Full of Grace (17 page)

I dance around the whole paternity thing and finally slip the letter into the folder I keep in the closet.  I can’t get my mind off what happened last night and when Sher wakes up, I just want her to forget all about Trent and his lousy fifty bucks. 

One night of sleep has made everything seem easy and ridiculously clear.  What I need to do is start filling up her bucket checklist, so she can get on with being a mom. It puts me in the position of being someone’s dad, whether that someone is related to me or not, but this morning, the worries about paternity seem a little fuzzy in contrast to doing what feels right.

I know exactly what I want to do.  I sneak into the bathroom.  I fill a glass with water and grab a washcloth.  This could get messy.

Opening my gym bag soundlessly is next to impossible, since every tooth on the zipper shouts in the silence of the room.  I finally unzip it like I’m ripping off a Band-Aid.  It’s fine.  Sher doesn’t even miss a snore.

I retrieve the foil packet I had stowed in the front pocket a couple days ago, after I had first gone to the store to get her pancake ingredients.  I creep back into bed, trying not to rustle the foil too much.  Ripping open the pouch goes the same as unzipping the gym bag, and I end up doing it fast.  Sher still doesn’t move.

I shake out the contents and draw the covers back, so Sher’s arm is exposed.  This will be the critical part.

Dabbing the washcloth into the water, I place the little paper square, with the lick-and-stick tattoo on it, against her arm.  I hold the edge of the moist washcloth on top and hope that there is not enough of a sensation of water to make her pee the bed.

But Sher sleeps like she’s made of concrete.  I decorate her bicep with a princess crown and a banner that has
Mother
splashed across it.  I continue down her arm to make a collage of ice cream cones, ponies, and stars, which she messes up when she rolls over unexpectedly.  But it turns out to be a blessing.  She reveals her belly.

Still in her clothes from last night, her top is bunched up and her pants are slung low.  The little bubble of her belly is right out there, begging to be inked.

I plaster a monkey, a chick and a bunny on her, none of which are very badass tattoos, but since two fold over and stick unexpectedly, it ends up looking more like she’s got a deformed monkey riding a chick with a bunny ear growing out of it’s butt.  That makes it a little more badass, and I’m satisfied with my work.

Then I get another idea.  I’m an expert at slipping her pants off while she’s sleeping, so I do.  I drop them over the edge of the bed and she shifts her legs suddenly. 
Halleluiah
.  The fleshy inner part of her thigh is like a blank canvas, just begging to be covered.  Since no one is going to see it, I get creative.  I altar my last monkey tattoo, positioning his arm so it looks like he’s swinging out from under the leg of her panties.  I give the monkey the bulging eyes I cut from the goofy dragon tattoo, so he’s staring up at Sher’s bits.  And that’s the moment I start thinking again and realize that when Sher goes to the doctor for her next check up,
everyone
will be able to see my handiwork.

When I try to suppress my laugh, it comes out as a tortured sneeze, which is what finally wakes her up.

“What are you doing?” she asks, glancing down at me.  I am still nestled between her legs, with my cup of water, a pile of empty paper squares, and a damp washcloth.  She sits up and looks down at the same time.  Her mouth drops open a little.

“What the hell?” she says.  She rubs the pervy monkey, swinging on the inside of her thigh and then gets a glimpse of color and yanks up her top to gape at her belly.  Still confused from sleeping, she points at her own stomach.  “What did you do?”

“You wanted to get a tattoo.  So I got some for you.”  I hold up the foil packet and read what’s stamped on it.  “Funny Bunny and Friends, temporary tattoos.”

“Bunny?” she asks, squinting at me, still trying to make sense of it all.

“Yeah, well, the bunny…” I point to the monkey conglomerate, with the bunny ear shooting from its colon.  She stares a while and I finally explain it simply with, “It’s not my fault.  You moved.”

She giggles.  “What about you?”

“No.  I’m not a tat kind of a guy.”

“Yes you are,” she giggles, reaching for the packet.  “If you did this to me, then I get to decorate you.”

“But I’ve got to go to work in a few days.”

“Then I’ll only put on one.  They come off, right?”

“It says they’re temporary.”

“Then I’ll just put on one,” she says, climbing on top of me.  I find it hard to object, to concentrate on anything, when she plants her knees on either side of my hips.  That is, until she slaps a tattoo square down on my face.

