“We should probably keep the old one. For Gramma’s car.”
“Oh, yeah. And I got you this, too.” He doesn’t meet her eye as he hands her a wrapped box. He takes the baby and busies himself with mussing his hair.
Inside is a pair of tiny black basketball shoes. Soft leather booties with little laces, and there, on the side, is the leaping silhouette of Michael Jordan.
Angel takes them from the plastic box, pushes a finger into each one. She walks them up her arm, jumps them into a layup.
“They’re old school. They cost fifty dollars.” He shrugs, puts his free hand in his pocket, then removes it again. “I was like sixteen when I got my first pair. I don’t want my grandkid going through that kind of deprivation.”
Angel stands there, smiling stupidly. She can’t look at her father, so she focuses instead on the black fuzz at the back of Connor’s head, which looks moth-eaten. “He can’t play basketball. You know he just lays there, right?”
Why does she do this? Rankle against her father, resent him for not caring, for never being who she wants him to be—and then when he does do something kind and fatherly, something that another, better father would do for another, better daughter, her happiness is too bountiful to bear, the pleasure intolerable. She must thrust it away from herself, must rush through the moment.
“Tíve drove me out to the mall in Santa Fe,” says her father. “He complained, but when I said it was for you, he agreed. Don’t know what you did to that guy.”
She runs a finger along the stitching of the bootie. Her father is looking at her too closely, and she sees herself: errant and undeserving. “Thanks,” she says, her voice stiff, even though she is grateful, is pleased, even though that car seat is exactly what she wanted and the miniature basketball shoes are the most perfect things she can imagine.
“I just thought he could use some new stuff.” He shrugs, embarrassed. “Ready to go?” Her dad puts Connor into the seat and starts fiddling with the clasps. Then he backs away and dusts off his hands. “You’re going to have to tie him up in there. It’s too much for me.”
Angel leans over Connor, pulls his limp little arms through the harness, fastens one clasp after another. He smacks his perfect drooly lips, but submits to the manhandling. When he’s been thoroughly trussed, Angel and Amadeo stand side by side, regarding him. He’s dwarfed by the cushions.
“He could go to space and he’d be safe,” says her father. “Anyway, it’s the least I can do, with you being the official Creative Windshield Solutions driver.”
Amadeo and Angel don’t talk on the way to Family Foundations, which is just as well, because Angel needs to concentrate. The low sun is heavy on the alfalfa fields and on the apple and apricot orchards, leaves and trunks glowing reddish gold. In a corral, two skinny horses tear listlessly at grass, and their dusty coats shimmer like velvet. During a straight section of road, Angel cranes to see Connor, who has fallen asleep. His mouth is tethered to the clean upholstery by a cord of drool. She can’t help but smile.
The traffic is light in Espa?ola, and she navigates her way easily to the shopping center where Family Foundations is located.
In the parking lot, Angel gets out stiffly and unhooks the baby carrier from the base. Connor shifts and grunts in his sleep. “Dad, wait,” she calls after her father as he strides toward the door. He turns. “Thanks.” She hugs him, and when she pulls back, she’s surprised when he holds on tight.
Here they are, crowded with the other families into the Smart Starts! classroom, drinking neon institutional lemonade from waxed paper cups. With the cheerful bulletin boards, it resembles an elementary school classroom more than any of the bare utilitarian classrooms Amadeo remembers from high school. There’s even a reading nook with beanbags, where, presumably, the girls can go beach themselves with a magazine while they nurse. Across the whiteboard is written Welcome, Families! and, in every color marker, the signatures of the girls: Ysenia, Corinna, Jen, Lizette, Christy, Tabitha, Trinity. The signatures all look bubbly and optimistic, and while no one has dotted their i’s with hearts or stars, hearts and stars wouldn’t look out of place. Someone has also drawn an unsettlingly sexy-looking baby with anime glints in its giant eyes and a single long ringlet sprouting out from the top of its head.