by Zoe Fishman
And the hormones. Sylvie had gone through it twice. But she wasn’t about to tell poor Amanda that. Amanda had started at work only two years ago; she had no idea that Delilah had even happened.
“Here, I brought you some food,” she said instead, holding up her two brown paper sacks of premade casseroles and fruit and cookies. “Should I put it in the fridge?”
“That’s so nice of you,” said Amanda, her dark-rimmed eyes welling with tears. “I can barely shower, much less cook.”
“I know.” Sylvie squeezed Amanda’s knee. “I’ll just put it away for you.” She stood up, careful not to trip over yet another baby spaceship at her feet. “Would it be okay if I used your restroom?” Her heart was racing.
“Oh sure, of course, take your time,” said Amanda.
“Can I bring you anything?” asked Sylvie.
“A seltzer would be amazing,” Amanda answered gratefully. “This kid is literally siphoning all the moisture from my body. I feel like a raisin.”
“You got it.” Sylvie maneuvered around the spaceship and began walking. “So how’s work?” Amanda asked.
Sylvie stopped herself from audibly gasping at the mess in the kitchen. The whole place, it was like a bomb had gone off. A breast pump and all its accompanying wires and plugs and bottles and shields littered one counter, and along the two others: dirty glasses and plates and papers and more burp cloths. The pile of dishes in the sink rose up and out of it precariously. Didn’t she have a husband who could clean up? Christ, Sylvie thought.
“Oh, it’s fine,” she called to Amanda. “Same old. Same dumb clients. Same idiotic boss.”
“So the Weenie continues to reign supreme with his weenieness?”
“Oh, and then some,” said Sylvie, shoving the food she had brought into the crowded fridge.
“He gave me an Office Depot gift card at the baby shower,” Amanda said.
“What!” screamed Sylvie.
“Exactly. I was like, Thanks, Weenie, I’m sure Nina is going to need some printer ink. He totally regifted it.”
“Asshole,” said Sylvie.
“Tell me about it. And I’m only getting six weeks paid leave.”
“That’s bullshit!” said Sylvie. “How is that legal?”
“Welcome to America,” said Amanda.
Unbelievable, thought Sylvie, as she closed the refrigerator door. But why was she surprised? When she’d lost Delilah, they’d expected her back in two weeks. Sylvie had had Paul tell them to fuck off, his delivery far politer than what hers would have been. Three months later, she was back. Physically, at least.
Sylvie made her way down the hall, feeling guilty. Amanda needed the pills, probably more than Sylvie did. But, she reasoned, if Amanda wasn’t taking them, if she was refusing to allow herself some relief, then who was Sylvie to convince her otherwise, much less let them go to waste?
She passed the guest bathroom and looked over her shoulder, in the slim-to-impossible chance that Amanda had gotten up to follow her. The hallway was as still as a statue, the whole house, in fact, silent save for the occasional grunt from the baby. Sylvie was safe.
Stealthily, her palms sweating, she continued on to the master bedroom, too focused to address the mess there too. The door to the adjoining bathroom was ajar. Slowly, she pushed it open, facing its expanse as though snipers lurked behind the toilet or in the shower. Then quickly she yanked open the medicine cabinet, scanning its contents. Nothing. Not one lousy pill bottle to be found. What kind of couple didn’t even have one prescription medication to speak of in 2019?
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Seconds felt like ten-minute stretches. At any moment, Amanda would come wandering back here with the baby, a zombie on steroids the moment she found Sylvie rifling through her things. She had to hurry. It just couldn’t be that there were no pills here. It just couldn’t be.
Sylvie pulled open each drawer in the vanity underneath the sinks. Makeup, antifungal cream, moisturizer, all the usual suspects. But no familiar orange plastic bottles.
She checked again, just to be sure.
Near tears, Sylvie ran out of the bathroom. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck Amanda for not having anything, fuck herself for being such an addict—there, she said it, she said it, okay?—and fuck the universe for getting her to this point in the first place. Fuck babies who actually lived, fuck the whole thing.
