And yet, Amadeo can’t stop looking at him. The second the baby falls asleep at her breast and Angel deposits him in the crib, she collapses on the couch into the sleep of the dead, unwakeable by ringing phones or television commercials or conversation, until Connor’s piteous little mewl breaks through.
As his grandson sleeps, Amadeo stands over the crib, watching: the little frowns and smiles that pass over his face like thoughts, the pursed, suckling lips. Once, as though he hasn’t been asleep at all, the baby opens his eyes and Amadeo’s breath stills. Before the baby can scream, Amadeo lifts him, holds him against his chest. The baby’s eyes are murky brown, the edges of the irises touched with blue, like the eyes of a very old man. He frowns at Amadeo, head wobbling, his eyes crossed with the effort of pulling his grandfather’s face into focus. All at once, those eyes roll in his head, and he is asleep again.
This baby: such a massive force with so little actual personality. Everyone is in a foul mood. Yolanda keeps giving Amadeo jobs to do while she’s at work—laundry, dishes, trash duty—then getting mad if he forgets to do them. Angel, home for a month on “maternity leave,” as she insists on calling it, has been storming around, snapping at Amadeo, the limp baby a permanent fixture in her arms.
She cries at minor frustrations—when the hot water in the shower runs out, when she can’t find the ointment for Connor’s scabby purple belly button—and instead of telling her to get a grip, his mother will pull her into long hugs, letting Angel soak the shoulder of her shirt with snot and spit and tears. Only when visitors stop by does Angel cheer up, long enough to accept their good wishes and gift cards and to snooker them into believing she’s bright-eyed and balanced and worthy of their gifts.
The house has been transformed. A woven fabric basket slouches by the couch, filled with baby toys that his mother or visitors will shake in Connor’s face until he blinks his cloudy eyes or yawns or registers some other minimal awareness of their presence. Irritating classical music plays on the radio constantly, the first time ever, to Amadeo’s knowledge, that classical music has been played in the house. Connor’s belongings are everywhere: seats and bouncers and changing pads and wadded spit-up rags patterned in goldfish and dinosaurs. Crowding every surface are canisters of butt wipes and lint-covered pacifiers and board books that Angel insists on reading to his unresponsive form, to, she says grandly, “promote early literacy.” Then she follows up with viciousness: “Not that you cared about my early literacy.”
Amadeo feels squeezed out and retreats to his bedroom. Usually when he’s feeling like this, Yolanda notices. She’ll sit on the edge of his bed, say, “Tell me what’s wrong, hijito,” or “You have to get up; look, I made you beans.” And she’ll talk to him and try to make him laugh, and when he snaps at her, she’ll be hurt, and then he’ll apologize, and sometimes he’ll lay his head in her lap.
But none of that happens, not with the baby screaming and Angel sobbing and all of Yolanda’s friends coming by with their beribboned gift bags to fight over who gets to hold him and to congratulate Angel and stroke the silken head. “Oh, he’s such a little miracle,” his mother’s friends say again and again. Right. A miracle that a sixteen-year-old figured out how to fuck. The thought shames Amadeo. But still.
At least he has Creative Windshield Solutions. He’s read and reread the booklet and committed the DVD to memory, but he’s nervous about actually attempting a repair. Now, though, with everyone so grouchy, he’s got to escape the house.
Fortunately he has two dings in the windshield of his truck. He gathers his kit and heads out into the bright day, leaves Angel with her bad temper and the sweet milky smell of spit-up. He’ll start with the little one near the bottom right corner.
The procedure is simple enough. You’re supposed to align the suction cup over the divot, inject the clear resin into it, then cover it with a sheet of film to preserve the surface. When the resin is dry, you peel off the film and then scrape away the dried excess with a razor blade.
The result isn’t invisible to the naked eye, as in the video, but it’s definitely better than it was, a shining uneven mound of clear resin that could almost be a floater in one’s vision. He does better with the second, larger chip. When he’s done, he sits in the driver’s seat and watches the sunlight ripple through the gelatinous-looking patch. He’d like to show off his accomplishments, but Angel and his mother aren’t a receptive audience right now.