“Do not even for a moment think,” her mother said quietly, “that this degree is yours alone. We are going to graduation. Both of us.” Jill keeps the pictures from that day on her nightstand, requisite photos of a begowned graduate, Diane wearing the mortarboard and holding the scroll, arms around each other. Diane smiles for the camera, but also she looks like a soldier returning from war—shell-shocked, scarred by the horrors she’s suffered, but proud beyond articulation of all she’s done, of what she’s saved.
Jill and Diane were both hyperaware of the statistics which say that children of single parents are much more likely to be single parents themselves than children raised by two. When Jill made it through high school without getting knocked up, when she made it through college too, Diane breathed easy for the first time since Jill started her period. She had raised a strong, proud, smart young woman who had escaped unscathed. She figured any babies born now would be wanted and planned. But when it didn’t work out that way, when she heard our plan, she was also more sure than any of us that this arrangement could work. We weren’t going to destroy all our lives; together we could do this. Three, after all, is even more than two.
I went outside to throw some water on my face and found Diane lost at the nurses’ station. She turned and hugged me full-on and long as if she had nothing on her mind at all except how nice it was to see me.
“How are you, baby?” she asked me. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m good,” I replied, shaky, wondering if I should tell her or bring her to see for herself. She could tell though.
“I missed it, huh?” Diane looked at me closely, decided my paleness was due to an overly delicate constitution rather than something being wrong. Having assured herself of this, she asked nothing, preferring, I guess, to see for herself.
“You hardly missed anything,” I assured her. “Nothing good anyway.”
“A little squeamish?” she guessed, offhanded, but gripping my upper arm, guiding me to guide her to her daughter. “I remember. It wasn’t pleasant,” she said, laughing. “That’s the one good thing about doing it alone. No one has to watch.”
“Look who I found,” I announced as we walked into the room. A miracle had occurred. The horde of doctors and nurses had been replaced by one clean, kind-looking woman in street clothes. The metal instruments and beeping monitors and just-in-case equipment had been swept away, replaced by a tiny bassinet. The blood, the white clumpy stuff, was gone. The sheets stained brown and yellow and red were now miraculously neat, clean, and white. The glaring lights were off, the shades thrown open, the windows cracked and leaking fresh air and what passes for sunshine in December in the Pacific Northwest. A screaming, sweating, hurting Jill had been replaced by a calm, dry one clad in a green nightgown (god knows where she got it; certainly it wasn’t hers) and clutching to her chest a tiny, tiny baby, blue eyes wide open, also dry and clean and in new, soft clothes. Katie was madly taking pictures. Jill was oblivious, glowing, smiling blissfully at the new world outside. I stopped dead in the doorway. I thought of all those paintings of Madonna and Child. I thought of doves and larks, of church choirs and Benedictine monks, of puppies and spring and my breaking heart. I thought: what need we of baptism when we have whatever has happened here? I thought: the miracle of birth is nothing compared to the miracle that happened while I was in the lobby.
Diane was on the bed with her daughter instantly, both crying and crying. Into Jill’s hair, she was whispering, “Oh my babies, my beautiful beautiful babies.” Katie took like forty pictures of the three of them then exchanged glances with me, and we slid out into the hallway. It seemed the right thing to do. Plus, I suddenly realized, remarkably, I was starved.
“That was amazing,” Katie enthused.
“That was disgusting,” I tempered.
We went down down down to the cafeteria and sat under buzzing fluorescent lights drinking cocoa and eating rock-hard scones for breakfast (or dinner or lunch or whatever). All around us, everyone looked as tired and dazed as I felt except most of them were probably here with loved ones sick or dying, eating their eleventh meal of the week in the hospital, choking down oily, lukewarm soup with bad news and desperation. We ate quickly, said silent prayers of thanks, and went back upstairs to our bright day and our new baby.
When we got to Jill’s room, Diane was sitting on a chair in the hallway. “They kicked me out to have a chat about breastfeeding. When I did this, nobody told me anything about anything let alone reached in, took out my breast, and helped me nurse.” She gratefully accepted the coffee and muffin we’d brought her. “So how are you two doing?”
