“Don’t thank me. Spending time with my grandson is a gift.” Lillian turned the baby so he faced her. How much did Apollo love to see his mother holding his son? More than he could say, so instead he took out his phone and snapped fifteen pictures quickly.
“He’s not wobbling his head anymore,” Apollo said from the other side of the phone.
“I see that! He’s getting stronger. And he still looks like a turtle.” Lillian turned Brian again and kissed the baby six or seven times, right on his weak chin. “How’s the sleep?”
“There’s a rumor he should start going six or seven hours in a row soon,” Apollo said. “I’ll believe it when I sleep it.”
Lillian smiled at Apollo. “You got a haircut.”
“Date night,” Apollo said.
Emma reappeared from the bedroom. She wore yellow teardrop earrings, and her lips showed a faint reddish blush. Lillian nodded and cooed at her daughter-in-law. Apollo took her hand.
—
They traveled downtown to see a movie at Film Forum. It might’ve been Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, back in the theater after its initial release. They picked the flick because its showing time fit their date night plan and they wanted to eat downtown. As soon as they sat down, they felt comfortingly, surprisingly, like adults again. Not mother and father but husband and wife. This lasted for all of eighteen minutes. Previews began, and both of them fell asleep. When they woke up, about an hour into the film, Brad Pitt was being a mean father, why exactly they couldn’t tell. It seemed unlikely to let up. Apollo and Emma looked at each other, faces illuminated by the screen, and agreed to get the hell out of there.
Next they headed to the sushi place on Thompson Street, site of their first date. They’d been feeling vaguely nostalgic and were already going to be downtown, so why not? But with the weather turning temperate, the line outside went halfway down the block. Instead they went around the corner to Arturo’s for the coal-oven pizza. The place had a piano right next to the bar, and a man sat at the bench, not exactly playing but draping himself across the keys in a way that occasionally produced a tune. Emma let herself have one glass of red wine. She’d pump tonight and toss the milk. Apollo let himself have the other three or four that came out of the bottle. He hoped he appeared as handsome to her as she appeared beautiful to him.
When they left the restaurant, they hurried to reach the train, sure they’d been out till midnight. But when Emma checked her watch, she had to laugh, it was only quarter to ten.
“Let’s do one more thing,” she said.
Apollo waggled his head there on the corner of Houston and MacDougal Street.
“How about a great escape?”
“As long as we’re home by twelve,” she said. “Your mom’s going to be tired.”
Apollo pushed his wife out into the street. “Hail us a taxi, my love.”
Emma got one on her second try. It stopped, and Apollo scurried into the car behind her. “Wall Street,” Apollo said, leaning too close to the divider. “Pier 11.”
When they reached the pier, they were just in time for the last Water Taxi tour of the night. A one-hour cruise on the East River, passing the Statue of Liberty and Governors Island, threading under the Brooklyn Bridge. Tourist shit, but so what? Being a new parent in New York demotes you to tourist status. Worse, actually. At least tourists go out at night.
Though spring would soon turn to summer, the weather hadn’t become truly warm, so most of the passengers huddled inside the main cabin the whole ride. Apollo and Emma stayed out there longer, leaning at the railing and tucked up against each other.
“I’m glad we went out,” Emma said quietly, watching the skyline of Manhattan. “Date night.” She sounded as if she were practicing a phrase in a new language.
THERE WAS A man at the front door. Apollo heard him knocking from the living room. Apollo walked to the door, as the knocking grew louder. He reached his hand in the air and turned all three locks of the apartment door. A man stood in the hallway. His face looked blue. He had no nose or mouth, only eyes. He pushed his way inside. The man knelt down in front of Apollo and pulled off his blue skin. Underneath it was his daddy’s face. Apollo smiled and hugged him. Apollo’s daddy held him, and he heard the sound of crashing water. Apollo’s daddy opened his mouth, and a white fog rolled up from his throat. It spilled out past his lips, and Apollo tried to turn away, but his father held him tight and made him watch. The apartment filled with cloud smoke, and the sound of rushing water grew louder, wilder. Apollo’s daddy picked him up. Apollo’s daddy walked him into the mist.
Daddy said, You’re coming with me.
—
Apollo woke up with a start. He expected to be back in his apartment in Queens. A boy again. But his wife and son were there in the bed with him. She breastfed the baby with her eyes half-closed. Apollo turned his back to them and failed to fall back asleep.
SIX MONTHS WITHOUT much sleep is very different from three months without sleep. The mind gets swampy. The body goes sluggish and soft, gears grind down. Kim knew all this but still felt caught by surprise when she arrived at Emma’s place and found her sister looking so torn down. It was one thing in a client but quite another in your sister. Kim had had to ring the doorbell for what seemed like ten minutes before one of the walking dead answered it.
“Emma?” Kim asked in the doorway. She set down her medical bag and her purse. She stopped herself from embracing Emma but couldn’t say why.
“What are you doing here?” Emma asked, in a tone so affectless, she sounded like someone muttering in her sleep.
“I’ve been calling and texting for a week,” Kim said. “Six-month checkup for you and Brian.”
Emma looked back into the apartment. Early morning, but the interior stayed so dark. “Brian is with Apollo,” she said. “And I’ve got to go somewhere.”
That did it. Kim stopped being the concerned midwife and once again became the older child. “You understand these are medical guideposts. I have a job to do.”
Emma shrugged and nothing more.
Kim felt herself about to argue and blame, but why? Plenty of mothers ignored her texts, needed to reschedule checkups, forgot them entirely, and slept no matter how long she rang the bell. She closed her eyes and calmed herself. “Can I come with you on your errands?” she asked.
Emma finally looked at Kim now.
Kim wanted to brush her sister’s hair, pull it back, and tie it up. She wanted to wash her sister’s face and feed her lunch and put her to bed. She raised a hand but caught herself. Emma had always had an asymmetry to her eyes, the right a little larger than the left, but somehow the discrepancy had grown more pronounced. Or at least it seemed that way. Emma’s right eye almost looked dilated. Kim left her medical bag inside the doorway, then waited as Emma locked the door.
“So where are we going?” Kim asked as they walked downstairs.