Out of the corner of her eye, over the mountain of laundry on the king-size bed, Sylvie noticed a bedside table. Amanda’s bedside table, because it was piled high with parenting books with pastel jackets and various nipple ointments. Sylvie’s last hope.
Sylvie ran to it, nearly getting tangled up in a pair of black stretch pants on the way. She pulled open the drawer, and there, next to a massive purple plastic vibrator, was the orange plastic bottle she had nearly given up on. Her heart pounding in her ears, equal parts guilt and elation, she picked it up. Jackpot. Quickly, but not too quickly—because what if the top flew off and the pills ended up everywhere? How would she possibly explain herself then?—Sylvie unscrewed the childproof cap and scanned the inside. It looked full, but not all the way full. Like two-thirds full. Sylvie would take six. Six would not be missed. She emptied them into her hand, wishing she could take more. She put the bottle back into the drawer, pushed it shut and stood up.
At the doorway, Sylvie stopped. Ten. She would take ten. How could Amanda possibly catch her? Unless there was some sort of nanny cam in here—Sylvie looked up and around at the ceiling corners. Nothing. And besides, they didn’t even have a nanny—okay, she was fine. She ran back, shook out four more, placed the bottle carefully back in the drawer and ran out, her contraband in her pants’ pocket.
“So sorry, Amanda. I ate something that didn’t agree with me, I’m afraid,” said Sylvie, wincing for effect as she sat back down.
The baby had been moved to the other breast, the plastic funnel Amanda had described earlier bobbing up and down on her nipple as she sucked.
“Oh God, sorry,” said Amanda. “That’s the worst. The other day I was literally nursing on the toilet while I had massive diarrhea. She wouldn’t stop crying, and Doug just brought her in and handed her to me. I was like, Hello? I’m pooping?” She shook her head, her eyes on the baby. “But it worked, so. Hey, did you bring that seltzer, by any chance?”
“Oh God, I’m an idiot.” Sylvie stood up. “Would you like it in a glass? With ice?”
“No, then I’ll just have to wash it. Thanks, though, for the offer. I’ll just take the can.”
“Coming right up,” said Sylvie.
She trotted to the kitchen, almost giddy with the knowledge that she had pulled it off. Although, ten more meant only ten more days. There was more than a month left before Teddy’s Bar Mitzvah.
Sylvie returned to the living room, the wind knocked out of her sails. Amanda was gingerly slipping the baby back into her spaceship.
“Hey, Amanda, do you want me to sit with the baby while you shower?” asked Sylvie. Saint Sylvie, that was her. Amanda’s eyes widened at Sylvie’s offer. “Or a nap? Just anything that you’ve been longing to do today that you couldn’t do because of her? I just remember, with Teddy in the beginning, it was so hard with Paul at work, I just—”
“Yes!” Amanda replied, almost but not quite yelling. “Sorry, yes! Yes. I would love to take a shower. I can’t remember the last one I took alone. I always have to drag her bassinet in with me; it’s just a mess. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” said Sylvie. “Go ahead. You can even shave your legs.”
Amanda smiled, a broad one that revealed all her teeth, and Sylvie could see the former version of her colleague in that smile, the version she would never be again on the inside—you were never the same on the inside once you became a mother—but that she would return to on the outside, more or less, once the newborn dust had settled. Amazing how you could fool everyone with your appearance. So few people had any interest at all in anything but the surface of things.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” said Amanda. “She should pass out in a couple minutes anyway . . .”
“Go ahead, I’ve got it,” said Sylvie.
And then she was alone with an infant for the first time since Delilah had died. A female infant, no less. Sylvie reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the pills, washing it down with the seltzer Amanda had left behind in her excitement.
The baby looked at Sylvie, her tiny body encased in pink-striped footie pajamas. Her hair was sparse and blond, her eyes a murky gray. She had no eyelashes to speak of yet, but her cheeks were full and pink. She was just beginning to bloom. Babies were so ugly when they were born, Sylvie thought. Teddy had looked exactly like Paul’s great-uncle Beau, but not the younger version. The ninety-four-year-old version. And then, weeks later, his beautiful face had taken shape, his tummy had begun to press against his own footie pajamas, his elbows had sprouted dimples.
