“They’re worried about you,” Lucy whispered when my mother was in the hall, talking about something with the nurses.
I looked at her and shrugged.
“They want you to talk to a psychiatrist.”
I said nothing. Lucy looked very serious. “It’s Dr. Melburne,” she said. “I had her for a while. She’s horrible. You better cheer up and start talking more, or else she’s going to ask you about your childhood.”
“Cannie doesn’t have to talk if she doesn’t want to,” said my mother, pouring a cup of ginger ale that nobody would drink. She straightened my flowers, plumped my pillows for the fourteenth time, sat down, then got up again, looking for something else to do. “Cannie can just rest.”
Three days later, Joy took her first breaths without the ventilator.
Not out of the woods yet, the doctors warned me. Have to wait and see. She could be fine, or things could go wrong, but probably she’ll be okay.
And they let me hold her, finally, lifting up her four-pound-six-ounce body and cradling her close, running my fingertips over each of her hands, each fingernail impossibly small and perfect. She clutched at my finger fiercely with her own tiny ones. I could feel the bones, the push of her blood beneath her skin. Hang on, I thought to her. Hang in there, little one. The world is hard a lot of the time, but there’re good things here, too. And I love you. Your mother loves you, baby Joy.
I sat with her for hours until they made me go back to bed, and before I left I filled out her birth certificate, and my handwriting was clear and firm. Joy Leah Shapiro. The Leah was for Leonard, Bruce’s father’s middle name. Leah, the second sister, the one Jacob didn’t want to marry. Leah, the trick bride, the one her father sent down the aisle in disguise.
I bet Leah had a more interesting life anyhow, I whispered to my baby, holding her hand, with me in my wheelchair and her in her glass box that I forced myself not to see as a coffin. I bet Leah went on hiking trips with her girlfriends and had popcorn and Margaritas for dinner, if that’s what she wanted. I’ll bet she went swimming naked and slept under the stars. Rachel probably bought Celine Dion CDs and those Franklin Mint collectible plates. She was probably boring, even to herself. She never went on an adventure, never took a chance. But you and me, baby, we’re going to go on adventures. I will teach you how to swim, and how to sail, and how to build a fire… everything my mother taught me, and everything else I’ve learned. Just make it out of here, I thought, as hard as I could. Come home, Joy, and we’ll both be fine.
Two days later, I got part of my wish. They sent me home, but decided to keep Joy. “Just for another few weeks,” said the doctor, in what I’m sure he imagined was a comforting tone. “We want to make sure that her lungs are mature… and that she’s gained enough weight.”
I burst into bitter laughter at that one. “If she takes after her mother,” I announced, “that shouldn’t be a problem. She’ll gain weight like a champ.”
The doctor gave me what he no doubt believed was a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things should be fine.”
I limped out of the hospital, blinking, in the warm May sunshine, and eased myself into my mother’s car, sitting quietly as we drove back home. I saw the leaves, the fresh green grass, the St. Peter’s schoolgirls in crisp plaid jumpers. I saw, but didn’t see. To me, the whole world looked gray. It was as if there was no room inside of me for anything except fury and fear.
My mother and Lucy unloaded my bags from the trunk and walked me to my building. Lucy carried my bags. My mother walked slowly beside me, and Tanya huffed behind us. My leg muscles felt wobbly and underused. My stitches ached, my ankle itched in its walking cast. It turned out that I’d only sprained my ankle when I’d fallen, but nobody had thought to look at my legs until days later, so the foot had stayed bent, and the tendons stayed torn, which meant a walking cast for six weeks: small potatoes, in relation to everything else I was dealing with.
I fumbled through my purse. My wallet, the half-empty pack of chewing gum, a Chap Stick and a book of matches from the Star Bar looked like relics from another life. I was groping for my keys when Lucy put her key into the first-floor door.
“I don’t live here,” I said.
“You do now,” said Lucy. She was beaming at me. My mother and Tanya were, too.
I limped across the threshold, my cast thumping on the hardwood floors, and stepped inside, blinking.
