V: Alice #10

Giving birth gave me a thick caesarian scar and hips. I'd never had
hips before, and being ignorant like I was, I couldn't figure out how I
got them when all three of my children took the easy way out. A
caesarian is no picnic, I know, but consider the alternative. I jumped
at the chance each time. It helps if you have two older sisters who
spent six days between them camped out in hospitals, moaning and
cursing and going the natural route. They got hips, too, but mine were
the better deal.

My first, a girl, showed up after I'd been married four months. Somehow
that seemed important in 1963, especially in a small Texas town. If I'd
waited just a few more years, I might have said "I don't" at the altar
and gotten away with it. Being single would pretty much put me where I
am now, I guess, but with a hell of a lot less trouble and maybe one or
two less kids.

Along with my daughter came six months of nonstop milk, baby vomit, and
diapers that had to be taken out to the trash each and every time
because they smelled so bad. It took six months for the doctor to
decide my daughter was allergic to breast milk, so he put her on a
special formula that smelled like cookie dough. She seemed happy enough
after that. I was certainly happy to be done with the whole mess.

My second, a boy, came out with a huge head and light blond hair.
Caesarian was definitely the way to go with him. But that hair. Nobody
on my side ever had blond hair, and my husband's was black. I had a few
uncomfortable days where my husband sat smoking and drinking and eyeing
me suspiciously, until I convinced him I hadn't been running around
with strangers or, as he put it, "one of them hoity-toity doctors you
work with". When would I have had the time? Anyway, that boy was a
strange baby. His hair got darker while he got quieter and quieter. I
used to wake up and look over at him in his crib and he'd be sitting
up, watching me from behind the bars. He only cried when his father
dropped him or teased him, dangling a bottle over his head or going a
little too far with peek-a-boo. Who wouldn't cry if somebody kept
throwing a towel over his head? I swear, though, the boy never gave in,
never tried reaching for his bottle or pulling the towel off. He just
sat there, crying.

My last baby was accidentally on purpose, truth be told, and didn't
turn out like I planned at all. That burned me up for years. She was
premature but still the size of a small watermelon. Shaped like one,
too, if you ask me. My little sister and I took her home in a plastic
bassinet. I was sick but the hospital sent me packing anyway. This
one's father really was a doctor I worked with, but it's not like I
cheated on my husband. He'd been gone the whole time, after my sister
shot him in the foot one night when he was hitting me on the head with
one of my shoes. He was off somewhere learning how to be a welder, and
wasn't coming back until that crazy bitch - my sister - moved out.
Honestly, I wasn't in any hurry to ask her to leave.

But she did leave, and my husband came back, and I had no excuses for
the new baby's blond hair. What I really wanted was the doctor but he
was already married to a woman who had no intention of giving him up,
no matter how much he tomcatted around. I couldn't blame her. Such was
my luck with doctors, I guess, a dead fianc? and the other at his
wife's side. Instead I got a drunk apprentice welder who liked to joke
that I was still the girl he married, what with the c-sections not
damaging my goods and all.

I had a picture made once of the three kids and myself. I dressed us
all up and drove down to the K-Mart before my husband woke up. The
picture was in color, and mounted on a piece of polished wood. I wore a
wig, a big modified beehive that made my head sweat but was easier than
getting my hair done, and I tried matching the kids' outfits as best as
I could. When the picture was done, they called me at work and I went
to pick it up. The salesman had a fit when I told him no, I just want
the one picture. He tried to sell me a whole set, and made a point of
throwing the extras in the trashcan while I wrote the check. I thought
about hanging around until he took a break, so I could sneak over and
grab the extras, but I didn't have any use for them, either.

I hung the picture on the wood paneling in the living room. For a while
I looked at it everyday, and then less and less. It struck me as funny
how we all looked alike, smiling but not really meaning it. It was our
eyes, I think, not letting on but doing they're duty.

One day the picture was gone, just like that. I checked the kids' rooms
and behind the chair sitting against the wall, but couldn't find it. I
didn't ask my husband. I wondered what happened to it, like you're
supposed to, and then filed it away in the back of my mind, along with
all the other things that went missing in my life.