LITMIR.BIZ

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Suddenly, the intensity popped, and I felt the baby’s body, distinctly, easing through me.

       ‘The head is out. Pant without pushing just for a moment.’ Dr Menon and the nurse busied themselves with a blue-bulbed syringe, clearing the baby’s mouth and throat. Claude started to cry, ‘I can see our baby’s face,’ he said.

       I could no longer contain the pressure building inside me. In a single rush, the rest of our baby’s body slid into the world.

       ‘It’s a boy! It’s a boy!’ Claude exclaimed, tears rolling down his cheeks. The two of us couldn’t take our eyes off our son’s slippery form. Everyone, even the busiest nurse, was smiling. Although Will’s umbilical cord was still attached to the unborn placenta inside my body, Dr Menon laid him, cheek to breast, against my chest. As I held our son in my arms, he gazed at me quietly, not crying, awake. Claude leaned over and kissed the top of Will’s head, then turned to me. The two of us looked into each other, transparent and trembling as if we were seeing each other for the first time.

       Dr Menon quietly interrupted our reverie by handing Claude a pair of scissors, instructing him where to make the cut in the umbilical cord. I stroked the top of Will’s head and brushed my lips across his cheek. Instinctively, his head turned towards my breast. I slipped my nipple between his lips and he began to suck. I felt the goodness being pulled from inside me. As he nursed, Will’s blue, deep-seeing eyes never left mine. For a single, timeless moment, the rest of the world vanished, and everything was my son and me.

       Inheritance

       Claude and I, giddy with happiness, were bringing our little boy home. As we wound through the quiet streets of our neighbourhood, I stared out the window and could not believe how much had changed in the two days since Will’s birth. Everything familiar looked different and somehow more beautiful, as if the light falling on it had passed through a special filter, allowing it to be seen more perfectly and precisely than before.

       Glancing at Claude’s profile, I was filled with a sense that everything we had done together since we had married five years before had been in preparation for this. Each decision we had made, from finishing college to sending Claude to graduate school and saving enough money to buy our first home in a town with excellent schools, 45 minutes from Claude’s parents, had been part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Although we had married young – I was 20 and Claude was 25 – each of us was sure that, like our parents, we would be married forever, and the two of us shared a sober determination to make an even better life for our children than the lives we had lived so far.

       Feeling my eyes on him, Claude turned. ‘I love you,’ I said, blowing him a kiss. He smiled as we turned and pulled into the drive. Climbing out of the car, I gathered the diaper bag and small suitcase. Claude opened the door behind me, unhooked the safety latch and lifted Will in his infant carrier from the back seat. I followed the two of them as they passed through the gate of the white picket fence. The stone path led us past the rose garden. In early December, the bushes were mostly a tumble of bare branches, but the manicured lawn of the back yard was still a deep green. As we approached the back door of our little Cape Cod, Claude suddenly stopped and turned. Tipping Will’s infant seat slightly forward, he said, solemnly but with a sparkle in his eye, ‘Someday son, this will all be yours.’

       The two of us had grinned at each other, drunk in our shared love for our son. Neither of us knew then, how far from reality our shared dreams were.

       Uncharted Waters

       Will had already crawled halfway up the steps when he turned, plopping his diapered bottom on the stair behind him, and giggled at me. Standing two steps below him, I smiled and clapped my hands encouragingly. I was trying to hide my concern, not wanting to scare him, half-wondering if I should whisk him up and away from danger, but feeling too excited to interrupt his climb. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he finally reached the top.

       Will turned back to the task, and I slowly followed. As soon as he reached the top step, he scooted his chubby legs around until he was in a sitting position and, beaming at me, began clapping his hands. His delight in this new perspective, looking down on me, was worth every breathless moment I had experienced during his climb. I grinned and clapped too, reaching over to kiss his cheek.

       ‘Good job, Will! You did it,’ I said; I couldn’t have been more proud than if he had just scaled Mount Everest. ‘You must be so proud of yourself,’ I said, reaching down to pick him up and carry him back down the stairs.

       Two hours later, my friend Ann and I were sitting in her living room, which was comfortably cluttered with toys, unfolded laundry and half-drunk cups of coffee. Will and Ann’s daughter Jillian were crawling around the gated, child-proofed space, mostly oblivious to each other. I admired Ann. She was the kind of woman I secretly wanted to be. Smart, sexy and sure of herself in a way that I wasn’t, she was finishing her graduate degree in child psychology. She was unapologetically in love with Mark, her second husband, a talented and successful graphic artist, and the father of Jillian.

       Ann seemed to know everything when it came to the health and safety of her child. I was sure she had memorized every dot and mole on Jillian’s body while I, on the other hand, hadn’t even remembered to count Will’s fingers and toes in the moments after his birth. Ann seemed unconcerned about what other people might think about the way her house or life looked; as long as Jillian was happy, everything was okay. I was pretty sure my priorities weren’t so noble or clear. I knew I loved Will as much as Ann loved Jillian, but I still considered the care and running of my home one of my primary responsibilities. It really mattered to me, the way things looked.

       Every morning, after Claude left for work and Will went down for his morning nap, I scurried around, emptying and loading the dishwasher, dusting, vacuuming, making the beds and straightening each room. I had a list of daily, weekly and monthly household tasks taped to the refrigerator door, as well as a frequently updated grocery list, organized according to the supermarket aisles. I prided myself on my efficiency and organization, and loved it when Claude raved to friends and family about how quickly I had bounced back after Will’s birth. Everything I did was done with one eye open to the way it would appear to someone else.

       Now, listening to Ann with one ear, I watched Will practice pulling himself up to stand while Jillian crawled around on the living room floor. Ann suddenly paused in the middle of a sentence when she saw what Will was doing.

       ‘Oh, my God! Look at him,’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s going to be walking before you know it!’

       I smiled, trying to look more modest than I felt. ‘You won’t believe what he did this morning,’ I said, and then told her how he had crawled up the steps to the second floor. When I finished, I knew I was beaming, but I couldn’t help it; I felt as proud as I had the moment he had reached the top. Ann, however, was more horrified than impressed.

       ‘No! Where were you? Don’t tell me you were there and let him do it. Now you’re going to have to watch him like a hawk to keep him from doing it again,’ Ann said.

       The smile slid off my flushed cheeks as I took a sip of my tea to camouflage my embarrassment. Of course, Ann was right! What had possessed me to allow Will to do something so foolish and unsafe? Closing my eyes briefly, I vowed to be more attentive to my child’s health and well-being. No matter how clean or well-organized my house was, it couldn’t make up for the shame I now felt as a mother.

       No Fooling

       I bent down, placed my hands on either side of Will’s face and kissed both of his cheeks. ‘Remember,

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