K: Little Sister's Birth

Chapter: Kid, Little Sister's Birth

My aunt and my mother bring her home, a pink, wrinkled thing in a
miniature bathtub. My aunt carries the plastic tub in and my mother
follows her slowly, sitting on the couch and groaning as she lies back
into the cushions. My aunt is talking in a high-pitched voice to the
baby. She says to my sister and me, "It's a basinet. Don't touch it."
The she carries the tub into my parents' bedroom, now just my mother's
bedroom, really. My mother stands up, her hand on her stomach, and
follows.

All of us crowd around the bed. Whatever is in the tiny bathtub is a
basinet, I think, though it looks like a baby to me. "What's its name?"
my sister asks, moving closer and frowning. Its eyes are open, blue and
milky and unfocused. One arm waves in the air and I notice it has no
eyebrows. It is not like my sister's dolls, with their perfect eyes and
mouths and blond hair, smiles frozen in place. I already know this baby
came from my mother, from the big bump she had on her stomach. The bump
has shrunk but it's still there, pushing my mother's shirt out.

"She. It's a she," my mother says, which surprises me because the baby
looks like an old man. The only difference between the baby and the old
men I've seen is that she doesn't speak. But she looks ready to start
complaining about something, or bossing people around. The tiny arm
keeps waving.

"Her name is Tiffany, but we need to think of a middle name for her.
Something nice." My mother says this as if we're playing a game, and I
look up at her. She is pale, her hair stringy around her face. She
looks small. She backs up a couple of steps, putting space between her
and the bed. She acts like she's been cornered. I look back down at the
baby. Tiffany.

My big sister begins a list of names, the same names I've heard her
call her dolls. My mother doesn't say yes or no to any of them. Instead
she again moves closer to the bed, as if my sister's voice is leading
her in, relaxing her. My aunt joins in, and my mother stares up at a
corner of the room, considering. Mary. Christine. Jean. May. Jenny.
Catherine. Lady (that one from my sister, which makes my mother arch an
eyebrow).

"Anne," I say, and my mother looks down at me.

"That's good," she says, "That's really good. I like that. Tiffany
Anne. What do you think?" Only my aunt nods. My sister gives me a mean
look. I will need to avoid her later.

"Anne it is, then," my mother says. I don't tell her Anne is the name
of a queen I saw on the television, in a show where people wear a lot
of puffy clothes and look uncomfortable all the time. The queen's head
was cut off, which is all I know. Why she was killed didn't interest
me, just that she was real and it really happened to her. Anne was on
my mind because she lived and breathed, walked around like me, before
somebody decided to get rid of her.

My sister and I are pushed out of the bedroom by my aunt, my sister
complaining that she wants to hold the new baby. The door shuts behind
us, but I can hear my aunt and my mother's voices when I press my ear
up against it. They sound like they might be fighting, but only my
aunt's voice is loud enough to hear clearly. "Jesus Christ," she says,
"You'd better think," and, "Call him now. Don't wait. Go on, do it." My
sister pulls me back and takes my place, listening for a moment before
turning to me and pointing towards the living room. I follow her
quietly as she heads towards the front door.

Outside, we run around to the side of the house, where an air
conditioner sits in the weeds and overgrown grass right below my
mother's bedroom window. My sister climbs up first, slowly because we
know from experience that the metal on the air conditioner makes a
noise like a drum if it's hit or kicked. I follow, my foot bumping the
metal and causing us both to freeze. My sister gives me a mean look,
then pulls me the rest of the way up. Crouching, we pull ourselves up
with our fingers on the windowsill. The bedroom drapes are open, but
there is a sheer panel between the window and the room. Dead bees and
flies sit on the other side of the glass.

It takes a moment, but my eyes adjust. My mother's back is to us. She
sits on the bed, bent over with her head in her hands. My aunt holds
the baby, walking back and forth and saying a lot of things that begin
with, "I can't believe?". My mother's shoulders jerk up and down. She
may be crying, or laughing. I can't tell, though I'm pretty sure what
my aunt is saying isn't funny.

My legs start aching from standing and crouching at the same time, and
from ducking when I think my aunt has seen us. My sister and I bounce
up and down like this for a long time, and I'm glad the air conditioner
hasn't switched on because the air it shoots out of its top is hot, the
opposite of the cold air it sends into the house. Finally, my aunt puts
the baby back in her little bathtub and slides the tub further onto the
bed. She leaves the room, closing the door so hard that the window in
front of us shakes. She looked mad before leaving, which worries me. My
aunt getting mad at my mother is a new thing. They don't ever fight for
real, and they don't say mean things about each other when one of them
is gone. I wonder if this will change because of the new baby.

My mother lays back, her head on a pillow just below the window. Her
eyes are open and she stares at the ceiling. If she tilted her head
back, she could probably see us, but she just looks up. Her arms lie at
her sides, and she still has her shoes on, another new thing, because
we are not supposed to be on a bed wearing shoes.

Through the haze of the curtain I watch the baby's tiny fists making
circles in the air. I hear its high, raspy bleating. It's just a little
bit louder than my mother's own, lower cries.