by Ariella Papa
I opt to eat on the couch, using nursing Abe as an excuse and ignoring Pam’s comment that it’s an undertaking this time for Steve’s benefit. I sit there with my chicken tikka masala and nan and baby. I tune out the chatter between Steve and Pam while I watch Jerry Orbach and Jesse L. Martin go after the bad guys with the closed captioning on.
I’m the happiest I have been all day.
Until Pam leaves. I thank her profusely for coming to stay with Abe.
And then of course it’s time to put Abe down, and we wait until Steve checks the score and highlights from the Red Sox game. He always does this. It bugs me, but I haven’t mentioned it. I think baseball should be the last thing he concerns himself with right now.
First I nurse Abe and we swaddle and try the bassinet. Doesn’t work.
Then we unswaddle. I nurse Abe and we try the swing. Not having it.
Then I nurse Abe. I doubt he gets anything. My nipples have been sucked as dry as raisins, but he seems to want to be on them. I put him in a carrier and walk him around. Nope.
Then Steve takes over because I am putting cream on my nipples and lamenting all the milk that soaked into the shirt I still haven’t changed. I am mourning not only the loss of the shirt, but also the loss of the precious milk. Steve is bouncing a little more vigorously than I would like him to, but I can’t say anything because I doze off on the couch.
But I wake up to Abe’s cries. I think it’s a second later, but it is really a half hour later. I think this was Steve’s intention because he is standing super close to me even though we talked about putting Abe down in the nursery.
I take Abe back and try again. I grimace as I put him on because I am really sore. It’s such a sharp pinch in a super-sensitive spot. I wonder if I should call the lactation consultant.
Abe falls asleep, sucking. I look up to get Steve to take Abe off of me and try to put him down in the bassinet, but Steve is asleep in the easy chair and I have the urge to kick him so hard in the knee that I hobble him.
I don’t even know where that idea comes from.
I want this baby off of me. But maybe this is better. Maybe I should give Abe some time to let the sleep seal in. I know it’s all superstition. He’s going wake up if he is going to wake up. I should take this time to get sleep too, but I know if I doze it might be where I wind up sleeping and I really want my bed.
After twenty minutes, I stage whisper Steve’s name. He wakes up, blinking and disoriented.
“He’s asleep,” he says.
“Yeah.” Steve takes a long time rubbing his eyes and I need to move this along. “Can you please take him?”
To his credit, Steve hops right up and comes to get the baby.
“Careful,” I say. If he fucks this transfer up, I am going to have to hurt him. Steve stops in front of me.
“What should we do with him,” he asks. It’s a good question and one that I wish he could answer on his own. I’m not sure what we should do. Nothing has worked so far and he’s no longer swaddled. I sigh.
“You sure you don’t want to let him sleep here?” Steve asks. I cannot bear to have him on me anymore. I need space for as long as I can have it.
“No, try the bouncer.”
“Okay.” After a false start, Steve bites his lower lip and tries again. He takes Abe off me, at last. There is not a sound as he places Abe into the bouncy seat. He looks at me. I shrug.
“Vibrate or no?” He whispers.
“No,” I say, but then get scared. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“No.”
“No, we should do it.” I decide.
“Wait no don’t vibrate or no vibrate,” Steve asks.
“Put. The. Vibrate. On.” I say enunciating the way I might for a child. I feel bad about it, but it’s after eleven–ungodly-and I am headed into our room.
I flop onto the bed, face down. Oh, it’s bliss! I still haven’t changed my shirt. I can smell the milk on it. I don’t care.
Steve’s comes in a moment later. He is going to tell me if anything is wrong I hope, so I don’t ask. I am going to submit to sleep as fast as I can.
But Steve is suddenly strangely awake. He crawls into bed and puts his hand on my back. In fact, the hand is rubbing up and down.
“Must have been nice to have a little help today, huh?”
“Sure.” I hope he is not going to propose we make it a regular thing. Does his mother really want to take a train down to see me? I would prefer to wallow by myself.
