It was winter again, and the baby screamed.
It had only been a little over a year since that icy December night when the world had spun off-kilter and changed everything.
Now she and George lived in a two-bedroom town house outside of Chicago, only miles from his college apartment, and yet it might as well have been galaxies. Max was in law school in Seattle and Bess had left school when Mare did, moved out to Seattle with him and gotten a job teaching art to preschoolers. Bess called her religiously, every Sunday at 7 p.m. central time. But the last two Sundays, Will had been crying too much for Mare to talk. George had picked up the phone and told Bess to call back next week.
Motherhood was hollow. It was that dark empty space of her teen years at home with her father that she’d tried to escape from in college. But here she was again. A long and winding blackness. Day and night were never-ending and empty. She barely slept, and she was too tired to think. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d showered, much less written a single word. Every shirt she owned had been spit up on and smelled like curdled breast milk, and her hands were too occupied with the baby to even touch the keys of her typewriter.
And also, there was a chasm now. Her and the baby. And George.
George lived somewhere across the Grand Canyon, where he went to bed each night, woke up each morning to a 7 a.m. alarm, showered, dressed in a clean suit and left the town house, alone. He moved around her, apart from her. Away from her. Every once in a while he would plant a quiet kiss on her forehead, coming and going, offering only a small pat on the back for Will while he clung to her neck and screamed and screamed. But George never actually reached for Will when he cried, never offered to help or tried to soothe him.
“Can you not hear the baby crying?” she’d yelled at him once in the middle of the night, tugging the covers hard enough to wake him.
“I have to go to work in the morning,” he’d snapped at her, pulling the covers back, over his head. “Who do you think pays for all this?”
With his face covered, his voice disembodied, he might as well have been her father, and then she’d stormed out of the bed in disgust.
It wasn’t that she didn’t try to make the crying stop. She did. She really, truly did.
She read every book and tried every remedy for colic—a warm bath, a swaddle, a baby massage—but none of it seemed to work. And there she still was, pacing the narrow hallway of their two-bedroom town house, bouncing Will against her hip, trying to get him to stop crying. Occasionally, he would stop for a moment and hiccup, and she would sigh with relief, thinking, At last! Only then he would start again. Wailing.
“I don’t know what to do for you,” she said to him, when he was all of three months old. “I don’t understand what you want. I don’t know how to be your mother.”
And in response, he screamed and screamed.
“I’m coming to visit you,” Bess said one Sunday in the spring. Will had settled down for ten whole blissful minutes, and Mare sat on a chair in their tiny kitchen, slowly eating a Creamsicle and twisting the phone cord around her tired, chapped fingers.
“But it’s so expensive,” Mare sighed, wanting to see her friend more than anything, not believing Bess could actually afford it.
“My mom gave me a plane ticket as a birthday gift. I’m coming next month, as soon as school’s out. I haven’t met the baby yet. You haven’t even mailed me any recent pictures.” There was an edge of accusation to her voice. Bess had no idea how hard this was, and Mare was too tired to try and explain it. Would the baby still be wailing endlessly next month? Probably.
“I don’t know, B,” Mare finally said, her voice quiet and dull. “He cries a lot. You won’t like him very much.”
Bess burst into laughter. It vibrated through the phone, high and sweet, such a familiar and yet distant sound that Mare felt it as a physical pain vibrating in her chest. “Of course I’m going to love him, silly. He’s yours. He’s a part of you.”
But even as Bess said it, Mare didn’t quite believe her. The baby still felt like something foreign, a tiny bald red screaming alien. He didn’t feel like hers at all.
“Surprise,” Bess called out, her arms outstretched, as Mare opened the door a few weeks later. Will was slung low across her hip. He’d finally found his thumb and had stopped crying, for the moment. He sucked on his thumb vigorously now, eyeing Bess and Max standing on the porch with great suspicion.
She had known Bess was coming, but not Max. That was the surprise? “You’re both here.” She stated the obvious and reached her free hand up to smooth back her hair, which was in a messy ponytail, frizzy wisps all around her eyes.
Max’s eyes rested on Will for a moment, and then moved to Mare’s face. He smiled a little. And god, his eyes. They were so blue. She’d forgotten the way they’d pierced her. She leaned down and kissed the top of Will’s head, just so she could look away.
“Let me hold him!” Bess wiggled her outstretched arms and leaned to take Will. She cooed over him and kissed his head. Will sucked his thumb, suspicious, but didn’t scream when Bess took him, and Mare exhaled with relief. She glanced at Max, and he was still staring at her, watching her. She wished she had put on nicer clothes, or brushed her hair, or for god sakes, taken a shower.
Then she felt George’s arm around her, behind her, pulling her against him. Mare had been watching Max and hadn’t even noticed that George had walked up from behind. He hadn’t touched her in weeks. Or was it months? And now his arm clung tightly around her waist. “Max, I didn’t know you were coming,” George said, an edge to his voice. He rested his chin on Mare’s head, and she squirmed a little in the tightness of his embrace, but George didn’t let go of her.
Max’s eyes trailed from Mare’s face to George’s arm, and he frowned for a quick second before he looked straight at George, held his hand out. “George, man, it’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
George stayed perfectly still for a moment and Mare held her breath. But then he let go of her, so he could shake Max’s hand. “Can’t complain,” George said. Of course, he couldn’t complain. He left the house each day and didn’t have a screaming baby clinging to him all hours of the night. “Come on in.” George finally ushered Max and Bess off the porch, and inside the dimly lit foyer of their town house.
Now that Bess was holding the baby, Mare’s hands were empty. And she didn’t quite know what to do with them. She fidgeted a little, unsure how to be.
“I’ll go call in a pizza for us,” she finally said, if only so she could have something to do with her hands.
At 3 a.m. the baby screamed.
George grunted and rolled over, pulling the covers tighter around himself, and Mare sat up and sighed. She remembered Bess and Max, sleeping on the air mattress in the nursery, and picked Will up from the bassinet next to her bed quickly, trying to quiet him.
He latched onto her breast, and fussed and popped off, and he cried again as she bounced him and walked into the kitchen to fix him a bottle. It was the only remedy (aside from his thumb) that had worked to help his colic: formula. Deep down, she understood what this meant, that her own baby was rejecting her. That the milk her body made for him made his stomach hurt. That it was she alone who made her child deeply unhappy. And perhaps if she wasn’t so tired, she would’ve also been sad. But in the moment, she was happy to have found a solution, any solution. Thank god for formula.
She tested the bottle on the inside of her wrist now and then popped it in Will’s mouth. He suckled, drinking hungrily, and she strapped him into his baby chair on the floor.
“Do you need any help?” Max’s voice startled her in the dark stillness of the kitchen, and she jumped. “Sorry.” He put his hand on her shoulder kindly, and she froze. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I heard the baby crying.”
“I’m sorry that he woke you.” Mare finally had the sense to speak, to take a step toward the stove, away from him.
“Babies cry,” Max said, and he shrugged. “Can I do anything to help so you can go back to bed?”
His voice was imbued with such kindness, and she bit her lip. Suddenly she wanted to cry too. It would be different to have a baby with Max than it was with George. She understood that in this moment, implicitly. That motherhood alongside Max would not be a dark and never-ending tunnel but a bright blue lightness, the color of Max’s eyes. Jealousy for Bess coursed through her, almost electric, and she shivered, feeling ashamed.
Max took another step closer to her, put his hand on her shoulder again. “I can sit and watch him, and you can go back to bed,” he offered.
She shook her head, but he didn’t move his hand. And for another moment they stood there, close enough to feel each other’s breath escape their chests.
“It’s so good to see you again,” Max finally whispered, breaking the silence.
After months of feeling numb, feeling trapped inside Will’s screams, and the black indistinguishable spaces of both day and night, Mare’s face warmed. She felt something again, standing this close to Max. His kind offer to help. His hand on her shoulder. Him. “It’s good to see you too,” she said, still not moving. And then Will dropped his now-empty bottle and let out a little cry, and she remembered herself again. “And Bess,” she added, finally stepping away to go unstrap Will from his baby chair. “It’s so good to see you both.”
She slung Will against her hip and turned around. Max had followed behind her. He stood so close to her, she could barely breathe. “Why don’t you let me take him for a little bit so you can get some sleep?” Max said, holding out his arms for the baby. And it felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever said to her. She couldn’t help herself then, she started to cry.
Max lifted Will from her arms, and she let him because she couldn’t stop crying. She sat down at the kitchen table, rested her head against the cool wood, and cried until she was so exhausted, she fell asleep like that.
She woke up a few hours later, when the orange light of dawn seeped through the kitchen window. She lifted her head, rolled her aching neck and stood. It was so quiet, she felt instantly alarmed, until she walked into the living room. There Max was, lying on the couch, Will sprawled out on top of him, both of them sound asleep.
She knelt and stroked Will’s pudgy baby cheek. He really was beautiful when he slept, when he was quiet, when he finally seemed at peace.
And then she couldn’t help herself. She stroked Max’s cheek too. Traced his cheekbone lightly with her fingertip. His eyes opened, and she lifted her hand, but he reached up quickly for it, caught her fingers midair, brought her hand back to his cheek. There was the hint of stubble and she rubbed her fingers against it gently.
In the soft orange glow of morning, his blue eyes took on a more golden tint. “Mare,” he said her name softly. She watched his lips move, and she was so close, she remembered the way it had felt to be in college, to be free, and young, and alive. She remembered the way those lips had touched hers and how she’d felt like fire was coursing through her. Like she might burn up with Max. But now it was so easy to understand how she might simply fade away without him. “Mare,” he said her name again. “I—”
She moved her fingers to his lips to stop him from finishing what he was going to say. Whatever it was would ruin this moment. His breath was warm, and instead of talking he kissed her fingers softly.
Then, Will stirred and let out a little cry, and Mare jumped and pulled her fingers back from Max’s lips. She reached for Will and lifted him off Max’s chest. He was warm, and when she kissed the top of his head he smelled like Max’s earthy cologne.
Max sat up, reached for her arm, and then he said her name one more time.
“I don’t think we should ever see each other again,” she whispered in response.