Chapter Two #2
“I had an emergency C-section,” Sophie interrupts.
“Oh my God.” Joy winces as if she just witnessed a violent attack. “Are you okay?”
I’m glad she didn’t know about that until it was over. She would have been beside herself.
Sophie says, “Yes. I’m okay.”
I want to ask more about the baby’s fingers, but instead I ask, “How much does she weigh?”
I don’t actually have any interest in knowing how much the baby weighs, but new parents usually tell people that information, so I think it’s polite to ask. Joy doesn’t nudge me, so it must have been a decent question. I know Joy, so I’m just trying to make sure we don’t dwell on the C-section.
“Seven pounds and six ounces.”
“That’s good, right?” I ask. “Is that big?”
I have no frame of reference. I don’t know how much babies usually weigh.
“It’s normal,” she says.
Joy pulls several sweaters out of our closet. She’s going to stay with Sophie.
I keep our closet meticulously organized. Heavy knitwear and jeans are folded on the shelves at the back. Blazers, jackets, trousers, and delicate fabrics like silks and satins are hung on hangers. I sort Joys clothes to the left, and mine to the right.
She’s steamrolling through everything, unfolding the sweaters, knocking shirts off their hangers.
Little piles of fabric are accumulating on the floor.
She’s demolishing the organizational system.
Two of the sweaters she’s taken out of the closet are mine.
She notoriously steals my clothing. I don’t think she remembers what belongs to her, and what belongs to me, even though it’s obvious. It’s organized.
Given the sensitive context, I’m not going to complain about the theft or the havoc she’s wreaking on the closet. I know she feels anxious right now. She’s worried about her sister and the baby.
Sophie lives over five hours away. Joy wasn’t planning to visit until the baby was about a month old. She wanted to give them time alone to settle in, but on the phone earlier, Sophie asked her if she could come now. Joy said, “Of course I can.”
“She sounded strange, didn’t she?” Joy says.
Her luggage is open on our bed. Our cats, Lou and Toulouse, are sitting inside it like two loaves of bread.
“She might just be a bit shaken after everything,” I say. “She’s probably just hopped-up on drugs. And the whole missing-fingers thing may have surprised her a bit, but it sounds like everything’s okay—”
“She sounded off,” she says. “Maybe she has postpartum depression. It’s upsetting that the baby is missing fingers. She’s probably struggling with it.”
Their mom had postpartum depression after she had Sophie.
It was so severe she left their family for a full year.
Joy was only four, but she remembers. She talks about that time often.
Her dad moved them into his mom’s house.
He worked a lot, so Joy’s grandma took care of her and Sophie.
It was hard on her grandma. She lived off a measly pension, and she had health problems, including COPD. She used an oxygen machine.
When we visit Joy’s family in her hometown, we often drive by her grandma’s old place. It’s a redbrick bungalow with a chain-link fence around the front yard. Joy would point at the windows and say, “That was my grandma’s bedroom. And that was the living room…”
When her mom came back, she rented an apartment near Joy’s grandma’s place. Joy and I drive by that building when we visit too. It’s a shoddy-looking, brutalist apartment building. She says it looks the same as it did when she was a kid.
When we drive by that apartment, she typically tells me about the day her mom came back, how her hair was shorter and she looked older. It’s one of the stories she repeats that I pretend I haven’t heard before. Her mom cried when she saw Joy and Sophie.
Joy said, “It’s hard to tell why an adult is crying when you’re a kid.
My mom was happy to see us, but I felt scared.
She held Sophie really tight, like she’d just saved her from drowning.
She had tears streaming down her cheeks.
She reached her hand out for me, but I was afraid of her, so I didn’t get closer. ”
I called Joy’s mom during my recent mental health crisis to ask about her own. She’s texted me several times since to ask how I’m doing.
Postpartum depression makes a lot of sense to me.
There are so many hormones and chemicals involved during pregnancy.
After people give birth, there’s this rapid drop in estrogen and progesterone.
It’s a physical, bodily experience. It’s not surprising that it affects brain chemistry.
Actually, I’m surprised more people don’t struggle with postpartum depression.
What I find strange is that our brains are capable of misfiring without experiencing something physical or bodily, like pregnancy or childbirth. We can lose our minds after simply reading something, like an obituary.
