The First Bad Man

  “Get something to eat, walk around the block. He’ll be here when you get back.”

  “He will?”

  She nodded. I didn’t want to push it by asking if he was going to live in general, or just until I got back. And if I didn’t go would he still live?

  I’m going away, but just for a short time. It was impossible to leave him.

  I left him.

  My guilt was cooled by relief: it was good to be out of that terrifying, earsplitting room. I followed the signs to Labor and Delivery, dazed by the calm hallways filled with business as usual.

  There was some confusion at the nurses’ station.

  “What did you say her name was again?”

  “Clee Stengl.”

  “Hmmm. Hm, hm, hm, hm, hmmmm.” The chubby nurse clicked around on a computer. “Are you sure you have the right hospital?”

  “They told her to come down here, in the NICU, she was—” I gestured to the back of my pants to indicate bleeding. I remembered her sunken eyes and suddenly felt that Clee was in great danger, fighting for her life at this very moment. An older nurse was reading a magazine and watching from a distance. I leaned my body over the counter.

  “Are you searching . . . widely?” What I meant was maybe she was in an emergency operating room, or the ICU, but I didn’t want to say that. “Stengl. You might be adding a vowel between the g and the l? There’s no vowel there, she’s part Swedish. Very blond.” And just in case it would help, I added, “I’m her mother.”

  The older woman put her magazine down. “Receiving,” she said quietly to the other nurse, standing behind her. “Two oh nine, I think. Home birth.”

  The door to 209 was half-open. She was in a mechanical hospital bed, wearing a smock. A tube ran from her arm to a hanging bag of liquid. She was asleep, or not asleep—her eyes were fluttering.

  “Oh good,” she said when she saw me. “It’s you.”

  I sat next to her, feeling strangely meek and nervous. Her hair was in two braids—I’d never seen it like that. I thought of Willie Nelson or a Native American person.

  “I guess he’s okay for right now. A nurse said I should go.”

  “They told me.”

  “Oh.”

  It seemed like she had been in this room forever and knew everything about the hospital whereas I had been staggering around like a beggar.

  “What’s that bag?”

  “It’s just saline, I was dehydrated. Dr. Binwali checked me. He said I’ll be fine.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked at the ceiling for a minute. Now that crying was easy, it was too easy.

  “I thought maybe”—I laughed a little—“you were dying.”

  “Why would I be dying?”

  “I don’t know. You wouldn’t be.”

  It wasn’t an exchange we would have had before, but now we’d ridden in an ambulance together, listening to the siren from the inside. That’s when she’d first grabbed my hand.

  A nurse came in.

  “You pressed the call button?”

  “Can I have some more water?” Clee asked.

  The nurse went off with the pitcher, leaving a weird metallic smell.

  I felt we couldn’t say anything, knowing she’d be back. She banged in again with the pitcher, her coppery smell redoubled. I waited, first for the nurse to leave and then for her scent to follow her.

  “Can you get me something?” Clee asked. “That Tupperware?”

  Kate’s spaghetti. It was on a plastic chair.

  Clee peeled the lid off and lowered her head, sticking her mouth down into the container. She made her hand shovel-like and started pushing the food into her mouth. It wasn’t the spaghetti. Of course it wasn’t—Kate’s visit was months and months ago. I stood up and faced the window so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I could still see her in the reflection but not the bloody thing she was eating. What happens when you eat that much of yourself? She was leaning back now, just chewing, chewing, chewing. She had gotten too much in her mouth and now she had to catch up with it. The glass had an amber tint or film that made her look old-fashioned. It was mesmerizing, how different this woman was from Clee. Now she carefully shut the container, click, wiped her hands on a napkin, drank a glass of water, and leaned her head back on the angled bed. Her braids lay on her chest and she looked leaden with sorrow, like a picture from the Dust Bowl. You just knew her whole life was going to be hard, every second of it.

  “If he lives,” she said, “will he be messed up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Amy and Gary won’t want him,” she said slowly. “What happens to babies like that, if they’re not adopted?”

  She was looking at me now, in the glass. I was the same sad sepia color.

  I sat with Kubelko Bondy through the evening, staring at his miniature fingers wrapped around my thumb. I knew it was a reflex—their hands would curl around a carrot—but I had never been held so steadfastly for so long. He grabbed at the air when I gently pulled away. I’ll be back in the morning. For now this was true.

  I slept on a metal cot between Clee’s bed and the window. A baby cried in the night, on and on without stopping, and then was abruptly silent. A cart rattled down the hall and someone said, “Who?” and someone replied, “Eileen.” An alarm rang and was shut off and rang again before it was finally shut off for good. I slept for a minute or two and woke up as the old me, untroubled and dumb, until it came back like a floating carcass. Leaving him would be like killing someone and getting away with it. I’d be haunted forever. What was this life even for? It was over.

  He was up there, alone. Maybe not even alive. I wanted to wail. Where was the real grandmother, the pastor, the chieftain, God, Ruth-Anne? There was nobody. Just us.

  The cot was impossible. I sat up and put my feet on the floor; the mattress made a V shape around me.

