Butterfly Soup. Nancy Pinard

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СКАЧАТЬ it’s how she feels. Joey can’t hear her.

      In the kitchen the microwave is counting down from twenty-seven seconds. Joey’s cranking isn’t as loud with the microwave humming in her ear. Twenty seconds to go. His squalls are intermittent now. Maybe she’s the problem, and he’s better off alone. Maybe she should stay in the kitchen and let him work it out. The seconds count down. The turn-table rotates, and Valley watches, mesmerized, as the bottle circles round and round. When the microwave clicks off, the house is quiet. Valley waits while the overtones of the humming die away, then inhales deeply, as if silence has become a component of air. She’s done it. Joey has finally quit howling. The silence is more than a reward. It’s heavenly bliss. She collapses into the counter. It’s been a long morning, but Joey has finally, finally gone to sleep.

      She tiptoes to the living room and peeks around the doorway at him. He is a different child. Her mother always talks about how she liked to watch Valley sleep. She pulls Sebastian away from his face gently so as not to wake him. She’ll go upstairs and get his blanket. Let him nap right here. But as she’s about to leave, something about him strikes her as not quite right. For a baby that was flailing two minutes back, he is awfully still. She watches his back. Surely his back should be moving.

      Holy Mother of God.

      Valley runs to the phone. Dials home. Hangs up before it rings. Dials the hospital. “Middleton Community Hospital.” It’s an older woman. Valley can’t force words out. “Hello? Hello? Can I help you?” Valley hangs up. Runs to the window. Looks up and down the street. Old Mr. Carmichael is on his porch. He can’t help. He can hardly get out of the rocker.

      Images of Joey in a casket rise in her mind’s eye. The room is closing in, but she refuses to faint. She snatches Joey up. His head lops to one side. She lifts him higher, his chest to her cheek, but can hear nothing but the ringing in her ears. His body is so heavy. “Oh, God,” she shrieks, thumping his back. “Someone help me!”

      Joey shudders. One leg pedals.

      At least she thinks so. She may have jostled him. She thumps his back again. Rubs in a circle.

      He sputters. Coughs.

      Tears pop to Valley’s eyes.

      Joey takes a deep breath. A year passes while Valley waits. He exhales.

      “Good boy, Joey. You are such a good boy.” The tears break from her eyes and disappear in the nap of his sleeper. Joey inhales again. Exhales. Double shudders. Inhales.

      He is breathing. In, out. In, out. He opens his eyes. Looks into her face. Screws up his face and mewls at her. She runs to the phone. Dials home. “Mom. I need you to come. Joey’s having a bad time.”

      The familiar thrum of the Galaxy engine out on the Harpers’ driveway comforts Valley—like the pendulum of the cuckoo clock over the couch at home. Joey is still sobbing when her mother bursts through the door. “It’s awful hot in here, Valley,” she says. “Take your vest off, lamb. You’ll die of the heat.” She takes Joey and cuddles him to her bosom, crooning lulling nonsense into his ear. He nuzzles into her like a favorite pillow, wiping snot all over her dress. Valley retreats to the couch, stuffing the guilty Sebastian behind her.

      “Don’t smother him, Ma.”

      “He’s just rooting around, goosie. You don’t have to worry.” Her mother stands in the middle of the room, swaying gently. Joey’s sobs, muffled by her breast, change to rhythmic whimpering, then slow to occasional gasps.

      “Has he been doing this long?” Her mother looks straight at her for the first time.

      Valley nods and looks away. She takes a Good Housekeeping from the end table as an excuse. There’s a picture of Princess Diana on the cover, in a green maternity dress with huge white polka dots and a white sailor collar. Motherhood is everywhere.

      “You should have called me sooner,” her mother says. “A baby always knows inexperienced arms.” She looks at Joey. “Hasa been ’creamin’ and hollerin’, lambkin? Whatsa matter widda big boy? Huh? Whatsa matter?” she croons into the top of his head, punctuating each question with kisses on top of his head. “I think he wants a bottle, Valley. Did Mrs. Harper make one up?”

      Valley gets the bottle from the microwave. Her mother settles into the rocker and tickles his cheek with the nipple. He turns and takes it into his mouth, sucking eagerly. She sings “Rock-a-bye Baby” in her thin soprano as he sucks.

      Valley pictures Joey dumped from the cradle and lying limp on the ground, blue as a Smurf. “Mom, don’t sing that. It’s awful.”

      “It’s just a song, silly. He doesn’t understand the words.”

      “Well, I do. Don’t sing it.”

      “He got you real upset, didn’t he, lamb? I don’t know who needs the rocking more—Joey or you.”

      Valley folds her hands, clenching her muscles around the knot in her stomach so it won’t unravel and give her away. The rocker’s creaking and the sound of Joey’s sucking calm her. She suddenly feels exhausted.

      “Look at him, Valley, honey,” her mother says. “Isn’t he precious? Look at his little wrists. Like someone put a rubber band around his plump little arm. And his knuckles. Little dimples. Everything perfect.”

      Valley looks at the two of them, Joey’s body merging into her mother’s flowered dress.

      “And he smells so good. Aah. You smelled so good I thought I’d go wild. Your scent was all over your blankets, and when I went to put them in the washer, I’d stand there and grieve that I was about to wash you away. I had to go cuddle you as soon as I’d done it.”

      Valley can’t imagine sticking her face in peed-on baby blankets. Face it—whatever it is that makes women go ape over babies and cancel their lives for slavery to poop and snot, she doesn’t have it.

      Joey falls asleep with the bottle in his mouth. Her mother removes it and gets up from the rocker, his head cradled in her elbow and his bottom in her other palm. “Sit down here, Valley. You take him. He’s fine now.” She motions to the chair with her head.

      Valley seats herself in the chair and takes Joey back. He stays asleep, though during the switch his head lolls dangerously to one side.

      “That’s right. There.” Her mother props Joey’s head between Valley’s small breast and her arm. Valley tenses so his head won’t move. “Perfect.” Her mother stands back and regards the two of them with her head cocked to one side.

      Valley’s arm aches, but she doesn’t move.

      “Now rock, lamb. Relax. It feels good. Enjoy the motion.”

      Valley pushes off with her toe.

      “You should be fine now. Call me back if you need me.”

      Valley wishes her mother would stay. She doesn’t want to be alone with Joey. Doesn’t trust herself. But now that Joey is sleeping, her mother will be suspicious if she asks her to stay. She can’t risk that.

      The Galaxy disappears down the road, and Valley is left with Joey and the creaking rocker. She looks down at the sleeping child. How long had her Home Ec teacher said a baby could go without oxygen before brain СКАЧАТЬ