Living with Jackie Chan (23 page)

And he reminds me again.

Of Ellie.

Ben starts crying as we go through the huge sliding door and into the busy waiting room. There’s a long line just to check in with the receptionist. There are other babies in the waiting room, too, and it’s as if Ben’s cries urge them all on. Pretty soon there are three babies crying their heads off. I push Ben’s stroller up next to where the nurse left Stella so she can comfort him, but she’s looking more and more pale.

“Could you take him out of that thing?” Stella says through gritted teeth. “He probably needs a new diaper.”

“Uh . . .”

“We should check,” she says.

I unbuckle him and lift him up. He stops crying right away and reaches for my nose again.

“He likes you,” Stella says. “I guess he just wanted out.”

I stand there holding him under his arms, his legs dangling, my heart pounding all over again. He feels so . . . real. It’s the strangest thing, holding this small body. This living thing. With big, innocent eyes. And drool. And hands that reach for your nose, even though you’re a stranger.

“You’ve never held a baby before, have you?” Stella says, almost laughing.

“What gave you that impression?”

Ben smiles at me and swings his legs in the air.

“If you hold him against you on your hip, it’s a lot easier,” Stella says. “Like that.” She motions to a woman ahead of us with a baby teetering on her hip.

“Oh, OK.” I try to hold him the right way, and it’s true, it’s a lot easier once his weight is resting on my hip. Ben pats my shoulder and makes a
ga-ga
noise, then leans his head against me.

You’ve never held a baby before.

No. I never have.

“Next!” A lady behind a window in the wall calls. We move up in line, and pretty soon we get called over. Stella provides her insurance card and answers a million questions. A nurse comes over to us and gives Stella’s foot a quick look. “Can you take the shoe off?” she asks. Stella starts to try, but then yells in pain.

“OK,” the nurse says. “Let’s get you taken care of. Is this your baby?” she asks. “He’s a cutie.” She winks at me.

“God, no,” Stella says. “I was babysitting when it happened. This is just my friend. He can watch the baby for me.”

Back up. First, I’m glad she referred to me as her friend, at least. But more importantly, I can what, now?

The nurse nods. “All right, honey.”

Before I can object, before I can say,
Hey! I don’t know how to do this! I only just learned how to hold the kid, for Christ’s sake!
the nurse is wheeling Stella away, leaving me alone with Ben.

He pats my chest with his chubby hand again. “Ba,” he says. I smell this powdery smell that’s sweet and different from anything I’ve smelled before, and I know it’s coming from him. Suddenly, his weight feels like more than I can hold. This life, in my arms. He squeezes my sleeve in his fist.

“Easy, there,” I say.

He smiles at me. His eyes are deep, dark brown. When I look in them, I know he is seeing straight into my soul. Seeing who I really am. This baby. This life holding on to me. Needing me.

I look around, thinking maybe someone can help me find Stella. Because I know I can’t do this. I can’t. Even though it’s not the same hospital, it looks the same. It smells the same. It sounds the same. And I know somewhere, down some corridor, there is a nursery. Just like —

“Ga,” Ben says. “Da.” He touches his tiny pointy finger to my cheek. It’s wet. I quickly wipe my eyes before anyone can notice.

I carry him into the waiting area, pulling the stroller behind me. I find a place to sit in a corner, where some other mom is holding a baby and talking to another little kid who keeps banging a plastic doll against his mom’s knees. “Stop it, Kenny,” she says. But he doesn’t.

When I sit next to her, she gives me a dirty look, like I’m invading her space. I shift Ben on my lap and glance around. Two other babies are still crying. One mom looks frazzled and scared; the other one looks bored. There are a lot of old people, too, staring blankly at the TV screen on the wall. It smells in here like sweat and Dave’s feet. There’s a drunk guy on the other side of the room who yells out every few seconds, then closes his eyes again.

As far as waiting rooms go, this one pretty much sucks.

Ben squirms for me to let him down. He teeters on his fat little legs, holding on to my knees to balance himself. He smiles up at me, like he’s all that. “Pretty good,” I say. He wobbles some more and then almost topples over, but I catch him. He laughs and tries again. And again and again about a million times. But at least he’s not crying.

After a while, there’s a new smell in the room, and right away I know what it is and pray it’s not coming from Ben. Because, hello? I’ve never changed a diaper before, and I don’t even know if there are any clean ones in the stroller.

The lady next to me wrinkles her nose. “You need to change him,” she says. “That’s nasty.”

Shit.

I pick him up again and check out the stroller for a diaper bag, but I don’t see anything like that in there. Ben starts to cry. “Hey, it’s OK, bud,” I say.

The lady’s kid starts to cry, too, but this kid is surprisingly smart and actually pulls at his pants as if to tell his mom he’s the one with the problem.

“Really, Kenny?” the mom asks.

He has a pacifier in his mouth, so he just nods. She sighs and heaves herself up.

“Want me to save your seat?” I ask. She gives me that same dirty look. What the hell? It’s not my problem her kid needs a new diaper.

Ben is still crying, tugging at me and fussing. Finally, I realize he’s just trying to get comfortable. He pulls himself onto me so we’re chest to chest, then rests his head on my shoulder, squirming a bit until his head nestles into the side of my neck. I feel his warm breath against my skin. I take my own deep breath. But my throat is tightening up in a familiar ache. I think of the rocking chair creaking above me back at Larry’s and gently try to rock him. He makes a satisfied noise. I pat his back a little until he gets heavier and heavier, and then his breathing gets steady and I know he’s asleep. I shift so I can lean farther back in the chair. He feels so heavy on top of me. So solid. And warm.

The drunk guy yells out. People come and go. But Ben keeps still, breathing in his steady way. His heartbeat thumping against my chest. My own heart.

Is this what it would be like? Is this what I missed?

Ben must be close to a year old. About the same age as — as my baby would be.

I see him again in the tiny plastic bed with all the other babies. His small fist poking out of the blanket. And I see me walking away. Over and over, I see me walking away.

Ben makes a noise in his sleep. I shift and smell his baby-powder smell again. Feel the solidness of him pressed against me. Trapping me in the chair.

Yes. This is what I missed.

I breathe in again, and close my eyes to keep from crying, it hurts so much.

This is what I missed.

I wake up to the touch of someone’s hand on my shoulder.

“Sir? Your friend is ready to go.” It’s the nurse from earlier.

I sit up slowly, the weight of Ben hot and heavy on my chest.

Stella waves from the other side of the room. She’s sitting in the wheelchair with a pair of crutches across her lap. I stand up awkwardly, trying not to wake Ben, but it doesn’t really work and he starts to cry. I reach for the stroller but the nurse says, “Let me get that, hon,” and pushes it ahead of us.

“Is he OK?” Stella asks when we’ve finally made our way through the maze of people and kids in the waiting room.

“Yeah. Are you?”

She shrugs and looks down at her foot, which has an ice pack bandaged around it. “Good thing brown-belt tests were last week,” she says. “And I need a new pair of shoes. But other than that, I’m fine. No broken bones, at least.”

I put Ben in the stroller and right away my chest feels cold where he was against me. And empty. I follow the nurse as she wheels Stella outside and helps us find a bench to sit on. When the nurse leaves us, Stella checks her phone.

Some things never change.

“Phew,” she says. “Gene’s on his way. I was hoping he’d get my message.”

Oh.

“So, how did this accident happen again?” I ask.

Stella turns away from me just like she did before. But this time, her shoulders start shaking because she’s crying. I’m not sure if I should try to hug her, or pat her back, or what. So I don’t do anything. As usual.

“I’m such an idiot,” she says.

I pick at a scab on my arm.

“Thanks for disagreeing.”

“Sorry.” I watch a trickle of blood slowly seep out from the newly exposed cut. “Why are you an idiot?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She turns back to me.

I cover the cut with my hand. “Britt went crazy, huh?”

“Kind of. Yeah.”

“What tipped him over the edge?”

“He found out I applied to a school he didn’t.”

“That’s it?”

“I told him I’m going. It’s my dream school. I never thought I’d get in. That’s why I didn’t tell him. I just wanted to see, you know. If I could do it. I wasn’t even planning to go if I got in. But . . . they offered me a scholarship. A good one.”

“That’s great!” I say. “Wow! What school?”

“Sarah Lawrence. In New York.”

She smiles when she says it, like she can’t stop herself, she’s so pleased.

“I’m psyched for you, Stell. That’s really amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“So . . . Britt wasn’t too thrilled, I take it.”

“He totally freaked out. He can’t believe I don’t want to go to school with him.”

“So he ran over your foot?”

“That really was an accident. I was trying to make him stay so I could talk to him. I had my hand on the door handle, and he took off and happened to roll over my foot.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s so over. He’ll never talk to me again. Not after this. He really feels betrayed.”

“But . . . he should be excited for you! You got into your dream school. And you got a scholarship!”

“He doesn’t see it that way. He thinks I should sacrifice my dream so we can be together.” She says it in a sad way. Like she really is disappointed in him.

“Are you going to be OK?”

“Me? Yeah. I think something like this was bound to happen.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you were right. He’s too controlling. I was blind to it for a long time. But I get it now. I didn’t want it to be true. He seemed like the perfect boyfriend for so long. But things just kept getting more and more intense. I felt like I was drowning, and he was the one with his hand on my head, holding me underwater.”

I’m not sure what to say to that, so I just lean back and squint at the sky.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying. I feel so . . . relieved.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks and looks up with me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was the worst friend ever. I can’t believe you don’t hate me.”

“Only a little,” I say.

She elbows me in her usual way. “And thanks for watching Ben for me. I know how you feel about babies and all, so thanks.”

“What do you mean, ‘how I feel about babies’?”

“How you freak out around them?”

Oh. That.

“What’s that all about, anyway?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right.”

I look out at the parking lot, down at my filthy sneakers. Anywhere but in her direction.

“Hey,” she says. “Sorry to bring it up. I know it’s none of my business.”

My hand sticks to my arm where the blood is drying. I pull it away and look down at the palm print of blood left there.

“What did you do?” Stella asks, inspecting my arm.

“Just broke a scab,” I say. I wipe my hand on my jeans.

“You’re so weird.”

“I know.”

We sit there quietly, awkwardly, until Gene pulls up in his car. He jumps out and runs over to Stella. “Are you OK? Oh, my God!” He hugs her, then inspects her foot. “Is it broken?”

“No, just bruised.”

“Aw, Stell. How did this happen?”

She shrugs. “It was an accident.”