“Maybe she can come help you out more.” Her coming down makes me feel compelled to clean the apartment. It’s the last thing I want to do. And I don’t know how long can I use my new baby get-out-of-jail-free card? I don’t answer him. He doesn’t press it.
“So how was your doctor’s appointment today?”
“Good.” No matter what, I am not going to open my eyes. I wish he would take his hand off me. No more touching from anyone. But the hand moves up to my shoulders. I would call this stroking. He is stroking my shoulders. Does he think I find this relaxing?
“Did she say you are all healed? Everything looked good.”
“Yeah,” I say into my pillow. Immediately, he shifts closer to me in the bed and now the hand is running down to my butt, and yes! No! It is squeezing my butt. I don’t believe this is really happening. I am going to have to open my eyes. Ugh! And I know that Abe is going to wake up. Sleep, sleep, sleep, you are all I want.
“Listen, Steve, I can’t, okay. I just cannot. The baby. Your mother. I really need sleep.”
“Oh, okay.” Yes! The hand retreats. “I’m sorry, I thought six weeks, I thought it was okay.”
“It is,” I say. “But I’m not. I’m sorry.”
And I would try to explain it to him a little, even though it’s cutting into my precious sleep time, but as I could have predicted Abe wakes up and I am back on duty.
Chapter 4
Kirsten Works Hard for the Money
My client was not going to be happy with the pictures. This mother fluttered around her kids and me, occasionally shaking her perfectly coiffed head when she thought I wasn’t looking. I had a good rapport with children in general, but when the parents tried to elicit whatever expression they wanted, they usually f’ed things up.
I always wanted to create a safe space for the subjects of my photography. But when the subjects were children, I constantly had to remind myself that it was the parents who needed to be flattered and indulged. I purposely try to balance relaxing kids so they can be the extraordinary creatures they are, while at the same time appeasing the parents. I often felt torn in two.
Today it was three. I really wanted to focus on the twins, but Claudia, their mom, kept inserting herself into it, encouraging them to “smile, honeybunny.”
Claudia found me when she saw the flyer that David had insisted on putting up in our local café, The Ground Floor. It was a rush job without any examples of my work. She mentioned that she had found recommendations for me on one of the numerous Brooklyn parenting websites.
Her kids Jacob (the twelfth Jacob I had photographed in three years) and Emily (the twenty-third) were adorable, but like most kids they had their limits. I liked those expressions that sometimes came right before my subjects had had enough. Kids didn’t hold still, they shouldn’t have to. I didn’t expect it. I had the feeling that Claudia wanted the stiff type of portrait you got at a box store with a backdrop and several predictable props. I couldn’t figure out why she had chosen me.
“You’re not going to use that one, are you?” Claudia asked while she carefully redid Emily’s hair after Emily pulled the hair band out. Emily was decked out in a frilly pink-and-yellow dress and cute white tights with purple flowers on them. I could tell Emily hated the outfit, but I knew that my son, Sage, would have loved it.
I kept snapping.
“Usually, I go through everything when we are done and then send you some selects. Emily, why don’t you see what Jacob is doing, that’
s it. How preeeeeetty. Superduper.” I turned back to Claudia, who was hovering beside my bad ear. “You can narrow it down to what you want and we go from there.”
“Jacob, stop poking your sister,” Claudia scolded Jacob. Emily had a few pounds on Jacob, and I suspected she ruled the roost. Proving this, Emily reached over and gave Jacob a few quick slaps on the chin. It was all I could do not to capture her gleeful expression and his trembling lip.
“Emily Patricia!” Claudia yelled. “They aren’t usually like this. I have no idea what kinds of pictures you are going to take.”
“I’m sure I’ll get something,” I said and took another couple, moving into the better light. “Nice smile, Jacob. Superduper.”
It was no fun to see kids be cruel to each other, but too often parents only wanted the fairy-tale. Maybe it was the influence of the grandparents or coworkers or the stupid American idea that everything always had to be perfect. Most parents wanted photographic documentation that their children were happy, healthy and clean. Sure, there were moments they were allowed, almost encouraged, to be messy . . . the first taste of real food or the first birthday cake. But what parents wanted, what they “remembered” was a fantasy. Tears and temper tantrums had no place in this world parents imagined for their kids. Parents wanted the eventual proof of the good times for angst-ridden teens and ungrateful adult children. I think that’s why so many parents couldn’t handle it when the reality of their kids’ hard times reared its ugly head. And that’s also why most kids felt duped.
