A Mother's Love (10 page)

“Neither am I,” I replied, getting in.

I told him where to go. He looked at me oddly, shaking his head. Then he drove slowly through the snowbound streets. The city was all shades and contrasts, a study in black and white, like a Stieglitz. Matthew would have appreciated this observation. I'd never seen snow as a child. I'd never known the way it comes fluttering down. Whenever it snows, I tilt my head back and let the flakes light on my tongue. Once when I was falling in love with Matthew, he told me that in winter he put on his skates to go to the house of his friends. This had seemed part of a fairy tale to me, for in my youth I had walked only the burning roads, and friends were few and far between, scattered in dusty trailer parks.

The driver grumbled as he drove. “Snow,” he
said. “Do you know what it does to my business? Do you know how much money I lose?”

A plow was ahead of us, blade down. The sound of the scraping was muted. Snow fell in all directions. The driver once again complained. “It's all right,” I said. “I'm not in a hurry. In fact, I'd prefer it if you'd take your time.” I should have borrowed cross-country skis and sailed to this appointment. I could have dallied in the park. Made a snow fortress. Packed myself in. Or lain on my back again and made snow angels. I felt invincible, a blessed being, as if no harm could come my way.

Another pain gripped me. As the driver cursed the icy road that made his journey treacherous and slow, I clutched my sides, trying to breathe and wondering what kind of mother I would be. The kind who takes the kid on summer vacations, packing him into a van and off to the national parks. Who takes dozens of snapshots on rope swings, wading in mountain streams, then pastes them into leather-bound albums with gold initials on the outside. Labeling pages on the kitchen table late at night. Jersey Shore, summer. Aged four. Aged eight.

But perhaps I'd be a different kind of mother. One who drags the kid off to bars or brings in the endless parade of lovers, all called Uncle This or Uncle That, filling the house with strange men so that my child would wake in the morning to someone he'd never seen before, someone sipping
coffee at the Formica table, hiding behind newspapers. Never knowing if a man would take him out to play ball or shoo him away.

At last the cab came to a halt, but I wanted the driver to keep going. To drive through the park again. I had time, I thought. Take me just once more around. Or better yet, drop me off in the middle of a snowy field. I'll have my baby there in the open, in the blistering cold. Then I'll bring him quickly to my warm breast.

Instead, I grabbed my bag and handed the driver a bill. “I can't change a twenty,” he said, handing it back to me.

One more sharp pain went through me. “Keep the change,” I said, shoving it back to him through the bulletproof drawer. Stepping out, I took a deep breath. It would be a long time before I'd stand outside by myself again in the middle of the night like this. Breathing in deeply the night air, I gazed at the yellow sky. It was almost morning. I picked up my suitcase and walked toward the emergency room doors.

The buzzer rang and I opened the door hesitantly, regretting it even as I did so. Matthew stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a green leather jacket, a flannel shirt. I stepped out of the way, motioning for him to come in, not sure whether I wanted him to or not. He stooped, kissing me on
the cheek, then on the lips, and walked in. “You look well, Ivy,” he said. “You look very good.”

“All things considered,” I replied.

“No, you just look good.”

“Not sleeping agrees with me,” I said.

He shrugged. “I'm just happy to see you; that's all.”

On our way to the restaurant we hardly spoke. We stuck to innocuous topics, walking gingerly around the edges of whatever we had to say. “They're talking about putting a new water main down my street,” I said at one point. His hand rested on my shoulder as I walked with Bobby in his Snugli. It was one of the first times I'd gone out to dinner since Bobby was born. I'd been to Patricia's, I'd been out once or twice with friends for pizza and with Dottie and my father when they came just after Bobby was born. Just before Matthew arrived, I'd struggled to get into a pair of pre-Bobby jeans but settled for a loose-fitting skirt. I put on red lipstick.

We went to a neighborhood Chinese restaurant where we instinctively selected our old favorites—General's Chicken, Sesame Noodles, Shrimp with Snowpeas.

“So,” I said once we'd ordered and a glass of free wine arrived, “how's your work going?”

“Oh.” Matthew cocked his head the way he did when he couldn't admit to being disappointed.
“I'm getting a lot of foreign assignments for magazines.”

“And your own work?”

Now he cocked his head the other way. “It doesn't exactly pay the bills.”

I nodded and we grew silent, neither of us wanting to mention the bills. Money was on my mind; I needed some if I was going to hire a baby sitter and return to work full time. Normally I would have asked him outright, but we were being tentative with each other, like distant relatives brought together over some delicate legal matter, which in a sense we were. I draped a napkin over Bobby's head and tried, as I ate with my chopsticks, not to drop steamed rice on him. When Bobby woke and I had to nurse him, Matthew fed me with a fork.

He ran his hand through his silvery curls. He looked older than I remembered, though it hadn't been that long since I'd seen him. “Ivy.” He put the fork down. Like my mother, Matthew always said my name before he said anything else to me. And he pronounced it “IV,” the way she did, as if I were a form of life support. “My mother phoned the other day” he began. “Her voice was shaky. Her speech was slurred. ‘Matthew,' she said, ‘whatever happened to that nice girl, Ivy. I always liked her.' I could hear airplanes flying in the background. She lives right near this airport and planes are always taking off and landing. Anyway,
she said, ‘Ivy was good for you. She was the best of the lot, because you were nicer to me when you were with her. You remembered my birthday, holidays …' ”

“I just kept a calendar by the phone,” I said.

“Well, my mother thinks I made a big mistake.”

“Does she know about Bobby?”

He looked grim. “She knows. But she has trouble remembering. That's what booze does for you.” He took a deep breath, then reached across the table for my hand. “When I was a little boy,” he said as if I'd never heard of it before, “my parents stayed in bed all day long on the weekends. They drank and screwed and stayed in bed. No one played with me. I learned to cook, take care of my things, play alone. My room just had a bed and a desk. Like a monk's cell. No pictures on the walls. No toys. A few books. I had a fish tank with no fish in it. I was the only sober person around. I took care of myself. I had to learn to do that at an early age. I'm not very good at taking care of others.”

I nodded. “I hear it's an acquired skill.”

“Maybe, but I'm not sure I've acquired it.”

“Matthew.” I squeezed his hand, then pulled mine away. “You aren't telling me anything I don't already know. Do you want me to feel sorry for you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I think my
mother was right. I think I did make a big mistake.” And he leaned over and kissed me.

Then we went home. When it was time for me to tuck Bobby in, Matthew stayed. “I should get going,” he said, but he didn't leave. He stayed as I cuddled Bobby, nursing him and singing as I put him to sleep. Matthew went with me into the room where Bobby slept and watched as I put him down. Together we stared at the sleeping child. When Bobby slept, he breathed heavily, his chest heaving as if he were already a man. Little beads of sweat broke out along the rim of his dark hair, and Matthew and I stood watching our son.

“Is he all right?” Matthew asked, listening to his breathing and touching his son's sweat.

“He's like you,” I told him, thinking how much they did resemble one another. “You sleep just like this.”

I pulled the covers up to Bobby's chin, though Bobby—a warm-blooded creature like his father—would kick them off in the night. We stood silently, watching the child. Soon I felt Matthew's fingers wrapping themselves around mine, as we remained side by side, looking down at the baby. I'm not sure how long we stood there before he said, “I love you, Ivy. You know I do.” And of course I did.

He turned me to him and kissed me. His tongue reached deep into my mouth; his hands gripped my back, holding me firm. He was hard,
throbbing against my thigh, and he held me to him for a long time, which I did not mind because I didn't know what I wanted to happen next. My heart beat quickly, but not from desire. Rather, it pounded the way it did when someone jumped out of a dark corner and frightened me.

“Is this the right thing?” I asked, pulling away.

He stood back so that he could see my face. “I want you,” he said, “But more than that, I'd like to try again. I'd like to spend time with you”—he paused—“and with Bobby.” He looked down sheepishly, as if he'd just confessed to a pointless lie.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm not completely sure. I'm never sure of anything. I can't make any promises.”

I smiled, putting my fingers to his lips. “You never could.”

