The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

  “Big breaths now,” he says. “Third time is the charm.”

  “C’mon, Peach, you can do it,” I say, hoping she can’t hear the panic that’s crept into my voice. That old familiar feeling of calamity is starting to take hold. Something is going terribly wrong here. I’m in the driveway all over again, looking for something to order, something to hold on to, something to keep me from being dragged down by the undertow of terrifying reality.

  Peaches grunts and pushes a third time, and it is not the charm. The baby is still stalled crowning. The giant is talking faster than ever, beginning to sweat at the temples. Suddenly something in me snaps, and I’m on my feet again, pacing wildly like a confused accident victim. I look around at the crush of people, their figures a colorful smudge. I feel like rushing at them.

  “Get away!” I yell, and they all shift back on their heels but only a single step. I look at my bandaged hands, both of them, and I don’t know why, as dully another countdown rings in my ear. “One, and two, and . . .”

  Suddenly, Peaches looses a great open-mouthed roar, and turning, I see baby Elton makes his appearance, a side presentation with a thick head of dark slick hair.

  “That’s it,” the giant says, reaching for the bulb syringe. “You’re doing great, sweetie.”

  With the force of a vacuum, the terror leaves my body all at once, and the ache of gratitude fills the breach. Again, I can feel my feet on the ground, discern individual faces. “You got it, Peach,” I say, tears streaming down my face. “Keep pushing! You’re almost there!”

  Little Elton’s pinched red face is grimacing as he emerges. The giant continues to suction furiously with his right hand as Elton corkscrews his way out smoothly past the shoulders into the medic’s guiding left hand. The instant he issues his first phlegmy cry, the crowd seems to draw in closer, and a few people ooh and aah. He’s tiny, maybe six pounds, but ostensibly healthy in spite of a conical head that seems to regain its shape before my eyes.

  “He’s beautiful,” I lie.

  The giant clamps the cord a half foot from the baby’s belly, then clamps it again an inch or two higher.

  “You wanna cut the cord?” he says to me.

  And the next thing I know, I’m clutching the blue disposable cord scissors, looking down into Elton’s face, with the scissors poised between the ligatures. He’s the image of his father—the same beady eyes and weak chin. I wonder if he’ll have his business acumen. I look at Peaches, dazed and a little green, smiling like someone who doesn’t know any better.

  “Go ahead,” says the giant.

  I snip the cord. The giant sweeps the baby out from under me before I can even move the scissors, wraps him in a reflective blanket, and begins swaddling him in another. And just like that it’s over. I look dazedly out at the crowd, which has already begun to disperse, shuffling in a herd toward the front of the viewing area—except for Trev, who whirs toward the center of the circle, with Dot beside him, just as the giant puts Baby Elton to Peaches’s chest, then waves the ambulance through.

  boxes

  For a few minutes after the ambulance has parted the crowd, wending its way through the parking lot toward the main road, Trev and Dot and I stand in place, stunned, speechless. Checking my watch, I see that the delivery took just over an hour.

  “Um . . . wow?” says Dot, finally.

  “Didn’t see that one coming,” says Trev, still a half shade paler than usual. “Did that just happen?”

  “Seriously.”

  “What now?” I say. “We follow her, right?”

  “I guess I better call my dad first,” says Trev. “Let him know we’re gonna be late.”

  Trev whirs off in the direction of the visitor center. He stops about halfway, where he wrestles his phone out of his side pocket, arches his back, and hoists the phone to chest level. He pitches his head to one side and speed-dials Bob.

  “You hungry?” I say to Dot.

  “No.”

  “Me neither. You wanna sit down?”

  We make our way toward the benches in front of the visitor center, passing Trev, who nods when I signal our destination.

  “You’ve got blood on your shirt,” Dot says.

  Arriving at the nearest bench, we plop down shoulder to shoulder and fall silent, watching the newcomers file in from Nebraska, Ohio, Alaska, Saskatchewan. I have no idea when Old Faithful is due next, but the restlessness of the dense crowd gathering at the rail suggests she’s due to blow soon.

  “You talked to him, didn’t you?” Dot says.

  “Who?”

  “C’mon,” she says, looking off in the other direction.

