A: Babysitting a Cousin

Chapter: Kid, Babysitting Kris

My aunt has brought her new baby over for us to watch. His name is
Kris, and he has a head of curly hair and brown eyes. His eyes look
funny to me, under all that blond hair. They're too dark, and stand out
on his face. He cries when my aunt leaves the house, but my mother
picks him up and walks around the living room with him, making baby
talk while my little sister cries in her plastic bathtub. My father
sits in his chair, smoking and watching my mother walk back and
forth.

"The other baby is crying," he says to my mother, who stops and turns
around. Her mouth is smiling but her eyes look mad.

"I can hear that," she says, "Why don't you pick her up?"

My father stays put, and because I'm not allowed to pick my little
sister up, my mother yells for my big sister to get into the living
room and hold her baby sister. My big sister comes into the room, ready
to fight, but she looks at my father and stays quiet. She picks my
little sister up too fast, yanking her head backwards. Then she takes
her back to her room. I think about following but I want to see what my
father has to say about my aunt's new baby.

"Who's the daddy?" he asks. My mother has stopped the baby talk. The
baby's just sniffling anyway. The part between his nose and mouth is
snotty.

"A doctor she knows," my mother answers, "But he's moving away."

"Moving away? Not getting married, then? Or is he already
married?"

"I don't think so," my mother says. She stops in front of me and says,
"Go do something. I don't want you sitting around the house all
day."

What I'd like to do is play with my aunt's new baby, who looks more
like the babies on the television than my little sister, with her
wrinkled face and pink skin. I want to argue but I look at my father,
who looks like he might jump out of his chair and do something. It's
best if I'm not around. My father might just stay in his chair and
smoke his cigarettes. It's hard to tell.

It's no secret that my father hates my aunt. He tells us whenever her
name comes up, which isn't very much. He says she's a bitch, then looks
right at my mother, smiling. But when my aunt comes to the house, my
father stays quiet, or goes outside. I think he is afraid of her. Once
my father told me that women with red hair are hotheads, but I've felt
my aunt's hair. It's not hot even though it's red and curly and flies
all over the place when it's windy. It does look like fire,
sometimes.

I can hear my father talking to my mother in a low voice. I have a new
set of Lincoln Logs. My father bought it for me after taking me to the
store. All the way to the store I sat in the front seat but backwards,
so I could watch the back of my father's car. I'd left a stack of
nickels and pennies on his trunk, and it made it all the way to the
parking lot until my father's car hit a dip in the road and it slid
off. I think I heard the change hitting the road, but my father
wouldn't let me go back to find it. Instead he bought me the Lincoln
Logs, as long as I promised not to cry.

My plan is to add this new set of logs to my old set, which for some
reason came in a big barrel that was only half full of the dark brown
sticks with grooves cut into them. I can build houses, but mostly I
just build walls that go straight up and fall down when they get too
heavy. There are never enough of the small logs, the ones with only one
groove, and that makes it hard to build doors. My houses are usually
just boxes, with no roofs. I can stand on top of them without breaking
any of the logs, but it hurts my feet.

In the living room my mother and father's voices get louder. They're
not saying any cusswords yet, so there's time before things start
breaking or my big sister comes and gets me so we can go outside. I
tear open the new set of Lincoln Logs and pour them onto the floor.
They're a lighter brown than my other set, and smell like paint. One by
one I put them into my old barrel of logs, until it's filled up. I put
the cap back on the old barrel, a round, sharp piece of plastic that's
green and tears the top edge of the barrel. The cap still fits, though.
I store it next to my dresser drawers.

I walk to my big sister's room. My little sister is asleep in her
plastic bathtub under the window. I don't wake her up, because if she
starts crying it will bring my mother into the room. I have to be
careful about how I behave in my big sister's room. Sometimes she lets
me stay, sometimes she doesn't, depending on what she calls her mood.
Today I can stay, since she doesn't say anything to me when I squat
down and watch her dressing a doll she has. The doll is named Cher, and
in fact it does look like the lady I've seen on the television. Cher
has a special dressing room with mirrors that my sister won't let me
touch. The mirrors are magic, causing Cher to change clothes all by
herself, but I've never seen this work. I don't think my sister knows
how to work the mirrors.

There's a crash in the living room, and my father yells, "Goddammit."
My sister stops what she's doing and get up to close her bedroom
door.

"Do you think that baby's okay?" I ask.

"I don't know," my sister answers, rolling her eyes, "Why don't you go
look?"

