She spoke to him without opening her eyes. “Go look at the baby,” she said. “Tell me what she looks like. We still need to name her.”
That was right. Peter skirted the bed and went to the tiny warming crib where his daughter still lay under the scrutiny of several pairs of expert eyes, her smooth skin lit bright orange by the strong lamps above her. The neonatal team continued their observations, taking notes and occasionally making small sounds of approval. She was apparently continuing to satisfy all their prerequisites for health.
“Pardon me, everyone,” Peter said, trying to nudge his way through.
“Just another moment, sir. We’re going to check – ”
“You don’t need to be in here anymore,” Ms. Greenland said quietly. Her voice was kind, but firm. “Child’s all right. You said so. Give us some breathing room.”
The lead neonatal specialist did not look up. “Couple of minutes,” he said. “This is a good learning case for rest of the group. It’s important to let them see a perfect baseline.”
The baby began to cry again. Hesitantly at first, but then with increasing volume. Cynthia Hall opened her eyes. “Is she all right?”
“Absolutely fine,” the neonatal doctor said. “We’re just going to – ”
“That’s not how it works,” Cynthia said. She spoke with a renewed strength her husband envied. Four hours of pushing, and yet here she came with her teacher’s voice. And the Ob-GYN still down between her legs, squinting and working on her like a mechanic trying to tighten a balky nut. “No extra tests now,” Cynthia declared.
“Mrs. Hall, this is a teaching hospital.”
“I’m well aware,” she said, her tone still strong, “but I’m also aware of the correct procedures. I’ve submitted to three extra blood tests and at least two inexperienced nurses today, and each time I was asked first whether I would be willing to endure such things. Each time I said yes. Now I’m saying no.”
The doctor sighed. “Mrs. Hall, may we please – ”
“Absolutely not. Next time ask first, as you’re supposed to, instead of trying to bulldoze your way through. Out of my room, please.”
“We’ll only – ”
“Out.”
There was a moment of silence, as the students on the neonatal team watched to see whether their leader would actually defy the wishes of The Mother, who was always assumed to have final say unless the health of the baby was at risk. Which it clearly was not. They each had to admit to themselves that this baby was nothing if not healthy. Twelve pounds was positively immense for a newborn, and this little girl also seemed supremely alert.
The neonatal doctor put down his clipboard with a noisy, disappointed harrumph, and he left without nodding to his team. They filed out behind him.
Ms. Greenland glided forward to take their place. She wrapped the child quickly and expertly in a swaddling blanket, put a tiny pink hat on her head, and moved her to the standard receiving crib. This crib had little wheels attached to the bottom, and she pushed it to a spot in between Mr. and Mrs. Hall.
“Tell me her name,” Cynthia said to her husband quietly, her voice once again betraying her deep fatigue. “Tell me.”
They had known the naming would fall to Peter. For all Cynthia’s decisiveness, she could not warm to the task. She feared giving the child a name that would be prophetic, or affected, or too-easily mocked.
“Devon,” Peter said.
Cynthia blinked. She had been prepared for something very upper-crust, something New England. Emily or Katherine or Eugenie or Hartley. Which would have been fine, because she didn’t want anything that sounded like the names her family would have picked out. She was ready for a name that would make the folks from Augusta, Georgia, wrinkle their noses. But Devon?
“It’s not a boy’s name?” she said.
“It was my brother’s name,” Peter said, with a little shrug. “And now it will be hers.”
Devon began to cry again, and Peter, newly ready and energized, hesitated. He looked at Ms. Greenland. “Should I pick her up?”
Ms. Greenland smiled warmly. “It’s up to you from now on,” she said, nodding her huge head at him. “What feels right, that’s going to be right. When you feel ready to pick her up, that’s the time.”
Peter waited another moment, trying to feel what was right. To feel whether he was ready.
And then Cynthia began to sing.