  “Yeah. I did.”

  She blows her bangs out of her eyes, proffers her last cigarette from her jean vest, and begins patting around for matches. “Now I suppose you’re going to try to make me go with him, aren’t you? You can’t do that, you know. I’m an adult.”

  “I know you are, and I’m not. It’s none of my business. But I am gonna let him follow us, Dot.”

  Unable to find a match, Dot contemplates her unlit cigarette for a few seconds. Suddenly, she snaps it in two. “Filthy habit, anyway,” she says, stuffing the pieces in her pocket. “So, what did he tell you?”

  “Just who he was and why he was following.”

  “Yeah? What else did he tell you? Did he tell you I tried to seduce his friend?”

  “No.”

  “Did he tell you I stole fifty bucks out of his wallet?”

  “No.”

  “Did he tell you the reason he’s driving that piece of shit is because I totaled his Subaru?”

  She begins scratching absently at her denim skirt, as though she were scraping dry ketchup off it. “And just so you know, I didn’t really try to seduce his friend. I just made that up.”

  “Good one.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t have any friends. At least, he never sees them. They’re all married. Like normal people.”

  Halfway across the clearing, Trev is still on the phone with Bob. He’s actually smiling.

  “So, what else did he tell you?” says Dot.

  “Not much, really.”

  “C’mon.”

  “He told me that bracelet used to be your mom’s.”

  She looks away in the other direction again. “Yeah. So I lied.”

  How badly I’d like to see a picture of her mom. How badly I’d like to have seen the two of them together. “I wouldn’t call it a lie.”

  We fall back into silence. The geyser is beginning to gush and splash a bit, showing signs of what the pamphlets call preplay. Dot scatters some loose tobacco with her toe.

  “My dad died when I was in college. I was never very close to him, though.”

  Dot’s hands are fidgety, like she’s wishing she had that last cigarette back. She’s picking at her cuticles again.

  “Looking back,” I say. “I wish I had been.”

  “Been what?”

  “Closer to him.”

  “Mmph,” she says, turning her attention back to her feet, and tracing a squiggly line in the dirt with her toe. “So, what was your dad like, anyway?”

  “Sort of a Ward Cleaver type.”

  “Who’s Ward Cleaver?”

  “Never mind,” I say, waving it off. “I’m dating myself. Let’s just say my dad wasn’t a passionate guy. He liked to read the paper. He liked to pack things neatly in boxes and label them—that was his idea of a good time. He was kind of set in his ways.”

  Fidgeting now with a tube of mascara, Dot spins it between her fingers, screwing and unscrewing the cap. “Not my dad,” she says. “I wish he’d set some ways for himself.”

  “Part of your dad probably wishes that, too.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.”

  “It’s not easy getting old, you know. Things become a lot less clear.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t know. I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Then, in the ensuing silence, Dot does a strange thing.
She reaches for my bandaged hand and presses it into her own and squeezes it. And she says something totally unexpected. I could hug her for saying it, even if she’s just saying it to make me feel better.

  “I’m sorry about what happened. Trev told me. I’ll bet you were a good dad,” she says.

  west yellowstone redux

  For the first time in this oft-delayed, endlessly diverted voyage, we’re actually traveling backward—back to West Yellowstone to stay with Peaches at the clinic, until her mother arrives from Jackson to take her home, where she and Little Elton will begin a new life.

  As we retrace our path through the lower basin and into the canyon, I imagine the nursery as Peaches described it. A sunny little room with southern exposure, smelling of calendula and baby powder. I imagine Peaches’s mom, a generously proportioned Mother Hubbard type, rocking baby Elton in a corner as he clutches at the generous folds of her frilly old-lady blouse, cooing blissfully to the tune of a music box. I imagine Peaches trying to catch a cat nap on the sofa. Even in her punchy state of exhaustion, in her baggy sweats and frumpy bathrobe with dried spit-up on the lapel, she glows. When she wakes up twenty minutes later, still exhausted, she will miss Baby Elton already. Her body will ache for him. Every time he cries at his inability to express himself, every time he coos while clutching at her breast, every time he follows her with his nearsighted gaze as she leaves a room, her body will ache for him. And with the thought of this aching, all the wonderment and humility and stupefying awe of parenthood comes flooding back.