“Oh, we’re so great,” said Katie, clearly high on bliss or adrenaline or something. “Janey’s freaking out”—I hadn’t realized she’d noticed—“but it’s just so amazing.”
“I have a grandson,” said Diane, as if this clearly followed, starting to look a little freaked out herself. “What are we going to do with a boy?”
“That’s exactly what I said.” I nodded.
“Don’t know nothin’ about boys,” mused Diane.
“Oh, they’re just the same,” said Katie, who had four brothers as well as three sisters and so should have been a good source of information on this point, but Diane and I were skeptical.
“What if he’s one of those unenlightened ones who can’t think of anything but breasts?” Diane wondered.
“What if he takes full advantage of the hegemony,” I said, “and screws us.”
“What if he thinks he’s better just because he has a penis?” added Diane.
“What if he just thinks with his penis?” I countered.
“How do you even clean a penis?” wondered Diane to the amusement of everyone in the crowded hallway. “What if you all raise the girliest boy there ever was?” said Diane, and we were quiet, thinking about that one, wondering what sort of a boy we’d raise and how he’d get along in the world having grown up with three crazy academic moms.
“You all need a name,” said Diane finally. And suddenly we had a surmountable task. We didn’t have to raise him yet or nurture his maleness today or introduce him to the world this minute. We didn’t have to start teaching him all he would need to know or immediately give ourselves over to his every need or protect him from the world or protect him from ourselves. All we needed to do was give him a name. For all the thinking we’d done already, we had all been pretty certain deep down that this baby would be a girl. We were all girls, weren’t we?
The lactation consultant came out into the hallway and gave us a kind smile. “That boy is something, but he needs a name. You all had better get on it. By the way, we can order an extra cot tonight if you need it.” No one seemed at all fazed about the four of us, totally manless, obviously not coupled up, all clearly parenting this child. No one asked about a father; no one looked at us strangely. I guess it’s a new millennium and all that. Single parenting’s not new and never was, and besides, it can’t carry its persistent sense of shame into sterile hallways where it happens every day. But even beyond that, no one jumped to the obvious conclusion that we were all just friends, come to be supportive. It was more than that, and everyone seemed to sense and accept that. We all had to name this baby. We all might stay the night. We were family already, on sight, obvious to anyone who took any time to look at all.
“The lactation consultant says he’s going to be a great breast-feeder,” Jill reported happily when we came in.
“Who?” asked Diane.
Jill looked at her mother like she might be crazy and gestured at the baby with her head.
“I’m not sure who you mean,” said Diane.
“My son,” Jill laughed, but she got it. “We had a whole list of boys’ names, but I never really liked any of them. I never thought we’d have to use one,” she admitted.
“Jews name babies after dead loved ones,” I offered.
“Bit morbid,” Katie objected.
“I don’t know any dead people,”
said Jill.
“We should name him something literary,” said Katie. “An author? A character? A theorist maybe?” We mentally scanned our reading lists, wondering in silent horror about naming our kid Derrida.
“All the authors I work with are women,” said Jill.
“All the books you read end badly,” said Diane. “Wouldn’t bode well. Probably why you don’t meet lots of little boys named Hamlet.”
“We cannot name him after tragedy,” Jill said emphatically.
“Something with a happy ending?” Katie suggested.
“I don’t want anything with an ending at all. No endings for him.”
“Everything has endings,” said Diane.
“Not Greek gods,” said Katie. “How about Zeus?”
“Zeus is a whore,” said Jill. “We need a name without tragedy, ending, or debauchery. Something big. Something titanic.”
“Like Atlas?” said Diane, half joking, half not.
“Like Atlas,” Jill echoed, under her breath.
“It’s beautiful,” said Katie.
“It’s wide,” said Diane.
“Other kids will make fun of him,” I said.
“It’s okay,” said Jill. “With a name like Atlas, he’ll be strong. He’ll kick their asses. We’ll give him a normal middle name. We can name him after his sister.”
