Goodnight You Moonlight Ladies
Peter wishes she would just breathe. It seems like it would be easy. Breathe, baby, breathe. That heart of yours? Make it beat. She was so good at that. She had all that energy.
Women don't die in childbirth anymore. It's something you read about in history textbooks now. Modern medicine has solved that problem. Women don't die like that, and men in their thirties aren't left holding the reins of two little boys.
Speaking of which, Peter needs to get out of this empty surgery room and pick up Ned from the babysitter. The doctors told him he ought to stay here for a while and let it sink in, but he can't see how that would help anybody. He needs to get Ned, and he needs to explain to Ned-- congratulations, you have a new brother. I'm sorry, but Mommy's not coming home. He needs to hold Ned and show that sometimes even daddies cry.
It's not just Ned now. Peter's been running names through his head for two hours. It would be easier if Gillian had decided for him. He'd thought it was kind of amusing that she was so convinced it was a girl, but now he wishes she'd made plans for the unexpected. He thinks of naming his new son for his father, for Jared Duff, for Gillian, but all of those ideas seem crass. Peter's son will remind everyone of death anyway. There's no need to amplify that.
Let Mom name the kid, or Amy. They've always been the word people, the idea people. If he asks, they'll let him stick to his numbers.
No, Mom will tell him to name his own damn baby. And Amy, in spite of everything, is secretly much busier deciding whether she's going to marry that slimy bastard she's been dating. What kind of name is Stu for a boyfriend? It's a great name for a bad brother-in-law. Amy never liked Gillian, so she'd be ahead again, two impossible husbands to Peter's one impossible wife. Impossible, yes, and loud, but he loved her devotion and her focus. She filled a room. She never mistook his quiet for boring, and she never assumed that he didn't change because he didn't want to. She also loved him one hell of a lot. That's an underappreciated trait in wives, he smiles to himself.
And now there is one less like that.
She's gone. Like that.
A nurse comes by to check on him. His family knows to stay away. When he was a kid and something bad happened-- a low grade on a test, a fight at school-- he'd lock himself in his room and play records. "We always knew when you were in a bad mood," Amy told him once, recently. "We could hear the bass everywhere in the house. Thump. Thump. Peter's pissed." Anger is supposed to be one of the stages of grief, or something like that, but that's not what he feels. He feels like someone has cut out the floor from underneath him, and he just keeps falling and falling.
He tells the nurse that he doesn't need anything. She brings him a cup of coffee anyway. She is on her way out, and he realizes that it's been a few hours. "Can I see the baby?" he says. "My baby."
The nurse smiles uncomfortably. "I'd forgotten all about that," she says. "That ought to be... he might even be ready for his first feeding. If you're ready for that."
"It doesn't matter," Peter says. He's not making any sense. What he means is that he will do whatever he has to do, if it means he can hold his son. He wants to know for sure that the baby is alive and real. Or else to wake up and see Gillian still alive, round and manic, and all of this an anxiety dream.
He sits in his chair with his head in his hands and Gillian's smile in his head.
It's a different nurse who comes back to get him. "Is Mrs. Gray around?" she says. "We can't seem to--"
"No," Peter says. "No, she's not." He rubs his eye.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the nurse stammers. "I didn't realize you were-- you were--"
"Is he--? Can I--?"
"Of course," the nurse says. "Come with me." She doesn't talk to him, but she keeps glancing at him furtively like she expects him to pull a gun on her. "Have you decided on a name for him yet?" she says as they reach the nursery.
He shakes his head. "That was supposed to be-- Gillian was convinced he was going to be a girl. She wouldn't even let me pick out a boy's name." It occurs to him that almost anyone else would have had a name in his head and just not told her. Gillian thinks it's sweet that he's so literal-minded. Used to think.
"Give it all the time you need," the nurse says. "Some people have no idea, and then they look at the baby and just know. Like the child named itself." She leads him to a plush-carpeted room with a big white rocking chair. It's obviously designed for new mothers to nurse. "I'll bring your son to you in just a minute," she says.
When she does, she doesn't say anything. She passes Peter the small bundle of baby wrapped in soft blue blanket and puts a bottle of formula on the table by the rocking chair. "Is he your first?" the nurse says.