“Not on my face!” I tell her.  She squeezes my arms at my sides with her knees.  “I can’t go to work like this!”

“Kind of like how you gave me this ginormous hickey?” she squeals.  “It’s temporary!  Quit being a baby!  Stop moving or you’re going to mess it all up!”

I finally give in and let her do what she wants.  They’re temporary anyway.  When she finally rolls off me in a fit of giggles, I get up and go to the bathroom to look at the damage in the mirror.

She’s adhered a fuzzy spider, with googly eyes and wearing flailing roller skates, to my cheek.

“Very funny,” I tell her.  I grab a wash cloth and run it under the tap.  I rub over the spider, but the picture doesn’t even fade.  I glop some soap on the rag and wipe at my cheek again.  The spider stays put.

“It’s not coming off with soap,” I tell her.  “What does it say to use on the package?”

I hear the foil rustle and a few seconds later, Sher’s giggling.  When she sounds like she might be starting to hyperventilate, I turn off the water and return to the bedroom.  She’s rolled onto her back, laughing so hysterically that there are tears running down her face, as she stomps the bed with one foot.  The monkey on her thigh jumps like he’s laughing at me too.

“What?” I say.  There’s a certain amount of dread that fills me, watching her laugh so hard.  “What does it say?”

I take the foil packet from her.  The way she’s going, I won’t get an answer out of her until next week.  I read the directions twice, sure I missed something.  I didn’t.

“It has to wear off?” I shout.  “Are you kidding me?  These are supposed to be temporary!”

“They are,” Sher chokes out between laughs.  “Temporary, until they wear off!”

I groan.  I am glad I am not going back to the office today.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHER SLEEPS ALL THE TIME and she sleeps hard.  And since I’m home with her, I have to say that the naps are nice.  We fall asleep on the bed, with the afternoon sunshine warming the sheets.

The doorbell still gets me up first. I untangle myself from Sher as carefully as I can, but whoever keeps laying on the doorbell is more to blame for waking her.

“Don’t answer it,” Sher groggles from the bed.

“Why not?”

“It could be Trent, and he’ll shoot you in the face if you open the door.”

“I doubt he’s coming back here, but thanks for the heads-up.”  I still have my clothes on from last night. I run a hand through my hair before I take a glimpse through the peephole.

It’s Lisa.  And a wiggling pile of Sher’s siblings, who are climbing all over each other, like escaped acrobats from a circus.  I hesitate to open the door.  Although it’s not Trent, Lisa is just as likely to shoot me in the face.

“What took you so long?” she says when I finally open up.  Her eyes pause on the skating spider tattoo, but then she just rolls her eyes and says, “Sher’s still here, isn’t she?”

The kids bubble over the threshold, repeating Lisa’s question and asking who put the spider on my face, before they start scouting through my house like curious cats.  One of the boys climbs onto my couch, grabs the remote, and works it like a pro.  He’s got cartoons on before I can ask him if he wants help.  His own search for his sister is over.

“Ma?  What are you doing here?”  Sher shuffles down the hall, in her shirt and panties, straightening her ponytail.  Her little sister runs to her and throws her arms around Sher’s legs.  Lisa drops a bag from her shoulder onto the floor.  She glances at Sher, catching the tattoo collage on her arm and, I’m pretty sure, at least the edge of the cheeky monkey.  Lisa doesn’t seem to miss much.  She frowns, but doesn’t comment.

“I need a favor,” she says.  “Marco let me pick up an extra shift because Dean’s sick.”

I figure Sher’s going to melt and fold at her mom’s feet, telling her how crappy life is treating her.  I wait for her to complain to Lisa about Trent, or to beg her mom to let her move back home.  But instead, Sher crosses her arms over her chest so tightly, her new pregnancy cleavage pops a little over her forearms.

I have to stay focused.  Especially with Lisa in the room.

“You kicked me out and now you want me to do you favors?” Sher says.  Lisa rolls her tongue in her cheek.  “You got a lot of nerve.”

“Watch that mouth,” Lisa warns and I notice that Sher drops her arms to her sides as Lisa continues.  “You’re still my daughter and you’re still their big sister, Sher.  You can help your family out.  They’re giving me grief over staying with Donny and Christine.”

“Donny smells like cheese,” the boy on the couch says.