And so Atlas Claude Mattison came officially into—and into possession of—his namesake, the world.
Fourteen
They came and swaddled Atlas up and put him in a bassinet that looked like a high clear plastic shoe box on wheels. Diane slept in the “father bed” already in the room. Katie and I shared the cot. I was certain none of us would sleep at all, but once we turned off the light, I slept instantly and hard. I woke up about sunrise, smashed against the metal rim of the cot, and felt, remarkably, refreshed. I tiptoed into the hallway and then wandered out into the morning. It was cold, drizzling, looking on its way to raining for real, but still refreshing with real air, not sterilized, not smelling of alcohol or death or even birth, the whole world looking very much, unbelievably, exactly like it had yesterday. I called my parents and then my grandmother and then Jason and Lucas and then Nico to report the news (“You’re a mother now,” he said a little wistfully. “This is not how I always imagined this was going to happen.”).
I went inside to buy coffee then came back outside to savor it on a bench near the front door. It was freezing. But so good to be outside. I watched patients pulling into the parking lot. I watched elderly couples helping each other slowly in and out of cars. I watched people hustle into the building, heads bowed. People with flowers and balloons. People with white uniforms and stethoscopes. Many with briefcases and ties. Some negotiating obviously new wheelchairs and walkers, dragging oxygen tanks on wheels. A few people came in bearing baby presents, balloons, and stork signs announcing, “It’s a . . .” I sat quietly next to the door, reveling in the heat that escaped every time it opened, clutching my coffee for warmth, and watching the come-and-go.
I was also waiting for Daniel. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was. I was playing the movie scene in my head: I see a familiar figure I can’t quite place walking across the parking lot, and as he gets closer, I realize it’s him. He gives me a sheepish half wave and walks a little faster. “How did he know?” I think. Maybe Katie called him. Maybe Jill did. Maybe Diane had known his whereabouts all along (she’d always had a soft spot for Daniel) and called him after we called her, whispering, “Give her a day. Come tomorrow morning.” Would I feel nothing but joy, no anger or resentment, just so glad to see him? Or would I pound his chest, demanding, “Where have you been?” Those are really the only options in movies.
“We named him Atlas,” I’d say when I found my voice.
“Atlas,” he would laugh. “That’s perfect.” Then he would start to go inside, but halfway through the door, he’d turn back towards me and say, “Thanks for taking care of everything for me, Janey. I’m back now.”
But that wasn’t what happened. Daniel didn’t come. Would that have been a happier ending? Would it have been better than what really happened next and after that and after that? In some ways, almost certainly. In others, even knowing what I know now, even after all that went down, I know I couldn’t give him up. I sat outside watching and waiting for an hour until it was fully light then went back inside to confront the incredible reality that in a few hours we would go home with an infant child, a tiny new human, our very own Atlas.
Back inside, Katie was doing what Katie does best—ordering people around. I fully expected a chore wheel by week’s end, a friendly note on the fridge in Katie’s looping handwriting:
Breastfeeding: Jill.
Bathing: Katie.
Burping: Janey.
We’ll switch jobs at the end of the week.
K.
(P.S. Electricity bill due Wed. Everyone owes $43.)
When I walked in, she was actually saying to Jill, “Okay, you wait here for the doctor,” and Jill was laughing, rolling her eyes at me. Like anyone else was going to do it. “Janey and I will go home and get set up there. Diane, you stay with Jill and get her home later, but call first please so we know you’re coming.”
