Every Time We Say Goodbye (6 page)

“Don’t be silly,” Vera said. “I’ve just put on a little weight.” But she pressed her hands against her thickened waist.

In March, there was a little thaw, and Grace’s hands and feet grew puffy. She flailed in bed like a flipped-over bug and finally rigged a belt to the dresser so she could hoist herself up. She woke up one morning with a single sharp pain, and by the end of the day, Dr. McCabe was there. Vera held her hand while Grace writhed. She had no idea how long it lasted. In a way, it was like the bliss: the self dissolved, not into a marble castle, but into a dark place of pain. The pain was thick and solid, with streaks of darker pain. There was no room for thought. Time stopped completely and only started again when Vera sat her up and told her the baby was coming. “Push now, Grace,” she said, and a wave towered over her and came crashing down, and at the end of the wave, she pushed and was torn open.

Vera said, “It’s a boy! Oh Grace, it’s a beautiful boy!” The doctor spoke, but she couldn’t hear him properly. Her face and hair and nightgown were soaked, and she was freezing. She had to push again, and then it was over. Vera pulled her out of the tangle of sheets and stripped off her wet nightgown. Grace
shivered and tried to stop sobbing. “It’s all right now, Grace. It’s finished. The baby’s fine. He’s with the doctor,” Vera said, buttoning Grace into an old flannel shirt. She stripped the bed and remade it. “You sleep now,” she said, and guided Grace back to bed. Grace felt blankets being piled on top of her, and she closed her eyes and fell straight into darkness.

Hardly any time later, Vera woke her. She put a loaf of bread wrapped in a white towel into Grace’s arms. The bread was still warm from the oven. “He needs to be fed,” Vera said, and Grace looked down, bleary-eyed. It was the baby. It had dark golden hair and a red, furrowed face, and it moved its head back and forth, mewling. “For heaven’s sake, Grace, you have to—here, like this.” Vera unbuttoned the flannel shirt and pushed Grace’s nipple into the baby’s mouth. Grace gasped when the mouth closed in on her. For such a small thing, it had a fierce hunger. When the baby finished, Vera lifted it out of her arms and told her to go back to sleep.

The sound of crying pinched her awake some time later. Vera was in the doorway. “Wake up, Grace.” She waited until Grace was sitting up. “Hold his head properly.” Grace moved her arm under its head. Its eyes were closed, but it sucked ferociously for a long time. Vera straightened the sheets and refolded the extra blankets. “Frank and I were talking about a name. We were thinking about Daniel.”

Grace said, “Look.” When she touched the baby’s palm, it seized her finger.

“So that’s settled, then,” Vera said. “Daniel.”

Grace tried to pull her finger out of the baby’s fist but could not. She wondered how it knew to hold on like that.

The baby slept in the cradle in the front room, and Vera brought it upstairs when it cried. Grace fed the baby, and Vera fed Grace. She carried in trays of oatmeal, poached eggs and toast,
milky tea and custard. In between feedings, Grace dozed. “I’m run off my feet,” Vera told Frank happily. “But he’s such a good baby!”

If Vera did not bring the baby right away, the crying made Grace’s heart race; her hands and legs were jangly, and she squirmed and pulled at the bedsheets until Vera brought it, and Grace got her nightgown unbuttoned, and the baby turned its head and latched itself onto her. As soon as the crying stopped, the pins and needles in her limbs disappeared and she could breathe again. Vera said, “I’ll come back and get him when he’s finished.”

Grace didn’t mind this part. The baby was warm in her arms, and although her nipples had ached and chafed at first, they didn’t anymore. She put her face close to its head and breathed in deeply. It had its own sweet smell under the smell of white soap. When Vera lifted the baby out of her arms, the place where it had been grew quickly cold.

Sometimes, her milk started running before the baby even cried. Something let go in her breasts, and just as milk began to leak out, the baby would cry. She wondered at this. She wondered about the baby. Sometimes, when the baby stopped feeding, she didn’t call Vera right away. She examined its tiny fingers and ears and touched the strands of dark blond hair. It knew how to drink, how to hold on. If she touched the side of its cheek, it turned its face towards her hand. She wondered what else it knew.

She heard the baby crying, and when Vera didn’t bring him, she got out of bed and stood at the top of the stairs. “Vera?” she called. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s fine,” Vera called back. “I just gave him a bath. Go on back to bed.”

