“He’s sleeping,” Gwen answered easily, “I don’t want to wake him.”
“Oh, we can’t have that. I’ll get him.”
“No, really … he’ll be …” Gwen started to say but Mrs. Simpson was back down the stairs on her way to the car.
Gwen looked with disdain at James. He shrugged and followed his mother like an obedient child might after a scolding, a posture unfamiliar to Gwen. It made little difference to her at that point. All she could think of was finding a bed to lie down on. Gregory’s hunger would wake him soon enough. Rest wasn’t about to happen.
But before Mrs. Simpson had him out of the car, Gregory was crying. The unfamiliar face so close surely frightening him. James stood beside his mother. Gregory grabbed a fist-full of her salon-stiff hair.
“Oh, you little monkey,” she snapped sharply before smiling to cover her gruffness.
“Let me take him mom,” James proffered extending his hands around his son’s chubby tummy.
Upon hearing her baby’s cries, Gwen’s swollen breasts immediately began to lactate inside her bra. Several hours had elapsed since his last feeding at a crowded roadside rest area. He had to be hungry.
James carried Gregory towards her; his arms outstretched. The side of Gregory’s diaper was edged in brown goo.
“Can you get the diaper bag,” James asked as he came closer. It wasn’t a question.
Gwen trudged back to the Cavalier like a soldier weary from battle heavy on her feet. Her deprived sleep now painful like pulling food from the hands of the starving. Her eyes burned. Gregory was getting worked up inside the house. Twinges of a headache were lighting up a spot above her right eyebrow. She grabbed the baby’s bag and the bottle of Tylenol from the glove box and headed to the big house.
Inside, Gregory cried the entire time James changed him.
“I see he takes after his father,” Ed Simpson stated as Gwen entered the kitchen. The house was immaculate, spacious, excessive, like the house she grew up in. A place for everything and everything in its place echoed her mother’s disparaging voice somewhere in the back of her head. This was not a house for children. “Times sure do change. I never changed any of those things.”
“Sure you did Edward, you just forget,” Mrs. Simpson was quick to point out. “Time changes what we remember.”
Gwen smiled as she passed her father-in-law. She was sure his memory was quite correct.
“All done buddy,” James said as Gwen slid down beside him on the carpeted floor in the living room size den connected to the kitchen. “Mom’s here with the good stuff.”
Gwen picked Gregory up off the change pad and carried him back to the kitchen. She sat down in one of the oak kitchen chairs. Without thinking, she lifted the side of her sleeveless T-shirt, shifted her bra to one side and brought Gregory’s wide mouth to her dribbling nipple.
“You’re nursing!” Mrs. Simpson said in apparent dismay. As Gwen raised her head surprised, Mr. Simpson’s back was to her as he left the kitchen. “Goodness me.”
Gwen flushed embarrassed and tried to cover Gregory’s head with her T-shirt. She hadn’t meant to make anyone uncomfortable. Her baby needed to be fed; babies were like that.
“Let’s get your things out of the car,” Mrs. Simpson uttered more as a command than a suggestion and looked for a way out of her suddenly out-of-control environment. “Edward, sweetie, can you give Jamie a hand. I’ll get you a towel dear.”
In seconds the kitchen was empty.
Gwen stared down at her small bundle of heaven suckling at her breast. Her eyelids were heavy; Gregory’s reflected hers. Fifteen minutes of sleep would be such a gift.
Her eyes were closed when she heard something move nearby. Her eyes flashed open. A young man stood in front of her. He was about her age. His head was shaved. A tuft of what looked like singed-yellow hair grew on his chin. Her hold tightened on Gregory. The boy’s eyes were fixated on her naked breast.
She coughed, perturbed.
The boy raised his head abruptly. His eyes were familiar. Michael. James’s younger brother. The last time she’d seen him he had shoulder-length jet-black hair.
“Hi Gwen,” he greeted her, “how’s my little nephew?”
“Better now,” she replied. Michael was weird. She was not at all comfortable with his eyes on her. He had come up to visit them in Toronto two months ago and spent his nights in Toronto’s strip clubs. His eyes returned to her chest. He might be looking at his nephew but she doubted it. “What’s new Michael?”
His eyes shifted up to hers then turned away towards the refrigerator.
“Oh, you know. Same shit. Different day,” he said and pulled open the brushed stainless steel door of the refrigerator with the automatic water and ice dispenser integrated into the front. Like he could possibly know what the words meant, she thought. “You?”
She gave him a tight-lipped smile and looked down at her baby, “Gregory’s pretty much everything.”
Little else was said. James came into the kitchen carrying their bags and portable crib.
“Hey, Michael.”
He set down the crib and shook his brother’s hand. Gwen knew James tried but the two were not close.
“Howdy,” Michael replied. These were the only words the two of them exchanged.
“Listen Gwen,” James said softly, “I’ll take Gregory. You go take a nap.”
Mrs. Simpson reappeared behind him.
“Come dear, you do look worn out.”
Mrs. Simpson put her hand on Gwen’s shoulder and directed her out of the chair. Her touch was not of comfort. Gwen managed to pull down her T-shirt while holding Gregory and sliding out from behind the table; her bra was out of position.
“I don’t know how you kids do it,” Mrs. Simpson admitted. “It would take your father and I two days to do the drive you did today. Come Gwin, we’re up stairs.”
Without protest Gwen followed James’s mother to the spare room on the second floor. The room was as big as their whole apartment. The bed sat between two white-draped windows with an armoire on one wall and a dresser on the other, all constructed of rich dark mahogany. The bed looked magnificent like billowy clouds she could sink into and disappear.
“Make yourself at home, dear,” smiled Mrs. Simpson and seemed about to add something else but then looked to think better of it before saying, “have a good rest.”
She closed the door as she left the room.
Gwen didn’t need to be told anymore and in minutes was in the bed and asleep.
What seemed like seconds later, James was at her side; the backs of his fingers warm on her face.
“Gwen?” he whispered, his handsome face close to hers, “are you hungry?”
Disoriented, she sat up.
“What time is it?”
“Just after six.”
“What? It can’t be.”
She’d been asleep for almost two hours; it wasn’t possible.
James beamed. “Yes it can and it is. You needed the rest hun.”
“Where’s Gregory?” she asked already anxious for her babe. Gregory was almost always by her side.
“Mom’s got him. He’s taken a real shine to her.”
Though her mind was foggy, something dropped in her stomach. Gregory was her baby. He could not take a shine to anyone else.
“That’s nice,” she lied.
“Mom has offered to take him for a few hours so we can go out.”
They had not been out together as a couple since Gregory’s birth.
Gwen walked behind James down the oak staircase. She had hold of his strong hand and was doing her best to go slow.
“You’re sure it’s not a problem, Mrs. Simp …”
“Oh please, child, call me Joyce,” James’s mother interrupted her. They were sitting in the kitchen. Gregory was asleep in his stroller by the door. Gwen was not taking to any of it comfortably.
"'End of Days' is playing in town," Michael suggested sitting on the kitchen counter. "Saw it last week. It was great."
 |
| The Actor |
 |
| The Drive In |
No comments:
Post a Comment