to let the screen bang behind me. I sit on the top step, where the brick is warm despite the sloping shade of the afternoon. I try several different angles before I find a spot where the monitor can sit without static. Sometimes I enjoy the interference—I can pick up two different families when I change to channel B or C.
The B family is amazingly jolly, and they speak to their child with the enthusiasm of Elmo, despite the guttural tones of a language I can’t place. Something Balkan, maybe. The image on channel B is just a close-up shot of the crib, and occasionally the dark-haired, smiling little baby who seems rarely to sleep there. There is a lot of clapping and squealing and all-purpose merriment on channel B, and I often try to guess which nearby house they live in. I feel like they should have rainbows and unicorns on their mailbox, but I don’t see a single neighbor who could even fake the kind of delight I hear on channel B.
Channel C is much more sordid, like a story on
Dateline
. There are four cribs on channel C, and I haven’t been able to discern, yet, if there are really four babies (are they selling them on the black market?), or if it’s just twins and a mirror. I rarely hear any voices at all on channel C—only crying, footsteps, sighing, toilets flushing, a loud television in the background. Those two or four babies spend an awful lot of time in their cribs. It’s grainy and dark. You can’t see much.
But channel A is where the real action is: my sleeping girl and her glorious fists. I check the volume and then stretch my legs carefully in front of me. I’m determined to spend every possible moment outside before the weather turns. The leaves are changing colors already and as the days grow shorter, the heat begins to falter as well. Soon we’ll be trapped inside for months. Just me and my baby girl. Channel A.
I dial three different friends, and nobody picks up. They have jobs, lives. Finally I try my mother’s number.
“Majella,” she sings. “How’s our grandbaby?”
“She’s good,” I say.
“Great!”
For a half a second, I wonder if she’ll ask how I’m doing, too. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t wonder; she never asks that, probably because it would require her to stop talking long enough to listen to my response. But I sorta thought me giving birth to her first grandchild might result in the occasional glimmer of curiosity about my well-being.
“Oh, I’ve been so busy, I’m just exhausted!” she says, and then she plows headlong into a detailed description of her week. And when I say
detailed
, I’m talking she includes how many times she pooped on Tuesday. And how many times she tried, but failed. Seriously.
I start to lean back on my elbows, but my abdomen is still too tender to stretch, so I just examine my legs in the sun while she talks. She’s on to the weather now. Apparently they had some strong winds last night, and their dog, Cocoa, got so nervous she peed on the new carpet in the den. Thank God they went with the green, it really hides the dirt! I stop listening after that, and just wait for her to be finished. I take the phone away from my ear every few minutes to check on the time. Yes, I’m timing her. At about twelve and a half minutes, she takes a breath.
“All right, well, I don’t want to keep you,” she says.
And my mouth falls open—not from shock exactly. This isn’t shocking—it’s the same conversation we’ve been having for years. But Goddammit.
I almost explode on her. Really, I almost say: I don’t care if your fucking bank teller is taking his granddaughter to the Buccaneers game this weekend. What about ME? I just had a baby over here! But I am deeply cowardly, and the words stay buried somewhere in my solar plexus. After all, it’s hard enough in therapy, being honest with the woman I’m paying to be the receptacle of my deepest fears; how am I supposed to be honest with the woman who’s the harbinger of them? My mouth closes
The B family is amazingly jolly, and they speak to their child with the enthusiasm of Elmo, despite the guttural tones of a language I can’t place. Something Balkan, maybe. The image on channel B is just a close-up shot of the crib, and occasionally the dark-haired, smiling little baby who seems rarely to sleep there. There is a lot of clapping and squealing and all-purpose merriment on channel B, and I often try to guess which nearby house they live in. I feel like they should have rainbows and unicorns on their mailbox, but I don’t see a single neighbor who could even fake the kind of delight I hear on channel B.
Channel C is much more sordid, like a story on
Dateline
. There are four cribs on channel C, and I haven’t been able to discern, yet, if there are really four babies (are they selling them on the black market?), or if it’s just twins and a mirror. I rarely hear any voices at all on channel C—only crying, footsteps, sighing, toilets flushing, a loud television in the background. Those two or four babies spend an awful lot of time in their cribs. It’s grainy and dark. You can’t see much.
But channel A is where the real action is: my sleeping girl and her glorious fists. I check the volume and then stretch my legs carefully in front of me. I’m determined to spend every possible moment outside before the weather turns. The leaves are changing colors already and as the days grow shorter, the heat begins to falter as well. Soon we’ll be trapped inside for months. Just me and my baby girl. Channel A.
I dial three different friends, and nobody picks up. They have jobs, lives. Finally I try my mother’s number.
“Majella,” she sings. “How’s our grandbaby?”
“She’s good,” I say.
“Great!”
For a half a second, I wonder if she’ll ask how I’m doing, too. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t wonder; she never asks that, probably because it would require her to stop talking long enough to listen to my response. But I sorta thought me giving birth to her first grandchild might result in the occasional glimmer of curiosity about my well-being.
“Oh, I’ve been so busy, I’m just exhausted!” she says, and then she plows headlong into a detailed description of her week. And when I say
detailed
, I’m talking she includes how many times she pooped on Tuesday. And how many times she tried, but failed. Seriously.
I start to lean back on my elbows, but my abdomen is still too tender to stretch, so I just examine my legs in the sun while she talks. She’s on to the weather now. Apparently they had some strong winds last night, and their dog, Cocoa, got so nervous she peed on the new carpet in the den. Thank God they went with the green, it really hides the dirt! I stop listening after that, and just wait for her to be finished. I take the phone away from my ear every few minutes to check on the time. Yes, I’m timing her. At about twelve and a half minutes, she takes a breath.
“All right, well, I don’t want to keep you,” she says.
And my mouth falls open—not from shock exactly. This isn’t shocking—it’s the same conversation we’ve been having for years. But Goddammit.
I almost explode on her. Really, I almost say: I don’t care if your fucking bank teller is taking his granddaughter to the Buccaneers game this weekend. What about ME? I just had a baby over here! But I am deeply cowardly, and the words stay buried somewhere in my solar plexus. After all, it’s hard enough in therapy, being honest with the woman I’m paying to be the receptacle of my deepest fears; how am I supposed to be honest with the woman who’s the harbinger of them? My mouth closes
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