I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (15 page)

At home, Tig nosed the car into the driveway. Wendy unbuckled and gingerly moved to the edge of her seat. With a puff of exertion, she stood and walked up the path, leaving Tig, the baby, and all of the post-baby hospital debris behind. At the door she ungracefully yanked her underwear from her rear end.

“Come here, little one.” Tig hauled the safety seat out of the middle of the car. “God, this car seat is heavy.”

So as not to wake the sleeping infant, she maneuvered carefully and followed her sister into the house. Wendy was already under the covers in what used to be her own mother's twin bed. At a loss, Tig glanced around the room, saw the crib still in its box. The place looked anything but ready for a baby.

“Wendy,” Tig whispered. “Wendy, I'm going to leave her in the car seat, right here on the floor.”

Her sister rolled on her back and said, “No, put the seat in bed with me.”

Tig considered this and decided it was not the worst idea; the baby would be closer to Wendy, safe from any rolling around on her sister's part, and easily gotten to. She hefted the seat onto the bed and said, “Okay, she's right here. Wendy.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Then she rolled onto her side and touched her daughter's foot, a decidedly protective move from an exhausted mother.

“You two get some sleep. I'm going for supplies and to check on Mom. I'm taking Thatcher.”

“Whatever.”

Thatcher stood at the door, eager and willing. As they approached Hope House, Thatcher sat at attention in the front seat, as if to say,
We humans are going to visit Grandma
.

At Hope House, Tig said, “Stay, Thatcher. I'll be right back.”

Male and female voices fluttered out of her mother's room. Tig froze at the doorway. Her mother sat knee to knee with Dr. Jenson. Her mother's face could only be described as beatific.

“Oh, Dan,” she said. “You're so sweet to me.”

The hair stood up on Tig's arms. “Excuse me,” she said.

The doctor jumped like a teen in the back of a convertible with the police spotlight illuminating undone buttons. He dropped her mother's hand and backed away.

“Tig, hello.”

Unperturbed, her mother said, “We're going for the Christmas tree today.”

Tig's gaze darted between them.

“She thinks I'm your father.”

“Don't let her think that. You're not my father.” Tig turned to her mother. “Mama, this is Dr. Jenson from the hospital.”

Immediately, Hallie frowned and looked from her daughter to the doctor and back again.

“I . . . I . . . I'm so tired.” Her hands dropped to her lap and she worked a frail tissue that had fallen from her sleeve.

Tig looked into her mother's eyes. “Wendy had her baby, Mom. It's a girl; isn't that wonderful? You're a grandmother.”

Hallie said, “A girl? A girl what?”

Tig petted her mother's arm. “A baby girl. Wendy was pregnant, remember?”

“Wendy? Pregnant? No, that won't do. What will your father think? He'll say I didn't watch her enough.” Looking over her daughter's head, she searched Dr. Jenson's face and said, “Dan? What's happening?”

In a soothing voice, Dr. Jenson said, “Hallie, it's all right. Everything is fine. Remember the Christmas trees you used to have in your clinic?”

“One for the cats. Another for the dogs. They were donated. Who did that, I wonder?” The wrinkles in her forehead melted away. Tig sat back on her haunches and watched them talk about the past, a time when her mother was in charge and competent.

“Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt.” An unfamiliar nurse walked into the room with a syringe and a glass that looked like juice. “Hallie needs her B
12
shot. It'll just take a minute and I'll get out of your way.”

Tig and Dr. Jenson moved to the hallway. The privacy curtain rustled. Tig said, “I should know better. I'm a fricking psychologist. It seems like I always get her worked up.”

“Alzheimer's is a trickster. One day reality therapy seems the way to go, and the next the only way to keep them calm is with validation. It's a dance they always get to lead.”

“I wanted to tell her about Wendy.” She looked into the doctor's face. “My sister. You met her the other day. She delivered a little girl. The old Mom would have been thrilled. I wanted to tell someone. You know, that I'm an aunt.”

Dr. Jenson said, “Your mom was always hard on herself, too. It's wonderful news about your sister. How's she doing?”

“Cranky, but that's usual. The baby is beautiful. So, you were friends with my parents? Good friends?”