  The Family Clinic is located on the south end of town on a wide, dusty thoroughfare not unlike Canyon Street but without all the frontier pretense. The edifice, squat, unadorned, four shades of faded brown, with long tinted windows, looks less like a medical facility and more like a place where you’d attend a transgender support group, or an indoor flea market. Somehow, Cash has managed to beat us here in the Skylark, where he’s parked right out front, one arm out the window, listening to a warbling Guess Who cassette. He nods as we pass, looking a little crestfallen when Dot ignores him. But then, as though she can read his mind, she stops in her path momentarily and turns back to him, arms akimbo.

  “Hey, Dad. The seventies called.”

  “Yeah?” he says, hopefully.

  “They want their technology back.”

  Cash smiles—he’ll take what he can get.

  The clinic is actually quite sunny on the inside. New carpet in the lobby. Freshly painted corridors. Cheerful receptionist. Peaches is once again in high color, propped up in a hospital bed in a powder blue smock with her hair tied back. She clutches Baby Elton to her chest. His tiny blue and white striped beanie cannot belie his still-misshapen head. He’s a hairy little guy. His breathing is a little raspy. He’s got a wide flat nose, no lips, and a prominent brow ridge to offset his father’s beady eyes and weak chin. On his forehead, he’s got one of those blotchy wine-spot birthmarks. He’s gonna need some really cute outfits.

  “He’s perfect,” I say.

  “He looks like Elton,” Trev says from the foot of the bed.

  “I think he looks like Peaches,” says Dot.

  I think he looks like Gorbachev—but I don’t say as much. These things have a way of working themselves out. Piper was an odd-looking baby, even through fatherhood’s rose-colored glasses. It happens. But somehow homeliness makes them all the more precious.

  Elton stirs, clutches at Peaches’s smock. She liberates her left breast, and he suckles greedily. She strokes the dark downy hair at the nape of his puny neck as we watch him feed in silence. Now and again, the nipple eludes him, and we hear his desperate suckling, as he gropes and bats at her chest. She smiles and guides his little mouth back to the nipple, hushing him with a loving stroke. I’m watching this girl become a woman right before my eyes.

  “Maybe we’ll come see the Tetons next summer,” I say cheerfully.

  “Totally,” Trev says. “Elton might be home by then.”

  It’ll never happen, and we both know it.

  Peaches’s mother arrives late in the afternoon. She’s not the fleshy Mother Hubbard type I imagined but a small, hard, sun-baked little woman you could crack walnuts on. She looks about fifty. Clearly a no-nonsense type. Self-reliant—no purse, no wedding ring. Probably just what Little Elton needs in the way of a grandmother. No frilly old lady blouse, just a cotton work shirt with a western stitch, and a pair of bootcut jeans that look like they’ve been ironed. She’s got a firm handshake, and her bony little bird hands are calloused on the inside.

  “I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Benjamin. Thanks for seeing to my Peaches.”

  “It was my pleasure. Call me Ben.”

  “I’d like to reimburse you for all expenses, Mr. Benjamin.”

  “No need. I wouldn’t think of it.” The truth, of course, is that I’ve got thirteen dollars cash, and my credit card may bounce with the next purchase. I’m dreading the prospect of hitting Forest up for a loan, though I know it’s inevitable.

  “You will take my money, Mr. Benjamin. I’m a stubborn woman.”

  She produces a wide leather billfold from her back pocket and removes a crisp pair of fifties and three twenties. When I balk, she tuts me and presses the bills firmly into my hand.

  Before we can say our good-byes, both Peaches and Little Elton have slipped off to sleep, Peaches with her jaw set, as though fighting it, and Elton with his little mouth twitching as he dreams of the nipple. They’re beautiful—even if he does look like Gorbachev. I want to physically take hold of this moment before it escapes me. I never want to say good-bye to anybody ever again.

