Getting Near to Baby (12 page)

Mom missed Daddy more than we did, I guess. She hurried to the phone whenever it rang, and there were only two ways she ever looked when she answered: happy to hear Daddy's voice, or unhappy to hear that it wasn't. Happy didn't last, though. By the time she hung up with Daddy she looked unhappy. He didn't call very often, and Mom didn't have anyone outside of us to keep company with her. Well, there was Milly, our neighbor from down the hill and across the road, and Milly counted for a lot. She made Mom laugh sometimes.

And Aunt Patty came to stay for a while, not long after Daddy left. She tried to talk Mom into moving closer to her and Uncle Hob. “Patty, I know you want to help me,” Mom said.

“If only you would let me,” Aunt Patty said. “You're so stubborn.”

“I'm not the only one,” Mom said in the voice she used for jokes. But the corners of her mouth were turned down hard.

“Noreen, you could be down the road from me—”

“That's enough, Patty,” Mom said. “We can't afford to move.”

“Let me help.”

“I'm not a little girl anymore, Patty. You can't help me through everything.”

“Not everything,” Aunt Patty said. “Just this.”

“We can make it on our own. We have to.”

I couldn't be much help to Mom that first winter because I was still in school, days. That was also the year Little Sister started off in kindergarten, so Mom had to get her on the bus in the middle of the day. Little Sister came home with me—that was a help, I suppose. And Milly helped with Baby. But times were hard. By then Daddy wasn't calling us at all.

Mom was forced to leave Baby with Milly most of the day so she could paint. Baby and Milly didn't mind, but Mom missed Baby being nearby. A few weeks later, school was out; I could help out more with Baby. Mom said it was easier to paint with all of us back in the house.

By the time Little Sister and I were back in school, both of us for the full day, Baby was walking. She could get into the pots and pans. She opened drawers and messed up things. She didn't fuss so much to have somebody play with her. By the end of the school year, things were coming out all right for us. Better than all right.

When this little carnival came to town the first week school was out, we got into the car with Milly and went to town for the day. Baby sat up front with Mom. She didn't know what we were up to, but she was so happy about going somewhere that she kept popping up over Mom's shoulder and saying, “Boo!” Little Sister and I were giddy enough that we thought that was pretty funny. But Milly was almost more excited than we were.

“I went to this carnival when it stopped in Boone last year. They set up in the parking lot of the mall. You know how big that place is.”

“It must be good, then,” Mom said.

“Are there a lot of rides?” Little Sister wanted to know.

“They have all the best rides,” Milly said. “Fast rides for you and Willa Jo. A pony ride and a,little car ride for Baby.”

“I heard they even have a double Ferris wheel for Milly and me,” Mom said.

“What do you mean?” I said, never realizing Mom was teasing. “We can go on a double Ferris wheel.”

“Oh no, Milly,” Mom groaned. “We never get to do anything by ourselves.” That's when I knew Mom was teasing, and I leaned over the car seat to pinch her upper arm. She was ready for me and caught my fingers and wouldn't let go so that I begged and laughed so much I was near to tears. We were that silly.

“That double Ferris wheel is so high we'll be able to reach out and touch heaven,” Milly said.

“Really?” Little Sister would believe anything.

“Like this,” Milly said, and put her arm out the open window. “We'll reach up and touch heaven.”

“Hen,” Baby said, her eyes shining as she reached up and touched the ceiling of the car. Mom laughed and let go of me to tickle her under the arm.

We were too small a town to have a mall or even a big enough parking lot, so the carnival was set up in Walker's washed-out field, which wasn't really in town at all. Parking was up and down the sides of the road, and by the time we got there, which was plenty early, the cars already stretched back for what Milly said was three-quarters of a mile by the meter on her car. We parked and started out walking to the carnival. It was the longest walk I'd ever taken on the edge of a road and I'd have been tempted to complain if we weren't going to the carnival.

But after a while there were things to see and the walking wasn't so bad. There were tents set up across the field for people to live in. Their laundry was hung out and flapped in the breeze like it was their own backyard. A couple of children and some dogs played in the field.

Farther on, tables were set up at the edge of the carnival for people to sell things they'd made and for others who follow the carnival to sell things we'd never find otherwise. Milly bought something in a jar to dip her eyeglasses into so they wouldn't water spot, so they wouldn't even get dirty so much. Mom bought little sweet-smelling pillows with something called lavender in them. The lavender was dark blue, not purple at all. Little Sister and I were anxious to get at the rides so Milly and Mom gave up on the shopping pretty quickly.

We moved on to the fun. There were all different kinds of rides to go on, even if the lines we waited on were long. There were little tent shows for people to look into. We made up our minds to see everything. We only skipped two tent shows that promised naked ladies.

As the day wore on, we got hot and dirty. The wind blew all the time, which made it worse somehow. There was no place to get away from the sun, unless we went back into one of the tent shows we'd already seen. We went back to see the five-legged cat, although it was a sad dead creature. It floated in a big jar of something that looked like water but wasn't. The fifth leg was a sort of extra stump growing out of one of its legs.

And we saw the stegosaurus again. That had turned out to be a picture of a stegosaurus and a big leg bone they claimed belonged to it. And we saw the gun that shot Lincoln. That is, we saw a gun like the gun that shot Lincoln. But it was hot and stuffy in the tents and we could only stay so long as somebody was showing us something. Then we were out in the sun again.

We bought straw hats to keep the sun off our faces and had to hold them on to keep them from blowing away. There was nothing we could do to keep the grass fleas off our ankles. The grass was flattened down from all the people walking out there, and the fleas were looking for something on the move to latch on to.

Baby drank up all her juice and water before half the day was out, but Mom didn't want to give her soda pop like we were drinking. “It makes her gassy,” Mom said. “And then she'll get cranky.”

We were on the verge of walking all the way back to the car and driving into town to get juice or water when we finally found somebody with a sausage and pepper stand who had a bottle of water he was willing to share. “It's not cold or anything,” he said by way of apology. “I keep it to drown the coals, later on.”

“I appreciate the kindness,” Mom told him as she filled Baby's bottle.

We were all glad because it would've cut the day short. I don't think any of us would've wanted to come back to the carnival if we had to face another long walk in the midday sun. That water carried Baby the rest of the afternoon.

By the time we had seen and done everything, we were all of us hot, sticky and too tired to move, or so we claimed. But we were happy, all except for Baby, who was feeling cranky. “I think she must be getting a tooth,” Mom said to Milly. “She has a little fever.” Spirals of dust played around our ankles as we walked back to the car. We looked into sacks at our purchases and talked about everything we'd seen. The walk didn't seem nearly so long as it had that morning.

Mom told Little Sister and me to take a bath before we went off to bed. While we did that she washed Baby down in cool water with a little alcohol in it. I was sure we wouldn't sleep for talking about our whole day all over again; it wasn't even full dark. But I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Mom sat up with Baby all that night. I woke up more than once during the night to hear Baby crying and Mom crooning to her. I think I sat up once and saw Mom walking back and forth across the floor in the next room, Baby on her shoulder. I was so tired I fell back to sleep. I think I believed it was all a dream.

Because there was a dream. I dreamed Baby was lost at the carnival. Mom was looking everywhere for her and no one else even knew Baby was lost. We all came together at the last minute, Mom and Little Sister and me, in time to find Baby standing in front of one of the tent shows. We didn't run to her, which seems strange, even in a dream. She stood all alone, her little apron dress crossed over her back, the ruffles lying flat on her tiny shoulders. I could see the way her curls brushed at the nape of her neck. The tent opened like curtains it seemed, and then there was no tent; it was only curtains opening. Baby reached up with her dimpled hands and stepped inside. Just stepped inside without even looking back.

I woke from that dream sweating and with my heart beating too fast. But I saw Mom in the next room, and Baby on her shoulder. I fell back on my pillow without ever knowing for sure what was dream and what was not. I went back to sleep thinking everything must be all right.

Mom woke me so early in the morning it was still dark. She told me to run over to Milly's and tell her we had to get Baby to the doctor. Baby had been sick all night long. She rested in Mom's arms, her face tucked into Mom's neck, her breath coming fast and shallow, the way a dog pants to cool itself.

I pulled on my jeans over my shorty pajamas and ran. Mom's face looked scared, and that scared me. I remembered waking earlier in the darkness and how I fell back and went to sleep again. Now I knew I should have gotten up, I should have known something was wrong. In that minute I was sure if I had only gotten up, everything would be different. Everything would have been fine. When I left the house, the sky was only half dark—only a dark red stripe stretched across the horizon to mark the sun's rising—and I ran.

I
banged on Milly's door till a light went on in a room above. I remember it going through my mind that I had never been upstairs in Milly's house. I didn't know which was her bedroom window. I kept on banging. All the time I was banging, even when I was thinking about Milly's bedroom window, I was aware of the sky. Instead of looking for a light, I watched a burning orange blotch be pushed aside by a hot pink glare that hurt my eyes.

“Willa Jo, is that you?” Milly said when she came to the door in her bathrobe. Milly had a lot of hair and curly, and it sprang up all over her head. She stood blinking at me, her eyes looking sort of owlish without her glasses.

“Mom says Baby is real sick, that we have to get her to the doctor.” I don't know what I was suddenly hoping for, that Milly would say something that would make this go away. That she would say something that would make it something ordinary.

“It'll take me a minute to throw some clothes on,” Milly said, and made it more real.

“Should I wait?” I said. I remember asking that.

“Go on back and tell her I'm coming,” Milly said. “Tell your mom I'll drive right up to the door.”

I ran back up the hill. Stopping once to catch my breath, I looked back over my shoulder and saw the pink had given way to a kind of charged yellow. The dark ball of the sun hove into sight. It seemed huge. Too close. I didn't want to look at it.

When I went inside, Mom was rocking Baby and the house was quiet. Baby was quiet. “You'll have to go back,” Mom said to me in a whisper. She had a blanket thrown over Baby's back and it covered her face a little, like Mom meant to keep the light out of her eyes. Mom rubbed her back and rocked. “Tell Milly the baby is fine now.”

“She'll be over here in a minute,” I said.

“Go tell her,” Mom said in a firm voice. “There's no need for her to come over.”

So I did. Milly was hurrying out to the car, her curly hair swept back under a bandanna. “Mom says Baby is okay now; there's no need to take her to the doctor.”

“Oh, that's good,” Milly said, letting her breath out in a rush. “That she's better, I mean. I'll come up and have a look at her and see if there isn't something I can do for your mom.

“Not now,” I said, because in some way I knew my mom didn't want anybody to come in and look at Baby. Maybe I even thought this would make everything okay. “Mom is going to get some sleep. She's been up all night.”

“Poor thing, both of them,” Milly said. “You and Little Sister come on down to my place if things are too quiet for you.”

“We will,” I said. But I knew that we would not leave Mom and Baby.

I wrapped myself in a blanket to ward off the morning chill and sat staring out at the day like Mom. Mom sat and rocked Baby till the mist that rises in the early morning had burned away in the heat of the sun. When Little Sister got up and wanted breakfast, Mom told me to get out the cereal and milk. She never got up to eat something herself, she didn't put Baby down to make coffee, she didn't want the newspaper. She crooned a little song in Baby's ear.

Mom rocked Baby while Little Sister and I played on the bed, dressing Little Sister's teddy bear in a Pampers and one of Baby's T-shirts. We pretended to feed the teddy bear three oatmeal cookies, but we really ate them.

When Little Sister grew tired of the teddy bear, we watched a TV show that read a book to us. Then Little Sister read a harder book to me. She'd been able to do that for a long time. She'd heard that book so many times she knew the words that went with the pictures.