The Lit Report (14 page)

My mom was a star about having Ruth and Jane in our apartment, but after three nights of sleeping on the foamie in the dining room, I regretted telling Mom to take my bed. We all knew the arrangement was temporary, but even so, I really needed some space. I guess my mom did too, because she took me aside while Ruth was bathing Jane and said, “I talked to Pete and Peggy again. They won't even consider having Ruth come home. And they call themselves Christians.” She practically spat the last bit. “I'll never understand it.” She sighed and continued, “I talked to some people at the church, and there's a home for girls in Ruth's situation. It's called Hope House and it's—”

I started to protest and she said, “Hear me out, Julia. Just hear me out.”

I nodded and stayed silent, fuming. Hope House, my ass. No way were Ruth and Jane going into a home for unwed mothers. No way. I'd get a job and rent us an apartment first.

“It's a nice place,” my mother was saying. “Not too far away. You'd be able to drive up on weekends to see her.”

“What!” I yelled. “Weekends? Mom, Ruth's almost my sister. Jane's, like, my niece. We can't just send them away.
Ruth needs me. Jane needs me. Can't they stay here for a while longer? I don't mind sleeping on the floor, and I'll help out more, I really will.”

“It's not that, Julia. You're a big help, but you'll be back in school soon,” my mother said wearily. “And this apartment's way too small. Ruth and Jane need a room of their own at the very least. They'll get that at Hope House—along with counseling and the chance for Ruth to finish high school by correspondence.”

“She won't go,” I said. “She'll run away. You know she will. And we'll be the ones who put her and Jane on the street.” Even as I said it, my stomach started to churn. Where would she go? I shuddered at the thought of Ruth and Jane on a bus to Vancouver—no money, nowhere to stay, hooking up with street people. “I'm working on something else, Mom. Please—just give me a few more days.”

“Something else, huh?” She gazed at me appraisingly and nodded. “Just a few days, then. I'll tell the people at Hope House that she's okay here for now.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “And thanks for being so great about all this.” I waved my arm to take in the baby blankets and sleepers and boxes of diapers that were strewn around the living room.

“She's a lovely baby,” my mom said, “and I'm enjoying having them here. But if you think you're going to quit school and go to work to support them, just put that idea
out of your mind right now. Nobody's life is going to get ruined by this. Nobody's. Least of all yours.”

What is it with mothers and mind reading? Time for Plan B. Or was it Plan C?

MARIA'S CAR WAS
in the driveway and the front door was open when I went over to my dad's house the weekend after we came back from the cabin. Even though it was blazing hot outside, the slate floor of the hallway was cool on my bare feet. Cool and kind of gritty, like no one had washed or even swept it for a long time. A stack of newspapers was piled up inside the front door alongside a lot of empty wine bottles. A lot. Obviously recycling wasn't a top priority either. Maybe everyone was too drunk. But nursing mothers weren't supposed to drink, were they? So that left my dad, who wasn't usually much of a drinker.

I shrugged and walked to the kitchen, where take-out containers covered the counters and dirty dishes filled the sink. The kitchen table was heaped with unopened mail, half-filled baby bottles, wads of used tissue, five coffee mugs with mould growing in them and a contraption that looked kind of like a bicycle horn. On closer examination, it turned out to be a breast pump. A quick peek into the living room revealed more chaos—baskets of stinky laundry, a stroller lying on its side, more dirty dishes.
There was a nasty smell in the house—sort of sour and sad, as if the windows hadn't been opened in weeks.

I called out as I went up the stairs, and Maria stuck her head out of Miki and Dad's bedroom. “In here,” she whispered. “Boone's sleeping. Miki's down in that little room again.”

I tiptoed into the bedroom and gagged. It was stifling and smelled like rotten fish; the curtains were drawn against the summer sun, and all the lights were off. I could make out my dad in the rocker, with Boone asleep in his arms. Maria was tidying—throwing little sleepers into a basket, stuffing used diapers into a garbage bag. I bent over to kiss my dad and he whispered, “Give Maria a hand, okay? We'll talk later.”

I nodded, took a laundry basket from Maria and headed downstairs to the laundry room. Maria joined me a few minutes later, dragging two full garbage bags.

“What's going on, Maria?” I asked as I started the first load of laundry.

“Miki's having some problems,” she said. “I thought she was okay—she never called and I got busy—all my babies came at once. Your dad called this morning.”

“What kind of problems?” I asked as I loaded the dishwasher. Maria hauled the bags of garbage to the back door and started filling another bag with half-full cartons of what looked like congealed pad thai.

“Problems feeding the baby, problems with her moods, problems with anxiety.”

“But she seemed so happy before,” I said. “I mean, she was okay for a while, wasn't she?”

“Yes,” Maria replied, “at first everything was fine. She had some problems feeding Boone, but lots of first-time mothers struggle with that.”

I thought of Jane at Ruth's breast—the ease and contentment blazing on Ruth's face. Ruth had told me it was the best feeling she'd ever had. Way better than sex. I hoped that part wasn't true.

Maria continued. “I checked up on her fairly regularly, and I knew she was having a hard time, but she was adamant that she wanted to keep trying to nurse him. I don't need to tell you, Miki's a pretty determined woman. I didn't have any reason to think she and Boone wouldn't get the hang of it. A couple of days ago your dad realized that Boone was starving. Crying all the time, even when Miki tried to nurse him. Then Miki refused to nurse him at all, and she locked herself away in that little room. Your dad has been trying to cope ever since. But Boone isn't taking to the bottle too well either.”

“Is Boone okay?” A vision of my baby brother laid out in a tiny coffin, wizened like a prune, took my breath away.

Maria put her hand on my arm. “Yes, Julia, he's okay. A little underweight, but he'll be fine as soon as he gets
the hang of the bottle. It won't take long, I'm sure. Today was better than yesterday. I'm more worried about Miki, to be honest.”

I glared at her as I ran water over the dishes in the sink. “Why? She's the grown-up. Boone's the helpless one.” Even as I said it I knew it was unfair, but I didn't care. Helpless adults are scary. I needed Miki to get better. Not just for Boone, but for Ruth and Jane. And for Dad.

“How have you been?” Maria asked. It was pretty clear that she wasn't going to debate Miki's fitness to be a mother. “I hear you and Ruth were up at the lake. Must have been fun.”

There wasn't even the tiniest hint of sarcasm or irony in Maria's voice, nor was there a smirk on her face. I figured everyone must know about Jane by now, but Maria was clearly out of the loop. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, if you call being a midwife to your best friend fun, then, yeah, it was fun.”

Maria dropped the dirty coffee cup she had been holding. Fortunately, its fall was broken by a bag full of dirty diapers.

“You delivered a baby? Ruth's baby? By yourself?” Maria sat down hard on a kitchen chair. She grimaced and pulled a pizza box out from under her and threw it to the floor.

“Yup,” I said, suddenly feeling as proud as if I'd given birth myself. “A baby girl named Jane. Ruth calls her JJ.
She's awesome. And Ruth—Ruth is an amazing mother. And Jonah helped.”

“You're pretty amazing yourself, I'd say,” Maria replied. Her eyes narrowed. “All that stuff about school reports— total bullshit, yes?”

“Yeah, but I really was—am—interested. A new life, helping that happen. It's pretty cool.”

“Yeah, it is,” she said. “But you took a lot of chances. What if the baby had been breech? What if...”

“I know...I thought of all those things too. But her parents would have sent her away. They still want to send her away. So does my mom.”

“Send who away?” Neither of us had heard my dad come into the kitchen. He was standing in the doorway, scratching his stubble and looking from me to Maria and back again. “Send who away?” he repeated.

“Ruth,” I said. “And Jane.”

“Who's Jane?”

Maria got up and started stuffing garbage in bags again while I made Dad some coffee and told him everything that had happened. When I was finished—well, not quite finished—all he said was “Wow.” I carried on with the cleanup as he sat and drank his coffee. Gradually some order rose out of the chaos: the counter reappeared, sticky with blobs of peanut butter and gritty with spilled sugar, and I scoured it clean; the stink of shit and piss and tears and
sweat was replaced by the perfume of Javex and Sunlight and Mr. Clean. Through it all, my dad sat and sipped his coffee. When he was done, he got up, gave me a hug and said, “I have to go check on Boone. We'll talk later. I'm glad you're here.”

