Only Children (39 page)

(“Wouldn’t I?”

(“I don’t know. Is that what you’re saying?”

(“What do you think? Or will you really never tell me what you think?”

(“I think all of this talk about getting rid of them are made-up feelings.”

(Peter tried to raise his head, but the weight of his soul held him down, vulnerable to her omniscient voice. “You do!”

(“I don’t think you want to be free of them. I think you make that up. You bring it to me because you think it’s naughty, and that’s fine. You can come here and say naughty things. You want your wife and son dead. You don’t want to see Rachel. Maybe some of these things you do want. But that’s not why you’re saying it.”)

That was thrilling. Therapy was more fun than life. He was glad not to have to see Rachel for a while. He could see Kotkin instead.

N
INA TOLD
Luke the truth. She explained that she had to go to school to learn how to make designs, that she wanted to do something, the way Daddy did something.

“But you take care of me,” Luke said.

She didn’t tiptoe. She said she had to do something besides be a mommy. She contradicted Eric’s halting, guilty speech of the previous night. Eric had told Luke that Mommy had to work, that people worked to make money, and money was needed to live. That wasn’t the truth. Nina couldn’t bear to hurt Luke—and pretend the hurt wasn’t intended. She didn’t bother to explain her logic to Eric; it wouldn’t be logic to him.

Luke’s blue jewels, shimmering with emotion, bravely held her in their light, wanting to know more. “What kind of designs?” he asked.

She showed him the dresses in her closet to illustrate. Luke made a game of it. He ran into the ocean of hanging fabrics, their hems washing over his head, waves of silk and wool and cotton. “Soft,” he said for the silk.

“Right, that’s silk.”

“Scratchy!”

“That’s wool.”

Luke paused under the cotton dress. His head popped inside, then appeared again. “Soft and scratchy. Like a towel.”

“Right! Very good description, Luke. That’s cotton. Towels are made of cotton.”

Luke ran into her legs and hugged her knees. “Mommy,” he said in his sweet, high trill, singing to her. “Mommy.”

“You want to see where I’ll be going?”

Luke looked shocked, as if she had offered something forbidden. He nodded cautiously, afraid of the admission. She took him to FIT and pointed to the featureless, undesigned buildings where her classes would be. After that, they ate in a coffee shop, a room of trapped air that had been heated and reheated. Its only color was a dull red—the vinyl booths, the pointless glass-colored panels, even the waiter’s jackets. Nina thought it funny that this masterpiece of ugliness was so near the Fashion Institute.

Luke adored the coffee shop. He smacked his lips with each sip of his chocolate milk shake, and exclaimed about each glass horror, each phony wood panel, and was delighted by the plastic container of artificial maple syrup made in the shape of a bear.

They took a taxi home. Luke’s energy waned, and with it, the props for his courage collapsed. The blue jewels’ glint was dulled by water, he leaned his head against her soft breasts, no longer hard with his sustenance, no longer able to soothe every hurt. He cried softly into her lap. She stroked his head and said nothing. Nothing she could say would be true.

Her head throbbed. She loved him, but she wished he would stop. Each tear burned her skin. Each sob punctured her heart.

And was it worth it? Was she really going to make something of her attempt at a career? The chances she would land any kind of job were probably slight. She had never really finished anything. Except for Luke, what crop had she sown and harvested?

And now I’m abandoning him, she thought, sighing as Luke stopped crying and fell into coma, his mouth open, his pacifier falling out. He was still such a baby: still in diapers, still with a plug in his mouth, still clutching his favorite stuffed animal in his crib.

If only Eric’s lie had been true. If only they needed the money. What a good, solid excuse for leaving.

Anyway, the value of a mother staying home, that was in the heads of men, magazines, talk-show-segment producers, and the women who wanted to stay home anyway. From the park she knew plenty of children whose mothers worked, and with lousy nannies as caretakers to boot. Still, those children functioned. They had problems. But Luke has problems. Maybe he’s got them because I stay home, she thought. A few weeks ago, Eric had come back from the park raving about Byron’s gregariousness. Nina admired Byron’s boldness too. Byron’s mother, whom Nina had never seen with Byron, worked. What harm had that done Byron? Apparently none. It was all blather. The mothers who left their children to work, and the mothers who left work for children—both groups claimed reasons beyond their own interests, as though nothing in life were done for the self.

I have to work. We need the money.

It’s better for my child, during these formative years, to have my full attention.

We’re having another child because I think it’s better not to be a precious only child. Studies have shown that—

The park was littered with women who talked like that. Nina held the limp soft pad of Luke’s hand in hers. It was still an exquisite miniature. Of course, sometimes, she wanted to make another baby, another finely worked masterpiece from the forge of her womb. Nothing she had ever done was like it. To repeat the triumph, why, it was pure ego, pure power. It’s better not to be an only child, indeed. She kissed the sleeping Luke’s hand. No, in this great big greedy world, it was impossible to find people who did things to satisfy their own desires.

Luke was a dead weight as Nina carried him out of the cab and into the building lobby.

“Ah, sleeping,” the old ladies of the lobby said. At the sound of their voices, Luke nestled against Nina’s breasts. They were smaller now than before she got pregnant, a percentage evaporated forever into his mouth. Another kid, and someone might consider her small-breasted. Three or four, and she’d be almost flat. Maybe not. Maybe there was some irreducible size, an invulnerable core. Luke stayed asleep all the way into his crib.

She hurried to clean the apartment. Pearl was due to come at noon. She hoped Luke would still be asleep. Pearl was supposed to start today, spend the next two weeks while Nina could stay at home, and let the transition to full care proceed gradually. Pearl arrived ten minutes early.

“He asleep?” she said right away.

“Yes,” Nina said.

“Well, I’d better start cleaning up,” Pearl said with an eager look at the living room Nina had just straightened, as if it were going to be a formidable task.

When Luke woke, he was, as usual, reluctant to embrace consciousness; his eyes rolled unmoored in his head, his body felt hot and boneless. Nina carried him past Pearl without making anything of her presence. Luke startled immediately. His back stiffened, his eyes docked on Pearl, and his fingers took hold of Nina with an insistent, and somewhat desperate, grip.

The truth, the truth. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.

“Mommy,” he answered.

Pearl was so smart. She waved a mute and gentle hello to Luke and then went on cleaning.

They sat together in a clinch for a long time and watched this big black woman work. Pearl disassembled the couch and vacuumed its naked bottom. Luke’s eyes got wide at the sight. Pearl found many lost pieces of his toys. She carried them to the sink, cleaned them, and then placed each one on the table in front of Luke, laid out in a line, evenly spaced, like jewels on Tiffany’s counter. Luke was delighted.

“That’s He-Man’s sword!” Luke said, his voice soaring up, octave above octave.

“That’s a sword!” Pearl said, shaking her head in wonder. “It’s not dangerous, is it?”

“Noooo!” Luke laughed, although his eyes teared. “It’s made of plastic,” he said.

“Plaster?” Pearl said, not used to Luke’s babyish pronunciations, sometimes chewing hard consonants into softness, sometimes stretching already long vowels into marathon journeys.

“Plastic!” Luke shouted, but the volume didn’t make his enunciation clearer.

“Plastic,” Nina said to help.

“Plastic!” Pearl understood. “You know what that is?”

Luke was still unaware that his vocabulary was precocious. He learned the words to understand and express himself, not to gain adult praise. Nina had done her best about that, shushing Eric, and Eric’s parents for that matter, when they began to exclaim at one of Luke’s sentences. Luke stared at Pearl with a puzzled frown. “Actually,” Luke said, although to anyone but Nina’s or Eric’s ears the word would sound Achtyewally, “it’s colored plastic.”

“Of course he does,” Nina said to begin Pearl’s training— namely, that the acquisition of knowledge was to be taken for granted. “Luke knows about wood and metal and plastic and tile and cotton and wool and silk. Everybody knows about those things.”

“And Formica,” Luke said.

Pearl queried Nina with her brows. “Formica,” Nina translated.

“My, my,” Pearl said, and looked into Nina’s eyes with a startled and impressed expression.

“We saw fake Formica today,” Luke said. This sentence took awhile to produce and obviously baffled Pearl.

“We went to a coffee shop where they had tables made of Formica, but the Formica was made to look like wood,” Nina said.

“That was good,” Luke judged.

“Uh-huh,” Pearl said. “Could you help me with something, Luke? I don’t know where you keep your toys, you know, where I should be putting all these things so you can find them. Would you show me?”

“Mommy,” Luke said, and grabbed her.

“Let’s go to your room and show Pearl where everything belongs.”

“Okay.” Luke relaxed at the assurance that Nina would also come.

Pearl smiled at Nina over Luke’s head as they flanked him in his slow waddle to his room. Once they were there, Luke’s energy surged, happy in his role of guide. Pearl knelt beside him and listened earnestly. She missed every third word, but each time asked Luke to repeat it. Then Luke began to misunderstand Pearl’s southern accent, her abbreviated vowels and softened consonants. Pearl sounded like a soothing mellow saxophone; Luke trilled above her restful melody, his song faster and gayer as he gained confidence in Pearl. They had to repeat a lot to each other, but Pearl began to make fun of her own pronunciations and somehow convinced Luke that the reason she had trouble understanding him was that she spoke so poorly.

Nina retired to the back of the room. At first, from time to time, Luke glanced in her direction or addressed his comment to her. Each time, Pearl answered before Nina could.

Nina felt herself start to disappear. She could imagine a day when time would pass faster than the second-by-second creep of Luke’s infancy; she could imagine a time when Luke might not need her. He talked and talked to Pearl. Now Pearl let him go on without asking for clearer repronunciations; she let his talk streak, his comfort increasing as they built a huge wood-block castle for He-Man. Nina knew Pearl had his confidence entirely when Luke said that Pearl could pretend she was She-Ra.

“Luke,” Nina said.

He almost gasped. Luke swiveled on the cushion of his diaper and looked scared. “What!”

“I’m going to take a nap. Do you want to take a nap with me?”

“No,” he said, his face darkening.

“Would you rather just keep playing with Pearl?”

“I’d like that,” Pearl said.

“Okay,” Luke said, reluctantly.

Nina walked out. She held her breath as she went into her bedroom—my God, to be alone in her own bedroom in the middle of the afternoon—and lay down.

There was a silence, ominous she feared, from Luke’s room. He might follow her any second.

Please, Luke, enjoy yourself.

“I have the power!” She heard his little voice soar. “I am He-Man!”

B
IG BOY
Byron grabs hold of the steel bar, cold to his touch, and swings at Mommy. He lets go and flies. The branches of the trees catch him.

Below Mommy calls, “Byron!” She is angry.

Byron drops at her, Big Cat Byron, claws out, ready to tear her; she collapses like an empty dress. And he can’t see, he can’t see!

Byron woke up into the dark. “Mommy,” he said.

Voices rumbled in the hallway. His penis was pressed on. He let go. The warmth spread everywhere; a hot bath like a hug kept him company. Daddy was home; that was his voice talking to Mommy.

You have to be changed, Byron.

Byron pushed at the blankets. They didn’t move.

Big boy Byron push. He used his special powers and kicked the bricks off him. He could break walls; he could smash buildings.

The warmth was going away. The floor was cold.

Mommy doesn’t like diapers. Dirty diapers. Byron pulled at his soft blue fur. It was wet at the rubber band. Get off me, slime.

His hands could be strong, made of metal—

He heard a baby cry. What baby? Mommy and Daddy have a baby?

He pulled them off, the pj’s, and his claws ripped the diaper Band-Aids out. The fluffy white was now damp. His penis and bottom felt cool and happy.

The baby cried. What baby?

“Mommy,” he said. No answer. Byron walked to his door and looked at the hallway. The floor was black in spots; the open door to the kitchen disappeared into nothingness. It was a long way to Mommy.

“I can’t,” his daddy said.

There was light around their door, glowing yellow, yellow pee door. Mommy was the baby. She was crying.

“I can’t,” his daddy said.

Byron felt fear. His body chilled; there were things behind him, reaching with their claws for his cold little body, for his little penis and bare behind.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! They’re going to eat me! Mommy! Help!”

The door exploded into light. Daddy came at him, making crashing sounds. “Byron, what is it?”

“I’m scared! I peed! I’m scared! Help me!”

Daddy picked him up; his clothes felt rough, but warm. Mommy was behind. Her face was right at his, meeting him at Daddy’s shoulder. Byron couldn’t see her eyes.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Mommy asked. “You had a bad dream?”