Grace’s heart was hammering. She went downstairs and found the baby wrapped in white flannel in the cradle in the front room. His eyes were closed and his face was red; he was crying
with all his might. “Vera?” she called. “Vera!” She could hear Vera rummaging in the root cellar. Grace drew in a tattered breath and lifted him up. Instantly, he stopped crying and pushed his hot little face into her breast.
He knows who I am
, she thought, astonished. Sinking into the chair beside the cradle, she unbuttoned her nightgown and the baby opened his mouth.

The door opened and Vera came in, a basket of empty jam jars in her arms.

“Grace! What are you doing?”

“He’s hungry.”

“You have to let him cry, Grace. You can’t come to him every time he cries. That’s how you spoil him,” Vera said. “Next time, leave him be.”

The baby stopped drinking and looked at Grace. His eyes were the colour of dark slate, and she could see that he already knew everything in the world.

D
anny smelled of sleep and milk and a lemony sweetness. His skin was white and pink, and more golden hair was coming in, soft and feathery. Just before he yawned, a tiny frown of concentration appeared between his eyebrows. When Grace lifted her shirt to feed him, he squirmed and kicked impatiently. His eyes looked for her, and when they found her, he smiled, and every time Grace laughed. She unwrapped his blanket, examined his feet and hands, kissed his fingers. She could not get enough of him. The cradle was in her room now—she had carried it upstairs herself, over Vera’s objections—but most often he slept in the bed beside her. She fell asleep listening to his breath, and a prickling in her skin always woke her just before he cried.

Outside, the snow had melted away completely, and the light was warm on the windows. Grace was a whirl of energy. She did everything Vera asked. She swept the floor and beat the
carpet so she could put a clean blanket down and settle the baby on it. She raked stones out of the soil and planted carrots and potatoes so the baby would have food when he was ready to eat it. She watched Vera cut out a pattern for a baby jumper and said, “Let me make it, Vera.” Vera showed her how to fit the seams together, and Grace’s needle flew in and out, making small, even stitches. Vera borrowed Mrs. McCabe’s camera and Frank took their picture, Vera and Grace in front of a rose bush with Danny between them in the jumper they had made for him.

The moment Grace was done her work, she raced to where Danny was, usually on a blanket surrounded by pillows in the front room. If he was asleep, she lay down beside him and watched his eyes move under their lids. If he was awake, she carried him around the house, showing him things. He liked brightly lit places, but only if there was something dark as well, so that his eyes could follow the edges. He liked things that dangled, and reached his round little hands out for them, and things that moved, like curtains when the window was open. And he liked surprising sounds. Grace sneezed, and Danny let out a peal of laughter.

Vera said, “Close the window, Grace.” Babies needed fresh air, but fresh air carried germs. They needed to be wrapped up against the cold, but they also had to be able to kick their legs. Their hands had to be free, but they weren’t allowed to suck on them. They had to be fed, but on schedule, held properly but not too much. Otherwise, they would be spoiled. Vera was especially worried about spoiling. She told Frank, “I have to watch her constantly. She carries him around like he’s a doll, and the minute she puts him down, he fusses. If she keeps this up …” She didn’t finish. The booklets from Mrs. McCabe explained what would happen if Grace kept this up.

When Vera held Danny, her face changed, softening with the sheer pleasure of him, and she murmured and sang to him, and
Grace felt bad for wanting to keep her away from the baby. So she listened and nodded when Vera said, “Listen to this, Grace. This was written by a doctor. ‘Babies under six months old should never be played with, and of kissing, the less the better.’ Do you hear that, Grace? And here you are, playing with him like he’s a toy and kissing him all the time. You don’t want to ruin him, do you, Grace?”

“No,” Grace said. She waited for Vera to leave the room before she kissed him.

“Listen, Grace: ‘A really contrary infant might try for an hour, or even for two or three hours, to get the best of his mother by crying. She must never give in, provided she is convinced that nothing is physically amiss with the child. Habitual criers should be left alone most of the time; otherwise, they might become nervous.’ ” Vera looked up from the book. “You see? Do you want him to be nervous? Now put him down.”

Grace put the baby down. The trick was to always be waiting, to be listening for that catch in his breath and watching for the shadow that darkened his face before he cried. The trick was to get to him just before he cried, whisk him away, upstairs, downstairs, wherever Vera was not, to feed him and rock him and kiss him, and then to put him back in his cradle before Vera got back. “You see how much more peaceful he is,” Vera asked, “now that you aren’t picking him up every minute of the day?”