It was not singing in the usual sense, because Cynthia could not sing. She had no ear for melodies or notes. But her voice was a supple, powerful thing, and her years as a litigator and then an English teacher had left her with stories and poems and verses, each with a purpose. “I sing of Olaf,” she said, “glad and big. Whose warmest heart recoiled at war, a conscientious objector…”
Peter listened to his wife tell the story of the gentle, iron-willed Olaf, and Devon listened, too. She stopped crying and shifted in her swaddling, and her eyes closed. Cynthia went on. She sang of love and hatred and misplaced patriotism and a terrible, tragic ending. A difficult poem, but a beautiful one. Her voice filled the room, and Peter was reminded yet again that day, for the hundredth time, of how much he loved her. “…and Olaf too,” Cynthia said, coming to the end. “Because unless statistics lie he was more brave than me. More blond than you.”
Her recitation complete, Cynthia let herself sink a little deeper into the pillow. Peter stood over her and the now sleeping baby Devon, wondering vaguely what he would do now that no one needed encouragement or holding. Ms. Greenland stood silently to one side, unobtrusive despite her enormity. The only sounds left in the room were the occasional whisper-rustles of the Ob-GYN’s sterile smock as she sweated and worked to sew and repair the place where Devon Hall had come, finally, into this world.
An hour later they were in a new room, a room where everything was clean and fresh and the only smell was the one coming from flowers that Peter had ordered weeks in advance. Ms. Greenland had left them for a time, but now she was back, and making what seemed to be an unreasonable request.
“Time to nurse,” she said to Cynthia.
“I don’t think so,” Cynthia murmured, sounding barely awake. The Ob-GYN had finished working on her only a few minutes before. “Anyway, Devon’s still asleep.”
As if on cue, Devon rustled in her little crib, and then cried out. Ms. Greenland rolled the crib over so that Cynthia could see through the plastic sides. “She’s hungry.”
Cynthia shook her head. “Not yet. I’m a mess. I don’t know if I have the strength in my arms to hold her.”
“You do,” Ms. Greenland said, with a simple certainty that made further argument pointless. She picked Devon up and placed her expertly on Mrs. Hall’s chest. “Just give her a few swallows,” she said, and stood by to assist.
And then, after a few moments: “Perfect. That’s all she needs for now. Daddy’s turn.”
Peter stirred. “What?” He was sitting in the single large chair in the room, and he could feel the adrenaline from the last few hours draining quickly out of him. He suspected that he would be deeply asleep in twenty minutes.
“You need to hold her a bit,” Ms. Greenland said. “Let her know your smell, your feel.”
“I thought you said – ”
“That’s fine, but you need to give it a practice run here. Now. While I’m still around to watch.”
The Halls glanced at each other. The idea that Ms. Greenland might leave them to fend for themselves – ever – was an awful one.
Peter Hall rose out of his chair, and he was pleased to find that there was still some strength left in his legs. Ms. Greenland handed Devon to him, and he allowed her to adjust his arms and hands into a position of proper support. Devon was fully awake now, looking up at her father with rapt attention. Without warning, she began to cry again.
“A baby wants you to move,” Ms. Greenland instructed. “She was moving inside her mother all this time. Rock or bounce or anything. Just do it easy.”
Cyn
thia Hall watched her husband through eyes that were only half-open, and she allowed herself a little smile. She saw Peter pause, and think, and she knew exactly what was going through his head.
Now he began to move. Very slowly, so that it was difficult to see a rhythm. But the rhythm was there, and Devon quieted at once. If Cynthia Hall’s special talent was voice – sound, communication, support – then Peter’s was movement. Cynthia remembered their early years together. He was athletic, yes, but his athleticism extended beyond the college sports he had so loved. Even walking, he was somehow more graceful than others in a crowd. And if he had not been a handsome, successful man – which he was – he might still have been able to woo Cynthia simply with his confidence on the dance floor.
If not to the altar, then surely at least to the bedroom.