“Me too, Dad,” I said as he turned to go upstairs. “Um, Dad? Can Ruth and Jane and I stay here for a while?”

He paused with his foot on the first step. “You don't ever have to ask my permission to stay here, Julia. You should know that. But Ruth and Jane? I don't know. What does your mother say?” he said.

I swallowed hard. He'd never asked me that before. About anything. “She said Ruth and Jane had to go somewhere called Hope House unless I could figure something else out. She's been great,” I added, “but our place is too small. And you've got extra bedrooms and I can help Miki with Boone and Jane's a really good baby and Ruth is different—”

He held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Stop, Julia. I get it. It's fine. You can come.” He smiled for the first time since I'd gotten there, but there was no joy in it. “It can't get much worse than this, can it? Just give me a day to break it to Miki. Not that she'll care. As long as someone else looks after Boone, she wouldn't care if the combined casts of
Cats
and
The Phantom of the Opera
moved in.”

It was my turn to say “Wow,” but not because Miki hated
Cats
and every other musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
I totally got that. No, I said “Wow” because I had never ever, not once, heard my dad sound so bitter.

TWO DAYS LATER
, Jonah drove Ruth, Jane and me over to my dad's. I didn't plan on staying very long—a couple of nights, max—but I wanted to get Ruth and Jane settled and make sure Boone was okay before I went back to Mom's. She'd agreed to my plan on three conditions: that Miki and Dad really were okay with it; that I not sacrifice school for playing house; and that the minute the arrangement became a problem for anyone, Ruth and Jane would go to Hope House. She and Dad talked on the phone—and yes, I listened in on my extension— but he didn't back out and she didn't preach at him, so, all things considered, it was a success as divorced parent conversations go. Mom asked about Miki, and Dad's voice broke a little when he told her that Miki spent all day in a small dark room, crying.

“It's definitely postpartum depression, Sharon,” he said. “If not psychosis. I know it. Everyone knows it—her doctor, the midwife, the public health nurse. But Miki won't take anything for it. She won't talk to me. She won't even look at Boone. She says she's not good for him.” He sounded like he was about to cry, and I imagined him sitting at the kitchen table, unshaven, in grubby jeans, surrounded by dirty dishes.
It broke my heart, and from the tone of my mother's voice, it was getting to her too.

“Poor thing,” she said. “Miki, I mean,” she added quickly. Not fast enough, Mom, I thought. I heard it; I'm sure Dad heard it. A hint of ex-wifely concern, a distinct thawing in the chilly atmosphere of their relationship. It didn't last. When she spoke again, she was brisk and businesslike. “Julia's idea is that Ruth can help out in exchange for her room and board. Jane's a very easy baby, so it shouldn't be a problem. Ruth knows what's expected of her, and Julia will come on the usual days once school starts. For now she can be there as much as she likes. She can give Ruth a break if she needs it.”

“Okay,” Dad said. There was a pause. “Uh, Sharon? I really appreciate this.”

Mom laughed. A miracle. “You
appreciate
having a teenage mother and her newborn baby come to stay with you when your wife is depressed and you're going nuts looking after her and the baby? Pete and Peggy should be on their knees thanking God that some people know how to do the right thing. And I
do
thank you for taking her in.”

“You're welcome,” Dad said. “But I meant I appreciate you talking to me. It helps.”

“I'm glad,” Mom said. She took a breath.

Don't say it, Mom, I thought. Don't say
I'm praying for you
or
If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it
.
I squeezed my eyes shut, just like I used to do when I was little and I had to take cough syrup.

“I'm happy to help” was all she said. “We'll just have to take it a day at a time. Give Boone a kiss for me.”

She hung up, but Dad was still on the line.

“Holy shit,” he said reverently before he hung up. My sentiments exactly.

WHEN WE GOT
to Dad's, he was in the kitchen singing to Boone while he burped him. The song of the day was “Don't Worry Baby.” A bizarre selection, given that it's about a guy and his car. Never too early to start the indoctrination, I guess.