Amadeo gives his hands a shake, as if ridding himself of some uncomfortable thought, and then leans over Angel to peer into Connor’s pinched face. The baby’s color is subsiding and he blinks his nearly closed eyes.
If her father has surprised Angel with his immediate interest in the baby, her mother has been, on the other hand, a disappointment.
For weeks Angel was waiting for Connor’s birth, not just because she was excited to meet him, and sick of being fat and gassy and sour with heartburn, but because she’d been certain he’d be the occasion for reconciliation with her mother. Even as she spent all those weeks in a silent rage, refusing to speak to her mother, all the while she believed this particular fight would end once the baby was born. She expected her mother to swoop in with apologies and love and firmness, to take charge and comfort her and fill her rightful role as joint caregiver of this creature.
Instead her mother chose to wait outside while Connor finally forced his way through those last inches of the birth canal. Her mother had, in fact, waited until Angel and baby were cleaned up before stopping in, and even then, she stood barely inside the door, shifting her weight from foot to foot, as if she were only an acquaintance, offering the most generic and self-evident observations a person could come up with. “God, he’s little, isn’t he?” and “I can’t believe you have a baby, Angel.”
When Angel asked if she wanted to hold Connor—she couldn’t keep the chill from her voice—her mother smiled and looked so grateful and pathetic that Angel relented toward her. Angel’s seen her mother with babies over the years, and she’s never looked this uncomfortable: stiff, cautious, terrified. Her cradled arms were somehow too high and tense, and Marissa had looked down at him, rapt and unsmiling. Watching her mother with her son, Angel felt compassion that vexed her, because she doesn’t owe her mother anything—compassion least of all. Is this what motherhood means? Being suddenly able to pity the adults in your life?
Shouldn’t her mother have had something to say to Angel? Shouldn’t she have offered her own story of childbirth and given advice? She should have filled her role as grandmother. Instead Marissa seemed almost deferential to Yolanda, who sat in the chair next to Angel and held the baby with ease and compared him knowledgeably to other babies she’s cared for. “You had those same long legs, Angel.”
Marissa leaned over Yolanda. “And Angel had a potbelly like that, too, didn’t she?” she asked, as if she’d hardly been present for Angel’s babyhood.
“Listen, Angel,” says her dad now. “I had an idea. When you’re feeling better, when you’re up for it, would you want to be the Creative Windshield Solutions driver?”
Angel looks up at her father, at the sweet uncertainty in his face, and she can’t help smiling. “Sure, okay, but you’ll have to pay me.”
“I know that,” he says, and she laughs at his discomfort. “Of course I will.”
“Me, Gramma: you’re going to be cutting checks left and right.”
NOW EVERYONE IS gone and Connor has fallen asleep, his little pursed mouth sucking industriously at nothing.
She just changed his diaper for the first time, under the supervision of the nurse, gently swabbing with alcohol the swollen blue nub of umbilical cord. Her son’s penis is a healthy little grub nestled between his red thighs.
He’s wrapped snugly in flannel, all his skinny flailing parts contained and safe. Angel frees one arm from underneath Connor, and reaches warily for the oversized plastic sippy cup of ice water they left for her on the rolling tray. All the while she expects Connor to open his eyes, catch her out. But no! He sleeps on, as if he trusts she’s actually doing the right thing.
Angel is so happy. She never knew she could be so happy. Lying here against these pillows, Connor bundled to her chest, the body heat passes between them, indistinguishable. The dim afternoon light slants through the thick pane of the window. They feel clean and warm—she is sure she is feeling for both of them—swaddled by this hospital, with the nurses just outside the door, ready to make sure they’re okay. She could stay here forever, lying on these fresh sheets, looking out the window at the wide blue sky.