Stephen Dixon: Time to Go

She cries, he listens. She cries, he puts down the newspaper, takes a quick sip of coffee, goes to her room and listens. She cries, he goes inside and says “Hey-y-y; Kitzie, Kitzie, it’s okay, I’ll take care of you in a second.” He raises the shade. It’s starting to get light. She cries, he turns around and says “Oh-h-h, what’s wrong, my little sweetheart?” She’s on her back, crying, looking at him, one hand rubbing an eye, covers are off, she’s worked her way to one of the far corners of the crib, other hand clutches a railing bar. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” and he grabs her under the waist, she arches her back, he lifts her up slowly till she lets go of the bar, holds her to his chest, her chin rests on her shoulder, he kisses her neck and back of her head and says “Good morning, my little baby, but why you up so early?”

She’s quiet. He goes into the bathroom with her, grabs one of her little wash rags off the shower curtain rod, runs the hot water tap till it’s warm, puts the rag under it, takes it out and squeezes it, carries her into her room and puts her on the changing board on his wife’s work table. She starts crying. “It’s all right, I’m going to make you comfy now, honey.” He wipes the tears off her face, unsnaps her stretchie. She cries louder, whines. “What is it, what is it?” He makes clicking sounds with his mouth, she stops crying, stares at him. “Click-click,” he says. “Click-click. Let me see you go click-click too.” She’s been imitating his clicking sounds lately and he thinks it’s the sweetest thing she’s done so far. She doesn’t now. “For daddy?” Click-click, his mouth makes. Click-click. Click-click. She stares at him, stretches, yawns. “Da-da,” he says, “da-da — no?” He pulls her legs out of the stretchie, takes off her rubber pants and the safety pins. She starts crying and he says “Why, what’s wrong, baby? It’s okay,” and she stops crying and smiles. He raises her bottom by holding her feet up in one hand, slips the double diapers out from under her, sets her down, keeps one hand on her chest so she won’t roll off the changing board to the floor, drops the wet diapers into the diaper pail and closes it. He cleans her with one hand and moves his face nearer to hers and holds her head. “Hi, Kitzie, remember me? Now it’s better, isn’t it? Sticky old smelly diapers off and your little butt clean?” She smiles. He rubs her nose with his, kisses her neck, cheek, forehead, keeps their faces cheek to cheek. “Ah, my little Chickie. Daddy loves you so much. I’ll get you all fixed up and then mama will feed you.” She squeals, blubbers, tries to flip over, smiles, laughs. “Ga-ga if not da-da,” he says. “Da,” she says. “Da-da, da-da.” he says. “Da,” she says. “Close.”

He gets a clean diaper off the pile on a chair, dries her off with it. In twenty years or so — folding the clean diaper on the table to put under her — she’ll be looking at my dead body I bet. As I look down at her, she’ll be looking down at me. Twenty to thirty years, but the way I drink and have drank and run myself down for so many years, I wouldn’t say more. Fifty-eight, sixty-eight, seventy-eight — sure. She’ll be a young pretty woman then. I hope so. I hope no disfiguring sickness for her. No sickness or very little, unusually little. Or just normal and very little pain throughout her life: physical, emotional. I’ll be in a coffin. I’ll have said — weeks, months — before I died, that I want to be cremated, but something got screwed up. Or I am cremated, nothing got screwed up. But I’m on a hospital bed and have just died. She’ll be beside the bed with her mother. Another daughter or son? Perhaps. One two or three years younger than she, but that’s all the children, and he or she will be in some other state or country, couldn’t get back in time or just couldn’t be reached. So just she and her mother. They were there, I died, they were asked to leave the room for a few minutes, were called back in, I’ve been cleaned and the tubes have been taken out of me, bed’s been made, sheet up to my neck, eyes closed when perhaps when I died they weren’t, they look down at me, one’s holding the other around the waist, a nurse or aide or both stand behind them in case one or both of them fall, she and her mother are crying, she bends down and kisses my forehead and cheek, maybe even my lips, takes my hand, bends down again and kisses my fingertips, says “I think I’ve said my goodbye — do you want to be alone with dad for a little while?” her mother says “Maybe longer,” she asks the nurse or aide or both if they would leave her mother alone in the room, she and the hospital people start to leave, at the door she turns and looks back at me, studies my face, closes her eyes, stays still for about a minute, says something to herself, leaves without opening her eyes on me again, quietly shuts the door.

He pins the other side of the diaper and tries to get her rubber pants on. She squirms, turns over on her stomach and grabs the vaseline jar with both hands. He says “No, now please, honey, let me finish changing you,” and grabs the jar out of her grip and puts it at the end of the table. He turns her over on her back. She cries. “But sweetheart, all I want to do is to get your suit on — then fool around all you want. I’ll give you back your jar.” He kisses her feet. She doesn’t smile. Usually she does when he kisses or nibbles at her feet. He pulls up the rubber pants, makes sure to get them over the diaper at the waist and legs, sticks her legs into the stretchie, starts snapping her up. She’s stopped crying, reaches for his nose. He bends down so she can reach it. She pulls it, gets a finger inside his nostril and scratches it. “Ouch,” and he takes her finger out of his nose, holds that hand and looks at it. He’ll have to get his wife to cut these nails. No, he’ll do it. Watching her cut them so many times, he should know how by now. He kisses her hand. She smiles, big wide grin. “Ah, I love when you smile like that, little Kitzie.” He kisses her cheek. “That’s just the twentieth of your minimal thousand kisses from me today.” He picks her up, she rests her head on his shoulder, suddenly lifts her head and looks behind her at the window when the pane rattles, rests her head on his shoulder again. He kisses her ear, pats her bottom, looks outside. It’s much lighter. He wants to get back to his coffee and newspaper.

He brings her in to his wife. “Hi,” she says. She’s in bed, covers off, unsnapping a flap of her nursing bra, pushes both cats off the bed to make room for the baby. He sets the baby down beside her, rests her head on the pillow, says “How’d you sleep?” “Well,” she says, “and you?” “Not so hot. Had some bad dreams. No problem though.” “Maybe you should drink a little less wine at night or not so close to when you go to sleep.” “Maybe that’s it. I squeezed some orange juice for you. I’ll bring it in.” “Thanks, love,” she says. “Hiya, darling,” she says, bringing her breast to the baby’s face.