I looked down at my hands; they were clasping each other like two giddy bridesmaids.
What was I thinking?
I deleted the e-mail, closed the computer, and turned out the light. Clee was spread across the bed like a person falling; I folded myself around her.
NEAR THE END OF THE week we stopped by Open Palm together. Clee passed her phone around and Nakako and Sarah and Aya cooed over the pictures of Jack and told her how thin she looked. I had missed a lot of work. Jim said not to worry, I had six weeks’ maternity leave plus my sick days — but he had trouble looking me in the eye.
“Want to see the new Kick It banner?” He unfurled it on the floor and I called Clee over.
“What do you think, hon?”
“I don’t know anything about this stuff, Boo.” She rubbed the small of my back. I covertly scanned the room to see the reaction. Michelle was red-faced. Jim kept his eyes on the floor. Everyone else was working.
“But that’s what’s great, hon, you have fresh eyes.”
Jim took me aside.
“You know I have no problem with it. I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not the one who calls the shots around here.”
“What are you saying?”
“Carl and Suzanne are here — they’re with Kristof in the warehouse.”
“They’re in the warehouse right now?”
“They’re waiting for you to leave.”
I went outside and walked down the block to the warehouse. They were peering out the big windows but quickly turned away as I approached. I asked Kristof to take a ten-minute break.
“Actually, Kristof, you can stay,” Suzanne said. “Stay right where you are.” Kristof froze between us, one foot poised in midstep.
I held up my phone. “Your grandson is beautiful. Would you like to see?”
“Do you know what a persona non grata is?” Carl said.
“Yes.”
“It’s Latin for person not great.”
Kristof started to say something and then stopped himself. Maybe he knew Latin.
“For Clee’s sake we’re not going to fire you, but you’re a persona non grata. And you’re not on the board anymore.”
Kristof looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I put my phone away. It wasn’t hard to see the situation from their point of view; they’d trusted me and look what happened.
“It was her decision to keep Jack,” I said.
Kristof looked at Suzanne and Carl.
“It’s not about the baby. It’s about your inappropriate relations with our daughter.”
Kristof whipped his head back to me.
Jack. Your grandson’s name is Jack.
“You don’t know what our relations are.”
“We have a pretty good idea.”
“We haven’t had sex.”
“I see.”
Kristof didn’t seem to believe this either.
“Her doctor said she can’t have sex for eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks from when?” Kristof asked.
“From the birth.”
Suzanne and Carl exchanged a look of relief.
“That’s May eighteenth,” I continued. “You might want to mark your calendars. That’s the day we’re going to have intercourse.” I realized that was probably the wrong word for it but I forged on. “And then every day after that. Many times a day, in every position, all over the place, probably even in here.”
Kristof let out a Swedish whoop of excitement and then caught himself. Too late. Suzanne fired him on the spot — her face shaking with regret about things she had not nipped while they were still in the bud.
WE HAD A REAL RHYTHM GOING. We slept in, visited Jack for two hours, then did errands and went out to lunch, came home and took a nap, visited Jack for one more hour, home by eight, watched TV until twelve or one and went to bed. We slept a lot because we had this great position — Clee held me from behind and our bodies interlocked like two Ss.
“Not many people could do this,” I said, squeezing her arms.
“Everyone does this.”
“But not fitting together so perfectly the way we do.”
“Any two people can do it.”
Sometimes I looked at her sleeping face, the living flesh of it, and was overwhelmed by how precarious it was to love a living thing. She could die simply from lack of water. It hardly seemed safer than falling in love with a plant.
After two weeks it felt like this was the only way we had ever lived. We still kissed frequently, usually a cluster of short pecks. An acronym for our early deep kisses. Which in a way was more intimate, because only we knew what it stood for.
“We shouldn’t pressure them to let us bring him home,” said Clee. A peck.
“No, of course not.” A peck back. Another peck. A third. She pulled her head back.
“You were being a little bit pressuring this morning.”
“I was? What did I say?”
“You said ‘We can’t wait.’ But we can wait. We can wait forever if that’s what’s best for him.”
“Well, not forever. He can’t be an old man in the NICU.”
“He can if that’s what’s best for him. When they say he’s ready to go, we’ll say ‘Are you one hundred and twelve percent sure?’ ”
But it wasn’t like that; it wasn’t a conversation. Jack had an MRI, it came back normal. The next day he drank two ounces of milk, passed a healthy stool, and was declared fit for discharge. There were forms to fill out; he was given shots. As he signed our outtake papers, Dr. Kulkarni said Baby Boy Stengl had made a complete recovery—“It doesn’t take much to be a baby, though. You’ll know more in a year.”
Clee and I exchanged a look.
“But he made a complete recovery,” I said, keeping my voice very even.
“Right, but as with any child, you won’t know if he can run until he runs.”
“Okay. I see. And besides running? Should we keep an eye out for anything in the future?”
“Oh, the future. I see.” A shadow fell over the doctor’s face. “You’re wondering if your son will get cancer? Or be hit by a car? Or be bipolar? Or have autism? Or drug problems? I don’t know, I’m not a psychic. Welcome to parenthood.” He swiveled and walked away.
Clee and I stood with our mouths agape. Carla and Tammy looked at each other knowingly.
“Don’t worry,” Tammy said, “you’ll know if something’s wrong. A mother knows.”
“Just make sure he hits his milestones,” said Carla. “Smiling is the first one. You want to see a smile by”—she counted on her fingers—“the fourth of July. Not a gassy smile, a real one.” She threw open her mouth, producing a daft, infantile grin, and then reabsorbed it. Tammy handed Clee and me each a baby doll with a movable jaw and guided us into a room with a TV. We sat down in a daze, holding the dolls.
“Infant CPR,” the nurse whispered, pressing play on the remote. “Just come out when you’re done.” She tiptoed away, gently shutting the door behind her.
We sat side by side and watched a mother come upon her unbreathing baby. “Maria?” She shook the baby. “MARIA!” Her face was gripped with terror. She called 911 and then, because she didn’t know infant CPR, she waited, howling, while her baby probably died in front of her.
We breathed desperately into our dolls’ mouths and pushed on their chests in dirty, well-worn spots. Never before had we simulated with such passion. I looked sideways at Clee, wondering if she was reminded of the how-to videos we had both watched long ago. This was self-defense too, in a way. Now poor Maria choked on a grape.