Claire Watkins - Battleborn - Stories

Each time the dog emerges from the lake it shakes itself violently, spraying Marin and the baby with stinking dog water. Jake ought to do something about this but doesn’t. Marin tries to position the umbrella so as to protect the baby from both the dog and the sun, but the maneuver is impossible. She grows to hate the dog. The damn dog’s name is Mingus. In her head she calls it Dingus. In her head she says, Go away, Dingus. Dingus, go lay down. Bad Dingus. Down the beach, a young couple is lying wrapped together in a single towel, kissing. Dingus bounds up to them and begins to growl. Jake calls to the dog, ineffectually. Sorry, he calls down the beach.

Poor kids, says Marin.

They’re young, Jake says. Plenty of time for that.

Marin scoffs and Jake turns to her. He nods to the baby in its hat and says, Been a while?

Marin looks up at him, squinting. Too long, she says.

Carter and Jake had been on the diving team together in college. Of course, she ended up with Carter, years later. But it was Jake first. Marin can still remember the first time she saw him, in the backyard at a house party, standing barefoot in the moist grass, shifting his weight gently from one foot to the other. There was a crowd gathered around him. He rubbed his hands together and pursed his fine lips. His eyes met Marin’s for a moment; then he flung himself backward, landing sturdy and fantastic on his bare feet. His audience applauded, begging drunkenly for more as Jake slipped back into his shoes.

By sunset the gang returns to camp. Jake and Carter walk to the store to get beer and marshmallows. Despite their considerable protests, the children are forced to stay behind. Val and Marin start dinner. The baby sleeps faceup on a blanket in the shade. The children throw rocks and bark chips at Dingus. They scream at each other constantly. Val does not seem to hear them. A snaky twilight settles over the lake basin. There is a smell of wood smoke and the fires of adjacent campsites visible between the branchless trunks of pine.

The men return. Hatless now and rosy headed, Jake sets a twelve-pack of IPA on the picnic table, where Marin is shucking corn. Carter goes to the baby and lifts him from the blanket. Nearby, reddening charcoal biscuits throb in the campsite grill. Val sorts through the groceries the men brought. She turns to Jake, wagging a wet package of hot dogs at him. Why did you buy these?

You like them, Jake says. Remember? We had them in Mammoth. You were surprised how much flavor could fit into such a skinny frank.

But I have chicken, says Val, gesturing to a plastic bowl where breasts, legs, thighs and wings have been marinating in blood-colored barbecue sauce.

The boy says, Get over it, Mom. Chicken is old cabbage.

Yeah, says the girl. Old cabbage.

The boy says, She’s copying me.

Val is a sport. She looks at Marin and shrugs. Old cabbage, she says. I don’t know where he got that.

Marin has a beer with her frank. She catches Carter glancing at the beer from across the table. She has not had a drink in nearly a year. But she can tonight. Marin stopped breast-feeding a week ago. She was an underproducer. When the child was born she could pump just an ounce from the right breast, two from the left. Carter kept a chart. The pediatrician told her to drink more water. She did, constantly, but it was never enough. The baby had to get fifty-one percent of his milk from the breast, Carter said. Fifty-one at least . Marin tried Mother’s Milk herbal tea. She tried blessed thistle. One fenugreek capsule a day. Two. Three. A prescription for Reglan. Still, she was expressing only three ounces on the right and two on the left. His word, expressing . Finally, they went to formula entirely. Another disappointment her husband has endured silently.

Or silently until today. In the rental car on the drive up from Reno he asked whether she was experiencing any pain from stopping. Any pressure.

No, she said.

No, said Carter, thoughtfully. I guess you wouldn’t.

After dinner the troop roasts marshmallows. The boy inevitably pokes his sister with his roasting stick. She cries and pouts and is not satisfied until Val puts him in time-out in the cabin of the RV. In the commotion of discipline and fairness, Marin retrieves another beer from the cooler.

Carter fetches the diaper bag and mixes a bottle using the jug of distilled water he bought at the store. He feeds his son, burps him, and passes the child to Marin. She paces with him around the site, waiting for him to fall asleep. Val, Jake and Carter sit in camp chairs near the fire. Jake smokes a cigar.

The little girl — Sophie is her name — climbs into her mother’s lap and squirms there. She asks, What does that baby like?

Val strokes her hair. I don’t know, Bug. Why don’t you ask Marin?

Who’s Marin?

The baby’s mommy.

The girl considers this and then takes leave of Val, scrambling into dusty stride with Marin. Marin? she says. What does your baby like?

Marin considers the question. He likes milk, she says. And baths in the sink. And binkies.

And toys? asks Sophie.

And toys, says Marin.

What does he do?

Not much, really. Eats and sleeps, mostly. Poops.

Marin thought this would make the girl laugh, but it doesn’t. Sophie considers the information, then says, Because he’s just a baby.

That’s right.

Can I hold him?

Marin glances at Carter. He is watching them. Of course you can, says Marin.

Marin directs Sophie to sit in her folding chair and extend her arms along her lap. She lays the child in this cradle and rotates the girl’s hands at the wrist so they curl around the baby. There, she says. Just like that. Carter watches. Sophie is stern faced, taking this responsibility seriously. Though her feet swing a little, gleefully.

Marin retrieves her beer from the mesh pouch of the chair. You’re good at that, she says, then immediately regrets it when the girl smiles a smile so wide it requires the active involvement of all her facial features. Christ, thinks Marin, what a thing to say.

Just then, Sophie’s brother emerges from time-out. The boy processes the scene — the baby in his sister’s lap, all adult eyes on her — and says, No fair. I want to hold the baby.

Sophie is pure joy. You can’t, Aidan, she says. I am.

Aidan says, But—

Carter stands. The baby has to go to sleep now, he says. It’s his bedtime.

Marin scoops the child from Sophie’s lap and follows Carter to the RV. Inside, Carter tries to set up the Pack ’n Play they’ve brought — never playpen —so the baby can sleep there. Val and Jake have two tents, one for themselves and one for the children. It will be too cold for the baby to sleep outside, which is why Carter and Marin were offered the RV in the first place. But now it appears the Pack ’n Play is too wide, the space in the RV too narrow. Carter allows the half-expanded structure to fall noisily to the floor.

Now what are we supposed to do? he says.

As though Marin designed the Pack ’n Play. As though she engineered the RV. She says, What about the bed?

Carter considers the bed Val has folded out for them, converted from two bench seats and the dining table. Will he roll? he asks.

How surprised Marin is to be asked this. How satisfying it feels that Carter does not have the answer.

No, she says, shaking her head casually. He can’t roll.

Okay, Carter says. He builds a barrier of pillows and sleeping bags at the edge of the bed. He swaddles the child and lays him on his back — always on his back — in the center of the bed. As Carter pulls the door of the RV quietly closed, he pauses with a hand still on the knob. The smell of Jake’s cigar has made its way to them. Those pillows, says Carter. You sure he’ll be okay?