by Christy Strick, OnePageStories.com
I spent all day painting the guest room a quiet yellow the color of baby chicks. Though when I was finished it reminded me of scrambled eggs, so I ate breakfast at 4:00 in the afternoon and wasn’t hungry when you got home, hadn’t even thought of it until you asked, “What’s for dinner?”
You didn’t notice the flecks of paint that dotted my cheeks and nested in my hair. I imagine you would have mentioned them if you had. You noticed there was no food in the oven.
“God, Lil. If I’d known you weren’t cooking I’d have brought something home.” So I fried up pork chops and onions, the smell curdling my stomach until finally I had to lay on the bed so the nausea would pass.
Next day I sketched out a cow jumping over the moon along one yellow wall, and had all the brown, white and darker yellow filled in by the time Oprah started. I remembered to thaw the chicken, and the smell wasn’t nearly as bloody as the pork, so you didn’t have to eat your dinner alone. But didn’t you see the brushes in the jar by the sink, the bristles soaking in cloudy water?
By the end of the week there was the cow and the moon, a cat playing the fiddle, a crazy laughing dog, and a dish and spoon running toward the doorway. When I was a kid I used to wonder where the dish and spoon were headed in such a hurry. These days I think they were running away from something.
Do you remember when we were first married, how we laughed about what we’d name our children? We’d be like celebrities, we said, with boys named Zeus and Tweeter, and girls named Sahara and Sunshine. Lately, though, I keep a scribbled list of names in a notebook, old-fashioned names from our family like Louise and Emmaline, and the beauty of them makes me cry.
The day I went to Barnes and Noble and bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, you came home and told me about the layoffs at Lowe’s, and how there’d been talk of eliminating your department. You said how glad you were it was just me and you to worry about, how thankful you were there wasn’t a baby to provide for. I slipped the books into the guest room and told you everything would be fine.
I took up knitting blankets in soft pastel colors, though I’d heard primary colors were more stimulating. At night you step over my yarn bag to get to your cracked leather lounger where you sprawl and watched TV until you fall asleep. Most nights I leave you there and climb the stairs to the guest room, stretching out on the bed with a half finished blanket over me, wondering what the paintings will look like to a tiny person who doesn’t know what a cow or a cat or the moon is. It’s hard to tell sometimes what is stimulating and what is scary. What might be beautiful to one person might scare the hell out of somebody else.
I’d been anxious to tell you at first, to show off my growing breasts and the swell of my stomach. But the longer you didn’t notice, the more you worried about layoffs and mortgages and bills, the more I hugged my secret close to me, my arms folded across my belly the way I’d seen so many women do, long before they were even showing.
I found a crib at Good Will, and it took me a week to clean it up and reassemble it under the watchful eyes of the characters dancing across the wall. I added Mother Hubbard to the headboard and the Three Little Pigs to the footboard, and you couldn’t even tell anymore that it was used.
Last night I sat in the guest room and read nursery rhymes aloud, practicing, until the soft yellow walls lulled me to sleep. I woke with the newly finished baby blanket clutched in my hand, and I felt happy, not afraid at all. When I came down to the den I found you still asleep in your recliner. I tucked the nursery rhyme book under your arm and spread the blanket across your chest. Sleeping, you looked happy, and not afraid at all.
I spent all day painting the guest room a quiet yellow the color of baby chicks. Though when I was finished it reminded me of scrambled eggs, so I ate breakfast at 4:00 in the afternoon and wasn’t hungry when you got home, hadn’t even thought of it until you asked, “What’s for dinner?”
You didn’t notice the flecks of paint that dotted my cheeks and nested in my hair. I imagine you would have mentioned them if you had. You noticed there was no food in the oven.
“God, Lil. If I’d known you weren’t cooking I’d have brought something home.” So I fried up pork chops and onions, the smell curdling my stomach until finally I had to lay on the bed so the nausea would pass.
Next day I sketched out a cow jumping over the moon along one yellow wall, and had all the brown, white and darker yellow filled in by the time Oprah started. I remembered to thaw the chicken, and the smell wasn’t nearly as bloody as the pork, so you didn’t have to eat your dinner alone. But didn’t you see the brushes in the jar by the sink, the bristles soaking in cloudy water?
By the end of the week there was the cow and the moon, a cat playing the fiddle, a crazy laughing dog, and a dish and spoon running toward the doorway. When I was a kid I used to wonder where the dish and spoon were headed in such a hurry. These days I think they were running away from something.
Do you remember when we were first married, how we laughed about what we’d name our children? We’d be like celebrities, we said, with boys named Zeus and Tweeter, and girls named Sahara and Sunshine. Lately, though, I keep a scribbled list of names in a notebook, old-fashioned names from our family like Louise and Emmaline, and the beauty of them makes me cry.
The day I went to Barnes and Noble and bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, you came home and told me about the layoffs at Lowe’s, and how there’d been talk of eliminating your department. You said how glad you were it was just me and you to worry about, how thankful you were there wasn’t a baby to provide for. I slipped the books into the guest room and told you everything would be fine.
I took up knitting blankets in soft pastel colors, though I’d heard primary colors were more stimulating. At night you step over my yarn bag to get to your cracked leather lounger where you sprawl and watched TV until you fall asleep. Most nights I leave you there and climb the stairs to the guest room, stretching out on the bed with a half finished blanket over me, wondering what the paintings will look like to a tiny person who doesn’t know what a cow or a cat or the moon is. It’s hard to tell sometimes what is stimulating and what is scary. What might be beautiful to one person might scare the hell out of somebody else.
I’d been anxious to tell you at first, to show off my growing breasts and the swell of my stomach. But the longer you didn’t notice, the more you worried about layoffs and mortgages and bills, the more I hugged my secret close to me, my arms folded across my belly the way I’d seen so many women do, long before they were even showing.
I found a crib at Good Will, and it took me a week to clean it up and reassemble it under the watchful eyes of the characters dancing across the wall. I added Mother Hubbard to the headboard and the Three Little Pigs to the footboard, and you couldn’t even tell anymore that it was used.
Last night I sat in the guest room and read nursery rhymes aloud, practicing, until the soft yellow walls lulled me to sleep. I woke with the newly finished baby blanket clutched in my hand, and I felt happy, not afraid at all. When I came down to the den I found you still asleep in your recliner. I tucked the nursery rhyme book under your arm and spread the blanket across your chest. Sleeping, you looked happy, and not afraid at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment