K.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, if 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.
I started to suspect this might be easier than I thought. I started to think that clearly we’d lucked out with one of those easy babies, and we’d be able to do this no problem. I was so relieved. We were, all three of us, positively giddy. Our parents, meanwhile, were exchanging knowing glances that I only understood later on. Towards night, when my parents and my grandmother finally got in the car to go to the hotel, when Lucas and Jason left too, I did not feel panicked or lost. I knew we could do this. I knew they weren’t far. When Diane hugged us all and walked out the door wishing us luck and promising to be back in the next day or so, I thought: don’t hurry, we’ll be fine. When it was just the four of us again—and the wonder of “just the” being followed by “four of us” stopped me but felt good and right—I turned off the light, put a blanket over Jill and Atlas napping on the sofa, sat with a small lamp in the kitchen, and started reading a book. For pleasure. It wasn’t even like the movie anymore—not that dramatic or involved—more like a commercial for quiet dishwashers or soft light bulbs. It didn’t look like what I thought my life would look like, but it felt like it, and that seemed realer and better to me. We had surmounted the hard parts, made a perfect baby, found another way to be a family. Happy ending! I wanted to turn off the lights, walk quietly into my bedroom, and roll the credits.
Of course, anyone with a brain realizes that birth is not an ending, it’s a beginning. And also that even if your baby is pretty quiet his first day home from the hospital when lots of people are around and everyone wants to hold him and he’s still a little stunned, that doesn’t actually have anything to do with tomorrow.