Urban Lullabye

Maureen loved her first son well enough, with his bald head and wide baby smile. The second boy, however, was a disappointment, and by the time she gave birth to a third male child, she wanted a daughter so badly she was ready to adopt. Her only hope of seeing her mother lay in a daughter. Maureen did not look like her mother. There was just something different, her father said. The difference, Maureen knew, was that she had sons. The act of raising a little girl would transform her until she looked entirely like that woman whose face she had forgotten.

There were no pictures of her mother. No adult pictures. Nothing of her as a woman. Those had all burned with her in the house. Maureen remembered the fire. She remembered her father dragging her down the ladder. She remembered looking up for her mother, and seeing nothing but smoke. She did not remember her mother's eyes. As a teenager, Maureen took up cigarettes because it was the closest she could come to real fire. The nearest she could come to her mother.

When she married, she immediately started trying to conceive. Her first baby was a girl. Stillborn. Maureen sat over her for hours trying to cram in a lifetime of mothering before Len came and shut the casket. Then came the two boys, Tarrance and Jason, her joy and her disappointment. Secretly, she searched for a little girl, and when Len found her in helpless tears, one day, he asked her, "Do you want to try just one more time?" So she went through it all again. Endured the months of waiting and the uncertain sonograms. Tolerated the hours of labor, all in hope of a girl.

Instead, she had Albert. Everything about Albert seemed like a painful memory to her. His large and thumping movements reminded her how she wanted a daughter. Every twist of his smile showed her that all three children looked like their father. And most of all, Albert recalled to Maureen her mother, because she felt for him that same burning emptiness that she felt when she tried to remember that woman's face.

She nursed Tarrance well into his second year, willingly giving of herself to him, because he was small and delicate, and because of the way he curled his palm around her fingers. For hours on end, she sat on the balcony with him, rocking and singing lullabies. Jason she weaned at a perfunctory two months, well before he had developed a taste for formula. She did not rock or sing to him often, though sometimes a memory would make her smile as he lay in his crib, and she would lean over him and hum. Albert was entirely bottle fed, mostly by his father. She usually turned the radio on by his bed if he cried for attention. His lullabies were sung by Kiss, REM, and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Tarrance and Jason were both in school when Albert was still only a toddler. Maureen hadn't lit a cigarette since college, but every morning, when she put the two oldest on the bus, she crouched down beside Albert in the floor and opened a pack of Marlboros. One after the other she smoked them, while he begged "BoboNana!" and beat on her with blocks when she gave him a cup instead. When she put him in his room for a nap, and turned up the radio to silence his high pitched wailing, she went back downstairs, threw away the remainder of her pack of cigarettes, and spent too long scrubbing the tiles where he had dribbled his milk.

By the time Cindy Macalister came over for lunch with her baby, the floor was pristine, but sometimes, Cindy noticed the acrid smell. "Has Len taken to smoking?" she'd ask as she let herself in the kitchen.

With a look of tragic guilt, Maureen always replied, "I'm afraid so, Cindy. He won't admit it, but that smell...."

And they would drift into sympathetic conversation about husbands in general and the stresses that could drive one to cigarettes. The Macalisters kept horses, and Cindy gave riding lessons in the afternoons. Moreover, her own husband, a trainer for a Hunter Jumper stable, was often out of town with his work. "Sometimes," she said, "I swear I could smoke. If Annie wasn't such a good baby I might really be tempted." Then, she put Annie in the floor commenting, "Reen, I don't know how you keep it so clean in here with three boys. Annie alone is a wrecking ball."

Maureen smiled and glanced at the clock. "Albert should be getting up soon," she said. She was careful in front of Cindy to seem like the ideal parent. As if the naps were for Albert's benefit and not her own. Cindy would not have left her daughter with anything less, and Maureen lived for those four afternoon hours when Annie was hers. She existed for the evenings when Cindy and her husband wanted to go out alone. It seemed a terrible shame to even charge for the service, but then, Cindy could never know the depth of Maureen's attachment.

In the summer, she and Cindy ate their lunch out on the patio. They sat together and laughed while Annie scrambled around with Albert's toys, and Albert finished his nap upstairs. They both watched the baby lovingly, Maureen with a secret sense of possession. She often surrendered to the desire to get down and play with the little girl. She was doing this on a Tuesday, walking as Annie stood on her feet and clung to her hands, both of them laughing, when Cindy's voice went high and tense. She said, " Reen. Don't panic. Just turn around. Slowly."

