Elisa Albert - After Birth

We had an agreement , he pointed out.

I gave up having children for you , she said, and wept.

You said you didn’t even want kids , he told her.

Don’t you love those women who ignore every imperative of time and biology then act all super-duper tragic at forty? Come on, now.

Tonight we huddle naked under the down, laughing about funny things the baby’s doing lately. He is cool, we agree. Cracks us up. Of this much we are certain: he is a sweet boy, a funny sunny love of a boy. He has this way of smiling at us, this sly little grin. We adore him. Oh, do we ever. We’re happy. We’re blessed. We are we are we are we are. Knock wood, spit three times, wave garlic, throw a pinch of salt, whatever you got.

You keep saying how happy you are , my favorite professor, Marianne, said over coffee last year when we were supposed to be talking about my dissertation. You keep saying that. You just told me four times how happy you are. I am happy for you that you are so happy .

A minute or hour later I’m awake from a dream, sweaty: my cousin Jason brought a prostitute to my father’s old family house in the Berkshires and woke everybody up with their humping. I hadn’t seen everyone in a long time, all together. My grandparents, Aunt Ellen, cousins Jason and Erica. Even my mother was there, spectral but healthy. The prostitute was Mina Morris twenty years ago: stringy hair, dark lipstick, addicted, wild-eyed, half-crazy.

I was sleeping! my mother screamed at no one in particular, stomping around in a thin pink nightgown. I could see her heavy breasts in shadow. You woke me up, you inconsiderate little shits! She used to call me that, like a term of endearment.

Shut the fuck up, bitch , Mina Morris told her coldly, and my mother was shocked silent for once.

My father sold that house in the Berkshires years ago. Aunt Ellen has barely spoken to me since I married Paul, though she did send a handwritten letter, lot of disappointed and history and our people and suffered enough , which I pretended to disregard but later tore up in a rage and flushed down the toilet. Cousin Jason is highly religious, lives in Arizona, works “for the government,” and wants further proof that President Obama was born in the United States. In his profile picture he is wearing a novelty Israeli Army T-shirt, stone-cold serious. Erica lives in the city working wholeheartedly the kind of fashion rag you read if your highest aspiration is Best Dressed at cosmetology school. We used to go out for drinks when we were in our twenties. She sent a very fancy onesie for the baby.

I’m awake, is the point, drenched, and there’s this thumping, now scratching, now thumping again coming from inside the ceiling.

Crap , Paul whispers.

Mouse?

Bigger. Squirrel. I don’t know. Raccoon. Fuck.

Paul is your basically stoic, healthy, strictly uncomplaining non-Jew. He’s hard to ruffle. He’s never had a cold. Once, just one time, I got him mad enough to yell at me, and was perversely thrilled he had it in him. The sex afterward was epic.

I thought a trapped animal in the wall of a house was only, like, a literary device.

He slides a hand between my thighs, mutters something about calling Will in the morning, and goes back to sleep.

Takes me a while longer, though, because it’s pretty noisy inside the ceiling or the wall or whatever, and I’m not exactly eager to see my mother again.

This time I dream it’s summertime and sunshine streams from between my thighs, radiating softly around my hips. I am very, very pregnant and very, very happy. Sunshine within, sunshine without, gold and warm. But something is wrong with our house. Will comes over. He brings me a sloppy fistful of wildflowers, lays them on the counter. He gestures at my glowing middle, averts his eyes.

Amazing thing you’re doing there, Ari. Totally amazing.

I don’t know where Paul is. Will heads to the basement to examine the furnace, which I realize is too hot, intensifying the sunshine unbearably. There is burning through the whole house, burning in every room, everything melting together: happy and yellow, smelling of beeswax and cum.

Some hours or minutes pass this way, then there’s Mr. Baby, howling at the pale, icy dawn.

Raccoon! says Will when he and Paul come clomping down from the attic. Pretty sure. There’s an opening near the baseboard under the window.

The baby toddles over, hides behind my legs. He’s an awesome baby, a swell little guy. Still a baby, though, of which even the best are oppressive fascist bastard dictator narcissists.

So what do we do?

Paul’s slumped at the counter, head in hands. Move .

Will shrugs. Traps. The good kind. Weather turns, you know, they find ways in. Cold out there. Can’t blame them .

Will’s parents were professors at the college. He ran from them, from here, became a carpenter. Worked on boats on the South Shore of Boston for a long time, drank and drank and drank and drank. Found his way to AA and Thich Nhat Hanh and mindful awareness. Came back here when the professors died. To face it , he told me once. Our eyes met and we understood each other. We have to be careful with eye contact, me and Will. We avoid it as best we can, good soldiers, everything on the up-and-up.

So he fixed up their old house, three down from ours. Knows how to do all sorts of useful things. Welds in the garage, helps us figure out the rudiments of boilers, roofing, basement finishing, painting, electricity, stays for dinner, eats my slow-cooker hippie food, says whatever and no biggie and glad to help . Fifty-one, tall, floppy hair, runner’s body, lined face, piercing gray eyes, strong hands, cool dirty sneakers. I regularly imagine fucking him for a long afternoon in a highway motel where the bleach doesn’t quite cover the smell.

The baby puts his hand near the oven, admonishes himself with an approximation of “hot!” and looks for approval. I offer it up: yes that’s right good boy who’s a good boy you are oh you’re such a good good boy!

Who can say I’m not a good mother? Who can say I don’t read the subject headings in the books? The How to Care for Your Child if There Is Absolutely No One with Any Primal Knowledge Around to Guide You guides. What to Expect When There Is No Received Wisdom Whatsoever. I keep them in an out-of-the-way drawer, like porn.

Can’t we just, like, seal off wherever it got in? Paul has his arcane PhD, his prestigious appointment, but no idea how to strip paint or tighten a pipe fitting or deal with a rodent.

You don’t want him in there. He’ll die in there. You guys have peanut butter?

Paul brightens, reaches an arm around my waist, or what used to be my waist. Yeah, we can rustle up some peanut butter. Ari, stay out of the traps, will you? The joke being that I’m not as lithe as before I fabricated and surgically evacuated a new human being, fuck you very much. I like to go at the peanut butter with a spoon. Before he’s finished the sentence he understands that he has made a mistake, and his face turns sorry.

Prick.

Yes, clearly I am not as lithe as before I fabricated and surgically evacuated a new human being. At any opportunity my stepmother will still give me the Scan, let’s call it, that classic down-up as common to the female of the species as is the vagina — and offer a specious don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll get back to normal soon . Bitch, I mean, come on: do you think I don’t know I’m wearing enormous pants?

The baby’s first birthday.