Buck and I had a baby boy the following week. Turns out the doctor had miscalculated my due date and I wasn’t late at all. The labor was as easy as Grace Annie’s was hard. I hadn’t counted on that, but what a relief. He weighed just over nine pounds and still I had no trouble delivering him. He was the cutest baby—looked just like Buck. What a blessing that was. I loosened the blanket and held the tiny bundle up for Buck to see. His mouth dropped open and his eyes lost their blank stare. He gawked and I watched while he discovered what I’d known all along. The muscles in his face, normally pinched tight as the bands on a bow, relaxed their grip and the corners of his mouth quivered like they wanted to smile, but weren’t sure they remembered how. He blinked, his eyes warm as summer and moist as rain. There’d be no more doubts over whose baby this was. He had Buck’s eyes, the same little dimple in his chin, and Buck’s trademark cowlick on the crown of his head. Verna was wild for him.
“I think we should name him Buford Andrew, after you and your little brother, Buck,” I said, “and then we can call him Andy. How about that?” I eyed Verna. She looked pleased. She’d brought along a dozen of her fried refrigerator donuts for the nurses, and they were fussing over how good they were and, oh my, what a fine grandbaby boy she had. I don’t think it’s possible to ever get over losing a child, but maybe gifting her little boy with a namesake would give her some comfort.
“Buford? You crazy?” Buck blurted out. “Why do you think I go by Buck?”
“Well, Buford is only for the birth certificate part,” I said.
“Buuuford, Buuuford,” Buck muttered, and shook his head. “Besides, why name him after a Jenkins? Ain’t one of us had any luck in life.”
Verna pinched her lips together. She crossed her arms and glanced out the window. “What we gonna call him, then?” Her head snapped around and she looked at Buck. He didn’t answer. He hobbled over to the door and called out over his shoulder, the muscles in his face back in place, stretched tight as rubber bands. His enormous eyes, flat brown orbits, had lost their newfound sparkle.
“I’m tired, Ma. Take me home,” he said.
Verna carefully picked up her purse. She nodded, her eyes sad and vacant, her mouth twisted off to one side. She bobbed her chin and patted my feet resting under the starched white covers as she crossed to the door. She pressed her finger across her lips and motioned for silence, her shoulders suggesting that words were now useless. I pretended not to see.
“Buck!” I called out after him. “Don’t go,” I said. “Please, don’t go.” Maybe he heard my anguish, and maybe he cared that he had. He turned around and dragged his crutches across the poured concrete floor back to the bed. He stood there clutching the rubber grip on one handle, his metal hook wrapped around the other. I looked down at our sweet baby boy sleeping in my arms, resting so contentedly, a tiny bubble of air perched on his bottom lip. I looked up at Buck. He touched his head gently.
“He’s beautiful, Adie.” He carefully traced the outline of the baby’s forehead. The baby stretched and wrinkled up his brow and smacked his lips. The little bubble planted on his lip popped without a sound. “You’re beautiful,” Buck said and put his hand to my cheek. Tears flooded his eyes, ready to fall if he blinked. I’d never seen Buck cry. Not ever. His voice cracked. Verna quietly left the room.
“They ain’t one thing in me comes close,” he said. He lost his balance and caught himself on the edge of the bed. I had the baby in one arm and gripped Buck’s with the other. He didn’t pull back. He leaned into me, his shoulders heaving. Maybe this was good. Maybe this was what Buck needed, to let his grief out. To cry for what he’d lost and for what he’d never have. To be weak as a new baby, to let himself be comforted, to find that he could rebuild his life one wobbly step at a time and that I’d be there for him, that he could shoot for the moon and the worst that would happen is that he’d land in the stars, to have his slate wiped clean, to discover no matter what his past was, his future was spotless and, best of all, to believe it.
He stood up. He faced the floor and snapped his head forward, shaking his tears like they were sweat from his brow. Pride is a terrible master.
“You name him what you want, okay?” He whispered as he leaned over and kissed my cheek. Then he sniffed my skin and my hair. He nuzzled his nose back and forth against my cheek. He was so tender, like he thought I’d break. If only he knew, my heart was about to.
Buck didn’t come to see me after that. When I asked Verna how he was doing she said, “Who knows? He keeps to himself. He eats the food I bring him. That’s about it.” Verna was being very strong. She accepted what had happened to Buck better than I had.
“Ain’t nothing you can do when life slams into you, Adie,” she said, “but stand up and hope it don’t do it again.” I thought about her little boy crushed under the wheels of her husband’s truck and about Austin’s head being crushed by a shovel and then Buck’s limbs being blown to bits by that grenade.
“What do you do when it keeps slamming?”
“Pretend,” she said.
“Pretend what?”
“Pretend you can take it,” she said.
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then you keep pretending,” she said, “until you get good at it.” She brushed loose strands of hair off my forehead, her hand as soothing as a cool cloth on a hot summer day. A whisper of a smile rested on her mouth, her voice reverent as a prayer. I’d never seen this Verna. I loved this Verna. I vowed to remember that when the other Verna showed up.