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Weeks slip at Life House in an even round of doctor appointments and schedules filled with group and work. I see very little of Cici because her job is at Red Lobster and most of her evenings are spent there.
The night Debbie goes into labor is a turning point in the rhythms of Life House. I have stayed clear of her since the day she called me “Princess” in group. But when I wake up to screaming from down the hall, I am the second one in her room. I call Janice from the intercom, and soon there is an ambulance on the way, and Debbie starts walking the hallway, puffing and blowing and cursing to beat the devil. There are words coming out of her that I have never heard, and I wasn’t ever sheltered from bad language. It seems to me that her words come from different languages, older languages, a baser, raw dialect. We are all wide eyed, popping with fear because we know that soon enough this will be all of our fates.
Cici and I are sitting in the common room while Debbie walks the hall. It’s my first labor experience, and my heart is thudding and the cold sweat on my lip is a giveaway that I’m going to lose it. Cici’s belly has rounded and shifted, and the angles of her body seem to be melting gently into her skin. “Just breathe,” she says, and I don’t know if she is talking to me or projecting the thought to Debbie. She leans into me, resting her back, and I let her lean. She has a pinched nerve, and it makes her hurt all down her left leg. When she finds a position that doesn’t hurt, she stays there until it begins to hurt again. I feel my pulse, throbbing in my ears, making all the noise around me sound hollow. We aren’t talking, just sitting together in the dark, listening to Debbie walking, cursing, and breathing.
Cici’s belly rotates, a foot or a hand, the movement visible through the fabric of her nightshirt. My hand reaches out, resting on the warm spot where her belly had just bulged. My own belly tumbles, but not yet visibly, not in a feel-you-from-the-outside way. Little Miss Can’t be Wrong is still mostly secret for me, although I have started wearing the maternity pants that Life House has saved from others who have gone before. I feel Cici shift her face, watching my face while I touch her belly, waiting for another movement. I want to ask if this is okay, but she puts her hand over mine, moving it over just a bit, and there it is, a rising mound pressing up against her belly and into my hand.
“High-five, baby.” Cici laughs, her breath whispering along my jawline. I let out a long sigh and lean back, drawing my hand higher on her belly.
“It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?” I whisper, awed by our bodies, by this amazing thing that is creation.
“What?” she asks, her head tilting and shifting on my shoulder, into the small hollow there.
“What our bodies are doing. Creating. Building. Transforming.”
Her fingertips trace the lines along the back of my hand, the veins passing blood from heart to limbs. The warmth of her touch moves up my arm and I stop talking.
“Incredible,” she purrs, using my word.
The ambulance arrives, silent, with blue lights that pulse down the hall, curving in and out of the doorway of the common room.
“What are you going to do after?” I ask, listening from down the hall.
“California, baby,” she says.
“Why?” Why so far away, why California, why, baby? We’ve talked about it before, but it helps to think about the future, to talk about our life after this.
“I have cousins there. Stella’s cool. She has a place for me to stay until I can work it out.” I don’t say anything, just think about all that distance between here and the Pacific Ocean. “What about you?”
I let out a long, shuddering breath. What about me? I shake my head because I don't know. The time with Will and Barb was nice, wonderful even, but it was a painful time for them, bringing up all those old wounds. I don't feel like I can just go back to them and expect them to make my life right. Only I can make my life right. “I don't know.”
We sit for a long time, our hands touching and separating, our bodies building and creating, each thinking our own thoughts until the nerve in her back pinches, and we make our way back to our room. Our progress is slow, with her only managing to lift her right leg up the risers, dragging the left, laughing at how old we seem.
***
“Dear Barb and Will,” I write, “I just wanted to let you know that I am okay. I am in a safe place, and I’m doing fine. I don’t know when I’ll be back your way, but I will be sure to stop and say hello when I do. Thank you so much for telling me a little about my mom. She has been a mystery to me all of my life, and it really helps me understand her a little bit. I know it was hard for you to talk about, but it really meant a lot to me.” I pause with the notebook propped on my knees, trying to decide what else I need to say. When nothing profound hits me, I just write, “If you would like to stay in touch, I would love to hear from you. You can send mail to PO Box 18051, Kansas City MO 64105. If you don't write, I’ll understand. Much love, Alison.” I tear the sheet from the notebook and peel off the fringe, folding the sheet into the envelope that I had already addressed.
I place the stamp and drop the letter into my backpack as I head out the front door. Today I’m starting a new job at a little sandwich shop called the Croissant Roll. They have croissant sandwiches and frozen yogurt. It is one of the three places I applied to, and the only one that gave me an interview. The walk is cold, and by the time I hit the corner, I wish I had decided to drive. But it’s only a few more blocks, so I tuck my chin into my collar and keep going. I drop my letter in the mailbox at the front of the sandwich shop and go down the steps, out of the cold air and into the warm building. It’s almost a basement, and the windows are at ground level. The floor is concrete, painted a strawberry red. The walls are white and the trim is green.
“You made it,” he says, from behind the counter, and I take a quick glance at the clock, afraid that I am late, but no, I’m actually early by ten minutes. Even so, his tone is just shy of being irritated.
“Yes. You said eleven, right?” I ask, feeling my face flush. My head hasn’t been all there in weeks. Cici calls it baby brain.
“Sure, but I thought you might come in early to see everything and how it works.” He says it like that would be the expected thing. His name tag says Shawn. Of course, he interviewed me, but I don’t remember him telling me his name then.
Shouldn’t he have told me that if that’s what he wanted?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think I would need to.” His bulbous eyes, blue and watery, look out over round, rimless glasses, and I think of a toad. His tongue licks out, slicking his lips, and I look away, afraid that if I keep watching, he will turn green and grow warts.
“Well, at least you’re here now. You can put your stuff on the shelf in there.” I step around the counter, place my backpack on top of a wire shelf in the back room, and then return to the front.
Ten minutes later, at eleven o’clock, I have learned everything he can teach me. Small yogurts are four ounces, mediums are six ounces, and larges are eight ounces. The sandwiches are listed on a card in front of the prep station; there are eight of them. Sometimes people want their own versions. All the cold goods are in the two fridges in the back. He says, “You shouldn’t have to change out the yogurt machines because nobody is buying. It’s too damn cold. And this is the cash register.” All of it is very basic, and even though he tries to make it seem more complicated than it needs to be, it isn’t. He runs me through three sample orders, with me pretending to make sandwiches and ringing him up on the register, before he is satisfied.
What a little man he is, caught in his big-man body, trying to make me feel small because he’s forty and owns a sandwich shop. Not that there is anything at all wrong with owning a sandwich shop, or even just working in a sandwich shop. A job is a job—I get that—but his making me feel small so he doesn’t feel like such a little toad is just sad.
As the customers start coming in and I start making sandwiches, he hovers behind me, commenting on the quantity of extras I put on and correcting me by explaining that the meat and cheeses are all measured out in precise amounts. “We want a standard. That standard sandwich needs to be just so.”
“I understand,” I say, wishing he would take a step back. He smells like his shower this morning was missing soap, and it’s making me a little queasy. My sense of smell is really through the roof; I can even smell the lettuce. I never even thought lettuce had a scent.
The customers give me encouraging, sympathetic smiles as I take their money and hand over their lunches. Finally, when all the sandwiches from the little lunch rush are served out, Shawn takes his coat from the back room and leaves. After he’s gone, the shop is pleasant, even peaceful. The conversation is light and easy, and it reminds me that the world is going on outside of me, while I am in this bubble. When the bubble pops, I will have to go and figure out how to live the rest of this life.