Christmas, Baby.
The nurse came out to say if she wanted the news she had to put out her cigarette. Reluctance gripped her- the cigarette seemed to be the only reason to stay together; if she had the cigarette in her hand, she could do it. Putting the butt out was near impossible, compelled as she was to find out.
Kitty bent over the wide, unadorned sand tray littered with tan and white ends. One black cigar butt seemingly leading them all across a micro desert. She had hers join the march and leaned up. The breeze blew her hair to one side as she stood observing the shades of lipstick that rouged the majority of them. The idea of women spending more time in and outside of hospitals doing more worrying therefore more smoking than men did, crossed her mind. She breathed hard and folded her arms on the way back through the automatic doors.
“Mrs. Conversa, I apologize for the delay. Christy is still very sick and trying to stabilize her has been difficult, but the doctors were successful. We'll keep her on for extended observation and she'll require a blood transfusion within the next couple days. There is a beautiful baby boy in delivery that I’m sure you’d love to see!” The nurses tone went up and up trailing the positive news behind. Kitty felt the urge to have something in her hand again. There seemed to be no relief from this anxiety. She daydreamed herself into a choke-hold on the nurse in a vain attempt to pry herself out, but it was all an arrogant swing to which she fell pray like anyone at the urge of fate.
“Thanks, I’ll just be here for a bit. Thank you.” Kitty’s voice was dry, almost soundless. Perhaps one does not speak up so much when one has the knowledge that their daughter is going to die soon and leave them with a newborn. But it managed to be a simple knowledge. Factual. Like knowing she would be going home and heating up the leftover parmesan casserole for dinner. That she would be drinking milk and tequila out of the same yellow mug with the blue dog on it that Christy stood next to the washing machine drinking orange juice out of. Looking thru the kitchen window at rain on the first day that Kitty noticed her showing.
Kitty knew then that her daughter was ill. After that they had a conversation- Christy intended to have the child.
“Sevrin, Christy is pregnant.” She told her ex on the phone a day later with jarred indignation in her voice. Sev replied in his low tone that embodied his usual lack of scruples: “Don’t ask me baby, I just send you the check. What, is that still not good enough?”
Kitty considered history's repeating. She had one good solid year with Sevrin when she was 19. He knocked her up with the gentleness and truth of a devoted potential father and kindly split. Never had a problem with drugs, gambling or any of the standard loser fixations, just a firm lack of conscience. As Kitty remembered it in that utopian time of her life which met an abrupt end- anything she needed, wanted, asked for or was curious about became hers instantly…
Except maybe her outlook on the future. That proved all too tenuous. She had the news of her own pregnancy delivered to her thru a doctor's phone call. Perhaps Severin's instinct was greater.
That day, the moment she walked in she headed for the ringing phone. She remembered smiling briefly, then looking around...
The first thing she noticed was that the apartment was clean and that Sevrin’s venus fly trap was missing from the top of the TV. In the slow, damning nausea of realization that followed, she hung up the phone, took off her clothes in the kitchen, put water on the stove for tea and began to work in the music of sobs, then wailing, over the sound of a screaming kettle which competed with her volume for close to twenty minutes.
Kitty remembers the feelings that came after- of not wanting to touch or be touched by anything. Sevrin's not a bad man, only looking for moments of joy to combat the lifestyle of a loner he’s worked so hard to perfect. Holding down a relationship provided that for only as long as he thought necessary. Kitty calls him the next day at his South Beach number and leaves a message, knowing full well that he is probably out surfing and will never return her call.
Today is a Sunday; she drinks a coffee from the only working machine in the nurse’s lounge where she is not supposed to be and tries to decide who she will visit first. This 18-year-old woman-child with three-inch gold hoops in each ear belying her tendency to be overtaken by a weak immune system? This guileless smile of lipstick and mascara all grown up in wallet photographs now haunting room 335 – or the thing sprung from her? The baby with the same eyes as her baby? Maybe?
A day spent at the hospital for Kitty is now like any other with a chore involved. Church. The laundromat. Her weekend gobbled by hours devoted to her dying daughter with the notion that despite this being where she is supposed to be, she feels unkempt- misplaced.
Tongues of steam licking up from the coffee weren't hinting to conclusions. It was the feeble calling of a stop in time- suddenly absurdly again back and forth over a drink or a smoke. It was like she had let go in every possible way- of the ghost of her husband-that-never-really was, of the soon-to-be-ghost of their child.
That afternoon she arbitrarily declined to see either. She went home to make beds in the interest of bringing both of them back. She could have made it easier on herself and just opened a bottle instead of changing pillowcases. Could have taken a bath instead of vacuuming. Or reading a magazine instead of scrubbing the shelves in the fridge. Somehow, it could have been so easy.
