The Baby

(by Paula Mirk)

Author’s reading

I imagined myself each morning, emerging from my one-month basement rental as from a cave. I’d surely feel exhilarated just to be on a New Jersey sidewalk instead of in the woods, to be looking across the river at Manhattan’s gleaming skyscrapers instead of the White Mountains. I couldn’t wait to hurry down 59th street, Union City, past a corner market with its bins of plantains and its cashier swathed in a sari.

I might meet Pete in the stairwell when I arrived for my shift.

“How was your night?” my voice would echo up the steps.

He’d run a hand across weary eyes. “Good! Almost four hours straight!” He’d smile and head to the bus, to his job in the city.

It was me making Meredith smoothies, letting her rest while I looked after the baby, greeting her morning nap with a big sandwich or homemade soup. Afternoons, I was the one making her lie down again while I put an amazing meal in the oven. That was how it was supposed to be. My daughter, after all. My first grandchild.

I called my husband from the hospital waiting room, embarrassed for feeling so forlorn. “Why did it have to be a C-section?” As if that was the main thing. I tried to admonish myself: At least everybody was okay. But into the phone I said, “It’s just that I was in a quadrant on that paper she sent. I was in the birthing plan!”

“Who came up with birthing plans, anyway?” Mike asked to calm me. “Did we have a birthing plan?”

“No, not even a regular plan,” I said.

In Meredith’s recovery room, Pete balanced the baby on one arm, his other thumb working his phone. “What about this rash on his face?”

“What about it?” Meredith whispered, from the hospital bed.

“I mean, what do you think about it?” His thumb moved faster and his eyebrows arched. “What if it spreads?”

Pete was supposed to hand the baby off to me when he was on the Internet, wasn’t he? I took a step closer.

Meredith said, “Babies get skin stuff sometimes; don’t worry so much.” Dropping off to sleep she added, “Maybe there’s a cream to put on it.” 

Pete’s eyes widened as he read. “He could have something called harlequin ichthyosis.”

The door swung open. “Hey, sis, where do you want these?” Jimmy peeked around a bouquet of sunflowers and baby’s breath. She roused, smiled her soft smile.   

Pete’s neck stretched. “Dude,” he said, extending his phone to Jimmy. “Does this look like what the baby has?”

I tried not to sound hostile. “The baby’s in a hospital surrounded by medical care. I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay.”

Nobody seemed to hear me.

---

Next morning, I walked to the reservoir and called Mike.

“You’d be so proud,” I said. “Nobody with an unexpected C-section could ever be as graceful.” Two runners swished by as I thought of the quiet way she’d showed me her stitches without a complaint.

“Pete’s decided to stay home for the first month,” I said, and my voice wobbled. Hi, there, new baby boy, I thought I’d heard Pete say, in that recovery room. I can’t wait to play with you.

“He’s not going back to work?” There was a long pause. “But that was the whole point: She’d take her leave, then he’d take his. Stretch it out.”

I had to gulp. “Well, yes, but it’s better this way. It’s really good for their bonding. I mean, as a family. He’s fallen in love with his baby and can’t tear himself away.” 

“That’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful attitude you have,” Mike cooed. “But what are you going to do with yourself for a month?” 

Across the river, the iconic Freedom Tower looked uninspiring.        

“I know. I mean, the main thing is she’s fine. And the baby’s fine. And I know it’s not about me, and they have way too much on their plates as it is but....” I groaned. “Now I’m the tiresome in-law hovering around—my worst nightmare.” A pink tracksuit flashed past. “But I’ve got the apartment, busted my ass to arrange it. And I checked: can’t get out of this lease. It’s one big joke on me.”

“The expensive kind,” he said.

I stretched out my legs and bounced my heels on the gray gravel of the track. “It’s just…shit, none of it was supposed to be this way. Why couldn’t I just stay at Meredith’s? Since when does a baby need a whole room? Pete’s over there assembling a crib and a rocker and a changing table. Our babies slept in our room, right in our bed.  Simpler that way. More contact.”

“Okay,” Mike said. “But doctors don’t recommend that nowadays, and it’s not our baby.  We have to respect that.”

“I should have stayed with Jimmy,” I said.

“Jimmy and his three hip-hop friends in their two-bedroom?

“I know, I know. It just wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Even the baby. It was supposed to be a girl.”

The previous winter, Meredith and I had gone to the Yucatan together. In a crowded market I’d bought a little dress while she was looking at some pottery. I had it in my suitcase, on 59^th.

---

The rhythm of breastfeeding was taking a little while. Jimmy asked in a low voice, “Have you talked to Dad about this? Are you two worried at all?”  

“Nah, it just takes time,” I said. “Especially with the first one. Dad came home with a can of formula a few days after Meredith was born.”

She looked over, smiling her dreamy smile. “I wish he was here.”

“Soon. He’ll be here soon. He wants to give you time to settle.” I turned away and swallowed. Was I in the way of their settling?

But nobody noticed. Pete was standing over her, his agitation rattling the air. “Try this. Look at the picture. It says to try it this way if you’re having trouble.” He held his phone in one hand and adjusted the baby’s head with the other. I gripped my knuckles in two fists.  

How is it possible for his ears to be so perfect? I thought I heard Pete murmur, bent over Meredith. They stared drippy stares at each other.

---

A week later, Pete’s mother Jill called one morning, to register concern.

“He’s not eating enough. What’s wrong with supplementing with a little formula? It’s just…you have more influence. I mean, you’re her mother. I’m not.” 

We both knew what Jill was really saying. In a few weeks, she’d swoop in and take my place with Meredith and the baby. There was nothing to stop her. I’d be in New Hampshire, and she’d be right down the road in Newark.

I stayed in bed most of the day, peeking at legs walking by, pondering my new discovery. Meredith was supposed to live one town away in New Hampshire, or I was supposed to be in Newark. That was the chasm I was facing, because everything was supposed to fall into place like magic; everything always had. Meredith was supposed to have a girl according to a birthing plan, and then her milk was supposed to gush, and Pete was supposed to defer to me and go away to work, and I was supposed to cook such quantities that not one bit of Jill’s food from Costco could fit in their fridge.

I was supposed to be a magical, natural mother, nearby, forever.

Late in the day a streetcleaner parked his garbage can in front of my window, blocking the sunlight. He brushed leaves into a dustpan and dumped them into the can. I followed his shadow across the floor to the kitchenette with an electric hot plate and no saucepans. I didn’t feel the least bit magical.  

---

That evening, I pushed myself to get out, and it helped. Neon lights blinked; a toddler laughed as his father hoisted him up on steady shoulders.

I called Mike as I walked. “Jill phoned. I can’t believe it. Meredith isn’t even legally married, and I’m struggling with the in-laws. I’m living in a black hole and fielding calls about my duties as a mother. Jill thinks the baby’s going to starve.” 

Mike just waited and I cleared my throat, tried for more maturity. “Pete’s glued to the Internet, convinced the child will die of seven infant illnesses none of us can pronounce. Meredith is so dreamy, it’s like she’s on drugs. Jimmy stays away a lot. Who can blame him?”

We waited together, each on one end of the line.

Mike finally asked, “Well, and how’s the weather?”

“When are you coming down here to find out?” 

“Tomorrow, first thing. Should be there early evening.”

“I just want to tell you one thing,” I whispered into the phone. “About us. I’m just realizing how well it worked out, having babies with you. I mean, it was never confusing. You helped me feel confident, able to use my instincts.”

He whispered, too. “You were the most beautiful, talented, natural mother on the earth.”

“And now Meredith is. She really is.” I stepped into the shadows on the corner. “So graceful. She’s fielding so much just being a new mother. And on top of that her own mom doesn’t go away, and there’s a new worry from the Internet each day.”

“Pete’s just anxious, that’s all.”

“That’s right,” I said. “He’s just stressed and tired and new to this. In some ways it isn’t any easier for Pete than it is for Meredith, maybe harder.” 

An abandoned church across the street had plywood in all the windows, and graffiti scrawled across the wall. We’d never been to church, but I imagined sitting with Mike in a pew, a candlelight glow and brown wood smelling like beeswax and safety.

I imagined Mike resting his head on my shoulder in the soft light. “And it isn’t any easier for you. You and Pete have that in common. Essentially, you’re both watching Meredith make her way forward with the baby.” 

