The Nakeds (20 page)

And Elmer walked away, but not before flipping Martin the bird.

WHILE DUKE
slept upstairs, the three of them ate an uncomfortable dinner at the dining room table. Hannah and her dad were dressed in day clothes, but Christy wore a fuzzy yellow robe. On the wall, just above Hannah’s chair, the baby monitor transmitted every sound the boy made. When they first sat down, he cried a little, and Christy ignored him and Asher jumped up and rushed to the monitor, leaning over Hannah while she peppered her steak. He shushed them both, which wasn’t necessary because they weren’t talking.

When Asher sat back down, he made an effort at conversation. It was all so stilted and made Hannah miss her mom and Azeem—even when they bickered or disagreed or roamed the house naked.

“I bet you’re looking forward to getting out of that thing, Hannah. You’ve been through so much,” Asher said, looking over at Christy. “Hasn’t she been through a lot?”

“She has,” Christy said unenthusiastically.

There was silence.

They cut their meat.

They chewed.

They passed the bowl of peas and avoided eye contact.

Christy buttered a piece of bread, her eyes moist, looking like she was about to cry.

Asher reached around Hannah to grab the mashed potatoes. He scooped an extra-big serving onto his already very full plate. “Have another slice of meat, Hannah,” he said.

“No, no, I have enough,” she said.

“She doesn’t like it,” Christy said, more to herself than to anyone else.

“I have enough, that’s all,” she insisted.

“Delicious,” Asher said.

Hannah nodded in agreement, smiling weakly.

There was more silence.

And some more.

Christy adjusted her heavy breasts in the robe and sighed.

Finally, Hannah asked him about what it was like being a new dad, and he said, “Remember, I was yours,” and Hannah said, “I forgot,” not meaning that she really forgot but that it must have been different now because he was older and more attentive and living in a beige house in Irvine and his wife, who used to be too sweet, was sour and scary, but she just said, “That’s not what I meant. I meant, he’s a boy.”

When Christy finished eating one piece of bread, she quickly reached for another. It seemed she was in a race. At one point, she reached into the basket, searched around, and found nothing. “There’s more,” she said, jumping up from her chair and hurrying away. Hannah heard the oven door squeak open and slam shut, Christy’s slippers slapping on the kitchen tile, and then she was back at the table, setting the basket down. “There’s more where that came from,” she said.

“I’m sure,” Asher said.

“What does that mean?” she snapped.

“There’s more bread is what it means.”

Christy reached into the basket, pulled a piece from the loaf, then used a flat knife to slather a slice with butter, and Hannah could see the tip of her pink tongue at the side of her mouth, anticipating.

“What are you staring at, Hannah?” Christy said, chewing and talking at once.

“Nothing.”

“Just what’s so interesting?”

Hannah was quiet. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“If you’re not staring at anything, there’s no need to apologize,” Christy said.

Asher leaned across the table and rested his hand on Christy’s hand. “Don’t be upset. Let’s try to have a nice dinner.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, snatching her hand away.

“Let’s just eat and enjoy Hannah’s visit.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Christy said, her voice cracking. “I
am
upset. And I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just hungry—is that so wrong?” she said, tears streaking her face.

Hannah lifted her napkin from her lap and wiped her mouth. “I’m sorry, Christy,” she said again.

“I need to keep up my strength—that’s why I’m eating. I’m so hungry. You can’t imagine how hungry I am,” Christy said. “Breast-feeding is draining. I don’t even have the energy to get dressed in the morning. I’ve got five of these fucking robes in different colors.”

Christy wiped her eyes. She blew her nose into a napkin.

“Your mother didn’t breast-feed you, Hannah. Did you know that?” Asher said, obviously trying to change the subject.

“I didn’t know,” Hannah said.

“I told Nina she should try to make it work, but one dot of blood on her nipple and she sent me out for formula. A mother should try,” he said. “They say when a baby’s breast-fed, he’s smarter and has a better immune system. You’re smart enough, certainly—but you might have been Einstein.”

“I’m glad I’m not Einstein,” Hannah said, feeling annoyed.

“You still into bugs? Still reading about insects?” Christy said, sniffling.

“She’ll probably be a doctor or scientist,” Asher said. “You want to be a scientist?”

“I don’t think so,” Hannah said.

“God knows you can be whatever you want to be.”

“
God knows,
yes,
God knows,
” Christy said, mocking. “We know how smart you are. God knows I hear about how smart you are daily.”

“She
is
smart,” Asher said. “So I like to talk about how smart she is? When Duke’s bigger, I’m sure he’ll be smart too.”

“He’ll never be as smart as this one here,” Christy said, pointing at Hannah with her fork, looking like she was going to cry again. “He won’t be reading science texts at ten, I’ll tell you that.”

“Who knows what he’ll be reading?” Asher put both palms flat on the table and spoke softly. “He’s going to be fine, brilliant maybe, a scholar—who knows? And you’re going to feel better too, honey,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she said weakly.

He glanced at her robe then, where a splatter of steak sauce rested just beneath her breast. Hannah could tell he didn’t know whether to mention it or not. He paused. Took a sip of water. He couldn’t take it, Hannah knew; looking at the splotch was hurting him. “You’ve got a stain, honey,” he finally said, pointing at her chest.

Christy looked down. She snatched the napkin from her lap and dipped a corner into her water glass. She was rubbing at the stain and rubbing at the stain, only making it worse. “Damn it,” she said.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and put on one of the others? You’ve got four pretty robes up there that aren’t stained.” Asher’s voice was sticky-sweet, like he wasn’t talking to an adult at all, but to a child.

“OK. Yes,” she said.

“Good girl,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Christy said. “I’ll go upstairs and change. Maybe I’ll even take a shower.”

“Good, good,” Asher said.

“Your dad is right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so fucking weird.”

“Honey, please don’t say the
f
-word. You never used to say that. It’s Nina who likes that word,” Asher said.

“Stop bringing up my mother,” Hannah said.

“Sorry,” he said.

Christy looked at him. “You know, Asher, it’s just a word. It took me years to realize it, but it’s just a fucking word. It’s the least harmful thing I do these days, saying
fuck
.” Her voice was strangely calm.

“I don’t know why the three of us can’t just talk to each other and enjoy each other’s company.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” Christy said. “I’m going upstairs. I’ll take a nice fucking shower and put on a different fucking robe.”

“Oy,” Asher said.

Once they were alone at the table, her dad finished off what were now certainly cold mashed potatoes. Hannah’s appetite had disappeared. She moved her peas around with her fork and wished she was with her mom and Azeem.

Asher put his spoon down and looked at her. “It’s
shpilkes,
is what it is. It’s nervous energy. Christy’s condition won’t last forever, thank God. Her hormones need to level off, that’s all. The doctor says it’s temporary.”

“I’m sure it is,” Hannah said.

“A few more difficult weeks—that’s all.”

“You’ll survive,” she said.

“I’d like my cheerful wife back, that’s for sure. I don’t know who that woman is.”

•  •  •

In the morning, while Christy and Duke slept, Asher talked to Hannah about Jesus. Her salvation had been on his mind a lot lately, he said. He wanted to discuss waiting until you’re married and saving the unborn and the lifelong union, despite any problems, he had with Christy.

“Last night, you didn’t know who she was,” Hannah said.

“Didn’t mean it,” he said.

She looked at him.

“Even when a conflict seems insurmountable, it’s not,” he continued. “Not if there’s love there. It’s a mountain you climb. It’s a wave you ride.”

It was my mother you cheated on,
Hannah thought while he spoke.

He wanted to talk about bright, sweet Heaven and Noah, those animals, and all that water spilling across the world. He quoted Minister Craig, repeated what the man said just last Sunday from behind the podium about sin and culpability.

“Isn’t that the guy who predicted Duke would be a girl?” Hannah said.

“So he’s not a fortune teller,” he said.

Still, Asher wanted Hannah to see the beautiful stained-glass windows his church recently had cleaned and their shiny new pews and, mostly, he wanted her to see what he called
the light
.

“I’m a Jew,” Hannah said.

“Well . . .” he said.

And then she thought about it. “Actually, I like science.”

“The daughter of a dentist,” he said. “Of course you do.”

“A lot,” she added.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I believe in science, Daddy.”

He looked at her. He shook his head.

“I
believe
Darwin, is what I mean.”

“You know, Hannah, you can ask Jesus into your heart and like science at the same time. You can believe Darwin too.”

“Jesus isn’t for me.”

“
Mishegas!
He’s for everyone.”

“He’s not,” she said.

“You’re young—you don’t yet know what’s for you.”

“I know what’s
not
for me,” she insisted.

He shook his head.

“I’m an atheist,” she admitted finally.

Her father got up from the couch and stood, staring down at her, his hand on his heart. “Be Jewish,” he said. “At least be Jewish,” he begged.

AFTER HANNAH’S
visit, Christy’s depression escalated. Asher found his wife hunched over the crib with her face just inches from the baby’s face, screaming for him to
shut the fuck up
. Christy fell to her knees, sobbing and rattling the bars of the crib. Asher rushed over, horrified, and pulled his wife to her feet.

“Don’t yank me,” she said. “You get your hands off me!” she hollered. And then, just like that, she punched him in the face.

His eye was still black, he told Hannah on the phone. “Better me than my baby,” he said.

He was talking to Hannah in a way he hadn’t talked to her before, like she was his friend and confidant, and it made her feel mature and necessary. He was candid, using surprising detail, using words like
postpartum depression, hormones,
and
scientific studies
. He told her that Christy was in the hospital for what he hoped would be a brief stay. Christy was resting, he said. Hannah knew exactly what hospital he was talking about—the massive white building with the tall pillars and marble lions—the loony bin on the hill in Newport Beach. Everyone knew about that hospital. It was where the rich loonies went to rest.

So Christy was resting and Asher had to sit by her bedside and watch her rest and Christy’s own mother and father were staying in the beige house and helping Asher take care of Duke and hopefully not telling him to shut the fuck up when he cried and they were staying until Christy was rested, well-rested enough to return home and not shout at the baby or shake his crib.

At first, Asher admitted, he didn’t want Christy to go to the hospital, he wanted her to spend more time with Minister Craig, but when he suggested this, Christy called Minister Craig a fucking idiot, saying that she had already talked to Minister Craig and he was useless. She couldn’t stop eating or screaming or wanting the baby to disappear, and whatever was wrong with her had nothing to do with Jesus.

Take me to that fucking place on the hill,
she told Asher.

Get me the fuck out of here.

FOR THE
first few years Martin was away, he sent postcards to Penny because the girls on the bar stools only made him miss her more. He sent cards with the Strip and the hotels and the slot machines and the farmers’ market that went up on Saturday mornings, and then he found a mall with a specialty shop where they had handmade greeting cards from all around the world. He bought cards from Bangladesh and India and Japan, and he sent her those and wrote lies on them:
Within the month, I’ll be here. I’m going here next.

But he never left the Strip, and Penny got married and quickly divorced, and then she got married to someone else. This time for good, she wrote back. She had three children in four years and told Martin their names: Randall, Rudy, and Renee. She wrote that they lived across the street from a Buddhist temple and that watching the hairless men in their robes walking the temple dog sometimes made her sad. She told him that she was head nurse now and it involved a lot of responsibility. She was busy. She was very busy these days. She told Martin that she loved her husband.

Finally she wrote him a curt note on a thick piece of stationery, asking him to stop sending postcards, saying that her husband didn’t like opening the mailbox and seeing Martin’s signature and didn’t appreciate the way he signed his name with the word
love.

The girls Martin met were usually tourists, just passing through, a weekend, three nights, four nights at the most. He met them in bars and sometimes casinos. They liked to drink and often did things with him that they’d never have done at home, they said.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me,
one claimed.