“Hello,” said Sylvie, as the pill began to blessedly take effect. “I’m Sylvie.”
The baby made an O with her tiny pink lips.
“Yes, oh,” said Sylvie.
She settled back into the couch cushions as the baby dozed off, the sour scent of breast milk everywhere. What haunted Sylvie the most, the thing that went beyond even the layer upon layer of grief about Delilah that followed her everywhere like a shadow, that she couldn’t shake, was the fact that she might, and she didn’t know this for sure, but she might have been able to prevent it.
In the week leading up to Sylvie’s labor, Delilah’s kicks had stopped. Not that she had been that much of a kicker before anyway, but they had definitely stopped. And Sylvie hadn’t done anything about it.
She hadn’t told Paul; she certainly hadn’t made an emergency appointment with her doctor, because she’d been too stupid to expect the worst, to expect the universe to ensure her daughter’s safety.
Her maternal instinct had not trumped her sense of entitlement. There was a glitch in her system, and maybe, just maybe, that glitch had killed her daughter. Maybe earlier intervention would have saved her. Sylvie would never know, and this unknown would haunt her and haunt her. Forever.
She had never told Paul, and she never would. The maybe was too damning, too painful.
The baby was asleep. Sylvie stood up, before she could talk herself out of it, and jogged back to Amanda’s bedroom. She could hear the shower still. One, two, three leaps to the bedside table.
Open the drawer. Take the bottle.
Back on the couch, panting, she dug into her pocket and deposited her first pilfer into the bottle before plunging it into the very bottom of her purse. The baby still slept. Only the sound of Sylvie’s heart pounding in her ears and the water running through the pipes, the faint vibration of the spaceship. Sylvie closed her eyes.
It was wrong to have taken the whole bottle; she knew that. If she was lucky, Amanda wouldn’t even notice they were gone. A little less unlucky, Amanda would blame her husband and they would get in a terrible fight that ended in an apologetic blowjob. Unluckier still, Amanda would accuse Sylvie herself. If that turned out to be the case, Sylvie would handle it the same way she had handled Paul. Prozac, for God’s sake. She had pulled that one right out of thin air, on the fly. She would handle it.
The water stopped. In a moment, Amanda would return, refreshed and grateful, and Sylvie would leave, a mythic Mother Teresa who had given a new, exhausted mother the freedom to shave her legs without interruption.
Everything would be just fine.
Chapter Seventeen
Teddy
Teddy got off the elevator and made his way to the TV room, pretending as though he knew exactly what he was doing. The hallway smelled of burnt popcorn, gardenias and everything bagels. A heady mix, to be sure.
As he walked past Apartment 404, the door creaked open, giving him the distinct sensation that someone had been watching for him through the peephole.
“Early bird catches the worm. I like your style, kid,” said Morty, shuffling toward Teddy in the same plastic slides and black socks pulled up to the middle of his hairless, white shins.
“Well, I wanted to set up first, you know,” said Teddy. “Have you seen Jackie, by any chance?” He slowed his pace to match Morty’s.
“Jackie? She’s long gone. Busy lady. She’s almost always out of here by five. But she left me in charge, so don’t worry, you’re in good hands,” he said as they entered the room together.
Six people surrounded an enormous bowl of popcorn on a table by the window, pecking at it like birds. Liter bottles of soda stood beside it, along with a sleeve of clear plastic cups. So much for being early, thought Teddy.
“People, our very own Siskel is here, may he rest in peace,” Morty announced.
Teddy’s underarms began to sweat profusely despite the room’s air-conditioned frostiness. He didn’t want to fail at something he cared about so much. He had mentioned as much to his mother on the way over, and she had said, not unkindly, But what could fail?
“But what if they don’t agree with my opinion?” he had asked.
“So they don’t agree,” said his mom. “Then you have a discussion and you get to defend your perspective. And you have a solid perspective. I assume you’ve picked movies you love, so it’s great practice for you. Arguing your point when you’re actually informed is a natural high. And anyway, Teddy, these old-timers aren’t going to come for you.” She turned into the driveway of Twilight Manor. “Well, I take that back. Some might. But it’ll be good for you, I promise. Just make sure they’re fed.”
Teddy eyed the bowl of popcorn now. A few stray unpopped kernels littered the bottom. The group stood before him and Morty, shoveling popcorn from their respective cups into their mouths. They reminded Teddy of a coterie of prairie dogs in the wild.
“Hello, everyone. I’m Teddy. Thank you for coming tonight.”
“Welcome,” trilled a woman whose white hair hugged her scalp like a glove. “I’m Beverly,” she added, in a Southern accent as thick as peanut butter. She walked forward and extended a slender hand, her nails a bright red. Her black sweatshirt read #timesup in a bold white font. “Beverly Marlowe,” she added, her brown eyes inquisitive behind thick turquoise-framed glasses. She was the coolest old person Teddy had ever seen.
“Morty says you’re quite the movie buff,” proclaimed another woman, this one in head-to-toe seafoam silk: pajamas, robe and slippers.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Teddy, “but I do love movies. And tonight, I brought a classic: Back to the Future.”
“Oh yes, we all saw it on the flyer,” said Morty. “The last time I saw that movie, I think I was twenty.”
“Well, that would have been impossible,” said Beverly. “Since you’re eighty-four.”
“Eighty-four and a half,” Morty said, correcting her. “I’m proud of every one of my years. I was just making a joke. Which is more than I can say for you, Beverly. Seventy-eight, my ass.”
“Check my birth certificate!” Beverly said shrilly.
“Okay, okay, everyone. Simmer down,” a voice called from the doorway.
Krystal stood there, her hands on her skinny, denim-cut-off-clad hips, and Teddy was never so glad to see someone in his entire life. His entire, almost thirteen years of life.
“Hey, Krystal,” said the seafoam lady, her fuchsia-painted lips breaking into a giant smile. “What a treat. Your mama working late?”
“She is,” said Krystal, strolling up to Teddy’s side and nimbly retrieving the DVD from his hand. “And Teddy’s my friend, so here I am. Y’all take a seat, okay?”
Everyone shuffled to their spots, lowering themselves carefully into their self-appointed spots.
“Thanks, Krystal,” said Teddy, his confidence buoyed by her presence. “Does anyone want to know why I picked this movie?” he asked the crowd.
“Because it’s great?” answered a man in a camel newsboy cap, pressed white shirt and creased khakis that a
ppeared as stiff as papier-mâché. His long legs were crossed, his elbows resting on the arms of one of the chairs, his elegant, tapered fingers pressed together to form the perfect triangle.
“Well, yes, that,” said Teddy, “but also because I like how Marty is able to go back in time and know his parents before they knew themselves. The idea of preventing them from making the mistakes he knows they’re going to make, I really connect to that.”
“That’s heavy for a little guy like you,” said Morty. “I disagree. That’s never a kid’s responsibility. Besides, I think our mistakes are meant to be made. How else do we learn?”
“Maybe,” said Teddy. “But sometimes mistakes lead to heartbreak, and why should anyone have to have their heart broken?”
“Oh honey, life is one big heartbreak,” said Beverly.
“Maybe,” said Teddy. “But not in the movies. That’s why I love them.”
“All right, let’s watch the movie already, before we’re all ten feet under,” said Morty.
Krystal lowered the lights and slipped the DVD into the player. In moments, the room glowed, lit only by the giant screen. Krystal moved to the very back of the room and motioned for Teddy to join her.
“I shouldn’t sit up front, in case they have any questions?” he whispered.
“Teddy, this isn’t a lecture. It’s a movie. They need to watch it.”
“Thanks for coming,” he said, sitting next to her on the sky-blue love seat. Its cushions were covered in velvet.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Krystal.
They stared at the screen. Quickly, before he could change his mind, Teddy took her hand. It was warm and soft. As soft as the cushions on which they sat.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Shhhh!” yelled Morty from the front of the room.
“Should we go outside to the hallway?” she whispered. “Morty’s a hard-ass.”
“Is that allowed?” Teddy whispered back.
Krystal stood up and pulled him with her out the door and closed it behind her. They sat, side by side, on the floor, their backs against the cream-colored walls, the wood floor cold beneath their bare legs.