Easy just wasn’t in the way Kitty thought now. Despite outward appearances, she wavered, vacillated and switched gears. She thought she might have needed to be home in their dinky two bedroom apartment to understand herself.
She was awake until four with her own daughter’s baby book on her lap. When she closed it, the name gleamed happily up at her from the cover in pink block letters with gold trim: Christmas Conversa. Kitty recalled her own mother calming her in the hours after Christy’s birth. She had called Sevrin and begged him to come even as the contractions had her too weak to move. He never came.
“Katherina, what’s it going to be? ‘Mary’ or ‘Christmas’?” Her mother asked partly in jest as the holiday rung in bright while a new mother held the gift of life. Kitty hadn’t thought of a name until that very moment. She had simply worried and vacillated still about whether it was worth it to keep this child- a question now firmly answered.
“Christmas.”
And with that she acknowledged all future decisions. For a long time after she scrubbed off emotional scabs with societal steel wool and took jobs that would enable her to dole out shit as much as take it. In these attempts to grow harder and stronger, she acted as if there were no secrets in the world, as if she had no desires other than her baby’s happiness and a chance every day to be a better mother.
The next morning at the hospital nursery Kitty approached her premature grandson for the first time. The nurse allowed her to hold him and he yawned with a power which awed her. Suddenly there was something small showing its strength by pushing against her grasp. Choosing her like she chose Christy. Grandma.
Christy lay awake, wide-eyed at the babbling TV which squawked out a talk show, when Kitty walked in.
“Mom. Did you see him?” Christy came happily to the point.
“Who?”
“Mickey. The baby’s daddy.” She giggled. “They’ve got the same bald head. But he’s got more tattoos, you’ll find him.” She smiled further and it made Kitty’s heart melt. “Anyway, he wants to meet you. He asked when you were coming and I said I didn’t know.”
“Hmm. Ok.” Kitty thought for a moment then looked at her daughter who was attacking the remote. She looked so healthy it was almost frightening.
“I think he went down to see it.”
“‘It’? You mean the baby? What, no name yet?”
Christy shrugged in the way she did when she wanted to avoid a subject. Kitty sighed and turned on her heel.
The boy must have been barely 20. He held the child in his tattooed arms with infinite softness and gazed at it with an unbelieving joy.
Kitty approached him carefully. She watched his slow breath fill his black shirt and push at the muscles, expanding him slightly. His shaved head and young face made her sigh, and she caught herself as she approached them.
“You sure have been getting a lot of attention this morning.” She cooed, leaning over his shoulder. He turned and looked blankly at her.
“Hi. Kitty. I'm Christy’s mom. She said you might be looking for me.” Surprised at the relaxation in her own voice, Kitty's exhaustion from staying up so late became palpable.
“Mickey. Hi. I think we need to talk.” Mickey smiled but his tone was flat and coarse. He returned the baby to the clear nursery cradle and loosely swaddled him. In the hallway Mickey proceeded to tell Kitty what the doctors had laid on him a few hours ago. Christy had a couple weeks, in their estimation, before the infection that had plagued her and complications from a pregnancy that she'd been warned about consumed her. Her insides were melting. Mickey confessed he didn’t have enough to help pay. Kitty didn’t care so much about that. After a moment she wanted to know if he would have deep enough pockets for all the tears which came so quickly. She watched his firm body shudder an instant before she moved around him.
This boy wanted something that her ex did not and for a second she felt a sweet pang of jealousy for her divine daughter. Sensations she had not let in in a long time came over her as Mickey told her about his life and job and family while he recovered himself. He would try and give the baby the best home. He could provide well. As he spoke the convictions arose in him, but it didn't sound practiced.
“Have you given him a name?” Kitty asked when he broke off, as if it was the only thing she really wanted to know.
“Oh. Uh, no. Actually... uh...”
“Well, I bet you didn’t know this as she's a little embarrassed by it sometimes. But Christy’s full name is Christmas. That’s her birthday. I’m sure you already knew her birthd…”
“Actually no. I love Christy, but I know shit about her. I, I’m sorry I mean, like, I should know her birthday. That’s really her first name?”
“Yeah. Maybe you can name him after her and we can call him ‘Chris’?”
Mickey smiled like it was a good idea. Then his face turned and sobs started again. Silence between them. Then- “Why don’t you go see Christy. You should…” Kitty trailed off. She detected her own fatigue in Mickey.
“Thanks.” Mickey eased up from his chair and rubbed his arms in the cool stale of the hospital air. Handsome and gangly. He started toward the east wing and Kitty watched at his back disappearing into the stairwell.
She felt her perspective jolted in the still. It was something she wished she could have imparted to every man, this sense of powerlessness which emptied clean, but also of a belonging that anchored them both- the three of them.