He shook his head, as if he’d committed a social mistake and could not live it down. “Seems like friends should know each other’s names,” he said. “It’s Cap. My mom’s maiden name was Caplin, and Cap was the compromise between my parents.”
“I like it,” Izzy said. If there was a person who had been kinder to her than Mr. Tannehill, she didn’t know who it was. She remembered that early morning when she had come to his trailer, had admitted to the baby, and how he had been the first person to tell her that she could do it. “Cap Poole,” she said, and found that the name fit perfectly in her imagination.
“You don’t want to think about it?” Mr. Tannehill asked.
“I just did,” Izzy replied. “I’m going to name him after the best man I’ve ever known.”
Mr. Tannehill teared up and then looked down at the baby in his arms. He held out his free hand and touched Izzy’s own hand, gripping it tightly. “If I had any money, Izzy, I would give you every dime. I have thought of you like my daughter, if I have to be honest about it. I know I’m not your father and I don’t pretend that I could be, but you’ve meant the world to me since we started working together. I don’t entirely know what to make of this project, and I hate that you’re moving away, but I hope it gives you everything that you and this little boy deserve.”
“If you’d been my dad, Mr. Tannehill,” Izzy said, “life would have been a lot easier for me.”
“I guess you don’t get to choose your family,” Mr. Tannehill said, “but you get to choose your friends, and I’m glad you’re my friend.” The baby roused and started to cry; Mr. Tannehill seemed shocked to remember that he was holding the baby, and he handed him back to Izzy. She opened her gown to feed him and Mr. Tannehill stood to leave. “I’ll give you some privacy,” he said, but she asked him to stay, and he sat back in the chair. After she fed the baby, she practiced his name over and over in her mind, Cap, and she found that the name easily attached itself to the boy in her arms. After about fifteen minutes, a nurse came into the room and told Izzy that someone else was here to see her and the baby. Mr. Tannehill stood and then leaned over Izzy and the baby. He kissed Izzy on the forehead and then he waved good-bye to Cap. She promised that she would visit him as soon as she could, would write him letters and stay in touch, and he said he’d be happy to hear from her whenever she could manage. “Be strong, Izzy,” he told her, and then he walked out of the room, his tall frame filling up the doorway.
A few seconds later, Dr. Grind appeared in her room, carrying a small basket of gifts with a blue ribbon tied to the handle. It was not his fault, of course, but his proximity to Mr. Tannehill, now the namesake of her only child, made her slightly disappointed to see him. He was a symbol of change, at the very moment that Izzy wanted everything to stay the same, frozen at this singular moment.
“Is it okay if I come in?” he asked tentatively; Izzy waved him in. He put the basket down on the chair and then went to wash his hands. When he was done, he sat beside Izzy and looked at the baby.
“He’s beautiful, Izzy. Everyone is so excited and so happy for you.”
“His name is Cap,” she said.
“Hello, Cap,” Dr. Grind said, smiling; his face had the appearance of never knowing sadness, the smoothness of his happy life. She knew it wasn’t true, that he had what seemed like a horrible childhood and had his own family tragedies, but she wondered how he had gained such a calmness, a belief that every single piece of the universe fit neatly into another one.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. “Everything is okay here?”
She nodded. “It’s great,” she said. “They say the baby is healthy and everything is normal.”
The baby had freed his hands from the swaddle and his fingers, purple and pruney, slowly twitched in the open air. Dr. Grind placed his index finger in the palm of Cap’s hand and the baby instantly tightened his grip. Izzy smiled, and Dr. Grind then said, “It’s just a reflex. The palmar grasp, they call it. A doctor in the 1890s tested a newborn’s grip, I think he tested around fifty babies, and found that, though their grip was uncertain, that they could let go without warning, they could also support their body weight, suspended from a stick, for as long as two and a half minutes.” He observed the baby and then, suddenly, the baby freed Dr. Grind from his grasp. Dr. Grind made an inchworm motion with his finger and then looked back at Izzy. “Seems like a strange study to actually put into practice. I always imagined the job of the baby catcher in that study to be terrifyingly difficult, just hovering there, waiting for the baby to let go of the stick.”