Now, as he waltzed gently around the room, Peter Hall realized that everything was going to be all right. His wife would heal. They would get a little bit of sleep, though not quite enough. Devon would eat, and sleep, and cry. He contemplated these things and allowed himself to look around the room for the first time. To appreciate the tall windows and the huge bouquet of flowers he had ordered. To feel the cool of the perfect climate control.
Devon was asleep by now, lulled by the dance, and Peter put her gently back into her tiny transparent crib. Ms. Greenland nodded with approval and glided out of the room without a word. Peter glanced at his wife, who was now asleep as well. It was almost time to go home.
2
Like most New Yorkers, the Halls knew that Park Avenue in April was miraculous, provided one had access to the right sort of apartment building. Thousands upon thousands of tulip bulbs flourished each year along the median strips, taking the place of the Christmas trees that had been there just a few months earlier. The Christmas trees were striking in their own right, with their dark green and their twinkling lights and the snow underneath, but the lasting image of them was one of almost no color, of the stark, black and white contrasts of nighttime or the grays of dusk, since the winter days were so mercilessly short. The tulips, on the other hand, seemed perpetually awash in the brightest hues of yellow and pink and red, along with the rich brown of the wood borders surrounding them and the fresh mulch at the base of the bright green stems. And yes, the tulips were there for everyone; but those living along the avenue financed their upkeep (and that of the Christmas trees), and those residents may have felt – rightly or not – that they were better able to enjoy this particular aspect of spring. The tulips were visible from their own apartment windows, after all. The tulips greeted them when they emerged in the morning. The tulips welcomed them home.
Nearly all apartment buildings along Park Avenue below 96th street had a doorman, but not all doormen were created equal. The older buildings had apartments that occupied half-floors or entire floors (or even two or more entire floors), which meant that a building with fifteen floors might have only forty or fifty people living in it, even including families with children. A doorman in such a building knew every tenant’s name, and he was well motivated to be as helpful and as friendly as possible to every single one of them. Tenants in such a building often gave large Christmas tips, and a good doorman could, in a prosperous holiday season, take home anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 as a year-end bonus.
Which, considering the skill-set required for the job, was significant.
Then again, being helpful and friendly was easier said than done, since each tenant had his or her individual idea of the appropriate level of assistance and engagement. A good doorman knew instinctively which bags to take, and from whom, and when or when not to speak or joke or listen to a rant from a tenant who took home a daily salary equal to what the doorman made in a month. And even with good instincts, there were some rules that came only from experience.
For example, men wanted less help than women. With everything. The door, the bags, whatever. If the man was with a woman who did not live in the building, you were not to touch the door; he’d open it for her. Unless the man was older than forty, in which case you were to open it and greet him; he’d want the woman to know he had people working for him.
Women were generally more polite than men, but they were less likely to want to chat. You were not to start a conversation with a woman, ever, because you would risk being accused of sexual harassment. Unless the woman had a young child in a stroller, in which case she might actually become offended if conversation was not offered to pass the time. The children themselves, at any age under twelve, were to be tolerated and smiled at for the benefit of the parents, and shooed in and out of the building as quickly as possible, so as not to disturb the other tenants.
Late at night, the rules changed dramatically. Tenants coming in after hours wanted to be acknowledged boisterously or almost not at all, depending on their mood or circumstances. Younger men in a group, returning from a bar or a club, could be engaged in conversation. A man and woman together were not to be addressed except in the most formal terms, if at all. Especially not if they were speaking with their heads together, or touching one another in any way. A man returning on his own was to be greeted as if it were three in the afternoon. He wanted to pretend he hadn’t been out trying to get a girl. That he was just coming back from work and had stopped at a bar to get some dinner, and dinner had gone longer than usual. That he was not falling-down drunk. You were to pretend he made sense.