But I loved the mess. I wanted to capture that reality. That was kids. To me, the best pictures I took of my own kids were the ones when they were grossed out by the taste of something or scrunching their faces up at a sibling or having a bad, blue day. I didn’t want my kids to be sad, but I didn’t want them to look back at pictures of themselves when they were kids and wrongly think they were always happy. They needed to see the whole. Those were important moments. I had so many fantastic pictures of other people’s kids with not necessarily happy expressions that I never even bothered sending, because I knew it wasn’t what the job called for. It was a waste.
Jacob was screaming because his sister had stolen his ball from him. I took that picture, but knew it was only for me to appreciate. Claudia was never going to go for it. She was a perfectionist. Her house was immaculate, and I didn’t think that was possible with two kids approaching two. I didn’t understand how people could find the time to clean so meticulously with kids. There was more important stuff to do. Maybe she had a cleaning lady. Everyone seemed to be able to afford one these days. Everyone except us.
“I think he needs something to drink,” Claudia said. “Sorry he’s being such a crab.”
“Oh, he’s entitled. It’s not easy being in the spotlight. Is it, pal?” Boys were always “pal” and girls were always “sweetheart”. This is because I often forgot their names and parents took it personally. I also used the word superduper a lot. It was a word I only began using when I started this business.
“I don’t want to interrupt your, um, process,” she apologized. She said the word “process” as if it was a type of illness she was afraid to get. “I’m not sure how this works. Emily is being great, and I don’t know how long she’ll stay that way.”
“Well, no worries. You can get him whatever he needs, and I can keep taking pictures of Emily.”
“You mean leave her here with you?”
I stopped taking pictures and looked up at her. Claudia stood on my left, the side of my bad ear. It was throwing me off. Did she not want to leave me alone with her daughter and go two rooms away? Did she think I was a pedophile or did she just want to supervise the shots I was taking? Maybe I had misheard her.
“Excuse me?”
“Ahh, well I just meant, are you sure you don’t mind if I leave her with you for a minute?” I had heard correctly, and now I suspected that she was uptight and controlling.
“I think we’ll be okay,” I said.
“Oh, oh, oh.” Now she was stuttering, backpedaling. “I’m sure you will be, I mean I guess you’ve done this before—“
“Many times.”
“But sometimes Emily had stranger anxiety.”
I looked over at Emily, who was twirling around in front of me giggling. I lifted up my camera and focused.
“I think we’ll be okay. You’re only going to the kitchen.” I said, trying to keep any small amount of sarcasm out of my voice. Find the flaky artsy tone, I told myself. Condescension was not cool for word of mouth. I was dipping my toes back in to working. “Superduper.”
“Okay, Emily, Mother’s just going to get Jacob his milk in the kitchen. We’ll be right back. Okay.”
“You see Emily necklace?” Emily asked me, ignoring her mother.
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s sooooo pretty.”
“Emily, do you want your milk?” Claudia asked, trying to reestablish contact.
“Noooooooo,” Emily said, starting to get upset.
“It’s okay, honey,” Claudia said. Then to me she added, “You know how they can turn so quickly.”
“I do,” I said. “But Emily is doing great. What a superduper pretty smile.”
Claudia hung out for a minute, hesitating. Jacob was really beginning to have a meltdown.
“Okay, I’ll be in the kitchen,” Claudia said, backing up slowly. I nodded.
Claudia left, keeping the pocket doors to the parlor open. I guess she still thought there was a chance I could kidnap Emily. I kept taking pictures of Emily’s attempts at a cartwheel. It was a good thing Claudia was gone. I had a feeling that these kinds of moves would make her uncomfortable.
