I don’t turn to Willow as I mumble, “Good night,” and wait until she’s left the room to breathe. I slip into a satin nightgown and, locking the bedroom door, join Zoe in bed, sliding the Swiss Army knife under the pillow.
I spend the sleepless night tossing and turning, trying hard not to wake Zoe from sleep, Zoe who turns so that her back is in my direction, hugging the far edge of the bed so our bodies don’t connect. Zoe, who used to long to climb in bed with Chris and me, who begged to fill that empty space between Mommy and Daddy’s protective bodies, now pushed far enough away that she might fall off the bed.
When I finally do sleep, my dreams are filled with babies. Babies and blood. They are not happy dreams, of cherubs and cherubic babies as I’ve had in the past, but rather bloody babies, dead babies, empty bassinets. I find myself running from room to room in my satin nightgown, searching for baby Juliet, finding her nowhere. In my dreams, I retrace my steps as if maybe, just maybe, I overlooked her lying in the middle of a room, wrapped up in her fleece blankie. I look in those places where the cats like to hide: in the closet, behind a closed pantry door, under the bed. She’s nowhere.
And then I peer down to find my satin nightgown slathered with blood. Like ketchup on a hamburger bun. It’s on the nightgown, on my hands, and as I peer at my reflection in a mirror—aging, ten years or more older than I was when I went to bed—I see blood staining my once-auburn hair red.
I wake, in a sweat, from the nightmare, certain—absolutely certain—that somewhere, off in the distance, I hear a baby crying.
I rise from bed and tiptoe across the room. The digital numbers on the alarm clock read 2:17 a.m. I find the hallway dark, save for the feeble light from the kitchen stove that wanders its way into the hall. It’s quiet as I press my ear to the office door; there is no sound. No baby cries.
And yet I was so sure.
I lay my hand on the satin nickel knob and turn.
Locked.
I try again, just to be sure, my heart beginning to accelerate in my chest. I’m worried something is wrong on the other side of the door, as a million unwanted thoughts sneak into my mind, everything from Willow rolling over and smothering the baby, to some madman climbing up the fire escape and fleeing with Ruby in his arms.
I need to get inside that room. I need to make certain she’s okay.
I could knock on the door and wake Willow from sleep, making her open the door so I can investigate how secure the windows are and whether or not the baby is all right. I could tell her I was worried that something might have happened to the baby.
And if I am right, then my panic would be justified. But if I’m wrong...
If I’m wrong, the girls—Willow and Zoe, the both of them—will think I’m insane.
I scamper down the hall to the kitchen junk drawer where we keep a collection of keys—for it’s the kind of lock that simply needs to be unlatched with some sharp object; a paper clip would do. I return to the office door again, where I insert the makeshift key, turn clockwise and voilà!
The door opens in a cinch.
I turn the handle ever so gently, not wanting to wake Willow. The door creaks open and there I find her, as I did the night before, her back toward the baby, a pillow placed over her head. The baby is sound asleep, breathing blissfully. She’s kicked the green chenille throw from her own tiny body and lies exposed so that I can see the rise and fall of her chest to know that she’s alive, not smothered in blood as my dreams persuaded me to believe.
She’s sound asleep, eyes and appendages completely dormant, inert.
I want to take her in my arms and carry her down the hall to the rocking chair in the living room. I want to hold her as she sleeps, well into the morning light, watching out the window as the first buses and cabs of the day appear on the city street. I want to watch the sun rise with Ruby in my grasp, to see the golden pink hues discolor the dark April sky.
And then there are other thoughts that fill my mind, thoughts of taking the baby where Willow cannot find me.
I stare at Ruby, my body pressed into the shadows of the room, becoming a mere silhouette on the wall, a featureless shape backlit by the lightness of the walls, by the pale moonlight that sidles in from behind the pewter-gray drapes, pintuck drapes that always looked a mess to me, wrinkled, puckered. I imagine myself as one of those famous, iconic silhouettes: Jane Austen or Beethoven, or the trashy mudflap girls that grace big rigs and rednecks’ trucks, those girls with their hourglass shapes and enormous breasts.
I place my hands on the wall to steady myself; I will myself not to breathe, so that I won’t wake Willow, trying hard to extend the time between breaths until I become lightheaded and dizzy.
There is a clock in this room, as well, red digital numbers that drift from 2:21 to 4:18 a.m., all in the blink of an eye as I hover, there, at the foot of the sofa bed, wanting to cover the baby with the chenille throw, to move her, a foot or more from Willow’s body so that I don’t have to worry about her being smothered or squished flat.