Don't panic. Those were the words they used when Jason got his fingers caught in the sewing machine. When Tarrance found his father's gun. When Len was in that horrible accident. When her mother died. "Don't panic, Maureen. Just get Jason to the hospital. Just make Tarrance look at you while I get behind him. Just hold me; I'm not going to die. Just get on the ladder and let your Daddy get you down. Don't panic." The words assaulted her as she raised her eyes.

Albert dangled above them..

Don't panic. Two stories up and hanging from the balcony.

"BoboNana!" He was stuck. He wriggled to free himself, thrashed around above their heads.

. Don't panic. He held her water glass in slippery fingers; let it fall to (shatter he's going to shatter, he's going to) shatter on the sidewalk.

Don't panic. For one irrational instant, Maureen wished to see his body follow the path of the glass. But not in front of Cindy. Without speaking, without revealing her panic, she released Annie. Then, she turned around and walked in the house, climbed the staircase and inched out onto the balcony, where Albert's diaper had lodged him. To pull him back, she had to turn him on his side and fight the urge to let go of him as he screamed "BoboNana! BoboNana!". Inside, she clutched his shoulders and shouted, "NO. No bottle."

He continued to wail, and suddenly, she started crying, too, so that by the time Cindy made it up the stairs to the bedroom, Maureen was clutching Albert to her chest sobbing,. "I can't believe we didn't hear him on the monitor."

She surrendered in front of Cindy, gave Albert the bottle, and held herself in painful check while he sat in a corner crooning "Bobo" around the rubber nipple. It seemed surreal when Cindy went home to work, leaving Maureen alone for four hours with her precious little girl.

I wished he would fall, she thought. He's only a little boy, and I wished he would fall.

She thought of her father, carrying her down the neighbor's long ladder while the house burned. The resentment for her youngest child faded, and she sat out on the balcony and held Albert and Annie both protectively close, rocking and singing.

Leonard swooped through the door at six and settled Albert high on his shoulders, all the while laughing, "I knew you'd give in to him, 'Reen." Albert happily pounded his father with the bottle and shouted, "BoboDada!" How could she tell him, then, anything at all about the afternoon? He didn't know what had happened, and already he was on Albert's side. That night, they wheeled out the garbage together, neither saying a word to the other. In bed, he tried to lie with his arm covering her, but she rolled away from his touch.

She woke up because he was crying.

"Reen," he said. "Oh, Reen, who is he?" It was morning, and Leonard stood in the door holding half a dozen crumpled cigarette packs. "I smell him on you when I come home," he accused, "and now this. He leaves his.... his mark behind.... for some kid to dump out with our trash."

Maureen's thought of lying. She thought of giving him a name, yes even an address. She thought of describing a lover to her husband. She saw herself, for an instant, leading a life without Len. Without this huge and beautiful house full of boychildren. She added it quietly to the image of Albert falling after the glass. For just a moment, she wished. But she saw herself without Annie or any other hope of a daughter.

"Leonard, those are mine," she said, and she crossed to take them away from him one at a time.

"Who is he?" her husband demanded.

Deep inside, she started shaking, and parts of her crumpled like the packs of Marlboros. "I smoke," she said. "In the morning. Albert cries and cries for that damned bottle, and I have to smoke or I can't stand to hear him."

"But at night I smell him in your clothes and your hair."

"There isn't a him, Len. You smell smoke. You smell cigarette smoke all over me when you get home."

"But last night," he said. "Last night, you were so cold to me."

The shaking inside amounted to a shattering and she fell to her knees. "Yesterday," she said, "Albert nearly died."

"What?"

"He nearly died for that damned bottle and you came flying in the door to say 'Told you so, Reen.' Yes, I was cold to you."

He got down beside her and tried to meet her eyes. "What are you saying, Maureen?" he demanded, "What are you saying?"

She told him then, haltingly, the story of the balcony. Told him what happened and what she saw. "I saw him falling. I know I saw the diaper slip when I caught his leg."

As she spoke, Leonard slowly reached for her and pulled her into his arms. "I didn't know Maureen, or I'd never have said it. I'm sorry," he said. "Maureen I'm so sorry." This time, she did not pull away from his touch. She let him hold her as they knelt together on the carpet.

"All the king's horses," she muttered, "and all the king's men couldn't put Maureen together again."

"What?" said Leonard.

