not know, it would appear I’ve stolen this baby.
“Waff?” she says.
Waffles. She wants waffles. I unbuckle her, draw her up.
“We’ll get you waffles. When we get to Grandma’s.”
I fish out half a stack of Ritz crackers from the diaper bag, then carry her to the water fountain to fill her bottle.
“Waddey.”
I drink too, with a vicious thirst, as if the more water I get down, the easier my future will be.
We settle back into our niche by the radiator. Daisy eats happily. She shakes her bottle.
“Jay?” she asks me.
I hug her. “Yes,” I say, but no sound comes out.
• • •
I have forgotten to mention Paris.
After my expulsion from Hastings, Fowler and I went there. J.T. and Evelyn had given him some money for graduate school, so we used some of that. In Paris I learned to ride trains the way I’m riding this one, aching with love for my traveling companion and with sadness for those absent, to places threatening in their decay, their beauty.
Our first train was out of de Gaulle airport. We were sleepless, speeding on coffee, taking in as much of the whizzing in-between of suburb and city as we could. The Défense stood out, monolithic, horrible in contrast to the miles of clay roofing of nearly all of Paris. It was June, and I was four months along with Isaac, just over the nausea, and I felt no exhaustion, only the fluttering stomach that could have been his heart beating or just anticipation of all that lay ahead: Europe, the birth, the baby, a lifetime of Fowler and joint-effort films. The only sadness was for my parents and theiraging, their being out of this stage of life and having made peace with their particular estrangement.
Fowler said that the tiles of the clay roofs, long, rust-colored half-cylinders, were, before French roofing became industrialized, molded on women’s thighs.
“What,” I said.
“Really!” he told me. “The long legs of beautiful women who sat under the wet clay until it dried.”
“Beautiful, patient women,” I said.
“Yes,” said he, squeezing my hand, leaning back in his seat, exhaling satisfaction.
I had a baby with a man who could almost convince me of a story like that. I had two more with a man who would take in those roofs without making mention of them. My mistake: I love both of these men.
Riding this train, my youngest draped over me in silent wonder, the gray Hudson on our right, attempts at permanence on our left, I come to this: I have always been this person, the one I am, who sees this way, whose actions connote a vision of the world as enormous, capricious, ultimately sacrosanct. The current leave-taking alters none of this for me.
Later that morning I sat in a double bed in a pension on the left bank, drinking espresso and crying behind a section of Le Monde, willing myself to stop, failing.
Now tears darken my daughter’s fuchsia sweatshirt, and I feign a coughing fit. She shifts against me, a familiar turning, as of the fetus in the later months, dragging me back. She’s a perfect size for this posture, and she turns her head so that we both face the river, our cheeks aligned, and we ride into the city, watching.
Mother is upon us as I push open the door (I always carry a key), stroller on one arm, Daisy on the other. Of course, instant alarm.
“Leigh! My goodness!”
It seems to me that a woman who can manage to be in a skirt and blouse by seven in the morning and has no office to get to should be able to field an interruption like this one without so much as raising her voice. But there is the other, umbilical, consideration
She takes Daisy, whose delight is immediate.
“I was just on my way out for the paper,” she explains frantically, “but let me get you some coffee and breakfast. What on earth is going on. Poor Daisy, is she all right. Where are Jane and Isaac.”
In her haste over most things, Mother forgets to inflect. Statements are questions, questions statements. Discourse in general is
“Waff?” she says.
Waffles. She wants waffles. I unbuckle her, draw her up.
“We’ll get you waffles. When we get to Grandma’s.”
I fish out half a stack of Ritz crackers from the diaper bag, then carry her to the water fountain to fill her bottle.
“Waddey.”
I drink too, with a vicious thirst, as if the more water I get down, the easier my future will be.
We settle back into our niche by the radiator. Daisy eats happily. She shakes her bottle.
“Jay?” she asks me.
I hug her. “Yes,” I say, but no sound comes out.
• • •
I have forgotten to mention Paris.
After my expulsion from Hastings, Fowler and I went there. J.T. and Evelyn had given him some money for graduate school, so we used some of that. In Paris I learned to ride trains the way I’m riding this one, aching with love for my traveling companion and with sadness for those absent, to places threatening in their decay, their beauty.
Our first train was out of de Gaulle airport. We were sleepless, speeding on coffee, taking in as much of the whizzing in-between of suburb and city as we could. The Défense stood out, monolithic, horrible in contrast to the miles of clay roofing of nearly all of Paris. It was June, and I was four months along with Isaac, just over the nausea, and I felt no exhaustion, only the fluttering stomach that could have been his heart beating or just anticipation of all that lay ahead: Europe, the birth, the baby, a lifetime of Fowler and joint-effort films. The only sadness was for my parents and theiraging, their being out of this stage of life and having made peace with their particular estrangement.
Fowler said that the tiles of the clay roofs, long, rust-colored half-cylinders, were, before French roofing became industrialized, molded on women’s thighs.
“What,” I said.
“Really!” he told me. “The long legs of beautiful women who sat under the wet clay until it dried.”
“Beautiful, patient women,” I said.
“Yes,” said he, squeezing my hand, leaning back in his seat, exhaling satisfaction.
I had a baby with a man who could almost convince me of a story like that. I had two more with a man who would take in those roofs without making mention of them. My mistake: I love both of these men.
Riding this train, my youngest draped over me in silent wonder, the gray Hudson on our right, attempts at permanence on our left, I come to this: I have always been this person, the one I am, who sees this way, whose actions connote a vision of the world as enormous, capricious, ultimately sacrosanct. The current leave-taking alters none of this for me.
Later that morning I sat in a double bed in a pension on the left bank, drinking espresso and crying behind a section of Le Monde, willing myself to stop, failing.
Now tears darken my daughter’s fuchsia sweatshirt, and I feign a coughing fit. She shifts against me, a familiar turning, as of the fetus in the later months, dragging me back. She’s a perfect size for this posture, and she turns her head so that we both face the river, our cheeks aligned, and we ride into the city, watching.
Mother is upon us as I push open the door (I always carry a key), stroller on one arm, Daisy on the other. Of course, instant alarm.
“Leigh! My goodness!”
It seems to me that a woman who can manage to be in a skirt and blouse by seven in the morning and has no office to get to should be able to field an interruption like this one without so much as raising her voice. But there is the other, umbilical, consideration
She takes Daisy, whose delight is immediate.
“I was just on my way out for the paper,” she explains frantically, “but let me get you some coffee and breakfast. What on earth is going on. Poor Daisy, is she all right. Where are Jane and Isaac.”
In her haste over most things, Mother forgets to inflect. Statements are questions, questions statements. Discourse in general is
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