The apartment – a twin of mine up on the third floor, all dark wood and circa 1970s fixtures – had been transformed.
Sunlight streamed in from windows that hadn’t been there before, sparkling on the pristine, polished maple floors that had been neither pristine nor polished nor maple when I’d last seen the place.
I walked slowly into the kitchen, moving as if I were underwater. New cabinets stained the color of clover honey. In the living room were a new couch and love seat, overstuffed and comfortable, upholstered in buttery yellow denim – pretty, but sturdy, I remember telling Maxi, as I pointed out things I coveted in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living one lazy afternoon. A beautiful woven rug in garnet and dark blue and gold covered the floor. There was a flat-screen TV and a brand new stereo in the corner, stacks of brand-new baby books on the shelves.
Lucy was practically dancing, beside herself with joy. “Can you believe it, Cannie? Isn’t it amazing?”
“I don’t know what to say,” I told her, moving down the hall. The bathroom was unrecognizable. The Carter administration-era pastel wallpaper, the ugly dark wood vanity, the cheap stainless steel fixtures, and the cracked toilet bowl – all gone. Everything was white tile, with gold and navy accents. The tub was a whirlpool bath, with two showerheads, in case, I guessed, I wanted to bathe with a partner. There were new glass-fronted cabinets, fresh lilies in a vase, a profusion of the thickest towels I ever felt stacked on a brand-new shelf. A tiny white tub for giving the baby a bath sat on one counter, along with an assortment of bath toys, little sponges cut into the shapes of animals, and a family of rubber duckies.
“Wait until you see the baby’s room!” Lucy crowed.
The walls were painted Lemonade Stand yellow, just the way I’d done them upstairs, and I recognized the crib that Dr. K. had put together. But the rest of the furniture was new. I saw an ornate changing table, a dresser, a white wood rocking chair. “Antiques,” Tanya breathed, running one thick fingertip along the curved whitewashed wood that was tinged very faintly pink. There were framed pictures on the walls – a mermaid swimming in the ocean, a sailboat, elephants marching two by two. And in the corner was what looked like the world’s smallest branch of Toys “R” Us. There was every toy I’d ever seen, plus a few I hadn’t. A set of building blocks. Rattles. Balls. Toys that talked, or barked, or cried, when you squeezed them, or pulled their strings. The exact same rocking horse I’d admired in a shop in Santa Monica two months ago. Everything.
I sank slowly down into the yellow denim love seat, underneath the hanging mobile of delicate stars and clouds and crescent moons, next to a three-foot-high Paddington Bear.
“There’s more,” said Lucy.
“You won’t even believe it,” said my mother.
I wandered back to the bedroom. My plain metal bedframe had been replaced with a magnificent wrought-iron canopy bed. My pink sheets had been swapped for something gorgeous – rich stripes of white and gold, tiny pink flowers.
“That’s two-hundred-thread-count cotton,” Lucy boasted, ticking off the merits of my new linens, pointing out the pillow shams and dust ruffle, the hand-knotted carpet (yellow, with a border of pink roses) on the floor, opening the closet to show off yet more of the pinkish-whitewashed antique furniture – a nine-drawer dresser, a bedside table topped with a gorgeous spray of daffodils in a blue ginger jar.
“Open the blinds,” said Lucy.
I did. There was a new deck outside the bedroom window. There was a big clay pot of geraniums and petunias, benches and a picnic table
, a gas grill the size of a Volkswagen Bug in the corner.
I sat down – collapsed, really – onto the bed. There was a tiny card on the pillow, the kind you’d get with a bouquet of flowers. I slid it open with my thumbnail.
“Welcome home,” it read on one side. “From your friends,” said the other.
My mother and Lucy and Tanya stood in a line, regarding me, waiting to hear my approval.
“Who…,” I started.“How…”
“Your friends,” said Lucy impatiently.
“Maxi?”
The three of them exchanged a sneaky look.
“Come on, you guys. It’s not like I’ve got other friends who could afford all this.”
“We couldn’t stop her!” Lucy said.