Gillian might have said yes. Ned never seemed quite real to her, or at least, never really hers. Towards the end of her pregnancy with this new baby, she seemed to forget about Ned sometimes. She'd be stenciling pink ballet shoes along the molding in the new baby's room, and Ned would be in the playpen, crying.
Ned is an expert at expressing need. When Peter brought him home, he seemed so grateful to be loved. It terrifies Peter to think that he could leave Ned behind. Ned, who might need him even more than this child that he made himself.
"I know how to feed him," Peter says. He remembers all the midnights and 3-AMs with Ned in his arms, rocking and singing softly. Gillian would have gotten up for every feeding, but there was no reason for her to. And he'd really wanted to, even when it meant dragging himself out of bed. By the time they'd adopted Ned, he'd had such a clear idea of what kind of father he wanted to be. He still wants to be the kind that holds and rocks and sings.
Gillian bought dozens of CDs of nursery rhymes and Classics For Babies when they brought Ned home. She memorized the lyrics to lullabies and sang one to Ned every night. At Gillian's urging, Peter tried to learn those baby songs, but they seemed silly when they weren't disturbing. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. He wound up singing the only songs he knew. Paul Simon and Joan Baez, Carole King and James Taylor: the records Mom listened to when he was little. There's actual scientific evidence that you never forget the songs you learn as a child. It looked like Ned and the new baby were going to be the second generation of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and Tapestry.
He rocks in the chair with his son for a while before he introduces the bottle. By now, the baby is calm, and his eyelids sink half-closed as he learns how to swallow. "You've got your mother's eyes," Peter says softly. "All your life, people are going to tell you that, and you're going to have no idea what they mean." The baby doesn't even fidget, just keeps drinking his formula.
There could still be something wrong. The doctor said that the baby is healthy in every way that they can test right now, but it's too soon to tell about some things. He could develop retardation or learning problems later, could be blind or deaf, could have motor delays or immune deficiencies. Peter keeps on adding to the list in his mind. Gillian would want him to close his eyes to these possibilities and assume that their son is perfect. But pessimism is comforting. It will save him from this little boy's lifetime of surprises.
The baby stops sucking and gives a drowsy whimper. It takes a long time to burp him. Peter wonders if he's being too gentle. He bounces and pats in rhythm with "Beautiful Boy" and "Sweet Baby James." Finally, the baby releases and relaxes. He falls asleep almost as soon as Peter brings him down off his shoulder.
Peter gazes into his child's still new face. At first, he can't imagine this tiny thing growing up, but gradually, he can see it: first steps and first words, kindergarten and Little League, graduation, marriage. The whole impossible cycle repeated. He tells himself not to trust these premonitions. He's seen them fail. He is afraid of being lured by happy endings.
But part of him knows that all of this will come true. He's as sure of it as Gillian was sure that this baby would be born healthy and strong. He knows this child's life, and he knows its name.
The nurse comes to take the baby back to the nursery. "Because of the traumatic birth and the risk of congenital defects, the doctors want to monitor him here for a few more days," she says. "You can stay here as long as you want, Mr. Gray, but..."
"Thank you," he says. "I think some of my family's still here."
When he goes back to the waiting area, they're all there, sprawled out and dominating the place. Stu has his arm draped ostentatiously over Amy's shoulder; Amy is ignoring him, reading a pile of case files. Kyle, Donna, and Lauren are hunched over one of the too-low tables, playing crazy eights. And Mom is sitting on the floor, letting Ned crash his toy cars into her legs. "It was getting late, so Kyle picked him up and brought him over," she says.
Ned runs up to Peter, and Peter picks him up to hug him. He'll have a serious talk with Ned tomorrow-- figure out how to get him to understand. For now, all Peter wants to do is sleep. "Mom, do you think-- do you think I could get someone to take me home?"
"Your house," she says, "or home home?"
"I'm all right," Peter says.
"You're always welcome. You know that."
"It would be easier," he admits. "Not to be alone in the morning."
They all drive home from the hospital together, in caravan. Ned is in Kyle's car, to save the trouble of moving his car seat, but Peter goes back with his mother. "I think I figured out what to name the baby," he says.
"Oh, really?" Mom says.
He says the name that he's picked out-- the name that the baby has had all along. Mom smiles. "That's right," she says. "That's exactly right."