I glanced around her spotless apartment. It was the garden floor of a beautiful old brownstone with tons of room. The light in the double parlor was perfect. It was a huge space I would have done completely differently. I was dying to see the rest of it. I would have killed for space like this, so much room for kids and art. I pushed the idea out of my head. David and I were never going to be able to afford a place like this. Not anymore. We seemed to miss the boat on everything when it came to money. We were permanently broke, living hand to mouth. This was my attempt to get out from under this debt.
I kept taking pictures
Claudia mentioned that she owned. She had bought a few years ago when the neighborhood was still, in her words, “sketchy”. I was surprised someone like her took a risk moving to a fringe neighborhood. There was always more to people than I suspected at first. Sometimes I could only find out who people were when I looked through the camera lens at them and snapped. I thought of taking a picture of Claudia as she kept nervously peering into the parlor from the kitchen but decided against it. I didn’t think she would take it lightly. She was wound way up.
Lately, I found myself being envious of the things that other people had. Not their kids, I wouldn’t trade mine for the world. It was things, material things. I never used to care about this. But more and more, as I felt David growing restless, it seemed as if having a little money wouldn’t be so bad. It would mean more freedom.
Someone like Claudia could probably afford a nanny and a housekeeper. We could barely afford a babysitter. Today David’s mother, Hope, was helping out.
Thinking of the kids made my breasts ache. Another hour or so and I would become engorged, but I didn’t think it would be cool to stop and pump at Claudia’s house. I figured I would be done in an hour. I wondered if Naomi missed me and what things Sage was saying to terrify Hope. Luckily, Julissa was in school. She was the real handful. The last time Hope watched her, she told me that Julissa needed to be reined in, that she was going to grow up spoiled if we weren’t careful. I thought of throwing back at her that David wasn’t spoiled, but he had grown up repressed and resentful, but I didn’t want to start a war. I couldn’t wait to hear what advice she was going to give me about Sage.
But it was worth it. This photo shoot was going to cover one eighth of our rent and that was necessary
.
“Everything okay in here?” Claudia said coming back in.
“It’s going great, I think Emily is quite photogenic. Aren’t you, sweetheart?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a backyard,” I asked Claudia.
“Yeah, do you want to see it?”
“I was thinking maybe we could do some back there, if you didn’t mind. I bet the light would be great out there.” And also I was having real estate envy. Prospect Park was great for summer visits, but it would be nice to have a little grass of my own and maybe a garden.
“Well, it’s not that nice,” Claudia, said nervously.
“Is there a tree?”
“A few.”
“If you don’t want to go, no worries. I thought it would be a nice change of pace.”
I looked at Claudia. She bit her lip. I had this feeling that it wasn’t the idea of going into the garden that bothered her; it was just that we hadn’t planned it before. She didn’t want to roll with it. It was as if she couldn’t. I imagined she had a job in which she had a lot of control and not a lot of human contact.
“It’s fine, we can stay in here,” I said lightly.
“No, no, I want to get the best pictures. Let me just put some sunscreen on them.”
Twenty minutes later after a thorough application of sunscreen and a small meltdown from Emily, which I distracted by singing my old standby “Five Little Monkeys,” we were outside.
The garden was unkempt but grassy. There was a giant magnolia tree in the back.
“Wow, that’s a beautiful, bloom, huh?” I asked. Claudia shrugged and then nodded. I couldn’t stop myself from snapping a few pictures. I switched from digital to film.
I resumed doing my job, snapping pictures of the twins. And as I did, I heard a baby wailing. It was a newborn cry.
“Baby fwyin,” Emily said.
“Da-dwyin,” Jacob said.
“Yes, a baby is crying. Babies can’t talk the way you two can. You are big, so you can talk. But not babies, they have to cry,” I said, as I snapped some fantastic shots of the two of them in the grass. The baby began to shriek. This went on for at least fifteen minutes. I pressed a hand against my chest. It wasn’t my baby, but my breasts apparently wanted me to wet-nurse the kid. I was probably going to have to figure out a way to pump. I wish I had driven over, but I walked, leaving the car with Hope in case Sage or Naomi had an emergency. I glanced at Claudia. “Sounds like a new baby in the neighborhood.”