Chapter 111 - Youre Carl #2
I had once managed acquisitions with fewer contingency plans than I packed into Carl's diaper bag.
One afternoon Layla watched me prepare for a trip to the mall.
"Why are there six diapers?"
"We may need six."
"For three hours?"
"Emergencies exist."
"Two sets of clothes."
"Three."
"Why?"
"Spit-up."
"One is enough."
"Blowout."
"Two."
"Unexpected water incident."
She stared at me.
"What water incident?"
"I don't know. That is what makes it unexpected."
"Lia."
"We're taking three."
She reached into the bag.
"What is this?"
"Medicine."
"He's not sick."
"He could become sick."
"At the mall?"
"Viruses don't respect retail environments."
She pulled out another pouch.
"And this?"
"Backup medicine."
Layla became quiet.
Not annoyed.
Just quiet.
I kept folding the small blanket.
There was a pause long enough that I noticed it.
"What?"
She sat beside me.
"Nothing."
"That was clearly something."
She touched the packed bag.
"You know we're coming home, right?"
My hands stopped.
It was such a simple sentence.
No accusation in it.
No demand.
Just current information.
We're coming home.
I looked down at Carl's tiny shirt in my hands.
"I know."
Layla leaned her shoulder against mine.
"You pack like we might never see the house again."
"That's dramatic."
"You have backup backup medicine."
"That is called preparedness."
"You packed his birth certificate."
I looked at the bag.
"...Okay, that one might be excessive."
She laughed softly.
I did too, but something inside me had already gone still.
Because I knew exactly what she had seen.
People disappeared.
Homes disappeared.
Entire lives disappeared.
Children disappeared so completely that the next world could contain no proof they had ever taken a breath.
I had held Aria.
I remembered the weight of her sleeping against me.
I remembered her voice.
I remembered things nobody else could verify.
And now I had Carl.
Sometimes love made my brain greedy for documentation.
Sleep times.
Food.
Photographs.
Videos.
Milestones.
Preferences.
Evidence.
As if enough information could stop a person from becoming memory.
Layla rested her cheek against my shoulder.
"You can know him without preparing to lose him."
I swallowed.
There it was.
Gentle.
No confrontation.
No demand that I explain things I could not explain.
I looked toward the living room.
Carl was sitting on the floor inside the playpen, holding his stupid plastic lid with both hands.
He noticed me watching.
His whole face changed.
Not into Aria's face.
His.
Round cheeks.
Two tiny bottom teeth.
Hair that refused to lie flat near the crown.
He lifted the lid.
Then he hit himself in the forehead with it.
He blinked.
Layla snorted.
I laughed.
Carl laughed because we laughed.
Then he did it again.
"Don't encourage him," Layla said.
"I'm not."
"You're laughing."
"He hit himself with Tupperware."
"Different brand."
I looked at her.
She smiled.
"See? I listen."
Carl smacked the lid against the floor.
I put the third outfit back in the drawer.
Then the backup medicine.
Then the birth certificate, which, in retrospect, was difficult to defend.
I left the extra diaper.
I had limits.
At ten months, Carl learned to say something that sounded suspiciously like "Ma."
Unfortunately, both of us were Ma.
So this was useless.
"Ma."
"Yes?" Layla and I answered simultaneously.
Carl looked between us.
"Ma."
"Yes?" we both said again.
He frowned.
Jane, sitting across from us, started laughing.
"This is amazing."
"Shut up," I said.
Carl pointed at Layla.
"Ma."
Layla's entire face lit up.
Then he pointed at me.
"Ma."
I felt my chest tighten.
Then he pointed at the ceiling fan.
"Ma."
Jane fell sideways onto Chloe.
Chloe covered her face.
Layla stared upward.
"Wonderful."
I picked up my phone.
Layla immediately grabbed my wrist.
"Do not record 'first word: possibly ceiling fan.'"
"We need accuracy."
"We need dignity."
"We lost dignity around month three."
"That was the sock experiment."
"The sock experiment was valid."
"It was not."
Carl pointed at the fan again.
"Ma."
Jane was crying now.
"This child is perfect."
I looked at him.
He was.
But not because he fit anything.
Not because he returned something.
Not because I could map him against anyone I had lost.
Carl liked fans and plastic lids and sneezing.
He hated loose socks.
He distrusted bananas on inconsistent days.
He thought dropping objects for me to retrieve was a legitimate profession.
He laughed harder when Layla laughed first.
He crawled toward Chloe when he wanted calm and toward Jane when he wanted noise, which was possibly the most accurate judgment of character anyone had ever made.
He knew Sofia would carry him around.
He knew Ate Bianca would feed him.
He had forgiven Kuya Nathan's cap.
He was surrounded by people who knew him too.
Not as a replacement.
Not as a second chance.
Not as proof that something erased had come back.
Just Carl.
That night, after everyone left, I found him asleep in his crib.
Left fist near his cheek.
Right arm above his head.
Exactly like always.
I stood there longer than necessary.
Layla came beside me.
"You're staring."
"I'm learning."
"You already have ten months of research."
"Longitudinal study."
She bumped her hip against mine.
I smiled.
Carl shifted in his sleep.
For one irrational second, my mind tried to preserve everything at once.
The sound of the air conditioner.
The shape of his fingers.
The crease in his pajamas.
Layla's warmth beside me.
The exact angle of the night-light.
I felt the old instinct rising.
Remember this. Remember everything. You may need it later.
I reached for Layla's hand instead.
Current information.
Warm hand.
Sleeping baby.
Home.
Carl made a tiny snorting sound.
Layla whispered, "Did you record that?"
"No."
"Good."
"He does it approximately twice a night."
She slowly turned her head.
I smiled innocently.
"You still have the spreadsheet."
"I never said I deleted the spreadsheet."
"Lia."
"I reduced the number of columns."
"How many?"
"Define reduced."
She covered her face with one hand.
I kissed her temple.
Inside the crib, our son slept through the entire conversation, completely unconcerned with metrics, mortality, reincarnation, or his mothers' disagreements regarding appropriate data governance.
I looked at him.
You're Carl.
And for tonight, that was all I needed to know.