I can't go look, but still I am worried. My mother doesn't always put
my little sister down during her fights with my father. I've found my
little sister on the floor before, her face purple while her tiny hands
wave around in the air. My big sister keeps dressing her doll,
squeezing its plastic arms into an orange shirt with fringe on the
arms. The fringe is made out of the same stiff material as the shirt,
and it's not like the fringe I've seen on real shirts that shimmers and
moves when people walk.

"What do you think of the new baby?" I ask. I can him crying while my
mother and father fight.

"He's cute," my sister says. She doesn't look at me.

"Do you think they'll let us play with him?"

Before my sister can answer, her bedroom door opens and my mother
stands there looking down at us. She puts my aunt's new baby on the
bed, swapping him for my little sister. "Shh, shh," my mother says, and
then leaves. My big sister and I look at each other, then stand over
the new baby, who stares right back at us. I can smell his diaper. I
can't tell if it's number one or number two. If it's number two, my
mother or my sister will have to change him. I'm only allowed to do the
number ones.

I hear the front door slamming shut. "Go see," my sister says, so I run
to my bedroom and look out the window. I watch my mother get into her
car with my little sister and drive away.

I go back to my sister's room and tell her. She doesn't act surprised.
She thrusts her chin at the door so I'll close it.

"He is cute," my sister says, tickling my aunt's baby under the chin. I
hold one of his fee in my hand, the skin smooth and cool.

"He's got curly hair," I say, "A lot of it."

"I wish I had hair like yours," my sister says to the baby, her face
right up next to his. She sits up and says, "He needs his diaper
changed."

I go to get the bag my aunt brought. In the living room, my father sits
in his chair, staring at the wall. He doesn't look at me when I pick up
the bag, but he says, "Don't touch that."

"The baby stinks," I say, "We're going to change him."

My father stares at the wall some more, then he lifts up one ginger to
tell me I can take the bag. I run back to my sister's room with
it.

While my sister changes the baby I sit on the edge of her bed, making
myself not look. Number two diapers make me feel sick. I get what my
mother calls dry heaves, my stomach feeling like I've pushed my
toothbrush too far down my throat. This usually makes my sister or my
mother laugh. Right now I don't think anyone should be laughing, so I
look at my sister's dresser drawers, where a Ouija board sticks out of
the top drawer. I wonder how she can sleep with the board in plain
sight.

"All done," my sister says, rolling up the dirty diaper and putting it
in the diaper bag. I smile when I think of my aunt finding this stinky
surprise later. I can hear what she'll say. My sister puts the bag on
the other side of her bed.

My mother doesn't come home. My father gets up and goes to the bathroom
every few minutes, meaning his is drinking beer. The cans will grow in
a stack by his chair while he watches the television. I can hear the
television through the wall of my sister's room, where we are playing
peek-a-boo with the baby and dangling stuffed animals in front of his
face. My sister finds a bottle of something white and warm in the
baby's bag, and feeds him. The baby gets antsy, but we don't put him
down for a nap. He is too much fun to play with.

When it gets dark outside, my father comes into my sister's room and
tells us it's time for bed. My sister tells him it's too early for her,
but I'm not that brave. Instead I find myself in my mother and father's
bedroom, me on the bed the baby on a blanket on the floor. My mother
still isn't home, and when my father turns out the light and closes the
door I remember I haven't had dinner. My stomach growls while I listen
to the baby noises. I turn my pillow over, to get to the cool side, and
fall asleep.

When I wake up the room is pitch black and the baby is screaming,
crying so hard it sounds like he's choking. He stops and starts,
gulping and wailing. I sit up in the bed, and my father throws open the
door. He slaps at the light switch, filling the room with light so
bright that for a moment I can't see. My father is a blur as he walks
in the room and crouches over the baby. I move to the edge of the bed,
half-asleep but wanting to see better.

My father flips the baby onto his stomach, raises his arm, and hits the
baby three times in a row. His hand makes a sharp crack on the baby's
diaper. He yells, "Godammit!" each time he raises his arm. Then my
father gets up and slams the door behind him. The baby keeps crying,
but I stay on the bed. My father has left the light on. I can see the
baby's purple face.

In the morning I wake up next to my mother. I crawl out of the bed and
see my little sister, asleep in her plastic bathtub. The tub sits next
to my aunt's baby, who is on his stomach and asleep. I leave the room
as quietly as I can, turning the doorknob slowly and then pulling the
door open fast so the hinges don't squeak.

I go to my own room, to my own bed, staring at the grooves and dips in
the ceiling. There are faces of people I don't know in those grooves
and dips. They stare back at me while I wait for the rest of the house
to wake up.