I apologized for encouraging the call. She said she’d never hung up on her mom before.
“Really?”
“No.”
We sat in silence. After a moment she poured herself some water and drank the whole glass.
“Do you want more?” I rose to take the glass. “Should I call the nurse?”
“Will it be the same one from before?”
“She had a funny smell, didn’t she?”
“She smelled like metal,” Clee said gravely.
I laughed.
“She did,” she said. “The smell made my teeth hurt!”
This seemed funny too. I gripped the bed rail, giggling; I felt slightly hysterical. Clee’s laugh was an unflattering guffaw; her mouth became huge. There was that smile I’d seen once before. She was looking at my lips; I brushed them off as I finished chuckling. We were done laughing. She was still looking at my mouth; I kept my hand over it. She quietly moved my fingers away and kissed me softly. She pulled back, swallowed, and then began again. We were kissing. For a while I kissed thinking that this was not that kind of kissing. I kissed her unfamiliarly soft, full lips again and again and reasoned that there were plenty of families who kissed easily and on the lips, French people, young people, farm people, Romans . . . After a while the hypothesis fell away; her palms were rubbing my back, my hair, she held my face. I stroked her braids again and again, as if I had wanted to touch them for a million years and would never tire of it. After a long time, ten or fifteen minutes, the kissing slowed. There were a series of closing kisses, goodbye kisses, kisses placed like lids on boxes—then the lid would pop off and need to be replaced. There, this is the final kiss—no, this is the final kiss. This one is, it really is. And now I’m just kissing that kiss good night.
She turned out the light by her bed. I stepped backward and crouched onto my cot. She lowered her mechanical bed; the noise of the motor filled the room. Then silence.
I had never been so awake in my life. What did it mean? What did it mean? I hadn’t kissed anyone in years. I’d never kissed a person with silky lips. Did I even like it? It was a little sickening. I wanted to do it more. It probably wouldn’t happen again. We were in a crisis. It was the kind of thing that happens for no reason in a crisis in the middle of the night. What did it mean? I blushed thinking of the starved way I had acted. As if I had been dying to do that. When really it was the furthest thing from my mind. I raised my pointed finger in the air—Furthest thing from my mind!—but the jury was inscrutable. How would we be in the morning? Kubelko Bondy. Somehow it was hard to believe he would die now, since he was a part of this. Soft was the wrong word. Satiny? Supple? A new word, I would come up with it right now—which letters would I use? S, for sure. Maybe an O. Was this how words were made? How would I announce the word? Who would I contact about that?
IN THE MORNING HER BED was empty. I hurried into my shoes and took the elevator up to the NICU. The linoleum hallways were endless and fluorescent and the kissing episode was remote, just one of yesterday’s many dramatic events. Today was day two of his life, hopefully. I washed my hands and put on the gown. Clee was hunched over the glass case, chanting her “sweet baby boy” hymn. Her braids were gone. Without looking at me she stepped back, so I could have a turn.
The tube down his throat looked huger today, as if he’d shrunken in the night. His tired black eyes had just opened when the tall Indian doctor appeared behind us.
“Good morning.” He shook our hands. “Please come with me.”
His face was grim and it occurred to me that we would now be told the baby wasn’t going to make it. Maybe he had already technically died and it was just the machines giving the illusion of life. Clee gave me a stricken look.
“Can she stay with the baby?” I asked. “He just woke up.”
I followed the doctor across the room. I yearned for a lawyer and the right to make a phone call. But those rights were for arrested people. We got nothing. Whatever he told me would be the new reality and we’d just have to accept it. The doctor parked me in front of a skinny woman with a folder.
“This is Baby Boy Stengl’s grandmother,” he said, introducing me.
“I’m Carrie Spivack,” said the woman, sashaying forward.
“Carrie is from Philomena Family Services.”
And the doctor turned to leave, just like that. I grabbed him.
“Shouldn’t we wait to see if—”
He looked down at his pocket; my hand was in it. I took it out.
“If what?”
“If he lives?”
“Oh, he’ll live. That’s a tough kid. He just needs to show us he can use his lungs.”
Carrie from Philomena Family Services brought out her hand again. I hugged her, brittle reed that she was. He’ll live.
She stepped backward out of my arms; she wasn’t that kind of Christian.
“I’m here to talk with your daughter—is that her over there?”
“No.”
“It’s not?”
“Now wouldn’t be a good time.”
“Of course it wouldn’t.”
“It wouldn’t?”
“She’s saying goodbye,” Carrie said.
“Which might take a little while.”
“You’re right. There’s an arc to adoption.”
“An ark?”
“A beginning, a middle, and an end. The end is always the same.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“That’s because she’s in the beginning. Nobody knows in the beginning. She’s right on track.”
“How long does it take?”
“Not too long. I like to give a lot of space and let the hormones do the work.”
“But approximately.”
“Three days. In three days she’ll be herself again.”
Carrie said she would be back tomorrow and not to worry about a thing. Amy and Gary were on their way.
“They’re coming here?”
“She won’t have to meet them. Here’s my card, just let her know she’s not alone.”
“She’s not alone.”
“Great.”
CLEE’S FOREHEAD WAS AGAINST THE ISOLETTE. His eyes were shut again.
“Who was that?”
“The doctor said he’ll live. He said he’s a tough kid.”
She straightened up. “A tough kid?” Her chin was trembling. She unclicked one of the circular doors and put her mouth into the arm hole. “Did you hear that, sweet boy?” she whispered. His skinny, mottled arms lay limply against his tiny torso. “You’re tough.”
I glanced across the room—did three days include today? Or was yesterday the first day and today was already day two? Was she factoring in that we had kissed and kissed and kissed last night? I winced with embarrassment.
A nurse hurried past. “Excuse,” she said, too busy for the me. I looked across the room at the parents who would blame each other for all eternity. They belonged here, both of them equally, as did the nurses and the doctors and Clee. None of them recognized the interloper among them, but they would soon. I’d gotten swept up in the drama of the situation and mistakenly involved myself.