“And Cris-een always falls asleep and spills Stinky Drink on me.”

“That only happened once,” Lisa says, turning back to Sher.  “I’m in a jam, for pete’s sake.  Can you just help me out this once?”

“Alright, fine,” Sher grumbles.

“You don’t want us to come here no more?” the girl asks from Sher’s leg.  Sher rubs her sister’s head.

“Of course I want you here.  But Mom has to get you a new babysitter.”

“Nobody wants to babysit ‘em!” Lisa complains as she turns to go.  “They don’t listen to nobody else but you.”

When the door finally shuts, there are four little kids left in my apartment. The only thing I am sure of is this:  I am dangerously outnumbered.

***

Sher says she’s going to take a shower.  She leaves me with all four of her siblings starring me down from the couch.  They had strict orders to watch cartoons, but that’s not what they do.  They wait until the second the shower turns on; then they go to work.

One starts taking apart the remote.  The blondest one disappears into the kitchen.  I follow him in when I hear a box of cereal spill all over the floor.

“Need help?” I ask.  The kid is kneeling on my counter, with the cupboard door hanging open.  And the box didn’t just fall.  He threw it.

“I want Fruity-O’s.  Where are they?”

“I don’t have Fruity-O’s,” I say, picking up the box off the floor.  “But you can help sweep these up…what’s your name?”

“Whitman,” he says, jumping off the counter.  He walks out of the kitchen, the cereal crunching under his feet.  I’m about to grab him by his grimy collar when something else crashes in the bedroom.

Holy shit.  Did one of them lean on the window screen and fall out?

I rush in, to find the third little boy in mid-spring on my bed.  One end of the frame has broken loose from the headboard from his jumping.  Sher’s little sister has found a bottle of lube that must have rolled under the bed.  She’s sitting beside the bouncing mattress, sniffing a puddle of the liquid that she’s poured into her palm.

“Get off the bed,” I tell the boy.  He just moves to the other edge, furthest from me, and continues hopping.

“Say the magic word!”

“Please stop jumping on my bed,” I say, but he doesn’t stop.  His lubed sister, who has touched the tip of her tongue to the lube puddle, scrunches up her face.

“That was the magic word, Beck,” she says, still grimacing.  “You got to get off.”

“Nuh uh. He didn’t say it right.  He’s gotta say,
stop jumping PLEASE.”

“Stop jumping, please,” I echo, and Beck’s face drops into a frown.  He stops jumping.  Ha.

The shower turns off, and like someone’s sounded an alarm, Beck leaps off the bed.  Sher’s sister dumps the open lube bottle on the dresser and wipes the gunk smeared in her palm on the back of her dress.  I snatch up the open bottle before my dresser is coated.  I hear the kids vault onto the couch, giggling and shushing each other.  Then, silence.

Sher steps out of the bathroom in a puff of steam.  She looks like a goddess with her hair slicked back and the towel winched tightly around her, outlining every curve.  Shooting a quick glance at her couched siblings before walking into the bedroom, she spots the bottle of lube in my hands.

“What,” she says, stopping in her tracks, “are you doing?”

I cap the lube and drop it in my dresser drawer.

“I’m not doing anything, but trying to protect the place from your brothers and your little sister.  They’re monsters!”

Her eyes narrow to slits, but it’s not aimed at me.  She spins on her heel, stomps out of the bedroom, and marches into the living room.  I watch her little rear end sway under the towel and follow her, just so I can keep watching it.

She stomps right to the edge of the couch, stopping at the straight row of little feet that are all hanging just over the edge of the cushion, unable to touch the floor.  Sher plants her own feet, pointing with one accusatory finger and clutching her towel with the other, as she growls at her siblings, “What did you do?”

The guilt is as thick as the lube all over her little sister’s hands.  Sher’s siblings hang their heads, peeking at one another with chins down, each waiting for the other to squeal first.

“You better tell me now, ‘cause you know I’m gonna figure it out, and when I do, then
everybody’s
gonna be in trouble.”  Sher’s tone sends a shiver down my own spine.  “Chandler, tell me what happened.”

The kid who was taking apart my remote, pushes out his lower lip in a quivering pout.  He can hardly keep it together as he holds out the batteries to her.  Sher pulls them from his grasp and slams them down on the coffee table.