Joy is sitting on our bed. She’s worked up a sweat obliterating our closet.
I touch her hair. She’s winded. I don’t know how to help her right now.
“Are you expecting any book drop-offs this week?” I ask.
“No. I don’t have any scheduled,” she says.
I wish she did. That way I could help her. I’m not a bookbinder, but I can do admin tasks like paperwork.
“I can write invoices, if you need, or help with your ads. Or I could clean up the shop,” I offer. “And I’ll book you a train ticket right now, while you pack, okay?”
She looks at me. She has dark brown eyes like a deer. “Okay. Thank you. But what about you? Will you be all right if I leave?”
I nod. “Yes, of course I’ll be all right.”
She frowns. “I’m worried about leaving you alone.”
“I’ll be fine, honey,” I say. “My medication is working now, and I have my job. I’m basically back to normal.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“I’ll be all right, really,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
Two months ago, Joy dragged me inside our house after she found me standing naked on our dock.
I was having a panic attack. I’d never had a panic attack before, and in my desperate, frantic state, I thought my clothes were constricting my breathing.
I ran outside because I rationalized that the air indoors was too hard to inhale.
It was mid-January. The lake was frozen.
I was standing in the snow in flimsy slippers made of memory foam and cotton.
Joy elbowed me back into the house, forced me into clothes, and drove me to the emergency room.
I made her unroll all the windows in the car as we drove, despite the fact that it was well below freezing.
I couldn’t breathe. I thought maybe I was having an asthma attack or was in anaphylactic shock.
Following that humbling incident, I spent one week in a psychiatric ward, where I was fed antipsychotics and forced to sleep on a crunchy bed in a room with my door open.
There I confessed my deepest fears to medical professionals.
That I’m unworthy of happiness, and that anyone who loves me is worse off for it.
They told me it’s normal to have a dissociative response when someone you care about dies.
Joy is snoring and babbling in her sleep. The only coherent words I can make out are, “I bought these peaches, lady. Get away from me.” I think she must be having an argument with someone in her dream.
I close my eyes. Joy exudes a tremendous amount of body heat when she’s sleeping.
It gets caught beneath our quilt and attracts the cats.
They always sleep on top of her. The window above our bed is open.
It’s the beginning of spring, and the air outside is cold.
I can hear frogs croaking by the lake, and water lapping against the shore.
Joy snores, then says, “And if they bruise, I’ll scream.”
I roll onto my side. My pillowcase smells like lavender.
Joy spritzes this linen spray on our bedding.
It’s supposed to help us sleep. It isn’t working right now, sadly.
I’ve been lying here for hours. I was prescribed sleeping pills, but I’m worried it’s too late to take them.
I have to get up for work in the morning.
Plus, I don’t like taking them. They give me migraines, fuzzy vision, and dry mouth.
I close my eyes. I can’t remember what it was like sleeping next to Ben. We slept in the same bed every night for five years, but it’s been ten years since we broke up. It feels like I was a different person then.
I remember that we slept on a mattress on the ground because we couldn’t afford a bedframe. There was that crack in the ceiling above us, a central fracture down the middle, flanked by raised plaster. It sort of resembled a vulva.
I think Ben was a quiet sleeper. I don’t remember him snoring or talking in his sleep. I do remember that once in a while, I woke up to him crying.
I can picture myself consoling him. His large body curled into me like a baby.
His scratchy face pressed into my neck. I’d never seen a man cry before I lived with him.
I felt bad for him and wanted to make him feel better.
Usually, he was crying about his mom. She died when he was a teenager.
Other times, he cried about things like fights he had with his dad, or worries he had at the time.
I don’t think he was emotionally vulnerable with anyone else in his life, and I remember feeling like I was responsible for absorbing his sadness.
I open my eyes and look at Joy. Her face is scrunched, like she’s in pain. Her dream must be upsetting her. Maybe it’s a nightmare.
“It’s okay.” I touch her hair. “You’re just dreaming.”
Her face relaxes.
I put my hand on Joy’s leg. I’m driving her to the train station on my way to work.
“I feel so anxious,” she says, while biting her fingernails and looking out the window. The radio is playing a song I know she likes, so I turn it up.
She looks at her phone. “Oh, Sophie texted me. She says they named the baby.”
“Did they? What did they go with?”
“I’m not sure yet. It says she’s typing— Oh! They named her January.”