Maureen rose and pushed away from her husband. "The cigarettes are mine, Leonard," she said. "Now go to work. We'll talk this evening. I'm taking Albert to my father's."

Joel Weaver, at seventy, was retired, and lived on a combination of a pension, social security, and money given to him by Len and Maureen. Smiling, he took Albert . He pulled the boy up off the floor and cooed, "Just look what your old grampa has for you, Bertie. Just look. I've got you a cup!"

"Tup!" Albert chirped. He took it and toddled away, content to let the bottle dangle between his teeth.

Maureen's drive home was empty of baby noises, and she hummed to herself as she pulled in the driveway. Hush little baby, don't say a word, Momma's gonna buy you a Mocking Bird. Cindy was just pulling in with Annie, and Maureen called out, "I took Albert to my father's, If anybody can wean him to a cup right now, it's Dad."

"What an idea!" said Cindy. "Do you think he could start to work with Annie in a few months?" They ate, then, and Cindy went home to work. And if that Mocking Bird don't sing, Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

Annie crawled around and examined Albert's ball. The parts of Maureen that had crumpled like the cigarettes began to revive as she sat adoring on the floor beside the baby girl. If that diamond ring don't shine.... Annie, however, was bored. She searched through Albert's toys without finding him, and then sat down and cried. Maureen misunderstood the tears as a sort of commiseration and loved Annie more than ever. Momma's gonna sing you a lullaby.

She imagined a life with Annie as her daughter. She thought she was healing herself as she dreamed of dances and proms and teenaged heartbreak. It became suddenly the focus of her morning to turn Annie against Cindy and have the child for her own. Watching Annie kick listlessly at Albert's trucks, Maureen knew where she needed to begin.

Where would there be a toy store? She knew they were all over Lexington, but she had to think because Len did nearly all of the Christmas shopping for the boys. It seemed like she'd seen an ad for something. One of them.... yes. There was a toy store out on Nicholasville. Maureen drove a car, but taking the bus seemed better. (Safer, whispered a voice in her mind. Less obvious.)

She tucked Annie into her frilly romper and carted her nearly a mile to a bus stop. She caught the wrong bus, and they had to change several times to get turned around and heading the right way. That was all right because Annie loved the bus. Maureen held her up to the glass, and the little girl laughed and laughed at the buildings and the cars chasing each other out of her sight. People chuckled at Annie and told Maureen what a beautiful little girl she had. Maureen just smiled and nodded. Momma's gonna sing you a lullaby.

It was early evening before they got off the bus at the toy store. Maureen carried Annie straight to the girltoys aisle. Jewelry and pink telephones, and dolls dolls dolls. All the things Maureen hungered for in her father's apartment. All the things she would offer Annie in exchange for just a little of her baby love. But Annie didn't want dolls. She didn't want pink telephones. She didn't want jewelry. Annie had no interest in bright colored boxes with cuddly animals inside. The store was familiar to her only through the medium of the shopping cart, only in the arms of her mother. She pulled away from Maureen and began to bawl.

Maureen bought her the toys anyway, as the love faded. Piled her arms with things a little girl would want. Outside the store, she unwrapped them one at a time and shoved them desolately into Annie's tiny fingers as streetlamps came alive. Annie didn't cry for long, but every item was cast aside with a demand for "Mama". And every "Mama" took Maureen further away. Every rejected toy brought on a renewed sense of emptiness. She could not have a daughter. Even someone else's.

Annie was a traitor. Yes, even so small they could betray you. Annie had held out the image of her mother before her and burned it away. Maureen stood weeping under a street sign beside the busy road. Shiny cars flashed past, leaving behind their red and green afterglow. Noisy mufflers and blasting horns drowned out her own sounds of despair. Maureen piled Annie and her toys into the ditch and wrapped her arms around her own waist. She walked away and abandoned them all. She walked alone and was not surprised, when she turned, to see that Annie was trying to follow her. But it was too late for following. Annie had rejected her, betrayed her, and Maureen got on a bus without looking to see if anybody noticed the baby crawling through the weeds by the roadside.

Rocking and swaying, the bus rumbled down Nicholasville towards the University. The whole world was Rock-a-bye baby rolling past. The bus stalled on the overpass, and she clung ferociously to her seat, wondering why the rattling didn't stop. The shaking and banging dislodged her into the aisle. It was an earthquake. The sort they had in California. All Kentucky collapsing around them, and nobody else even trembled.