KATELYN ELWESS Impressions

KATELYN ELWESS | IMPRESSIONS

In the morning it had rained, but by afternoon the weather had become unusually warm, leaving the air thick and damp. At dusk, Bill and Claudette returned from their walk with the twins. Bill parked the wagon on the lawn before lifting the children out of it, then joined his wife on the back porch. He pulled his cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered her one. She shook her head and slipped off her sandals. He lit his own, drew it to his lips, and inhaled.

“Quitting again?” he asked, smiling. Matilda grabbed a box of jumbo chalk behind him while Arnold stumbled over to the pile of leaves Bill had raked the day before and sat down. Matilda called for him to color with her, but he didn’t answer.

Claudette wrapped her arms around her knees. “So what if I am?”

“God help us all,” Bill said with a chuckle. He flicked his cigarette. His hands were weathered and stained with motor oil from the day’s work. He ran a small repair shop in town. He worked six days a week, but his hands perpetually looked like he’d just been under an engine. Claudette stared at them, frowning.

She had quit smoking twice before. The first time was when three of the other nurses at work quit, about six months after Bill and Claudette began dating. She’d also started a juice fast the same day. She’d tried her best, but after three days, Bill found her with a menthol in one hand and a half-eaten Hershey’s bar in the other. The second time was when she found out she was pregnant with Arnold and Matilda.

Claudette had a perfect pregnancy. She took prenatal vitamins and slept at least nine hours each night. She cut out sugar and ate more whole foods. She practiced yoga each morning, read every parenting book she could find and attended Lamaze classes. Even the delivery was seamless. After thirteen hours of labor and forty-six minutes of pushing, Claudette was cradling her new baby boy and girl. Pregnancy was bliss, she decided. The most difficult part was telling her husband.

“Mommy,” Matilda called from the sidewalk, “I drew a cow!”

“Chicken!” Claudette called back. To Bill, she said, “She gets them mixed up.”

Bill snorted and lit another cigarette. “How?”

“She’s six,” Claudette said, her voice sharp. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Still, she

made a mental note to find Matilda a worksheet on identifying animals the next day after their piano lesson. She turned to watch her children. Arnold made mud brownies by stirring dirt and water with a stick. When he brought the stick to his mouth, she jumped from her seat and said, “No, sweetie! Don’t eat that!”

“Maybe he’ll be a chef,” Bill said and laughed a slow, wheezing laugh that sounded like air being let out of a tire. Claudette gave him a look. He said, “What? It runs in the family.”

Claudette covered her mouth. The air was still heavy and moist, and it made her feel sick. Matilda ran from across the lawn and sat close to her mother. “Mommy, my chalk broke.”

“We’ll try to get more tomorrow,” Claudette said.

“No! Now!” Matilda yelled. She stood up and stamped her foot. She wore a pair of purple slip-on sneakers that lit up when she jumped.

Claudette rubbed her temples. “It’s almost bedtime.”

Matilda jumped to the ground and faced her mother with crossed arms. “No bedtime! No bedtime!”

Claudette watched the pinks and blues and yellows of Matilda’s shoes light up the lawn around her. She looked down at her own bare feet and rubbed her eyes. She put her hand back over her mouth, trying to will away the bile crawling up her throat. She regretted eating the tuna steak Bill had made for dinner. She regretted many things.

“It smells like barbecue, don’t it?” Bill asked. He squashed the butt of his cigarette under his Birkenstock. “Do you smell that?”

Claudette pressed her knees together. “Don’t mention food, please.”

Bill sat back down and put his arm around her. “You okay? You’re not getting sick, are you?”

Claudette shrugged him off. She stood up and walked to the back door. “I need a drink.”

She poured herself a glass of water, then returned the pitcher to the top shelf in the fridge. She took small sips, staring at the photo pinned under a magnet on the fridge door. It had been taken at a park. Claudette had intended to use it for the family’s Christmas card that year, but it didn’t turn out quite right. In

the picture, she and Bill stood behind a two-year-old Arnold and Matilda with strained smiles. The twins were dressed in matching baby blue sweaters and khaki pants. Claudette wore a blouse in the same shade of blue. Behind them was a large pond. Arnie was looking at something out of frame and Matilda was waving her hands, making them look blurred. It was the only decent shot they’d managed to get that day.

When Bill and Claudette had married eight years earlier, she never expected to be in this position, let alone twice. She’d been told she couldn’t have children of her own. Initially, she was heartbroken. Every time she passed the children’s aisles at the store or saw the baby pictures her friends posted of their children online, she felt an awful hopelessness that she thought would never pass. She took a leave of absence from the hospital. For a while, she stopped getting out of bed.

