Darcey Steinke - Milk

Yours,

John

He read over the letter and put in a P.S. about Molly the monastery dog. He was pleased with what he’d written and ripped the page out of his journal, addressed an envelope and leaned the letter on the mantel. He lay down on the futon; the comforter was already packed, so he pulled his coat up to his shoulders. He watched snow fall at the curtainless window; the flakes were big, and it must have gotten colder, for they were sticking, gathering on the sidewalk and in the rents of the wrought-iron fence. He lay there with his eyes closed, occasionally looking up and out the window and thinking. Darkness overtook him and at some point he began to dream.

The Dog Star hung like a radiant ice cube in the black sky. Bits of ice hit the back of his ankles as he passed a jewelry store; its windows were empty of merchandise. He saw the dog moving along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. The mutt’s fur was ratty and tiny headlights shone out from each of his eyes. John followed the dog down an alley, long and white and warm. The alley narrowed and John had to squeeze his body sideways, his nose grazing the bricks. At the end he saw the velvet chair from the monastery and he knew by a strain of hair, half-black, half-blond, that he’d just missed Mary.

He heard a noise and opened his eyes to the glowing numbers on the clock. The veridescent numbers rolled on the seventies clock radio and he felt his heart like a water balloon in a metal vise. He craved her. Mac had warned against this. Mac argued for detachment, and that was reasonable when talking about middle-aged brothers but not Mary whom he wanted to imbibe; he wanted to taste her spit and put his tongue up inside her.

He sat against the wall, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to find that dark shining passage of peace, but it was like an elusive dock, unanchored in night water. He tried the Jesus Prayer. Lord have mercy on me . And then the Lord’s Prayer. Neither helped. He thought again of walking over to the rectory, but this was impossible. She had said she wasn’t ready to see him. If he knocked on her door in the middle of the night, he’d seem both pathetic and insane.

He turned on the lamp and picked up the baby book. He was learning about diaper rash and what foods were hard on a baby’s stomach, about how to deal with nighttime crying and pink eye. He read about how to make homemade baby food by mixing mother’s milk and sweet potatoes. He read about homeopathic cures for ear infections and how babies need fewer baths during cold months. He thought of his wife’s hips, how her pregnant belly had sloped up, the skin stretched so tight it was nearly translucent. The snow at the window glittered in the streetlight and he got up, in just his boxers, the skin on his spindly legs goose pimpled. He stood by the window and watched snow as it fell into the orb of streetlight and then out again into the dark.

DARK WET MUSH of snow under frozen rain. Everything curtained in purple grayness and ice. Mrs. Chin, a Chinese lady with a wide face and bright lipstick, rented him the new apartment. It was half the price of his studio in the Heights and twice as large, a railroad flat with a kitchen in back, a metal rack for pots, a spice shelf. He opened the cabinet: Zwieback wafers, rice cereal, baby bottles. He’d bought a secondhand high chair and two new terry-cloth bibs.

Down the narrow hall was the living room, where he’d set up his table. The room was gray, but come spring, leaf light would fall over the walls. The adjacent bedroom had a large closet and a small alcove where he’d set up the crib. Decals of rabbits decorated each side. He’d bought organic cotton crib sheets and a bumper pad that would protect the baby’s head. He imagined Mary and he curled together on the futon. The scent of her skin like vanilla yogurt. The things she loved, his monk’s fringe, his barrel chest, the feminine way he moved his hands, were all things he found humiliating, but she loved them — he kept having to remind himself of that. Mac would argue that he was filled with manic passion. He was, as Mac loved to say, out of spiritual whack. Mac would try to convince him that heaviness was not real presence. But Mac was wrong. A weightless soul was worthless.

John lay on the futon but could not get to sleep. Legs sore from carrying boxes. Back hurting. Heart empty and desolate. He lay there thinking. And thinking some more. Obsessed with the idea that Mary might find her way out to Sunset Park, though she’d never been and had no idea how to find the place. But if only there was a knock on the door and he opened it and she was standing there on the steps. He couldn’t take it anymore and got up. Minnows swam at the edge of his eyes, and he realized it was way past midnight and he still hadn’t eaten anything.

* * *

Outside the snowflakes were huge and the bodega at the corner was still open. Fluorescent panels lit up a bucket of porktails, plastic packages of cornmeal and ginger biscuits. A sleepy-looking Asian man in a hooded sweatshirt made him a cheese sandwich, and he got a carton of chocolate milk, paid with a ten, sank the change into his pocket and walked back out onto the cold sidewalk.

Stepping off the curb, he looked up the street to his new apartment and imagined Mary, her shoulders, her hair, her body moving in a white nightgown across their living room, and the world was what it was, not a metaphor for something else. John saw its quivering supernatural quality, the electric clarity of its form, its matter, its sharp edges. He saw his palm moving up, disembodied and miraculous.

JOHN PUT ON the mask and found his way to the back corner of the hospital room where Mary held the baby. The vaporizer sent out a ribbon of steam and John’s shirt stuck to his chest. The baby’s face was red and he began to cough, dry and metallic, the sound like the crude devices inside toy dogs. Mary held him high up on her shoulder and patted his back in a firm spiral motion. He shivered along the whole length of his body; his eyeballs stood out and he spit up a stringy line of blood. John grabbed a towel.

The baby lay back on Mary’s shoulder, his head resting in the crook of her neck. His breathing was short, his stomach contracting as if choking for breath after a race. The vaporizer kicked on again, sending steam into the room, obscuring Mary’s feet and ankles. She pointed to the chairs by the bed. She seemed to want John to say something. Mac always insisted that a period of meditation was crucial before any emotional response. But with Mary premeditation was impossible. Her chest shook and drops of water fell from her eyes and he felt bewildered. The baby lay out on her shoulder like a piece of wet cloth.

“Should we pray?”

Mary tipped her head and closed her eyes; water continued to leak out the sides and made dark spots on the knees of her jeans.

“Dear Father.” He sounded stiff and official and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Be with us here in this place. Let us feel—”

“If anything happens to the baby, I’ll kill myself,” Mary broke in. “I’m not kidding either. I’m going to steal a surgical knife and slice my wrists.” She glanced up at John, her eyes wide and slightly insane.

John felt his face heat up. She was threatening God, not a particularly good strategy, at least judging from the characters in the Old Testament. He tried to touch her hand, but she swung away.

“Visiting hours are over.”

“You want me to go?”

Mary nodded and John got his coat. He couldn’t feel his head, only a cloudy spot of anxiety that floated between his shoulder blades. Mac would say to breathe deeply, Mac would say to withdraw into prayer, Mac would say he was a fool for getting himself into this situation.