The Push
I laughed awkwardly, not sure how to play along. “Uh, yeah. Sometimes?” I hadn’t ever been to the movies. I also hadn’t ever talked to a puppet. I looked down and shuffled some dishes around in the sink. Thomas came running into the kitchen squealing, “Mommy’s doing the talk show again!” and Daniel flew in behind him. “Ask me something, ask me!” Mrs. Ellington stood with one hand on her hip and the other hand chatting away, her voice squeaking from the corner of her mouth. Mr. Ellington popped his head in to watch.
“Now, Daniel, what is your very favorite thing to eat, and you can’t say ice cream!” said the puppet. He jumped up and down while he thought of his answer and Thomas shouted options. “Pie! I know it’s pie!” Mrs. Ellington’s oven mitt gasped, “PIE! Not rhubarb, though, right? That gives me the toots!” and the boys screamed over each other in laughter. I listened to them carry on. I’d never felt anything like this before. The spontaneity. The silliness. The comfort. Mrs. Ellington saw me watching from the sink and called me over with her finger. She put the oven mitt on my hand and said, “A guest host tonight! What a treat!” And then she whispered to me, “Go ahead, ask the boys what they’d rather do. Eat worms or someone else’s boogers?” I snickered. She rolled her eyes and smiled, as if to say, Trust me, they’ll love it, those silly boys.
She walked me home that night, which she had never done before. All the lights in my house were off. She watched as I unlocked the door, to make sure my dad’s shoes were in the hallway. And then from her pocket she pulled the book about the magical gnome and gave it to me.
“Thought you might want this back now.”
I did. I flipped the pages with my thumb and thought, for the first time that night, about my mother.
I thanked her again for dinner. She turned around at the end of my driveway and called, “Same time next week! If I don’t see you before then.” I suspect she knew she would.
7
I knew as soon as you came inside of me. Your warmth filled me and I knew. I couldn’t blame you for thinking I was crazy—we’d been trying for months—but nearly three weeks later we laughed together lying on our bathroom floor like drunken fools. Everything had changed. You skipped work for the day, remember? We watched movies in bed and ordered takeout for each meal. We just wanted to be together. You and me. And her. I knew she was a girl.
I couldn’t write anymore. My head flew away every time I tried. To what she would look like and who she would be.
I began doing prenatal exercise classes. We started each class in a stretching circle where we introduced ourselves and said how many months along we were. I was fascinated to see what was coming, looking at the other women’s bellies in the mirror as we followed an aerobic routine that barely seemed worth doing. My own body was still unchanged and I couldn’t wait to see her make room for herself. In me. In the world.
Walking through the city to go about my day had changed. I had a secret. I half expected people to look at me differently. I wanted to touch my still-flat belly and say, I’m going to be a mother. This is who I am now. I was consumed.
* * *
? ? ?
There was a day at the library when I flipped through books for hours in the Pregnancy and Childbirth section. I had just started to show. A woman walked by me, searching the spines for a particular book. The one she slid out from the shelf was a well-used guide to sleep.
“How far along?”
“Six months.” She scanned the table of contents with her finger and then looked at my middle before my face. “You?”
“Twenty-one weeks.” We nodded to each other. She looked like she used to make homemade kombucha and go to 6:00 a.m. spin classes, but now settled for leftover puree and a walk to the store for diapers. “I haven’t even thought about sleep yet.”
“Your first?”
I nodded and smiled.
“This is my second.” The woman lifted the book. “Honestly, just figure out the sleep and you’ll be fine. Nothing else matters. I really fucked that up the first time.”
I laughed, sort of, and thanked her for the tip. A child’s wail broke from across the library and she sighed.
“That’s mine.” She gestured up and over her shoulder, and then pulled out a second copy of the same book she was there for. She held it out to me and I noticed she had pink marker on her hands. “Good luck.”
She looked full and feminine from behind as she walked away, her wide hips, her shoulder-length hair creased from what sleep she had found. She felt, to me, so obviously a mother. Was it the way she looked, or moved? Was it the way she seemed to have more to care about than I did? When would this happen to me, this crossover? How was I about to change?
8
Fox, come see.” It was the third huge box your mother had sent since we told them about the baby. She was relentless in her excitement and called every week to see how I was feeling. I pulled out fancy swaddle blankets and knitted newborn hats and teeny-tiny white sleepers. At the bottom there was a separate package on which she’d written “Fox’s Baby Things.” In it was a worn teddy bear with buttons for eyes, and a threadbare flannel blanket with silk trim that once had been ivory white. A small porcelain figurine of a baby boy sitting on a moon with your name in delicate gold script. I lifted the teddy to my nose and then to yours. You reminisced. I half listened but my mind was elsewhere, searching my past for the same kind of familiar tokens, blankies and stuffies and favorite books, but I couldn’t find any.