Cleo

Apart from occasional squabbles over wool and needles, our days drifted away companionably eating, dreaming and following patches of sun around the house. Every moment was a stitch in a larger fabric that was gradually becoming a life connected to the one we had before with Sam, yet entirely different. Household rhythms unfurled effortlessly as a ball of wool. Spoons clattered into kitchen drawers only to be taken out, used, washed, dried and put back again. Each morning Rob and Jason trudged through long shadows down the path to school to return at that time in the afternoon when the day is getting tired. Piles of laundry waited to be sorted, washed and pegged on the clothesline overlooking the shipping terminal below. Then taken down, folded, ironed, put in cupboards, worn and dumped in familiar-smelling piles again. Complete in themselves, each with a beginning, middle and end, these comforting cycles interwove into the semblance of a normal life.

Watching sun ripple against the wallpaper I wondered why we’d been in such a rush to fix up the house. What was so offensive about the wallpaper? If it stayed attached to the walls long enough the frenzy of black floral arrangements against a white background might become fashionable again. Even the shaggy carpet didn’t get on my nerves much anymore. Pregnant euphoria ensured everything could wait.

Steve’s reaction was the opposite. Every room reeked of fresh paint. Ladders leaned at drunken angles all over the house. Plunging into feverish activity, he finished renovating the bathroom. He hauled out the peeling blue bath with its tasteless gold taps and dumped it on the lawn in front of the house. I was so hormoned-out I wasn’t bothered when grass grew tall around its edges.

When I wondered aloud to Ginny if she thought he’d ever take the bath away she suggested we turn it into a lily pond with goldfish. God, I loved that woman.

Cleo and I developed a taste for Mozart, not just because of the theory that babies could hear through the walls of the womb and classical music helped their brain cells grow. Cleo seemed to genuinely appreciate the composer’s soothing music, particularly the second movement of the Clarinet Concerto in A. As the clarinet pulled notes of liquid gold from the air, Cleo’s eyes narrowed to silver slits. Rainbows of sunlight danced across her fur. Nestling snugly around my belly, she purred accompaniment while Mozart resolved life’s heartache in one exquisite movement. Listening to that piece I was assured even the most profound sadness can be transformed into beauty.

Replacement

A cat listens carefully to every story, whether she has heard it before or not.

“It’s a boy!” every cell in my body shouted. There was an unmistakable masculinity in the way his feet ricocheted off my ribs. The tiny fists that pummeled my bladder in the middle of the night had the force of a miniature boxing champion. My feet marched “boy, boy” down the darkened hall to the bathroom for the third time in as many hours.

I sewed a tiny baby’s gown and embroidered the neck with blue daisies. We talked about names. Joshua, maybe. Certainly not Samuel, though perhaps as a middle name.

Not a replacement for Sam, I explained to anyone who was interested. The new baby would have his own personality, with just a touch of Sam’s roguish sense of humor, the same shaped eyes, maybe, perhaps even a similar grassy smell to his skin. He wouldn’t be Sam, of course. I’d respect the baby’s individuality. However much he did or didn’t resemble Sam, the baby would make us a family of four again. I’d tell Joshua Samuel everything about the brother he never knew. A thread of continuity would be woven into our lives.

Steve allowed himself to smile more often. To think all this hope was blossoming against the odds because of a surgeon with a microscope and clever fingers! For the last two babies Steve had scrounged a secondhand bassinet from the For Sale columns of the local newspaper. Certain there’d be no more babies, he’d quickly disposed of it after we’d moved Rob to a larger cot.

This time he went out and bought a brand-new bassinet trimmed with yellow satin ribbon, a tactfully asexual color. Peeling away its shiny wrapping, he assembled it in our bedroom. With a net canopy draped over its sides, the cradle was fit for a prince. I smoothed sheets the size of tea towels over the mattress.

Running my hand over the yellow ribbon, I wondered how people handled raising girls. All that tulle and Barbie doll stuff would be complicated. I knew how boys worked. Looking after them involves a lot of physical energy—chasing, mostly, and yelling. Boys are emotionally straightforward. They have special bonds with their mothers. Sam and I had a Kissing Game, a sort of tag, we used to play. The winner was whoever planted the last kiss on the other’s face, and it always ended with both of us purple with laughter.