  “Are you leaving?” she whispered. “Please don’t go.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  She raised her bed up. The motor sound was too loud.

  “I’ve been having some bad thoughts,” she said.

  “I know. Me too.” It was not a scenario where something comforting could be said, like Everything will be okay. Nothing would be okay, that was the problem. I stood up and reached for her hand; maybe we could make the fist again. She grabbed my whole arm.

  “Really, don’t leave me here.”

  Her eyes were huge, her teeth were chattering. She was in a mad panic. I pulled the blanket off my bed and draped it around her shoulders, turned the thermostat up though I wasn’t sure it was connected to anything. I filled the pitcher with hot water from the bathroom and made steamy compresses with the white hospital washcloth.

  Clee wondered if she should call her parents.

  “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “You do?”

  “Their daughter had a baby. They’ll want to know.”

  “They’re not like that.”

  “It’s biological, they won’t be able to help it.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded knowingly.

  She dialed. I began to tiptoe out but she shook her head violently and pointed at the chair with a sharp finger.

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  The cadence of Suzanne’s voice was abrupt; I couldn’t make out actual words.

  “In the hospital. I had the baby.

  “I don’t know, we don’t know yet. He’s in the NICU.

  “I didn’t have a chance to, everything was crazy.

  “I said I didn’t have a chance to. I haven’t called anyone.

  “No, Cheryl’s here.

  “I don’t know, it just worked out that way. She came in the ambulance.”

  Suzanne became loud; I moved to th
e window so I couldn’t hear her.

  “Mom—

  “Mom—

  “Mom—”

  Clee gave up and held the phone straight out in front of her; the shrieking distorted violently, crackling in the air. Was she holding the phone like that to be funny and rude? No. She was hyperventilating. Her hand was gripping her stomach; something was seizing up in there. I leaned toward the phone—the sarcastic voice taunted, “. . . apparently I’m not your mother anymore; I’ve been replaced . . .” I wanted to punch Suzanne, to strangle her and drag her to the floor and bang her head against the linoleum again and again. Your (bang) daughter (bang) is in hell (bang). Be gentle with her.

  I motioned for Clee to hang up and she looked at me with feral, uncomprehending eyes.

  “Hang up,” I whispered. “Just hang up.”

  Her hand obeyed me; the phone went silent.

  I apologized for encouraging the call. She said she’d never hung up on her mom before.

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  We sat in silence. After a moment she poured herself some water and drank the whole glass.

  “Do you want more?” I rose to take the glass. “Should I call the nurse?”

  “Will it be the same one from before?”

  “She had a funny smell, didn’t she?”

  “She smelled like metal,” Clee said gravely.

  I laughed.

  “She did,” she said. “The smell made my teeth hurt!”

  This seemed funny too. I gripped the bed rail, giggling; I felt slightly hysterical. Clee’s laugh was an unflattering guffaw; her mouth became huge. There was that smile I’d seen once before. She was looking at my lips; I brushed them off as I finished chuckling. We were done laughing. She was still looking at my mouth; I kept my hand over it. She quietly moved my fingers away and kissed me softly. She pulled back, swallowed, and then began again. We were kissing. For a while I kissed thinking that this was not that kind of kissing. I kissed her unfamiliarly soft, full lips again and again and reasoned that there were plenty of families who kissed easily and on the lips, French people, young people, farm people, Romans . . . After a while the hypothesis fell away; her palms were rubbing my back, my hair, she held my face. I stroked her braids again and again, as if I had wanted to touch them for a million years and would never tire of it. After a long time, ten or fifteen minutes, the kissing slowed. There were a series of closing kisses, goodbye kisses, kisses placed like lids on boxes—then the lid would pop off and need to be replaced. There, this is the final kiss—no, this is the final kiss. This one is, it really is. And now I’m just kissing that kiss good night.

  She turned out the light by her bed. I stepped backward and crouched onto my cot. She lowered her mechanical bed; the noise of the motor filled the room. Then silence.

  I had never been so awake in my life. What did it mean? What did it mean? I hadn’t kissed anyone in years. I’d never kissed a person with silky lips. Did I even like it? It was a little sickening. I wanted to do it more. It probably wouldn’t happen again. We were in a crisis. It was the kind of thing that happens for no reason in a crisis in the middle of the night. What did it mean? I blushed thinking of the starved way I had acted. As if I had been dying to do that. When really it was the furthest thing from my mind. I raised my pointed finger in the air—Furthest thing from my mind!—but the jury was inscrutable. How would we be in the morning? Kubelko Bondy. Somehow it was hard to believe he would die now, since he was a part of this. Soft was the wrong word. Satiny? Supple? A new word, I would come up with it right now—which letters would I use? S, for sure. Maybe an O. Was this how words were made? How would I announce the word? Who would I contact about that?

  IN THE MORNING HER BED was empty. I hurried into my shoes and took the elevator up to the NICU. The linoleum hallways were endless and fluorescent and the kissing episode was remote, just one of yesterday’s many dramatic events. Today was day two of his life, hopefully. I washed my hands and put on the gown. Clee was hunched over the glass case, chanting her “sweet baby boy” hymn. Her braids were gone. Without looking at me she stepped back, so I could have a turn.

