John Jodzio - Knockout

There will be some of your friends and family who will not understand your decision to rear your child exclusively indoors. They will not understand the logic. They will look at the light box you use to keep your baby from being seasonally depressed and they will shake their heads. It’s unnatural, they will say, inhumane. They can certainly have their own opinions, but perhaps you should ask them why they do the things they do? Why are they submitting their children to the ills of carcinogenic sunlight or super viruses, why are they letting them get anywhere near unfamiliar pubes in public restrooms? How, in our crazy Amber Alert — colored world, can they let their children out of their sight for even one second? Listen to their answers and then ask yourself, are their explanations about how they raise their children any better than yours? Do their children seem any happier or smarter than yours do?

When I’m finished reading, Swayze starts to fuss. Swayze and I sleep in the master bedroom and Mitch’s hospital bed is in the guest room. This is how it has been since the VA dropped Mitch off, gave me a live-in nurse for three days to train me on how to care for a man who couldn’t use his arms and was missing his legs.

I set Swayze in his high chair and chew up some Cheerios for him. I put my mouth up to his mouth and spit the mush onto his tongue. I chew most of Swayze’s solids for him because I want to make sure he will get the antibodies from my saliva and because it helps us to bond. Dr. Halder says that chewing up my baby’s food will make him able to digest more easily and also make him less prone to dairy and nut allergies.

When I’m done feeding Swayze, Snowball runs inside through his dog door. I fill his dish with kibble. Next, I blend Mitch a protein shake and set it on his drinking tray. I prop a pillow under his head so he can watch television. I take care of everyone here, but there is no one to take care of me.

“Honey,” Mitch says, “I wish I hadn’t stepped on that landmine. I wish I’d stepped six inches to the left or six inches to the right. You shouldn’t take out my bad luck on Swayze.”

I position Mitch’s straw on his lips and he takes a long swallow. I give him a sponge bath every day, but no matter how well I wash him or how many scented candles I burn there’s always a tinge of urine underneath the vanilla or elderberry.

“Being at the wrong place at the wrong time isn’t bad luck,” I say, paraphrasing a line from Dr. Halder. “It’s something you can help.”

Later that day I call the grocery store for a delivery. James answers. He’s the owner’s son, home from college for the summer. He’s got long brown hair that’s always in his eyes. He’s tall and lanky like Mitch used to be.

“How about two packages of diapers, a gallon of ice cream, a bag of pralines, and some chocolate sauce,” I tell James.

“You making sundaes, Mrs. Roberts?” he asks.

“Uh-huh,” I tell him, “I need a treat.”

“We all need a treat every now and then, don’t we?” James says.

“I need a treat more than most,” I tell him.

“I hear you, Mrs. Roberts,” he says.

While I wait for James to arrive, I bring Swayze to Mitch’s bedside and set him in his Johnny Jump Up. Swayze hops up and down wildly, like he’s trying to bust through the roof. I wipe away a thin line of drool that is extending from Mitch’s mouth to his shoulder. I remember how I used to be hot for his mouth and it used to be hot for me. Even when we were in public, I used to feel myself curling my chest slightly toward it when he spoke, wanting its warmth and wetness. Now Mitch’s lips are swollen, split in thirds like an ant’s body, his teeth are always gnashing, snarling.

“How can you think this is a good way to raise a child?” he asks.

“Three hundred thousand copies sold worldwide,” I say as I hold up Nurture Against Nature and point to a sticker on the cover. “You can’t argue with sales like that.”

Swayze keeps jumping, giggling maniacally. When Swayze and Mitch are next to each other, it’s hard not to notice how much they look alike, the same almond-shaped eyes, the same bump on the bridge of their noses. When I look at Swayze, I honestly do not see one smidgen of me at all. It’s like whatever genetic code of mine was mixed in to make him was gobbled right up by Mitch’s genes. Like my genes were not the fittest of the bunch and they decided that instead of fighting they’d just lie down and get run over.

James’s Jeep pulls into the driveway and he hops out. He’s wearing a red polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts. He presses the button on the intercom.

“Hi, James,” I say.

“Hello, Mrs. Roberts,” he says. “I’ve got everything you need.”

From our phone calls and our chats over the intercom, I know James wants to be a pharmacist, just like his dad. The last time we talked he told me that he’d just broken up with his high school sweetheart and he was taking it pretty hard.

“Come on in,” I say.

James knows the protocol — I open the garage and he walks inside and sets the grocery bags down. Then he walks back out to his car. I press the garage door opener and the door creaks shut.

I watch through the window as James climbs back in his Jeep. His radio is blaring. It is a song with a lot of bass that rattles the glass in my hutch. He gives me a hang loose sign with his fingers and then drives away. Sometimes I wonder if he wants to know what I look like, if he thinks that someone threw acid on my face or I was disfigured in a fire. Sometimes I want to invite James inside and talk to him face-to-face, prove that I’m normal. Sometimes I want to let him see that I’ve lost all my baby weight, that I still look damn good.

In the garage, James’s cologne lingers. It smells like rain with some citrus notes mixed in. I close my eyes and hug the grocery bag until his scent slides away. When I put the groceries away, I notice he’s given me an extra bag of pralines, free of charge.

The next day my mother brings medical supplies and our mail. She makes the trip twice a week here now, on Tuesdays and Fridays. She’s been very supportive of me; she doesn’t judge our indoor lifestyle, she sees the advantages.

“You turned out the way you did because of the things I did,” she tells me. “So who would I be to criticize? I’d be criticizing myself.”

I put Swayze in his playpen and my mom and I split a ham sandwich. She tells me she’s met a man named Jerome on the Internet. Jerome lives in Fort Lauderdale and she might go visit him soon.

“Jerome thinks my legs are beautiful,” my mother says. “So thus far we’re a perfect match.”

My mother tells me more about Jerome, how he owns a catamaran, how he lives in a gated community, how he always wanted to have kids but somehow never got around to it.

“This may be my last real chance at love,” she says, which is the same exact thing she said to me right after she met her last two husbands.

While we’re eating, I hear a scream in the backyard. I look out the window and see an eagle trying to lift Snowball off the ground. Have you ever heard a dog scream? I hadn’t. It sounds way more human than you’d think. I grab Swayze and all three of us watch as the eagle tries to get his claws into Snowball. Snowball bites and growls, giving the bird a good fight, but the eagle finally grabs him and flies off.

“What the hell is going on?” Mitch yells out from the other room.

My mother and I watch Snowball being carried away across the sky. This small white puff being pulled right up into the clouds and disappearing from our lives forever.

Today when I wake up I read this passage: