Winnie was feigning interest in the story of how Oli and I had met when an unmistakable cry pierced the air. I turned, along with Winnie and the other patrons. There, lying flat on his back on the sidewalk outside, his face a red ball of rage, was my Henri. Crouched beside him was Maria, bless her heart, talking quietly, a look of calm determination in her eyes.
For a split second, I considered claiming ignorance. (And before you accuse me of being heartless, Detective, you must understand that back then, the tantrums were never-ending.) At the next table over, two men in stylish glasses exchanged smirks, and I snapped out of it, explained to Winnie that the shrieking child was my son, and rushed out the door.
What happened? I asked Maria. I bent down to still my son’s wildly kicking legs. He cracked open one eye, saw it was me, and went right on wailing.
Maria sighed. Nothing, the usual, poor thing.
I stroked Henri’s sweat-matted hair. Oh, Cookie, what’s wrong? Tell Mama what’s wrong.
But he couldn’t tell me, and that was the root of the problem. Even at the age of two, he was deeply thoughtful, profoundly empathetic. More than anything he yearned to convey the feelings he had no language to describe, and who among us wouldn’t find that frustrating? And so he erupted for the most innocuous reasons: being put in his stroller, being taken out of his stroller, having his hand grabbed before crossing the street, being toweled off after his bath. Anything could set him off. Those first few years, he cried so much, his voice was perpetually hoarse. Oh, but listen to me, going on and on about my happy, healthy kid. He’s doing so much better now, even if he still sounds like a mini Rod Stewart. It’s rather endearing, really.
That afternoon, however, my son went right on shrieking as Maria and I cycled through our repertoire of tricks, stroking his tummy, rubbing his scalp, tickling his forearms, pinning his ankles together. A woman walking a golden retriever clucked sympathetically at us. A nanny ordered a pair of twin boys to stop staring.
The only thing to do was to hunker down and wait it out, Maria and I making loud soothing sounds like a couple of white-noise machines. After a long while, Henri tired. His kicking grew less frantic; the muscles in his face slackened. I reached out and tickled his belly, which was sometimes enough to get him to relinquish the last of his rage. Not this time. The instant my finger poked his soft tummy, his jaw dropped, releasing a neck-pinching scream. The crying started up again at full force. I fell back on my haunches, exhausted, ready to tell Maria to peel him off the sidewalk and drag him home.
From behind me, a low, warm voice sang a Chinese children’s song. Liang zhi lao hu, liang zhi lao hu, pao de kuai, pao de kuai.
I whirled around to find Winnie standing there bent over with her hands on her knees, singing intently about a pair of tigers, one without eyes and one without a tail. Zhen qi guai, zhen qi guai. I recognized the tune from the after-school Chinese classes of my youth.
Abruptly the crying stopped. Without breaking song, Winnie unclipped a gray fur charm dangling from the handle of her Birkin.
I blurted, Don’t give it to him, you’ll never get it back.
But she held the furry ball out to Henri in the palm of her hand.
I hope that’s not real mink, I warned.
Henri seized the ball and squealed with delight. A thick rope of drool landed on the soft fur.
Oh dear, I said.
Winnie laughed and patted Henri’s head, and he purred sweetly.
This is Auntie Winnie, I told him. Can you say thank you?
He rubbed the mink across his saliva-soaked lips.
I explained to Winnie that although he understood everything, he didn’t yet speak, and Oli attributed the slight delay to his being bilingual.
Smart boy, said Winnie.
I was too embarrassed to go back inside the coffee shop, so when Maria managed to strap Henri into his stroller without incident, I suggested we head home.
There, Winnie settled at the grand piano and played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” singing to Henri in Mandarin—yi shan yi shan liang jing jing—teaching him to make blinking stars with his plump little paws.
The backs of my eyes began to smart. At that point my mom had only been gone six months. She was the one who was supposed to teach Henri Chinese. She was supposed to rub my back and tell me it was normal to be so tired I nodded off while brushing my teeth. She was supposed to talk me out of putting Henri on a strict diet of elk and venison because I was convinced the hormones and antibiotics were to blame.
Winnie saw the tear winding down my cheek and lifted her hands from the keyboard.
What’s wrong, Ava?
Henri tugged on his earlobe, signaling growing agitation.
Nothing. Keep playing.
She dropped her hands to her lap. Henri’s wail started as a low, chesty rumble and then gained force, rising through the scale to full police siren.
Maria, I called.
She darted out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans, scooped up Henri, and hefted him to his bedroom.
I grabbed a tissue and dabbed my cheeks. Oli says it’s a phase.
Sure, Winnie said. All babies are like that.
I didn’t want her to think I was despairing over my son, so I told her about my mom’s passing.
She clamped a hand over her mouth. She remembered my mom from when she’d visited Stanford all those years ago.
Oh, Ava, I’m so sorry. She must have been such a good grandma to Henri.
I told her that for the first three months, she, Henri, and I had shared a room. She woke for every feeding, changed countless diapers, promised me that someday he’d stop crying. She’d dropped dead—there was no other way to describe it—while jogging on her basement treadmill. Sudden cardiac arrest. Sixty-nine years old, thin as a whippet, rarely ever so much as caught a cold.
From the back of the house, my son’s wails softened into jagged sobs. Winnie’s mink charm lay gray and soggy on the carpet like an offering from a housecat. When I bent over to retrieve it, I caught the word FENDI embossed on the metal clip.
Oh, shit, I said.
Don’t worry about it. Keep it as a toy for Henri.
Once she was gone, I searched for the bag charm online so I could buy her a replacement. Guess how much it cost? Six hundred bucks. Obviously I didn’t go through with it. The next time Henri had an episode, I whipped out the mangled mink ball and dangled it in his face. He grew incensed, flung it away, and went right on screaming.
After that, Winnie would let me know whenever she came to San Francisco from L.A. Her work, she said, regularly brought her here, so she often stayed at the St. Regis downtown. I was impressed. The last time I’d checked, rooms there went for seven hundred a night.
Given all I’ve said so far, you must be wondering why I so willingly befriended her this time around. I’ll admit that at first, I was dazzled by her wealth and beauty, her extreme confidence. I suppose a part of me was still stuck in freshman year, clinging to friends like life rafts.
But there was a deeper reason, too. The truth is, no one else, besides my mother, could calm Henri, and I was desperate. My son was still waking up every three or so hours, which meant it’d been two years and counting since I’d had a full night’s sleep. Days I spent staring at my laptop screen, researching special diets to quell tantrums, while stalwart Maria wheeled Henri from story time to music class to the park. In fact, the week that Winnie called, I’d had eight pounds of bison shipped from Wisconsin, all of it hidden in a secret freezer in the garage storage room because Oli held a particular contempt for nutrition pseudoscience. And rightly so! I think we can all agree my behavior was unhinged.
Oh, and speaking of Oli, did I mention that this was right when he’d left UCSF for Stanford? A stellar career move, to be sure, but one that involved a nightmare commute on top of an already endless workday, which meant he never made it home in time to put Henri to bed.
So, like any overwhelmed new mom, I was grateful for Winnie’s help.