I wanted to ask him to leave, but I was surprised by a wave that rushed over me, as warm and comforting as when my milk let down, yet with an urgency I hadn't felt in a long time. Not since I was a girl, I thought, sneaking out of the house to meet boys I scarcely knew in places where I wasn't supposed to be. There was something dangerous, something slightly naughty about what I felt. Now he pulled me close so that my head rested against his shoulder. Gently he touched my breasts, which were heavy and sore.

We made love slowly as if it were our first time,
and indeed it was the first time since I'd gone to his studio when I was four months pregnant. My body seemed huge, my breasts full, and the slowness suited my mood and my physical state. It wasn't exactly desire I felt, for motherhood had sapped and supplemented much of that, but it was a kind of comfort I had not experienced in a long while. As he sucked on my breasts, the milk flowed and he told me it was sweet as coconut juice. This made him more tender with me. He entered me gently, careful not to cause any pain, and he stayed inside for a long time.

Afterward we lay in each other's arms until Bobby cried. “Don't get up,” Matthew said. “I'll go. You rest.” Matthew took Bobby onto his shoulder. I lay still, watching them. Matthew warmed a bottle on the stove as he clumsily cradled Bobby. He would grow accustomed to this. In a few months he would see. Life could go on. He would be a good father. It would come naturally.

He gave the baby the bottle, but Bobby fussed, spitting out the milk. “It's all right,” I said. “He wants me.” So Matthew brought him to the bed. Another warm wave rushed over me as milk filled my breasts. The sensation that had once caused me so much pain now came with intense pleasure. Matthew put Bobby next to me and turned out the light. We lay there, the three of us together. Bobby's damp hair smelled like a puppy's. A kind of peace came over me as I felt hands at my
breasts, mouths sucking, unsure if it were my lover or my son or both, who touched, who suckled, and, somehow nursing both of them, I drifted in and out of sleep.

After a while, I eased my way out of bed, leaving Matthew and Bobby on separate pillows. They lay like bookends, face to face, mirror images of each other, though I didn't want to admit it. I went to the mirror and saw my body in the moonlight. It was a strange body, foreign to me, thicker than I remembered it. My breasts looked pendulous, like the hanging teats of stray dogs I used to throw stones at as a child. But now I could see the beginning of a waistline, the shape of my hips. I gazed at this body again as if it belonged to me once more, as if it were being given back, slowly, a little at a time.

Putting on a robe, I went to the window and sat down at my work table with the collage—the desert at night, the Day-Glo stars. Picking up a pencil, I started to draw. But I felt as if someone were watching me, so I looked up. She was standing in her window, trim body pressed against the sill, her hair down to her shoulders. Perhaps her husband was coming to get the kids and she was watching for him. Perhaps a lover was coming to visit and she didn't want him to ring the bell. Then I feared that she was desperate, planning to jump. I waved a finger at her. “No, no,” I whispered. Now she looked my way. I put the pencil down and for the
first time our eyes met. I'm not sure how long we stared at each other in this way.

It was Matthew who had brought me east. I probably would never have come if he hadn't gotten the teaching job at a respectable center for photography and said he was moving to New York. He had just done his Hall of Fame project. He'd driven around the American West for months (sometimes I went along), taking pictures of all the Halls of Fame in America—the Greyhound Hall of Fame, the Corn Growers, football, cowboys, stuntmen, American plastics industry, the Furriers of North America.

The pictures varied, but usually they included the front of the building and a major organizer or representative. For example, for the Greyhound Hall of Fame he had a famous breeder and a very old greyhound—a scrawny thing with splotchy fur that had once had a great racing career. The Furriers stood in elegant fur coats, caressing small, nervous beasts. He was offered the teaching job right after that show, though not much has happened in his career since that.

We had been together for a little more than a year in Los Angeles. Before I met Matthew, I had been with many men. My father and Dottie and I moved back to California when I was sixteen, and while they thought I was going out with friends, I was sneaking in and out of the arms of strange
men on hilltops, in bungalows, on the beaches of Los Angeles. I was the perfect student. I got straight A's. And at night I slipped out and smoked dope with the Mexican gangs on the Venice Boardwalk. It was a kind of fix, something I had to have, though I was always attached to the ones who drifted away.