  The tube down his throat looked huger today, as if he’d shrunken in the night. His tired black eyes had just opened when the tall Indian doctor appeared behind us.

  “Good morning.” He shook our hands. “Please come with me.”

  His face was grim and it occurred to me that we would now be told the baby wasn’t going to make it. Maybe he had already technically died and it was just the machines giving the illusion of life. Clee gave me a stricken look.

  “Can she stay with the baby?” I asked. “He just woke up.”

  I followed the doctor across the room. I yearned for a lawyer and the right to make a phone call. But those rights were for arrested people. We got nothing. Whatever he told me would be the new reality and we’d just have to accept it. The doctor parked me in front of a skinny woman with a folder.

  “This is Baby Boy Stengl’s grandmother,” he said, introducing me.

  “I’m Carrie Spivack,” said the woman, sashaying forward.

  “Carrie is from Philomena Family Services.”

  And the doctor turned to leave, just like that. I grabbed him.

  “Shouldn’t we wait to see if—”

  He looked down at his pocket; my hand was in it. I took it out.

  “If what?”

  “If he lives?”

  “Oh, he’ll live. That’s a tough kid. He just needs to show us he can use his lungs.”

  Carrie from Philomena Family Services brought out her hand again. I hugged her, brittle reed that she was. He’ll live.

  She stepped backward out of my arms; she wasn’t that kind of Christian.

  “I’m here to talk with your daughter—is that her over there?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Now wouldn’t be a good time.”

  “Of course it wouldn’t.”

  “It wouldn’t?”

  “She’s saying goodbye,” Carrie said.

  “Which might take a little while.”

  “You’re right. There’s an arc to adoption.”

  “An ark?”

  “A beginning, a middle, and an end. The end is always the same.”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “That’s because she’s in the beginning. Nobody knows in the beginning. She’s right on track.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “Not too long. I like to give a lot of space and let the hormones do the work.”

  “But approximately.”

  “Three days. In three days she’ll be herself again.”

  Carrie said she would be back tomorrow and not to worry about a thing. Amy and Gary were on their way.

  “They’re coming here?”

  “She won’t have to meet them. Here’s my card, just let her know she’s not alone.”

  “She’s not alone.”

  “Great.”

  CLEE’S FOREHEAD WAS AGAINST THE ISOLETTE. His eyes were shut again.

  “Who was that?”

  “The doctor said he’ll live. He said he’s a tough kid.”

  She straightened up. “A tough kid?” Her chin was trembling. She unclicked one of the circular doors and put her mouth into the arm hole. “Did you hear that, sweet boy?” she whispered. His skinny, mottled arms lay limply against his tiny torso. “You’re tough.”

  I glanced across the room—did three days include today? Or was yesterday the first day and today was already day two? Was she factoring in that we had kissed and kissed and kissed last night? I winced with embarrassment.

  A nurse hurried past. “Excuse,” she said, too busy for the me. I looked across the room at the parents who would blame each other for all eternit
y. They belonged here, both of them equally, as did the nurses and the doctors and Clee. None of them recognized the interloper among them, but they would soon. I’d gotten swept up in the drama of the situation and mistakenly involved myself.

  It was time to go home.

  He was going to live, Carrie Spivack was here, in three days from either yesterday or today Clee would be discharged without the baby. I would clean up, get the house ready. I pictured myself taking off my shoes and putting them in the rack on the porch. Funny how up until a few minutes ago I thought this incoherent fear, this limbo, was going to last forever. I tried smiling to see if it really was funny, ha ha. My hand went to my throat as it seized violently. Globus hystericus. I had thought it was gone for good but of course it wasn’t. Nothing ever really changes.

  I bent over the opposite side of the case. His fingers wiggled like underwater plants. How would I recognize him if we crossed paths later in life? These seaweed hands would be buried inside normal man hands. I wouldn’t even be able to know him by name, because he didn’t have one.

  Almost! I said. There was no good way to be, so I was being cavalier, lancing my own heart. We came pretty close. See you next time!

  Kubelko Bondy looked at me with disbelief, speechless.

  I turned and walked out of the NICU before Clee looked up. I went down the elevator and into the lobby. I walked out of the lobby into the street. The sun was blinding. People were striding past thinking about sandwiches and feeling wronged. Where was I parked? Parking garage. I searched for my car, floor by floor, row by row. Ambulance. I’d come by ambulance. I’d have to call a cab. I didn’t have my cell phone. It was in the room. Fine. Go back and get it. In and out again. I took the elevator back up to the seventh floor. Everything looked the same, the pig-faced nurse still had that face. How good this world was, with its large and real concerns. There was the couple who blamed each other—they were holding hands and smiling tenderly. I was a ghost, spying on my old life without me. Room 209. Clee would be making her way back from the NICU any second now. My cell phone, grab it and go.

  She was sitting on the edge of her bed, crying. Something terrible had happened in the short time I was gone. She glared at me and made a shapeless angry sound.