The Shape of Desire (11 page)

I
am a little less enamored of motherhood by six the next morning. Lizzie has had a restless night that included a sixty-minute stretch when she couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t figure out why. But the
intervening hours of sleep have restored her natural good humor, and she wakes up gleefully, kicking her feet and chortling as she anticipates the day.

I am less refreshed but still game. After giving her a bottle, I chance taking a shower, leaving the bathroom door open so I can hear if she starts wailing. As I blow-dry my hair, I wonder how soon she might take a nap and if I’ll be able to fall asleep when she does. I’ve heard new mothers complain about sleep deprivation, but I’d always imagined it took weeks to kick in and that the deficit could be easily erased by a night of uninterrupted rest. Now I realize it must be an ongoing state that not only is
not
cured by a good night’s sleep, but no such thing as “a good night’s sleep” actually exists when there’s an infant in the house. I wonder how Beth made it through Clara’s early years. I think I should have offered to help out more than I did. I wonder if the only time she felt rested was when she was hospitalized with pneumonia.

“So what should we do now, little girl?” I ask Lizzie. She is strapped into her car seat, which is perched on my kitchen table, and she is watching me consume my toast and jelly as if she knows it tastes much better than the lukewarm formula that constituted her own breakfast. “If it’s not too cold, I could take you out for a walk. Or maybe we should go for a ride. When do you suppose your mother will be coming to get you? Soon? Not that I am not enjoying every minute with you, but I just wonder how many more entertainments I should plan.”

As if she knows I am talking about her, Christina chooses that moment to phone. My Caller ID has been erratic lately, but it shows me a number that I recognize as hers before the LED display wavers and disappears. As soon as I answer, Christina asks in a cheerful voice, “Maria? How’s it going?”

“Great. She’s been an angel.”

“How’d she sleep?”

“Mmm, she went down at ten, but then she was awake for about an hour around two, and awake for real by six.”

“Oh, that’s pretty good!” Christina says. “Sometimes she’s awake two or three times in the night. And she’s
still
up by six.”

“You must be tired all the time.”

She laughs. “I’ve learned to survive on five or six hours’ sleep a night. Though I have to confess, it was heaven last night, even though Annie’s spare bed has a lump in the middle that’s the size of a watermelon. I just curled up around it and never once woke up.”

I think there must be a reason she’s called instead of just coming to the house, so I ask an indirect question. “I was wondering if I had time to take her for a short walk. It looks like a pretty day outside.”

“That’s why I’m calling,” she replies. “I haven’t even taken a shower yet, and Annie wanted to go out to breakfast. I can leave right now if you can’t stand it anymore, but if you think you can hold on until noon, I’ll come later.”

I glance at the clock. It’s not quite eight. “Sure,” I say a little too brightly. “I’ll be happy to keep her another few hours. You and your friend have fun.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Christina says, sounding like she wants to hang up as soon as possible so I can’t change my mind. “See you around noon.”

I hang up, yawn, and sink back onto my chair at the kitchen table. Lizzie makes a noise that sounds like
gooh
. “Guess we have time for that walk after all,” I tell her, pouring myself another cup of coffee. “I’ll show you the neighborhood.”

But apparently Lizzie has been worn out by the effort of waking up and eating, because a few minutes later, she is nodding off. The caffeine has already kicked in, so it’s pointless for me to try to nap alongside her. I sigh and turn on the computer so I can check my e-mail, pay bills, and make the morning somewhat productive.

By nine thirty, Lizzie is awake, changed, and restless, so I decide we’ll
both benefit from a walk. I’ve opened the front door to check the weather and found that the September air is as warm as a cat’s fur and scented with cut grass and fallen leaves. In other words, perfect. I’m halfway through putting on my shoes when a knock at the door startles Lizzie so much she sneezes. I hop across the room with my other shoe in my hand to find Beth and Clara waving at me from the porch.

“Too early?” Beth asks a little anxiously. “I know I should have called first, but I was driving right by.”

“Not at all. Come on in,” I say, motioning them inside.

“I had to drop off some notes to a woman I work with. She’s flying out to Denver tomorrow and I was—” She abruptly stops speaking. I realize she’s spotted Lizzie. Or rather, Clara has spotted Lizzie, who is lying on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor, and Clara has squatted down to get a closer look.

“You have a baby,” Beth says blankly.

“Well, she’s not mine,” I say, and close the door. I’m thinking fast. Obviously the exact truth won’t do, but it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a plausible variation. It’s just a question of how much detail to supply. “You want coffee or something?”

Beth drops to her knees beside Clara. “Whose baby
is
she?”

“What’s her name?” Clara wants to know. She reaches out a tentative hand and pats Lizzie on the head as if she is a not particularly tame kitten. The baby laughs.

“Lizzie.”

“Where did she come from?” Clara asks.

Beth turns her head to give me an inquiring look. “Yes, where?”

I settle on the couch and put on my other shoe. “She belongs to a woman named Christina, who is the sister of one of my college friends,” I say. “I met Christina, I don’t know, a couple dozen times while I was in school. I didn’t really know her that well, but she friended me on Facebook about three months ago.”

“I thought you never checked your Facebook account.”

“Well, I don’t, not very often. Anyway, so, you know, we exchanged a few e-mails, and she told me she was pregnant, and I said, oh, I’d love to see the baby if you’re ever in town, and she dropped by a couple weeks ago, which surprised the hell out of me—”

“You shouldn’t swear,” Clara says primly.

“Right. She surprised the
heck
out of me. But we had a very nice visit, and I thought Lizzie was cute, and I said—not dreaming that she would ever take me up on it—‘Gee, if you ever need someone to watch her for a few hours, you should call me.’ And so then—”

“Then she called you,” Beth finishes up. “Well, that was nervy.”

