Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“Do. Ohhh—”

“Sounds incommunicable.”

“Is. Then painful. Then is. And not just the engorgement and cracked teats. For when it comes down sometimes, pain like knives needling the breasts. Ever hear about that before? No nonmilker did and mixed up the knifing needles likening a twit and I’m not the only feeder to feel this. What, some collusion or my illusion about eternal women where we milkers are only allowed to talk about it among ourselves? Worth it? Yes — Had enough there, schnooky? No. Got its mitts up and wants me to stick it back in. But that tit can’t take anymore and other’s temporarily out of the running. No. Shakes his head. Wronged face. About to grief. Okay, got some drops left in both but gonna talk while you’re bleeding them — Hear him? Whale of a wail Bob’s said. My mind’s felt like pudding since but oh this is so incommunicable having a kid — It’s Helene — Bob just woke up. Rolled over. Missed the kid. Scratched his butt. Squeezed his nuts. Seemed to say hello to you, so hello from Bob.”

“And hi,” Bob says from afar.

“Hi and hello, Bob.”

“You hear the baby say ‘hi’ too?” Marietta says. “An imitative hi but a hi. You say impossible. Well, you can say ‘impossible’ because you’ve some days on him, but so far he can only say ‘hi,’ and twice an ‘oy.’ He really did twice oy, but almost anytime I want, a ‘hi.’ Say ‘hi,’ baby.”

“Hi,” the baby or Marietta imitating the baby says.

“You hear? Amazing, no? Ah, now baying, so back to the breast. It’s…what can I say? How can I put it? The — help me, Helene — what would be the words to best express what you say’s the incommunicable, although you were referring to Nick then on my breast: we both just love the damn kid to death. Helene, you must have a baby. And no differing or quibbling with me either: what I said’s a command. And you want to see your husband cry like a baby, have him there in the room when you give birth. And you want to be as close as you’ve been and maybe ever will be to someone and then two people, have him in the room for those reasons too. Yes, without question, you have to have a baby. With a man you’re stuck on and who’s stuck on you and who’ll stick and I want you to have it soon. It’ll be the second happiest moment in my life. No, the third. First was having this baby and Bob crying like one, second was when Bob and I said our vows, fourth will be when I’m standing beside you at your wedding again and holding the ring you’ll slip on him, the third when you have the baby. Fifth will be when your amnio-C results come in and they say all the tests turned out negative. No, fifth was when we got our results, so sixth when yours come in. No, fifth was when I took the E.P.T. and the doughnut showed. So fifth was the doughnut, sixth the amnio-C results, seventh will be when your results come in negative and maybe eighth when you phone and say your E.P.T. showed a doughnut. So what do you say, Helene? You’ll be the mère of mères . You are this moment depriving yourself of everything incommunicable we spoke about and your unborn child of your maternalness and milkiness and everything else you’ll give it and each day you wait, the world another day of your great child and what you gave it and — rest. Sor. But do. Give birth.”

“When the time comes.”

“Now.”

“I can’t just grab any man and say—”

“Now, damn you, now. This is important enough to take Nicholas off for a minute. Little trick. Stick my pinky between his lips while I pull out the tit — I know, wail. Wake up daddy — Here, Bob, hold him for a minute. I don’t care if Mrs. Larkin from downstairs — Give him the bottle then. On the side table. Has my milk in it anyway, expressed.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll find out. I’ll in fact drive East after you give birth and bring you everything you need — clothes, crib, carriage, changing table and my breast pump. But listen. You’re my dearest friend and have been for years. We’re as close as close only-sisters. I know times are tough for some women — even most. Anyway, they’ve been complaining more than usual lately about men — the shortage and also the sexuality of potentially good ones. But you? Men have to be scratching at your windows no matter how many flights up you’re up and purring and panting behind your door.”

“Not so.”

“So. I know. New York’s just a holler away. I heard about ten wonderful men at least over the last few years, two of them nonpareil and childless and who wanted kids, who fell for you or would have at the slightest sign and you for a while with two of them, although not the peerless ones of course. But for your own reasons none ever quite stacked up to your—”

“Once.”

“Okay, him, once. Tried to forget him but okay, him, once. And the man you were married to — let’s not forget that winner long as we’re at it. Anyway, all these other wonderful recent obtainable champing-for-children men, your reasons you dropped them, one dropped you — let’s bless him — but — hey, can you really afford this call, late as it is to ask that?”

“It’s ultradiscount time, and even if it—”

“Drop, drop, except for the one you wanted to marry and am I glad he didn’t. But reach out for someone — not off the street, but if that happened to be, go with it: you never know who you’ll meet leaving the movies — and let the thing happen again. Fall freely and deeply and get married in a year and go off on your honeymoon a month pregnant. And I want it to be a girl. I want our children to have children together. I want us to grow old together as related in-laws. I want you, past all kidding, to be supremely happy again as you were with your first husband when we all should have known better, and I know the only way you can. Forget books, forget teaching — they’re all great and worthy but secondary, and you can always go back to them. And the—”

“Okay, enough. And maybe the phone bill is running up too much.”

“And the man who’s coming by tonight—”

“Mara, let her alone,” Bob says.

“The two of you — let me finish — get your hand off the phone, for I see an opening here that could change her life — And the man who’s coming by — don’t turn him away just because the time’s long passed when he should have been there and so on. Maybe the cab he caught crashed and he’s crawling this moment to your door. Think of that.”

“Will you stop being silly,” Bob says.

“Or the subway he might have been on caught fire and he’s now maneuvering his way to you underground through pillows of smoke and will probably end up coming to you from your building’s basement. Or the helicopter he took exploded in midair and he’s now parachuting to your building’s roof and, if he can get the roof door unlocked, will walk to your apartment downstairs. Or the — or, picked up for suspicion while running to your place, he wanted to get there so fast—”

“Pay no attention to her, Helene,” Bob shouts. “Once she starts in—” “—and this will happen right after we finish talking. He’ll call you from the police station, in his one allowable call, to set him loose. Who can say in your city? But I have good instincts, and a rather adolescent imagination — too many movies and maybe living in movieland too long and maybe also too deep a belief in down-to-earth romance. But anyone who’d get himself locked out of his apartment, if we can believe him — and if it’s not true, then that’s saying a whole lot about his feelings and determination for you too. But anyone who would and then phone the same night he met you for only how long did you say? Anyway, you know what I think would make you the happiest, and Bob, for all his criticizing my silliness, agrees completely with me. So we hope you do it — with the one coming over or some other man you take the plunge for, and now you can hang up on me if you like. Wouldn’t blame you the slightest, but first tell me this fellow’s name again, in case I maybe know him and can warn you against him if my instincts about him were a hundred percent wrong.”