Lily shifted Louise from one hip to the other. Then she inhaled the biggest sigh yet, a sigh that sucked in with the roar and power of a vacuum, and pushed out a torrent of air. “You are not going to catch any goddamn fish today,” she said. “You will go upstairs. You will put on a goddamn shirt. And then you will drive us to the goddamn church and get our daughter baptized.”
Hawley didn’t know why she cared. Lily wasn’t religious. But she said she had memories of attending mass as a child, and those memories were good memories and therefore important. Kneeling down, lighting candles, saying prayers—all of it had made Lily feel safe and connected to the universe somehow, and they needed to do the same for their daughter. It didn’t matter if they believed in God or not.
“We’re parents now, and baptism is part of the job,” Lily said. “It’s an insurance policy.”
“For what?”
“In case there’s heaven and hell. I don’t want our baby stuck in purgatory. It’s like a waiting room where your name never gets called.”
The ceremony was just the three of them and the priest, who spoke English with a French-Canadian accent. They didn’t bring any godparents, but the man knew Lily from the meetings she went to down in the church basement, so he just wrote their names twice on the baptismal certificate. Then he slipped a purple robe over his shoulders and cinched it around his waist with a gold rope. He lit some incense and said some prayers and had Lily hold the baby over a bowl. He poured water on the baby’s forehead and then he poured oil.
The church smelled like the cold underside of a rock. On every wall there were stained-glass windows that obscured rather than filtered the light. In the shaded colored panes Hawley could make out figures and symbols. Crucifixes and lambs, a severed head on a plate, a heart with seven swords jammed through the middle and a man stepping out of a cave, over a pile of skeletons.
“Father,” the priest said, “at the very dawn of creation Your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness. By the power of the Spirit give to the water of this font the grace of Your Son. You created man in Your own likeness. Cleanse him from sin in a new birth to innocence by water and the Spirit. May all who are buried with Christ in the death of baptism rise also with Him to newness of life.”
The priest asked Hawley to hold the baby and Lily passed their daughter into his arms. Red and orange light from the windows fell across them both. It made him think of the emergency hazards on Lily’s truck, flickering over his body as he crawled along the floor of the diner, the crunch of broken glass cutting into his palms. The baby shivered as the priest poured more water onto her face. Then she threw up pea puree all over Hawley’s clean shirt.
He waited out the rest of the ceremony in the back of the church, stretched out in a pew in his undershirt, the button-down Lily had asked him to wear balled up in the trash. The priest said his goodbyes and slipped behind the altar, and then Lily made her way up the aisle, dragging the car seat, her dress askew, the baby’s bonnet tied around her wrist.
“You could have helped.”
“Sorry,” Hawley said, though the truth was he’d been relieved to have an excuse to step away, to sit and watch the colors paint the ceiling. He pointed at the man climbing over the skeletons. “What’s that one supposed to be about?”
Lily shifted the baby onto her other hip. She turned and peered up at the window behind them. “Lazarus. Or maybe the resurrection. It looks like Jesus rising from the dead.”
“And now our kid gets to rise along with him, to the newness of life.” Hawley snorted. “You really believe that crap?”
His wife’s lips pressed tightly together. She snatched the keys from him and marched to the parking lot and took the driver’s seat. She didn’t say another word the whole ride home. He spent the trip trying to come up with ways to make it up to her, but the baby was crying and he could barely think. When they arrived at the cabin Lily pulled over but kept the truck running.
“Take Louise,” she said. “Take her and get out.”
“Where are you going?” Hawley asked.
“I need to drive. I need to drive until I don’t feel like driving anymore,” said Lily. “I’m sick of being a mother. And I’m sick of being a wife.”
Hawley unstrapped the car seat. He took the baby and slammed the door. Her cries were pulsating now, one after the next, enough to make his hands shake. “What am I supposed to do with her?”
“Figure it out,” said Lily. And then she pulled away.
The baby didn’t look wet. Hungry, Hawley decided, and carried her in the car seat into the kitchen. He searched the diaper bag and found an empty bottle as well as the baptismal certificate, folded in half and slipped into the side zippered pocket. He threw the certificate into the living room, then dug up a container of powdered formula and mixed it with water. He shook the bottle until the liquid inside was frothy. Then he put the bottle in a pan of water and lit the stove. Louise continued to howl in the car seat. Hawley walked back and forth from the pan of water to the carrier. Whenever the baby saw him getting closer she would start kicking her legs.
“You’re not the only one who feels bad,” said Hawley.
The bottle took forever to get warm. He’d seen Lily test the milk on her wrist, but Hawley had scars there, so instead he stretched out his tongue and squeezed a few drops. The formula didn’t taste like much. He expected it to be sweet but it was more like unflavored yogurt. Tangy, with a scent of wheat.
When the milk was warm enough he turned off the stove and took the bottle to his daughter. He leaned over and tried to put the nipple into her mouth but it was too big. The baby kept screaming, her face red, her lips pulled down. She mouthed the rubber a bit but the tears kept coming, and then some of the milk dribbled down her throat and she gagged. The baby coughed and her eyes went wide. Then she started crying again, louder this time.
Hawley put the bottle down and went to the door and opened it and stood out in the yard, looking for Lily. He half-expected her to be parked down the block, waiting. But she wasn’t anywhere he could see.
He went back inside and unbuckled his daughter from the carrier. Once his fingers were cradling her skull, he lifted her out of the bassinet. He pulled her close to his chest. She was squirming and screeching and her body was hot. Hawley sat down on the couch and laid the baby across his knees. He tried putting the bottle in her mouth again but she wouldn’t take it. He got some baby food out of the fridge and tried spooning it into her mouth but she spit it onto the floor. He leaned over and sniffed the diaper, but it seemed clean enough. She reached up and grabbed hold of his ear. She had sharp fingernails. A lock of his hair tangled in her small fingers and she yanked it out and then held the strands like a wilted bouquet.
“You think you’re tough?”