?” Pete roared. “You dare to mock me?” Jane stopped nursing and swiveled her head toward the noise.
“Pete,” Peggy whispered, tugging at his hand. “You promised.” She continued to stare at Jane the way an anorexic looks at a piece of fudge cake—with adoration and disgust.
Pete glared at Peggy. “Tell me,” he hissed, “on that baby’s innocent soul. Tell me the father’s name.”
“I don’t know,” Ruth said. Peggy gasped and Pete lowered himself down beside her on the love seat.
“You don’t know?” he said. “How can you not know?” As the answer dawned on him, he lowered his head and brought the Bible to his lips.
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