Page 3 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
A few minutes later Bev and Barbara left, and it was time for Emerald’s bath. I held onto her while the pink plastic tub filled up with warm water. She was a big baby. Over ten pounds when she was born and now nearly twenty. Heavier than a bowling ball. Which amused me: my sister, the bowling ball.
Nana Cole brought me a towel and the bar of Ivory soap she insisted we use. I had to do the shopping, of course, so I’d gone ahead and bought some baby-specific soap, organic even, but she’d thrown it away and I had to use what she’d used on me and my mother.
“Do you want to go to a meeting later?” she asked. “The baby can watch TV with me. We’ll be fine.”
I wanted to slap her, but I couldn’t put Emerald down just then. She was wiggling too much, and saying na, na, na. I could tell she was on her way to the word ‘no’. She didn’t want to get in the bath. She never wanted to get into the bath even though she liked it once she was in.
“I’m fine.”
There is no planet on which I would admit to my Nana Cole that I’d ever gone to a meeting. Despite the fact that NA was supposed to be anonymous—I mean it’s in the name for god’s sake—someone had gossiped about the few times I’d gone, and it had gotten back to my grandmother. Now she was always asking me about it.
She spread the towel out on the counter, and I laid Emerald down so I could undress her. My grandmother waddled off to get a clean onesie. Emerald’s room was upstairs; or at least her crib was. She slept in the second bedroom I’d used when my mother was here. I’d flipped the bed up against the wall, and put in the crib and a table with things she might need at night. Other than that, most of her things were downstairs. Basically, the entire house had been turned into a nursery.
Once Emerald was naked, I dipped her into the three inches of warm water. She giggled as her butt touched it—see, shedidlike a bath.
I said, “Uh-huh, you likey washy, washy, baby-waby.”
And then I heard myself and thought,Oh crap.
CHAPTER TWO
Pretty much everything from the time my motherabandonedus until around Thanksgiving is a blur. I was probably a zombie, and I’ve never heard anyone say zombies have good memories, so there you go. I’d gotten a prescription for Ativan and, as promised, it smoothed over the edges of withdrawal. Or at least I think it did. Taking care of a new baby and quitting Oxy are not as different as you’d think: anxiety, sleep disturbance, yawning, body aches, vomiting (only twice), shaking and rapid breathing. See? Hard to tell which was causing all that.
To be fair, we did have a lot of help the first few weeks. The baby bunch, as I began to think of them, was there for a lot of that time, changing diapers, feeding Emerald, swaddling her, rocking her, and just about anything else they could think of…andthey brought food. Massive amounts. Not that I could eat much of it, but it did make it easier to feed Nana Cole. All too soon, they weren’t coming as often and most of Emerald’s care fell to me and my grandmother. Well, me.
I had significant, and logical concerns about leaving Nana Cole alone with my sister. Mostly, I was afraid she’d drop thebaby and, as nearly as I could tell, infants don’t bounce. A theory I did not want to test.
Eventually, I found what I thought might be a solution. Nana Cole had most of my mother’s baby things, and most of mine. In the sixties, she’d used what amounted to a picnic basket to carry my infant mother around. Hard no. And in the eighties, she’d driven me around in a car seat that looked more like a gaming chair than anything that might protect a child. After assessing the situation, I did the reasonable thing and stole my grandmother’s credit card from her purse. FYI: Theft for a good cause is completely moral. Ask Jean Valjean.
Anyhoo… I snatched the card, went to Target, and got the most expensive baby car seat/carrier they had. It had the word ‘system’ in its name, so it seemed perfect. It had a handle so you could secure the baby indoors and then carry the whole contraption out to the car. And then, if it was a nice day, you could carry your baby around with you—or at least that’s what it showed on the box. It looked sturdy as a tank—well, as tank-like as molded plastic can be.
And, of course, Emerald hated it.
It wasn’t terrible when I used the car seat in the car. The visual stimulation and the movement all kept Emerald amused (or terrified into silence, I’m not sure I could tell the difference) for long periods. But, when I’d set the car seat on the kitchen table, or anywhere else that wasn’t moving, I’d have maybe five minutes before she started to fuss and ten before she outright began to scream. Which didn’t mean I wasn’t bound and determined that my plan would work.
The day after Ham’s call, an hour before Jan arrived for her shift I got the baby into the car seat and left her with Nana Cole, while I went upstairs to make a call to the only actual almost friend I’d made since I got to Michigan nearly a year ago, Opal.
“Do you need a ride?” she asked when she picked up.
“No. I have a car.”
“I’ve seen your car. ‘Do you need a ride?’ is a legitimate question.”
You can probably see where the ‘almost friend’ part comes in. I snapped back, “Your car is an insect with eyelashes.”
Opal drove a new Beetle with black plastic eyelashes on the headlights. She’d named it Ladybug. And that wasn’t the worst of her crimes. About my age, she was a bisexual prone to abusing hair dye. Not that the two are connected. Bisexual people don’t dye their hair anymore often… Whatever. The point is, from time to time, my almost friend Opal proved useful.
“Whatdoyou want?” she asked.
“I need to go to Three Friends winery and thought you might want to go with me. I’ll drive.”
“Why do youneedto go to a winery?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Is it funny?”