“Really, Cannie, that’s true,” said my mother. “She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She knows all of these contractors… she hired a decorator to find you all these things… there were people working in here, like, around the clock…”
“My neighbors must have loved that,” I said.
“Do you like it?” asked Lucy.
“It’s…” I lifted my hands, and let them sink into my lap. My heart was beating too fast, pushing pain into every part of my body that hurt. I thought of the word that I needed. “It’s amazing,” I finally said.
“So what do you want to do?” asked Lucy. “We could go to Dmitri’s for dinner…”
“There’s a documentary about lesbians of size at the Ritz,” rasped Tanya.
“Shopping?” asked my mother. “Maybe you want to stock up on groceries while we’re here to help you carry things.”
I got to my feet. “I think I’d like to go for a walk,” I said.
My mother and Lucy and Tanya looked at me curiously.
“A walk?” my mother repeated.
“Cannie,” my sister pointed out, “your foot’s still in a cast.”
“It’s a walking cast, isn’t it?” I snapped. “And I feel like walking.”
I got to my feet. I wanted to exult in this. I wanted to feel happy. I was surrounded by the people I loved; I had a beautiful place to live. But I felt like I was looking at my new apartment through a dirty mirror, like I was feeling the crisp cottons and plush carpets through thick rubber gloves. It was Joy – not having Joy. None of this would feel right until my baby came home, I thought, and I was suddenly so angry that my arms and legs felt weak with the force of it, and my fists and feet tingled with the desire to hit and kick. Bruce, I thought, Bruce and the goddamn fucking Pusher. This should be my triumph, goddammit, except how can I be happy with my baby still in the hospital, when Bruce and his new girlfriend were the ones who put her there?
“Fine,” said my mother uneasily. “So we’ll walk.”
“No,” I said. “By myself. I want to be by myself right now.”
They all looked puzzled, even worried, as they filed out the door.
“Call me,” said my mother. “Let me know when you’re ready for Nifkin to come back.”
“I will,” I lied. I wanted them out already, out of my house, my hair, my life. I felt like I was burning up, like I had to move or explode. I stared out the window until they’d all piled in the car and driven off. Then I pulled on a jogging bra, a ratty T-shirt, a pair of shorts, a single sneaker, and thumped out of the house and onto the hot sidewalks, determined not to think about my father, about Bruce, about my baby, about anything. I would just walk. And then, maybe, I’d be able to sleep again.
May drifted into June, and all of my days were built around Joy. I’d go to the hospital first thing in the morning, walking the thirty blocks to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as the sun came up. Robed and masked and gloved, I’d sit beside her on a sterile rocking chair in the NICU, holding her tiny hand, brushing her lips with my fingertips, singing her the songs we’d danced to months before. Those were the only moments I didn’t feel the rage consuming me; the only times I could breathe.
And when I felt the anger coming back, when I’d feel my chest tightening and my hands wanting to hit something, I’d leave her. I’d go home to pace the floors and pump my breasts, to clean and scrub floors and counters that I’d cleaned and scrubbed the day before. And I’d take long, furious walks through the city, with my ankle in the increasingly filthy walking cast, charging through yellow lights and shooting evil glances at any car that dared inch toward the intersection.
I got used to the little voice in my head, the one from the airport, the one that had floated up to the ceiling and watched me rage at Bruce while mourning quietly that he wasn’t the one. I got used to the voice asking Why? every morning, when I laced up my sneakers and yanked a succession of nondescript shirts over my head… and asking Why? again at night, when I’d play my messages back – ten, fifteen messages from my mother, my sister, from Maxi, and Peter Krushelevansky, from all of my friends – -and then erase each one without ever calling back, until the day I started erasing them without even listening. You’re too sad, the voice would murmur, as I stomped up Walnut Street. Take it easy, said the voice, as I gulped scalding black coffee, cup after cup, for breakfast. Talk to someone, said the voice. Let them help. I ignored it. Who could help me now? What was there left for me but the streets and the hospital, my silent apartment, and my empty bed?