A woman returning on her own before 2AM was to be greeted as though she had just come back from the most wonderful party ever held, or conceived of. If it was past 2AM but before 4AM, she was to be watched for signs of alcohol poisoning. If it was after 4AM, she was to be treated with the utmost respect, because she hadn’t meant to go home with that guy, it had just happened, and this was not the walk of shame because it was not technically morning yet.
The veteran doorman – a man with twenty or more years of experience, all in the same building – did all of these things, obeyed all of these rules, and did so without pause, and without fail. He never seemed to be angling for a tip. He was simply an extraordinarily friendly (and yet discreet), helpful (and yet diffident), gregarious (and yet reserved) man. There when you needed him, gone when you didn’t. Like a towel boy at the Beach Club.
The Halls had an apartment on 72nd street, on the east side of Park Avenue, and nearly all of their doormen were veterans. Peter and Cynthia were riding home from the hospital in the back of a Town Car that Peter had hired for the day, with a baby seat installed for the occasion. They were both riding in the back, four-day-old Devon sleeping peacefully in her car seat between them. The tulips had been rushing past their windows in a blur for the last couple of minutes, but now they slowed to a pleasant, yellow-and-green wash as the car neared its destination. They reached the apartment building, and the driver parallel-parked the car with a single, fluid back-in-and-close. No adjustments.
The doorman on duty was out at the curb before the car had come to a stop, and he opened the door for Mrs. Hall. He knew enough to leave Mr. Hall’s door alone, and he did not try to help with the baby seat. He went straight from Mrs. Hall’s door to the trunk, where the heavy things would be. By the time Peter and Cynthia had unfastened the car seat and taken it out of the Town Car, the doorman was standing behind them, all five bags slung over his shoulders. Peter held the baby seat in one hand, and he asked his wife twice if she wanted a wheel chair brought out. The answer was no, and so they began to walk slowly and carefully toward the door. Burt followed a respectful distance behind, as if Cynthia’s four-step-per-minute pace were the most natural thing in the world.
“Cynthia! Hello, Cynthia!”
They stopped and looked to see who was calling. Even though they both knew.
Peter let his eyes close for a moment.
How could our timing be this bad?
Tracy and Jerry Dunn were at the other end of the block, moving slowly into their apartment building – which was adjacent to the Hall’s, on the same street – in a nearly
identical scene of welcome-home-baby. Tracy Dunn was relaxing in a wheelchair, and Jerry was carrying most of the bags, including the baby seat. “Say hello to little James!” Tracy yelled. Jerry Dunn winced. He did not make eye-contact with Peter.
Cynthia waved indulgently, and she tried to resume her slow march to the door.
“What’s your baby’s name?” Mrs. Dunn demanded, still in that maximum-decibel shout.
Cynthia held up a finger and wagged it at her, in what she hoped was a gesture that would convey “let’s discuss this later, when we’re not half a block away from each other and I’m not inching along with stitches in my perineum,” but Tracy Dunn was having none of it.
“Right, but what’s the baby’s name?” she yelled, even louder this time. Four-day-old James Dunn was woken by his mother’s yelling, and he began to cry. Jerry Dunn hurried inside, leaving his wife sitting alone on the sidewalk.
From behind the Halls, a quiet voice. “Sir?”
“Thank you, Burt,” said Peter Hall. “Our little girl’s name is Devon. Please let Mrs. Dunn know, and we’ll meet you upstairs when you’re through.”
The doorman lowered the five large bags slowly to the sidewalk and walked off to deliver the message. The Halls, thus freed from further social obligation, headed inside. By the time they reached the elevator, Burt had caught up. Cynthia Hall eased herself into the little elevator car first, followed by Peter and the bags.
The elevator doors closed, and Cynthia smiled in spite of herself.
3
It was comforting to be home, for both of them. Cynthia had set up the nursery ahead of time, of course. Their two live-ins were there as always, two capable Dominican women who would now handle absolutely everything in the house that was not baby-related. The cooking and the cleaning and the laundry. As before, but even more so. They had been given substantial raises in anticipation of the greater work load.
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