“That’s really all we can do, or Jill can do, or Jimmy.”

In the imaginary nave, I felt his fingers wrapped up in mine. 

“Tell you what,” he said. ”This weekend, we’ll go into the city. You and Pete and Jill and Jimmy. We’ll go to a show or something, and leave poor Meredith alone.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Bonding time for the B Team. We need it.”

Our laughter mixed with the candle smoke wafting upward.

“I hope you heard me about when we were having babies,” I finally said. The gold trim at the altar blinked. “I really never thought about it until now, how much easier it was, because you deferred and never questioned. What a gift that was.”

“What did I know from babies?” he laughed. 

“What did we know?” I laughed back. “Their doctor says the baby shouldn’t sleep with them. The other day, I heard Pete say, ‘If we hold him too much, he’ll become insecure.’  Jeez, you and I were all backasswards thirty years ago.” I was raising my voice. “Meredith was held against a heartbeat her first six months straight! Every moment I’m around that baby I want to press him to me.”

After the call, I walked to the crowds on Bergenline, Union City’s central street. Teenagers in a joyous gaggle swept down the sidewalk, parting around the elderly like water around stubborn boulders. Two men at the open barber shop door argued in Spanish, their inflection spilling out like music. And there was music. There was salsa and Cuban mambo from windows up and down the street, and thud-thud-rap-thudding from inside the black tinted windows of souped-up town cars revving at stop lights.

---

“It’s his three-week birthday,” I heard Pete say, setting a candle on the living room table. 

The apartment smelled of butternut squash, cinnamon, and apples cooking together on the stove. I stirred in carrots and spinach, like the doctor had recommended. 

“Mom,” Meredith said. “You’re such a good cook. I hope I can cook like you one day.” 

Nearby, Jill sat with my husband at the dining table, showing him pictures of her little dog. They leaned together over the small screen, and she talked about going to the vet. Pete settled on the sofa to feed the baby a bottle, his face shining down, attentive. 

Alongside, Jimmy sat forward on his chair, arms out wide. “Seriously man, I don’t understand what’s happened to you. You used to be up for anything, day or night. Now it’s only ten p.m. and you’re turning me down?”

“Are you blind? Look around you, man.” Pete’s eyes sparkled. “You think I have any interest in hanging in a bar with you when I can be here with this little guy? When I can stay home and gaze at your sister?” He nodded toward us across the room and winked at Meredith. “Naah, forget it. Maybe one day you’ll understand.” 

Jimmy shook his head with a loud sigh. 

“How’s it possible to spend a lifetime with this love?” Pete had asked me earlier, when Meredith dozed with the baby, and no one else was around. “I feel I could die,” he said. “I love these two people so much.”

After the soup, Jill and I scrubbed pots and pans and stacked the drying rack. Mike took out the trash. Meredith and the baby stretched out on the sofa under the big window. I felt calm, and full of love. I knew that if Pete gave Meredith a bit of advice, I wouldn’t want to throw him out the big window. I knew that if his mother suggested a microwaveable pot roast for tomorrow night, I’d agree.

Music and arguments wafted up from the street.

Pete slid the baby off the sofa and into Jimmy’s arms. I stood with Jill and Mike at the kitchen counter, looking from the beautiful young man holding a baby to his soft, beautiful sister, asleep, to his beautiful friend sitting nearby, watching the people he loved.

“What should I say to it?” Jimmy smiled down at the bright eyes gazing up.

---

Paula Mirk is an educator who lives in coastal Maine. She can be found on Instagram.

Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash

2 - 3 T. olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

garlic, minced, to taste

ground cinnamon, cloves, cumin, or allspice, to taste

salt, to taste

1 apple or pear, peeled and seeded

Cut squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds.

Bring to boil a pot of water just to cover the squash and boil squash for about 15 minutes, until soft.

Remove and set aside to cool, reserving cooking water.

In another large pot, add oil.

Cook onion and garlic until softened.

Add spices and salt.

Dice the apple or pear and add to pot.

Add the broth from the cooked squash.

Remove skin from squash, dice the flesh, and add to the pot.

Cook over low/medium heat for about 10 minutes, tasting for seasoning.

Puree using a blender or immersion blender.