“I’m worried about you,” her mother would say while she smoothed out the comforter or folded a shirt that had been discarded on the floor. “Maybe you should see someone. A therapist. “Before this gets worse. Just consider it, Claudette.”

Bill had tried to console her, too. He’d cook her favorite meals and bring her roses he’d bought from the convenience store. He’d whisper how much he loved her as they fell asleep and joked about how much they would save on diapers and college funds. But he had never really wanted kids, and the news of Claudette’s suspected infertility wasn’t his loss.

Once she finished her drink, she set the glass in the sink and surveyed the kitchen. It was a disaster. Bill’s family owned a steakhouse in the city. To their dismay, he opted to become a mechanic instead of taking over the business. Still, he’d managed to inherit both his father’s talent and his knack of turning a kitchen upside down. The kids’ plastic Disney plates sat piled on the table, still covered in half-eaten fish sticks. On the counter were bottles of olive oil and catsup, seasonings, spatulas, and butter. Claudette carried the skillet to the trash can and tossed the rest of the tuna. Then, she went to the sink, turned on the faucet, and began scrubbing the pan. When it was clean, Claudette placed it on the drying rack and put the condiments in the fridge.

When Bill and Claudette were first married, she loved to bake. On her days

off, she would make cakes and pies and custard while Bill made their dinner. If the couple had a weekend off, sometimes Claudette would make desserts for the restaurant. Afterward, the two would spend the rest of the day shopping or watching a matinee. After the twins were born, she gave up baking. She gave up a lot. She no longer had time for her book club or weekly brunches with the girls from work. Her mother’s calls went unreturned for days and she stopped her spinning classes. She cut her hours to one shift a week, and by the time they had their first birthday, she quit the hospital altogether. Bill started working extra shifts at the shop to make up for the loss.

Outside, someone screamed. She looked out the kitchen window. Bill roared like a bear and chased the twins around the yard. Matilda giggled, but didn’t try to run. Bill picked her up and spun her around. Arnie hid behind a tree. Claudette returned to the porch. When Bill saw her, he stopped mid-spin.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

Claudette’s stomach jerked. “I’m fine.”

Matilda hugged her father’s leg. Arnold wandered across the yard. His shoes had come untied. He sat on the grass and began tearing a leaf into tiny pieces. Bill yawned. “I’m not. I think I pulled something. I need a beer.”

He peeled Matilda off him and went inside. Matilda sat next to Claudette and grabbed her hand. “Mommy, les’ play Hide and Seek.”

“Not tonight,” Claudette said, pulling away. “It’s getting late.”

Matilda stood up. “I’m hungry.”

“You already had dinner,” Claudette said. Her stomach churned. She closed her eyes and sat still.

Matilda jumped up and down, rattling the porch. “I want strawbabies!”

“Strawberries,” Claudette said, but her daughter didn’t hear.

Bill returned with a bottle. “You ate all the strawbabies this morning, Monkey.”

“Berries,” Claudette said through gritted teeth.

“I think it’s funny,” Bill said. He took a drink.

Claudette stood and crossed her arms. “You need to correct her.”

“Why?”

“So she knows what’s right.”

“She’s six,” Bill said, shrugging. “It ain’t that big of a deal.”

Matilda crawled on to her father’s lap. Bill took another sip. Across the yard, Arnold pulled out grass by the handfuls. Claudette called him over, but he didn’t answer.

“I’m going to shower and lie down,” she said.

“All right,” Bill said, frowning. He had a look that Claudette hadn’t seen since she told him she was pregnant with the twins. “You don’t look so good.”

As she worked the shampoo through her tangled locks, Claudette felt her stomach churn again. She placed her hand on the tile and took a breath. Once the nausea subsided, she finished rinsing her hair, then applied conditioner. It had been over a week since she took the test, and she felt no more prepared to tell Bill than the day she found out. She imagined his jaw going tight, the way it did when Matilda had accidentally knocked over his T.V. during a one-sided game of Tag with Arnie. She imagined him getting up from his seat and storming out, slamming the door behind him. She imagined him never coming back, leaving her alone with more children. Before she could stop it, Claudette doubled over and vomited, holding the faucet for balance.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do, exactly. She hadn’t decided how she felt about the news herself. Motherhood was hardly what she expected. Her twins were beautiful: two darkhaired, brown-eyed children with Bill’s dimples and her cheekbones. But, they were peculiar. Arnold almost always kept to himself and he still couldn’t write his name. Claudette worked with him for weeks, but it took four days to even get him to hold the pencil correctly. When he finally did write, the letters came out as harsh, disconnected lines. His inability kept Claudette hunched over her laptop late into the night researching specialists, but Bill seemed unbothered.

Matilda was a different story. She needed. She needed Claudette all the time—her attention, her help, her affection. She asked questions and demanded to hold her mother’s hand and wanted to show Claudette the new trick she’d learned or the picture she’d colored. She threw loud, frantic tantrums nearly every day when Claudette dropped her and her brother off at school. She often ended up in Bill and Claudette’s bed after a nightmare.

Part of Claudette worried she was selfish, but she feared what troubles the next baby would bring her. What if it, too, was as distant as Arnold, or as needy as Matilda? What if it was developmentally delayed or disfigured? Could she love it as completely as she should? She didn’t know.

After Bill seemed to calm down about the news of her pregnancy, Claudette asked him what they should name the twins. “Oops and Whoops,” he answered. She didn’t ask him about anything else regarding them after that. In fact, she made virtually all the decisions about the children since they’d been born. She chose what they ate, how they dressed, what school they attended and which pediatrician they saw. She enforced their nightly routine, took them to music lessons and gymnastics, and helped them with their homework.

Once her hair was rinsed clean, she listened for her husband and children. The house was silent. They were still outside. She began shaving her legs. She decided when she was finished, she would dry off, get dressed, and tell Bill the news, no matter how ill the idea made her. She nicked her leg with the razor and held her finger over the cut.

A few minutes later, Claudette finished and returned to her bedroom. As she lathered her skin with lotion, she pictured his reaction for the millionth time. Maybe he would shout at her right there in the backyard, in front of the twins and any neighbors who might be in earshot. Maybe he would tell her no. No, they couldn’t have another child. They weren’t ready for it. They didn’t have the money. He was done. They had two—two more than he ever wanted—and he was done.

Claudette reached for her pajamas, her UCLA t-shirt and a pair of shorts, then paused. What if Bill went so far as to tell her to end the pregnancy? She hadn’t considered the option. They would have to go to the clinic in the city. It would be best to leave the children with Bill’s parents. Perhaps they could spend the rest of the day alone. They could go sight-seeing and have a quiet dinner. On the ride home, they could stop for ice cream with the twins. She dressed quickly, then dried her hair with her towel. She headed back to the porch, combing out the tangles with her fingers.

Bill stood against the railing, watching Arnold and Matilda spin in circles in the yard. His bottle was on the porch next to his feet. Claudette put her hand on his back. “I need to tell you something.”

He jumped in his spot. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling better?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Just listen,” Claudette said. She grabbed his hand. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Bill said.

Claudette looked at the twins. Arnold had stopped spinning and now sat on the grass, blowing on a dandelion. Matilda pulled at his arm, trying to get him to chase her. “I’m pregnant.”

There was a long pause. “You’re kidding.”

Claudette shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Bill said nothing. His face was blank, but his hand gripped hers tighter. She put her other hand on his shoulder. After a beat, he asked, “Sorry?”

“I know it’s unexpected,” she said. “But we’ll figure something out, won’t we?”

“Of course.” He pulled her close to him. “Of course, we will. This is great, Claud.”

Claudette’s head shot up. “It is?”

“Sure, it is,” Bill said, hugging her. He smelled of sweat and rain and the cologne she’d given him for his birthday. She thought she might collapse.

“But you hate kids.”

Bill’s laugh rumbled in her ear. “Well, yeah. Other kids. Not our own.” When Claudette didn’t answer, Bill pulled back from her. “Jesus. You don’t think I hate our own kids, do you?”

Claudette’s cheeks reddened. “Of course not.”

Bill chuckled and pulled her back to him. He kissed the top of her head, then called for the children to come inside the house. Grabbing her hand, he said, “It’s great news, Honey. Really. We’ll have to celebrate. Claudette? Are you okay?”

“It’s just my stomach.”

“Are you sure?” Bill asked.

In the yard, Matilda skipped away from her brother. Her hair fell in her face. She looked like her mother when Claudette was around her age. Claudette remembered being in the fourth grade. Her hair was a little longer and lighter than Matilda’s, but she had the same wide brown eyes and rosy cheeks. She stood on a stage at a spelling bee. She wore black Mary Janes and an itchy turtleneck. Claudette couldn’t recall what words she was asked to spell, or how far she placed.

She did remember the way her voice wavered into the microphone, and the cold temperature of the auditorium. She remembered the thrill of the competition before it eventually became serious and bleak. She remembered the chocolate bar her mother bought for her afterwards. She remembered Saturday barbecues, games of Hide-N-Seek with the neighbors’ kids, and baking with her grandmother after school.

Matilda picked up the stick Arnold had been playing with earlier. She drew it to her mouth and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Claudette’s stomach turned again, but she ignored it. She focused on the little version of herself dancing around the yard. Matilda’s shoes flashed rapidly in the growing darkness, her step so light she hardly touched the ground.