17 year old Callie is at her lowest point. Alone and depressed most of the summer, she feels fat and ugly-and school starts Monday. Her mother Michelle is about to have a baby, and won't tell anyone who the father is. The reality TV show that Michel...
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(1059 words)
Michelle carried the baby into the living room. Unlike newer, larger houses, such as Edouard's, with its cavernous great room, Michelle's condo had the traditional floor plan. The family room contained the television and was larger. The living room contained the nice furniture and they didn't use it much. She turned on the green desk lamp on the desk they never used as a desk, and eased down onto the love seat. This house, the first she'd ever owned by herself, was the result of the need to divide their assets. Hers and Craig's old home, which she loved, couldn't be cleaved in two, and Michelle sure didn't have enough money of her own to buy it.
Boomsie gazed into the soft light from the lamp, his huge dark eyes alive to everything. From the TV in the other room came the high-pitched squeal of a discount furniture dealer, and the baby seemed to look at her for an explanation. "Yes little one," she murmured. "They call him Mad Man Mordecai, and nobody beats his prices."
Her old home, her old life. She'd dated Craig and slept with him in mad, passionate nights through college, both of them majoring in history, that's how mad they were. They married when he was in law school, and she worked part-time and went to school part-time. The plan was that once he graduated, she would go back to school. She had secret dreams of being a writer. But babies change plans, and baby Callie had changed that one. Michelle knew now that Callie had been right. Baby Boomer had to stay with her, with them, because a child only has one real mother, no matter how many social workers say otherwise. He was hers and she was his. Forever. A little reality TV charade would not change that. At home, she would have a son, and Callie would have a brother. Out in the rest of the world, things would be more complicated.
It wasn't that much different from Michelle's childhood. Her mother, Kate, now mostly known as Gumms, had more or less turned the raising of her last two kids, numbers six and seven, over to Michelle and her sister Patsy.
An old song popped into Michelle's head, and she sang to her baby in a husky whisper. "Cain't ever turn you loose... If I do I'm gonna hmm hmm hmm." She never could remember those lyrics. On the arm of the couch next to her lay the day's unopened mail. While Otis Redding played the rest of the song in her head, Michelle inserting the line and a half of lyric she knew when it came up, she slit open the bill from City of Phoenix Emergency Services. One thousand, nine hundred and sixty dollars they wanted, for two hours of their time and a ride in the ambulance.
There was also an envelope from a doctor she had never heard of. Nine hundred for lab work. Lab work? When did that happen? She had understood that every person who walked into the room during her hospital stay was now going to send her a bill. But was every question she had answered or thing she had asked for or didn't refuse now going to cost her five hundred dollars? Like the Kleenex she took to blow her nose and dry her eyes. Those weren't facial tissues folded in there. They were hundred dollar bills.
Michelle had no income besides Callie's child support. She had worked on the census from May to July, but that money was nearly gone. And of course, she had no health insurance, because the express company where she'd worked until last December had laid her off, specifically, she was sure, so they wouldn't have to put her on their health plan. And Obama-care, whatever that was, apparently hadn't kicked in. There was no letter from the government in the stack of mail saying don't worry your little head about medical costs.
Knowing Booms would be hungry soon, Michelle carried him into the kitchen, where she retrieved a bottle of formula from the refrigerator, and set it in a pan of water on the stove to warm. All one-handed, of course. Boomer already fit inside her arm like a newly developed muscle. She sat at the kitchen table and rocked him gently.
When Edouard came in with the cups and trays, he set Michelle's foam bowl, still half-full of food, on the table in front of her. "Callie seems strong for someone who just had a baby."
"Yeah. Well, she's young." Michelle could feel him studying her.
"Tough day today."
Just talking about it doubled Michelle's weariness. "I was exhausted. Baby up all night."
"Crying?"
Michelle shrugged. "Just hungry. Can you hand me that bottle?"
Edouard dried the bottle with a paper towel and handed it to her. Michelle gave Boomer the nipple, and he sucked eagerly.
Edouard leaned against the counter. "So who is the father? Zam?"
"Zam? No." The absurdity of that idea gave Michelle a little hiccup of hilarity. The nursing baby relaxed her, even if he was only gumming a bottle, not her tight breasts. She knew that any nursing would only stimulate more milk production. So she would just have to endure the tender breasts for a while. Michelle felt no guilt about not breastfeeding him. Somewhere in the world people were debating hotly over breast versus bottle, but there would be no debate in this house. And speaking of bottles, there was something that had been calling to her all summer. She looked at Edouard. "I would love a glass of wine."
Edouard found a dusty bottle in Michelle's neglected and under-populated wine rack, and pulled down two glasses. Michelle felt a pang of sadness. He was a nice guy, at heart, at times. She had gone nine months—okay, six and a half after the denial ended— believing she carried Edouard's baby. It so much had to be his baby that Michelle had blocked out any other possibility. During that time she had thought a lot about him, what kind of man he was, what he would give to his child. Even just a few hours before her labor started she had entertained thoughts that they could make it together. But Boomer had changed something. Boomer had changed everything.