I let the voice mail keep taking my calls. I instructed the post office that I would be out of town for an indefinite period and to please hold my mail. I let my computer gather dust. I stopped checking my e-mail. And on one of my walks I dropped my pager into the Delaware River without missing a single step. The cast came off, and I started going on even longer walks – four hours, six hours, meandering loops through the city’s worst neighborhoods, past crack dealers, hookers of the male and female variety, dead pigeons in gutters, the burned-out skeletons of cars, without seeing any of it, and without being afraid. How could any of this hurt me, after what I’d already lost? When I ran into Samantha on the street, I told her I was too busy to hang out, shifting from foot to foot with my eyes on the horizon so I wouldn’t have to see her worried face. Getting things ready, I explained, waiting to be off again. The baby’s coming home soon.
“Can I see her?” Sam asked.
Instantly, I shook my head. “I’m not ready… I mean, she’s not ready.”
“What do you mean, Cannie?” asked Sam.
“She’s medically fragile,” I said, trying out the term I’d heard over and over in the baby intensive care ward.
“So I’ll stand outside and look at her through the window,” said Sam, looking perplexed. “And then we’ll go have breakfast. Remember breakfast? It used to be one of your favorite meals.”
“I’ve got to go,” I said brusquely, trying to edge my way around her. Samantha didn’t budge.
“Cannie, what is going on with you, really?”
“Nothing,” I said, shoving past her, my feet already moving, my eyes fixed far ahead. “Nothing, nothing, everything is fine.”
NINETEEN
I walked and walked, and it was as if God had fitted me with special gl asses, where I could only see the bad things, the sad things, the pain and misery of life in the city, the trash kicked into corners instead of the flowers planted in window boxes. I could see husbands and wives fighting, but not kissing or holding hands. I could see little kids careering through the streets on stolen bicycles, screaming insults and curses, and grown men who sounded like they were breakfasting on their own mucus, leering at women with unashamed, lecherous eyes. I could smell the stink of the city in summer: horse piss and hot tar and the grayish, sick exhaust the buses spewed. The manhole covers leaked steam, the sidewalks belched heat from the subways churning below.
Everywhere I looked, I just saw emptiness, loneliness, buildings with broken windows, shambling addicts with outstretched hands and dead eyes, sorrow and filth and rot.
I thought that time would heal me and that the miles would soothe my pain. I waited for a morning where I woke up and didn’t instantly i
magine Bruce and the Pusher dying horrible gruesome deaths… or, worse yet, losing my baby, losing Joy.
I would walk to the hospital at the break of dawn and sometimes before, and walk laps around the parking lot until I felt calm enough to walk inside. I would sit in the cafeteria gulping cup after cup of water, trying to smile and look normal, but inside, my head was spinning furiously, thinking knives? guns? car accident? I would smile and say hello, but really, in my head I was plotting revenge.
I imagined calling the university where Bruce had taught freshman English and telling them how he’d only passed his drug test by ingesting quarts and quarts of warm water spiked with goldenseal that he bought from a 1-800 line in the back pages of High Times. Urine Luck, the stuff was called. I could tell them he was showing up stoned at work – he used to do it, probably he still was doing it, and if they watched him long enough they’d see. I could call his mother, call the police in his town, have him arrested, taken away.
I imagined writing to Moxie, including a picture of Joy in the NICU, growing bigger, growing stronger, but still a pathetic sight, run through with tubes, breathing on a ventilator more often than not, with who knew what horrors strewn in her future – cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, blind, deaf, retarded, a menu of disasters that the doctors hadn’t mentioned. I’d gone online, to sites with names like preemie.com, reading first-person stories from parents whose children had survived, horribly damaged; who’d come home on oxygen or sleep apnea monitors or with holes cut in their throats so they could breathe. I read about kids who grew up with seizure disorders, learning disabilities, who never quite caught up, never quite got right. And I read stories about the babies who died: at birth, in the NICU, at home. “Our Precious Angel,” they’d be headlined. “Our Darling Daughter.”
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