It was hard to get to him, though, when Vera sent her outside to pick tomatoes. It was hard when Frank said, “Vera says you’re spoiling the baby.” It got worse when Vera found her in the root cellar, feeding Danny on the steps. “Grace! Have you gone mad? Bringing the baby down here?” Vera’s astonishment grew into fury. “And you just fed him! This is why he won’t stay on his schedule. Give him over!” But Grace would not give him over. She took Danny upstairs, leaving Vera yelling on the steps.

That night, when Frank came home, there was no dinner. Vera had been in her room all afternoon. Frank looked at Grace playing with Danny in the kitchen and rushed upstairs. Over by the windows, Grace could hear Frank’s low murmur in the room above, but no matter where she stood, she couldn’t hear Vera at all. When Frank came downstairs, he looked like all the air had been sucked out of him. “You’ve really upset her, Grace. Her nerves are shot.” When she didn’t look up, he said, “Grace. She just wants what’s best for the baby. You know that.”

Grace did know it. The problem was Vera’s idea of best.

The next morning, the baby began to cry just as she started to water the beans, but when she hurried to the house, she found the door locked. Her skin prickled and her breasts were heavy. The prickling spread over her chest, up her neck, down her arms to her hands. She pounded on the door while the needles multiplied under her skin. “Please, Vera,” she begged. Inside, Danny’s cries grew louder. She ran around to the front door, but it too was locked. She had never heard Danny cry so hard before. Grace hammered the door with the palm of her hand and then kicked it furiously. “Let me in!” she screamed. Vera appeared at the window. “That is enough!” she hissed. “Stop it this instant or I’ll leave you out there all day.”

She slammed the window shut.

Danny cried and Grace threw herself to the ground under the sun. This was the place people meant when they said hell. Eventually, the door opened and Vera let her in. Grace pushed past her. “Don’t you dare wake him,” Vera said. Grace sat by the cradle and watched Danny sleep. His face was flushed and damp with sweat. “I’m sorry, Danny,” she whispered. “I heard you crying, but I couldn’t come.”

At dinner, Frank looked up from his soup. “What happened to you, Grace? Your face and arms are covered with bites.”

Grace said, “It’s nothing.” It was the needles that broke through her skin while Danny cried for her.

Vera looked at her closely. “Poison ivy. Don’t touch the baby until it goes away. It’s time he took the bottle anyway.” Her voice was as flinty as her face.

Grace covered her eyes with her hands.

Vera showed Grace the bottles and rubber nipples, which had to be sterilized, and the powdered formula, which had to be mixed up with cooled boiled water. “He’s six months old now. Formula is better for him,” Vera said. “And it’s so much more sanitary.” But Danny would not take the bottle, sanitary or not. He pushed the rubber out of his mouth and cried and cried. Vera was not bothered. “He’ll take it when he gets hungry enough.”

Danny cried all day. Grace’s face and arms were flaming red, her eyes swollen from crying. “What a fuss you make,” Vera said. “Do you think I’m doing this to hurt Danny? Anyway, crying is how babies exercise their lungs. Stop that caterwauling, Grace.” Finally, Danny closed his mouth around the rubber nipple and drank.

“You see how much better he sleeps now?” Vera said the next morning. “He didn’t wake at all last night, did he?” But he had woken. And Grace was awake seconds before him. So for a few weeks, Danny drank from the bottle during the day, and Grace fed him at night, and Vera was happy until she turned on the light in the middle of the night and found them. She grabbed Danny and slammed the door behind her. In the morning, she said, “You think I’m being hard, Grace, but he has to have proper food. He’s going to eat baby food now and learn to drink from a cup. Otherwise, he’s not going to grow properly.”

Grace said, “He
is
growing. Every day he gets bigger.”

Vera brought out the booklet from Mrs. McCabe. “Look here.
Scientists have made this formula. Do you think you know better than scientists?”

Grace turned the booklet over. It had the same cover as the box of formula. She said, “But I’m right there at night. I can just feed him.”

Vera had a solution to that. It was time for Danny to sleep in his own room. “Babies have to learn to be independent.” She said the sewing room would be Danny’s room, Grace’s room would be the sewing room, and Grace could move up to the attic room. Frank moved Grace’s bed and dresser. “You always said you liked it up here,” Frank said. The room was big, the length of the whole house, with light at both ends. “And you’ll have your privacy.” But Grace didn’t want her privacy. She wanted to scream. She squeezed her fists and pressed them into her eyes until the sockets hurt.