Part 32 (1/2)
”Kind of.”
”Maybe they'll let you take a sitz bath.”
Amy pictured the plastic basin she occasionally found set upon the toilet bowl in her mother's bathroom. It had always mystified Amy, but suddenly she saw its value.
”You know, I wonder,” her mother began, and Amy thought, Here it comes: Who's the father?
How did this happen?
Didn't you notice your periods stopping?
And what are you going to do with it?
But instead, her mother said, ”I wonder if they have a whirlpool. They had a whirlpool in the hospital where I had you. I think I'll go check. I'll be right back.”
No, stay, Amy wanted to say, but her mother was already out of the room.
Now the baby stirred. Amy looked over and watched as he arched his back and made a face. What was the theory of swaddling them so tightly? She leaned over the ba.s.sinet and slid her hands beneath the little bundle and carefully lifted him up. He weighed absolutely nothing! She untied her hospital gown and held him to her breast and tickled his cheek, just like the book said, and he twisted his mouth to the side, like a little gangster. She stuck her giant nipple in between his lips, but he made funny breathing noises, and she was afraid she would suffocate him, so she held him up, and he began to cry, and she began to cry, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt p.r.i.c.kly all over, and she wished her mother had not left the room, and she wanted to go back to yesterday, the day before Lava, when she was not a mother, she was not pregnant, there was no baby, it was just a stomach problem, annoying but temporary.
She heard the swish of Kleenex and opened her eyes. Her mother was standing by her bedside, and Amy saw the saddest thing she'd ever seen in her life: the sight of her mother crying. Which made Amy cry even more.
Susan took the baby while Amy blew her nose. But Susan didn't hold him very long; as soon as Amy was ready, she handed him back. Then, using her own finger, Susan gently opened the baby's mouth and at the same time guided his head to Amy's breast and helped work her nipple into his tiny mouth. He clamped down, and Amy felt an inner tug as the baby's jaw worked up and down.
”That's what they mean by latch,” Susan said gently. As the baby nursed, she dabbed at the corners of Amy's eyes, which made Amy start crying all over again. Amy stroked the baby's downy hair, feeling more naked than she'd felt while giving birth.
”Why should I nurse him if I'm not going to keep him?”
”Because it's good for him,” said Susan.
”If it's good for him, then I should keep doing it, which means I shouldn't give him up. And if I keep nursing him, I won't be able able to give him up. I'll want to keep him even more.” to give him up. I'll want to keep him even more.”
”Shhh,” and Susan handed Amy another Kleenex. Then she told Amy to lean forward a little. She moved around behind her, and after removing a comb from a plastic wrapper, she began to gently work the snarls out of Amy's hair. ”All these things will fall into place,” she said.
”There's no rush to decide.”
”I don't know who the father is,” Amy whispered.
”That's all right.”
”No. It's not.”
Susan set down the comb. ”Do you want to tell me about it?”
”No. Because that means I'll remember more than I want to remember.”
But it was already there, whether she wanted to remember it or not.
”I won't flip out,” Susan said. ”I promise.”
”Yes you will.” And it suddenly hurt Amy, to think of how much it was going to hurt her mother, to hear what had happened.
”Amy,” said Susan, peering around to face her, ”I just helped you deliver a baby. My mind's already imagining the worst. You might as well tell me.”
”About how I got drunk? You realize I probably don't have all the details, because of that.”
”Believe me, honey, I probably don't want all the details.”
Amy adjusted the baby, who had fallen back asleep and was sweating against her breast. She was grateful that her mother was standing behind her. ”So last Halloween?”
”Okay,” Susan said, ”okay,” and her voice sounded guarded, and Amy wished she hadn't begun the story but knew there was no way to stop at this point.
”I wasn't even going out that night. I was going to stay home and hand out candy. But then you got dressed up as Pippi Longstocking.”
Susan stopped combing. ”I liked that costume!”
”Except you wanted me to dress up too. You had a Little Orphan Annie wig you wanted me to wear.”
”I did?”
”Yes, you did.”
There was no way she was going to stay home and wear a Little Orphan Annie wig. And so Amy had left the house and gone to a coffee shop, where she ordered a hot chocolate and read a chapter in Walden Walden. Around ten, some guys came in; one of them was in her math cla.s.s. And they must have taken pity on her because they asked what she was doing there alone, and she said she was reading ahead for lit cla.s.s, and that's when they joked about kidnapping her.
People didn't usually joke with her, and it made her feel cool. She didn't say that out loud to her mother.
”So we went to a park,” she went on. ”They had vodka. They weren't trying to be mean; they just figured I knew how to drink.”
”How much did you drink?”
”Like I'd know?”
”Do you remember calling and telling me you were staying at Sarah's?”
”Is that what I told you?”
”You did. And I believed it.”
”Sorry.”
”That's okay. It's not like I never lied to my parents.”
Things got even fuzzier after that. She remembered being in the backseat of someone's car and people helping her walk into a house. She remembered the scratchy carpet against her face, and some girls helping her to her feet and taking her into the bedroom, where there was a king-sized bed piled with coats. She woke up in darkness with a cottony mouth and cold feet. Her pants lay on the floor; her legs were damp and sticky, and her underwear was on backward.
She had the sense there'd been more than one.
She told all this to her mother, except the part about the underwear. And the number. Which she really didn't know. It was just plural.