“Kind of what I thought,” I agree. “But I
did
offer, so I could hardly turn her down.” I shrug. “I know it seems weird, but it’s just for a little while. She’ll be back by noon.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “Oh, it’s not weird at all. I know what’s going on here.”

“You do?”

“You’ve got baby fever. You’re thirty-five—”

“
You’re
thirty-five. I’m thirty-four.”

“And that clock’s ticking, and you’re thinking, ‘How many years do I have left? How many
eggs
do I have left?’ And suddenly everywhere you look,
other
women have babies—the women at work, the women at the grocery store. And all you can think about is how much you want one, too, but you’re not dating anyone special and you’re wondering if maybe you don’t
need
anyone special, maybe you can do this all on your own—”

By now I’m grinning. “Hold on,
chica
, are we talking about
me
here? Who’s the one who went off and had a baby just because she felt like it?”

“That’s why I know I’m right! Because I did it, too! But let me tell
you, it’s not so easy to just pop out a kid and then go on with your life. In fact, most of the time it’s pretty hard being a single mom.”

I drop to the floor so I can cover Clara’s ears with my hands. She’s used to it; her grandmother and her aunt frequently try to block out some comment of Beth’s that they don’t think she should hear. “Don’t listen to those mean things your mommy is saying,” I whisper into the nape of her neck.

Clara shakes her head to dislodge my grip. She’s offered her own hand to Lizzie, who has brought it up to her mouth and appears to be sucking on Clara’s index finger with great energy. “She likes me,” Clara says seriously. “I can tell she likes me.”

“She probably does,” I say. “She has exceptionally good taste in people.”

Beth pokes me to get my attention again. “So? Am I right? Baby fever?”

“A little bit right,” I say defensively. “But I haven’t gone and done anything irreversible yet. I’m just watching a little girl for a few hours.” I don’t consider it necessary to say that I’ve kept Lizzie overnight. Beth would find it hard to believe I would do such a big favor for a casual friend.

“She
is
pretty cute,” Beth allows. “So you’ve got her for a few more hours. Want to go to the park?”

“I was planning to take her for a walk, but I’ve just realized I don’t have a stroller.”

Beth jumps to her feet. “I’ve got one in the car. Come on, let’s go.”

T
he four of us pass an exceptionally pleasant couple of hours. I have never paid attention to how many parks there are between my house and the highway, but apparently Beth automatically catalogs public spaces and playgrounds, because she drives us directly to a little
park that features a slide, a swing set, some kind of brightly colored climbing bars, and a nicely paved track that circles the mulched play area. Clara goes straight to a sandbox to dig; I push Lizzie around the paved path while Beth strolls along beside me, talking idly.

I don’t listen as closely as I should. I am too busy inhaling the perfumes of wet cedar and fading roses, marveling at the brilliant colors dripping off the surrounding trees. The soft September sunshine drapes itself across my shoulders like lace tatted by my grandmother’s hand—something made with love especially for me.
This feels right
, I think as I guide the stroller along the path.
This feels happy.

It doesn’t take long for that sense of certainty and contentment to fade. Minutes after we decide it’s time to go, just as Beth has gone to fetch Clara from the sandbox, a pickup truck pulls up and a young couple climbs out, a baby already in the woman’s arms. Clearly they don’t believe in traveling with car seats. They look like they’re in their early twenties, or maybe younger, and they’re dressed in jeans and sweatshirts and running shoes. She’s blond and petite; he’s not a big guy, but he’s burly, and I imagine that he works construction somewhere. As soon as they’re out of the car, he takes the baby from her and tosses it in the air—not high enough to be scary, but high enough to make the child shriek with delight. I think it’s a boy; at any rate, he’s dressed in blue coveralls with an engineering logo embroidered on the front, and the parents don’t, at first glance, appear like the types to ignore gender stereotypes in clothing. The father tosses him in the air again, then flips him upside down and dangles him by his ankles. I can hear the child’s infectious laughter from twenty-five yards away. The young mother says something to the father, and he leans down to kiss her on the cheek.

All of a sudden, my heart cramps up; my fingers on the stroller handles turn icy. Beth’s right, in a way. I
do
have baby fever. I
do
have an empty sense that my life holds no core purpose. But I don’t simply want a child. I want a family. I want a family with Dante. I want to wake up on
a Saturday morning—any Saturday morning—and know he’ll be lying beside me in the bed, half listening for the baby’s cry, half hoping she sleeps another hour so that we have time to make love. My life is incomplete, but it’s not just because I don’t have a cradle in the spare bedroom. It’s because, most of the time, Dante isn’t even in the house. It’s because, no matter who else I surround myself with, I always feel abandoned and alone.

M
onday seems to arrive much more quickly than usual, probably because I lost so much of my weekend to Lizzie. All morning, I have the sense that I’ve fallen behind, so I keep myself sequestered in my office, focused on the computer. A knock on the door frame makes me practically jump out of my chair.

“I’m so sorry,” Kathleen says remorsefully. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no, it’s fine. What’s going on?”

She leans against the wall as if she’s been told that’s a commonly accepted casual pose, but she still looks tense and anxious. I don’t notice any new bruises, though.

“I just stopped by to see how your weekend was,” she says in a timid voice. It’s so odd. I can tell she wants to be friends with me but she’s not certain how such a thing is accomplished. It’s as if she’s never had a friend before.

The thought makes me gentle my voice when I reply. “It was much
too fast! Remember I told you I was going to babysit for a friend? I did, and it was great, but it took up, like, hours. So then I spent all day Sunday cleaning the house and getting groceries and answering e-mail and—you know, organizing my life. What about you?”