“I'd like to think so, yes.”

“What was my dad like?”

“I knew your mother better. Your father was someone I knew in a secondhand way. My brother and he were always horsing around. Your dad was really good at sports.” He paused. “Your mother and he were good together. She loved him.”

Tig took in this information, none of it new and on a whim said, “Was he funny?”

“They had charisma. That's what you noticed about your dad and mom. They were funny together, engaging. They had great stories.”

Tig brushed a lock of hair off her forehead, and the silver bracelet glittered and slid down her wrist. Dr. Jenson gestured at it and said, “That's a pretty bracelet.”

She smiled and lifted her wrist. “Just another mystery of my mother's. I found it in her stuff. It's engraved.” She tilted the silver tile. “I don't know where it came from. I never saw it before.”

“‘If I could tell you,'” he read. “If I remember right, that's the beginning of a poem of some sort.” He shifted his weight and looked away.

The nurse emerged and stepped between them. “She seems ready for bed. I'm not sure visitors are a good idea right now.”

Dr. Jenson said, “I'm expected back anyway. Tig, nice to hear your news. Give Wendy my best.”

Tig nodded and then said, “I'd really love to get together. Talk about my parents sometime.”

The tall, distinguished man brightened and nodded with enthusiasm. “I'd love that. Soon!” He touched the pager on his hip and turned away.

Tig hesitated, and finally decided the nurse was right and it was time to leave. She took two steps and stopped just as Fern Fobes pushed herself out of her doorway. She wore a dressing gown and white canvas tennis shoes with the backs tamped down. “Did I hear right? Are you an aunt?” She dabbed at her nose with a tissue.

Tig nodded, gazing into her mother's room.

“Congratulations. Your mom may not fully understand what's happened, but that doesn't make you any less of an aunt. I hope you're celebrating a little.”

“If you mean by buying baby supplies and grocery shopping, then yeah, it's a real party.”

“Get me a diaper for this nose, will ya. It hasn't been dry since my husband was alive,” Fern said. “Speaking of husbands, that Dr. Jenson is a real looker.”

“My mom thinks he's my dad.”

“That's nice for her, I bet. He's so devoted. He comes every day. The only person who comes that regularly for me is the nurse with my stool softener. Some people have all the luck.”

“He comes every day? I come every day, but I don't always see him.”

“Evenings usually. After you head out, or before you come again.”

Tig frowned. “For some kind of therapy? I wonder how that's being billed.”

Fern skillfully navigated her wheelchair next to Tig. “Come on; I'll roll you out. You better get some sleep. Don't you have a show tomorrow?”

Tig brightened. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, madam. All us oldies listen. My son Alec does, too; he needs a good laugh. You're kind of a celebrity around here”

Tig snorted. “A pretty dubious one. Did you hear the last show? It was like a feeding frenzy.”

“Best thing on the radio since
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
. Sometimes my son is here when you are. You two should hook up.”

“Hook up? Really?”

“Isn't that what you people do these days? Isn't that like get a coffee? Watch a movie?”

“Not exactly, Fern.”

At the front door of the facility, Tig and Fern stopped to look at the birds through the glass, busy and oblivious to the other odd birds flitting on the human side of the glass. She watched a chickadee lift a wing and peck furiously at an unseen irritation. “I'm not sure if I can keep it up, the radio.”

“Taking care of everyone in the world is a big job.”

Tig laughed. “Not everyone in the world. Just the people who call in.”

Fern tilted her head and said, “And your mother, sister, and now a niece.” She lifted her almost weightless gloved hand and placed it on Tig's hand. The only place on Fern's face free of wrinkles was at the top of her cheeks right under her eyes.

“Fern? Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Certainly, my dear.”

“Why are you here? You seem so, well . . . well.”

Fern opened her mouth, started to speak, then sealed her mouth shut, burying her lips. She took a breath and said, “Oh, you are good. I'll give you that, Dr. Monahan.” She chuckled and released Tig's hand.

A puzzled grin crossed Tig face. “What? What's the joke?”

“You're not going to add me to your stray dog list. Oh, no. I'm keeping my complaints to myself.” Rotating her wheelchair like a pro, Fern turned away from the front doors and shook her head. Without turning to look Tig's way again, she said, “You almost had me there.”

• • •

Tig walked up the steps of her house, balancing newly purchased baby items. She dropped the jumbo pack of infant diapers onto the stoop, and shoved the front door open and wrestled the rest of the baby loot inside. Out of the first bag she pulled little plastic prong-plugs that would soon go into all the electric sockets. She rummaged through another bag, found the toilet lid lock and bumper pad meant to soften all of the hard edges in the house. Tig tilted her head and listened. A mixture of mewling cat and sorrowful wails streamed down the hall. She rushed to the bathroom, where she heard the shower along with terrible racking sobs.

“Wendy? What's going on? What's wrong?”

Tig pulled the shower curtain, exposing Wendy and the baby in the shower, soaking wet and both of them howling. Wendy had her back to the water, shielding the seriously perturbed newborn. Clementine was still encased in a pink onesie, now sopping wet. Her red face and tiny nasal cry would have been heartbreaking if not for the louder crying that came from her mother. Tig grabbed a fluffy towel and folded the baby into it. “Oh, honey. C'mere, sweetie; come to your auntie.” In the shower, Tig saw her sister cradling her breasts while water streamed over her shoulders and deflated tummy.

“Don't look at me,” Wendy cried, turning her back on her sister. “I'm hideous.”

“That's what this is all about? Your body being ‘hideous'?”

Her sister let out an anguished moan. “No! Clementine's been crying since you left. My milk finally came in and now my boobs are so big she can't get them in her mouth. They feel like they're about to burst. I called the nurse and she said to stand in the shower, that it would help with the pressure. I couldn't leave the baby out so I tried to take her onesie off. That just made her madder. I've gotta go back to the hospital. I can't do this.”

Jiggling the baby, Tig said, “I'm going to calm her and dry her off. You stay in there as long as you need, then we'll get her fed. Geez, it's steamy in here.” She flipped the switch to the bathroom fan and it roared into action. Clementine took a few shuddered breaths and, maintaining her prune-like worry, she stopped crying. The room seemed oddly quiet without the infant's colicky complaint.

Wendy said, “She stopped. What did you do?”

“Nothing. I didn't do anything but turn on the fan.” Tig shut the fan off and the baby squirmed, placed her knot of fist into her mouth and screwed her face up like an old man's sourpuss. Tig quickly turned the fan back on. As it sputtered, the baby's face unwrinkled. “Oh my God, she likes the fan.”

“Thank the Lord.” Wendy shut the shower off and wrapped herself in a towel. She sat on the toilet, soaking wet and dripping. The towel dropped to her waist, revealing eggplant-like breasts that contrasted with her white sternum and sculpted clavicle. “I tried to milk them like the nurse on the phone suggested. That didn't work. And the baby wouldn't stop crying long enough to latch on.”

Content to stare wildly around the little bathroom, with the fan ringing in her ears and wrapped in her aunt's arms, the baby seemed harmless and simple. “Why don't you try now?” Tig handed Clementine over, the corner of the swaddling dropping in the handoff. Wendy tucked the infant's head closer to her breast. “My nipples look like planets.”

“I read they become darker and bigger so the baby can see them better.”

“Well, that's an okay idea, but try fitting a planet into a coin purse.”

“People have done it before today, Wen.”

“Okay, baby, open up.”

Miraculously, upon feeling Wendy's breast on her cheek, the baby opened her mouth and clamped on. Wendy let out a low growl and her upper lip twitched. “What'd that book say about this pain? Shhhiiit. Everyone goes on and on about how wonderful nursing is and nobody talks about how much it hurts.”

“I don't know, Wen. I've never done it before.”

“Do you think it's just me? That there's something wrong with me?”

“No, I'm sure it hurts everyone in the beginning.”

“Why then? Why would this hurt so much; what could the purpose possibly be?”

Tig pulled another towel out of the linen closet and draped it around Wendy's shoulders. The face of her niece was partially submerged in her sister's breast, a dark blue vein drawing a line connecting mother and daughter. Tig folded the baby's tiny arm into her swaddling and whispered her fingers over the top of her head. “I imagine it's getting you ready for the caring that's going to hurt so much more later on.”