“January?” I frown. “But it’s March.”
She breathes air out of her nose. “She’s not named after the month she’s born, honey. They must just like the name. It’s a nice name, don’t you think? I like it.”
I shake my head. “That doesn’t seem right. I feel like you need to be born in January to be named—”
“Oh my God. I forgot my toothbrush,” she interrupts me. “It’s too late to go back home, isn’t it? Fuck. I’ll miss the train if I go back, won’t I? I’m going to get gingivitis—”
“Just buy a new toothbrush there,” I say. “Toothbrushes are cheap. I bet your sister has an extra one already.”
She exhales. “You’re right. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
We pull up to the train station. I park the car and get out to help her with her bag.
We face each other with her bag between us.
“All set?” I ask.
She nods. “Yes. Be safe, okay?”
I say, “I will. Don’t worry.”
We hug goodbye before she rushes through the automatic doors. We never kiss in public.
Brenda replied to my email about the porn incident yesterday. I’m reading her response while sipping my morning coffee.
DARCY,
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR KEEPING ME POSTED ABOUT THESE CONCERNING INCIDENTS. THE BEHAVIOR OF THE LIBERTY LATELY REPRESENTATIVE IS UNACCEPTABLE. IF POSSIBLE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU’RE ABLE TO FIND OUT WHAT HIS NAME IS. THANK YOU FOR REPORTING THIS.
I sip my thermos and google Liberty Lately. I scour the results to see if I can unearth the man’s name. I quickly discover he’s already written and posted an article about the pornography incident.
LIbrARIES ARE TURNING INTO COMMUNIST SEX DENS
LIbrARIES, WHICH WERE ONCE SANCTUARIES OF SCHOLARLY PURSUIT AND INTELLECTUAL REPOSE, ARE NO LONGER SAFE.
THE OLD LADIES WHO ONCE MAINTAINED DECORUM AND ORDER HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY BLUE-HAIRED LIBERAL RADICALS WHO HAVE ABANDONED ALL SEMBLANCE OF PROPRIETY, AND WHO BLITHELY ALLOW PERVERTS TO WATCH DEPRAVED SEX ACTS NEXT TO OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDMOTHERS…
I snort, almost spitting coffee onto my keyboard. I put a hand to my chest, close my eyes, and try to muster the Zen required to swallow the swig of coffee in my mouth without cackling.
I finally gulp it down. I let myself look at the article again.
Sex dens. What a hysterical way to refer to the library. It’s obvious the folks at Liberty Lately have never been to a real sex den, communist or otherwise. I find the term “communist” hilarious too, remembering the reporter called us “fascists” yesterday.
The post goes on. I scroll down to see if there’s a byline.
There is, and it’s even accompanied by a photo.
Declan Turner. A thin, weaselly-looking white man with blond hair and no eyebrows.
That’s our guy. His name is hyperlinked.
I click it. I’m directed to the About Us section of Liberty Lately, where I discover the site is owned and operated by Declan.
I copy his name to send it to Brenda, then continue scrolling. Beneath the post, there are comments.
YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE FAILURE OF OUR RADICAL LEFT LEADERSHIP.
WE NEED POLICE IN LIbrARIES.
DEFUND LIbrARIES!
“What’s so funny over there?” Patty asks. She’s working at a desk nearby.
“I’m sorry, it’s not actually funny,” I say, still laughing. “It’s really sort of appalling. It’s just the verbiage. But I’ll send you a link.”
She waits at her computer, clicks, then reads. She starts giggling. “Oh my God. Did you read the comments?”
She throws her head back and laughs so hard she doesn’t make noise.
I look at Declan’s photo, trying to guess how old he is. He’s dressed like a middle-class suburban grandfather. He’s tucked his red golf shirt into his disheveled, baggy khakis, fashioned with a phone belt; however, he appears to be someone much younger than his clothes suggest. Is he my age?
Patty sighs, “Oh, we shouldn’t laugh. This is actually quite troubling, isn’t it? I thought we’d left these attitudes in the past.”
I squint. I think Declan might be in his thirties. That throws me off. That means we grew up exposed to the same school curriculum, news, and pop culture. I’m disturbed to think we followed the same steps, in the same world, in the same timeline, and he turned out like this.
“It is troubling,” I say, still examining his photo.