  Leaning over the bed, I plant a kiss ever so lightly on Peaches’s forehead. She doesn’t stir. I think of the Wyoming sun slanting through the window of a circus-themed nursery, and I tell myself that everything will work out fine.

  another long haul

  It’s dusk by the time we emerge from the clinic. Out front, Cash is asleep in the driver’s seat of the Skylark, clutching a half-eaten sub, his other hand on the wheel. Dot pounds on the windshield as she passes, startling him awake. Hurriedly he rewraps his sub. We’ve got four hundred miles to Salt Lake City, and I intend to have us there by midnight.

  We drive south toward Ashton in the darkness, with Cash’s dingy yellow headlights glowing in the rearview mirror. To the west, vast rolling potato fields stretch out in the moonlight toward the horizon. Once in a while, the dark form of a grain elevator whizzes past, while somewhere up ahead of us, the backside of the Tetons loom in darkness. Trev and Dot are both asleep by the time we reach Rexburg. I could sleep like a baby myself, a thought I’m forced to chase away time and again. It’s been a hell of a long day, a long week, a long couple of years. And Salt Lake City is still a long, lonely stretch from here. I crack the window to stay awake, and I tighten my neck brace as the wind flaps and flutters in my ear. Wishing I smoked again, I steady my gaze on the never-ending white lines, taking a small comfort in knowing those headlights behind me belong to Cash.

  I’m already beginning to fade by the time I pick up I-15 north of Idaho Falls, but I manage to power on for another hour or so before hunger and fatigue finally compel me to stop at the Sizzler in Pocatello, ten minutes before closing. Trev and Dot awaken when the van motor goes silent.

  “Where are we?” says Trev sleepily. “We’re not here, are we?”

  “Pocatello,” I say.

  He angles his chair forward slightly with a whir. Dot unfastens his buckles as I lower the ramp, and the three of us pile out of the van, Dot yawning and stretching as she ducks under the threshold of the sliding door. We take a window booth that looks directly out on Cash, who’s remained in the Skylark, where he’s eating the rest of his gas station sub and listening to his warbly Guess Who tape.

  “I can’t stand it anymore,” says Dot.

  “What?”

  “Look at him. It’s pathetic. I’m pretty sure he’s been eating that cheese sandwich since yesterday.”

>   “Actually, I think there’s meat on it,” I say.

  “I’m seriously starting to feel sorry for him. Who has a tape deck still?”

  She looks right at him, but he can’t see her through the tinted window. She shakes her head woefully. “I mean, he’s been sleeping in the car the whole time. I just like can’t believe he’s actually following me the whole freaking way. I thought he was totally full of shit. He’s crazy. Who does that?”

  “A parent.”

  “Well, I can’t stand it anymore.” She stands up and marches down the aisle toward the exit.

  “Where’s she going?” says Trev.

  “To yell at him, maybe?”

  Momentarily, Dot reappears outside the window directly in front of us, where she taps on the Skylark window. Cash rolls it down, and Dot begins talking a mile a minute. I can’t hear her voice.

  “What was he like?” says Trev.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He seems like an all right guy to me. Musical taste notwithstanding.”

  “I think she really likes him,” he says. “I just think he embarrasses her a little. And she wishes he’d man up, you know? I can relate. Don’t tell Dot, but I kinda feel sorry for him.”

  Out the window, Dot has coaxed him out of the car, where he’s doing the talking now, looking down at his feet. She takes him by the wrist and tugs at him until he submits, allowing her to drag him toward the restaurant entrance. A moment later, they’re both sidling into the booth across from me, with Trev at the head of the table.

  “Hey,” Cash says to me, then gives Trev a little nod. “What up, bro?”

  “Not much,” says Trev. “Just gettin’ my Sizzle on.”

  “Right on,” says Cash.

  “You’ve got mustard on your shirt,” Dot says to her father.

  “Bummer,” he says, without bothering to investigate. He goes straight for a menu.

  The waiter looks like a retired pensions and actuaries man, paunchy, with a gray comb-over, short sleeve button-up with a pen protector, a name tag that says HOWARD, and thick black rubber-soled loafers. He’s not waiter material. Maybe he’s the manager, because anybody but a manager would be put out that we’ve arrived just minutes before closing, and nobody but a manager would offer to restock the salad bar, which even at a distance, has a sad aura about it.