“Aye, aye,” said Diane.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. We already had a house full of tiny outfits, tiny diapers, bibs, cribs, car seats, strollers, toys, books, bottles, rattles, and mobiles. I couldn’t imagine what else we could possibly need. Which is why we had Katie. Katie always knows what you need at the store, any store. She also knows which store has what you need. She knows the fastest and best and cheapest places to shop. She knows what needs you have before you have them. When I suggested that we didn’t need to stop at the grocery store because Atlas was too young to eat real food and we had a good supply of cloth diapers and a commitment to use them, Katie just looked at me pityingly. Inside, she loaded our cart with comfort food (for us, she explained, though by that point I was beginning to suspect as much), food in bags and boxes (even you are not going to have time to cook, she said), disposable diapers (just in case), disposable wipes (just in case), disposable towelettes (just in case, she said, and when I countered that we already had a package of three at home, she laughed hysterically. Have I mentioned that Katie is the oldest of eight?). She bought soothing shampoo and organic bubble bath, extra thick maxi pads (I blanched; I’d never seen them before, but I could imagine why they were on the list), the largest bottle of aspirin I’d ever seen (and when I raised my eyebrows, she just said, “Trust me,” ominously, and I wondered for whom these were intended), and lots and lots of chocolate. Then we went home.
“Wow. What a lovely dinner you were making,” said Katie, as if we might just be able to reheat it. It was freezing and damp in the house because I’d left all the windows open, but everything was nonetheless still reeking of the stalled feast. We stood in the front hallway and looked around. There was a full, leaking pot on every burner, onion peels and pepper seeds and green bean ends and stems of all varieties all over the countertops, empty cans and food packages, a full blender with spatter stains all around (I am not a neat cook). Besides dinner, there were clothes strewn on every horizontal surface, notebooks scattered on the floor, piles of books absolutely everywhere. Our beds were not made. We had no clean clothes. Nearly nothing in the house was put away. We remembered vaguely about studying for exams, which at that point felt like several months ago, but had forgotten how much everything—even the baby as it turned out—had been on hold until after they were over.
“It’s a good thing we aren’t going home for Christmas,” said Katie, “because it’s going to take us until next year to clean this house.” It is a sad irony that while I am a good cook, I am a crappy housekeeper, and while Katie is a brilliant shopper and organizer of humans, she’s also a crappy housekeeper—she says between us we make two-thirds of the woman we’re each supposed to be—and so the house pretty frequently looked, i
f not quite this bad, not a whole lot better.
“We better get at it,” I said, but neither of us moved.
“Maybe a quick nap first?” she suggested.
“We could just torch the place for the insurance money,” I offered.
“We don’t have any insurance,” Katie pointed out.
“Oh. My. God,” said a voice behind us.
It was my grandmother. I actually wept with gratitude.
“What the hell happened here?” demanded my mom, coming up behind her.
“Man.” My dad whistled. “I’m glad I brought the tools.”
“I didn’t know your family was coming,” Katie squealed, delighted.
“Me neither,” I muffled from my mother’s arms.
“Well we had to see this baby, didn’t we,” my grandmother stated. “We left as soon as you called.” My father nodded bleary-eyed confirmation.
“Besides,” said my grandmother, “somebody needs to clean all this shit up.”
We cleaned and cleaned, threw away dinner, made new food for brunch, scrubbed the counters and floors and corners all around the house, dusted, mopped, and disinfected, washed, dried, and folded, found homes (or at least out-of-the-way piles) for all the books. In far less time than I would have predicted, the whole house looked and smelled like a place babies might like to be.
“This place has never been this clean,” said Katie.
“Enjoy it,” said my mother. “It’s not going to last the night.”
Then as if we were back in that movie I’d been imagining, the front door opened, and there stood Diane, Jill, and an enormous bundle of blankets I could only assume contained Atlas.
There was a lot of jostling and cooing over and at the baby and passing him around. Our parents offered sage advice on the right ways to hold him and lay him down and stop him from crying. We all watched Jill feed him and tried not to stare at her breasts. My grandmother force-fed everyone (she gets this from me). There was actually a fight over who got to change his diaper. Jason and Lucas came bearing gifts. There were so many concerned and capable hands that later in the afternoon, Jill took a nap, Katie took a walk, and my dad and I went out to rent a movie. Atlas mostly slept. When he woke, he fussed only briefly and noncommittally, and Jill fed him, and he went right back to sleep. Everyone said what a good baby he was.
The Atlas of Love Page 8