Future Home of the Living God(11)

So it is Eddy I first tell of your existence. Eddy whose jaw drops, whose brow knits, whose eyes fill with sympathetic concern. It is Eddy who lets me cry in the booth across from him as I describe my fear—of going to a doctor, of visiting the ultrasound lab. I keep imagining stunned silence and some mystified pronouncement by a doctor. Eddy’s face is grave and concentrated as I tell him I fear that we are heading into a lightless future devoid of the written word. I tell him that nonetheless I am writing this long and involved missive which I hope that you will someday read.

“Of course there’s the big if,” I say. This actually just occurs to me.

“What?”

“If my baby’s teachable.”

“You’ve got to have some faith,” says Eddy. “Everything’s in flux right now. You’ve got to realize how little we know of our ancestors.”

“The hominins at Jebel Irhoud looked like us, but their brains were different. It’s too much to process.”

“Then don’t process,” Eddy says.

“What?” I laugh a little. “You’re actually telling me not to process? I’ve just met you, but I can tell that you’re the original processor, Eddy, you’re the one who thinks too much. You’re the one who examines your every waking hour. You’re the one who’s alive only because you process your reasons for living every single day.”

Eddy just smiles and orders coffee. He sneaks the bill from the hand of the waitress, but I snatch it from him. He pulls and tugs it gently back, and pays. We continue to sit there thoughtfully as people swirl in and out.

“I know,” says Eddy at last, looking at me with a kind of delicate distance. He’s being appropriate, but trying to show me that he’s fond of me in a newfound, stepfatherly kind sort of way. “I know today’s reason I’m alive.” He keeps nodding at me. I suddenly want to cry again, but I just keep nodding back at him. There is more stirring of coffee and sipping. I drink more ice water. I am waiting, but Eddy is lost now, perhaps composing pages in his mind. So at last I have to prod him.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about the father?”

“Well, yeah,” he says, “I was going to, but then I thought, number one, this is all too new. Number two, she’s got some reason for not telling me. So I’m letting you off the hook.”

Even though I’m disappointed, I notice that he numbers his remarks just the same way I do. I think that I was hoping Eddy would question me until I cracked and spilled my words. I think about your father all the time. I want to talk about him. But Eddy doesn’t seem to care. It is really frightening how expendable fathers can be in this culture. I think maybe I am wrong with the secretive thing. Maybe the better course would be to talk nonstop about your dad. Maybe then your father will become someone I can accept. So I do talk.

“All right,” I say, “you’ve twisted my arm enough. I’ll confess. The father of my baby is an angel.”

“Oh yeah?” Eddy smiles now, thinking maybe I am really in love and even might be happy. “Sure he’s not an archangel, just an angel?”

“Yes.” I do not smile back at Eddy. I look down at the gleaming cracks in the cubes of translucent ice in the water I am drinking at the table. The water from the vast and beautiful hidden aquifer below us, the gigantic underground source of purity, which we’re all sucking dry. I am missing your father, I am seeing his face, I am wondering if in any way you will resemble him or if your features will obscure your parentage completely. I am seeing him, yes, I am flashing briefly on the gorgeousness of the moment of your conception when he laid me down and kissed me deep and covered me with his soft brown wings.

*

I go back to the house, to say good-bye. The door to the house is open, so I peer in. Little Mary is sitting in front of the television. When I do walk in, she does not acknowledge me, but there is an odd smell emanating from her—more than the wild teas and roots I smelled the first time I entered the house. This time, it’s just a feet smell, something slowly going rotten. Behind her, I notice, the door to her room is open. Through that doorway, I can see pure chaos—a shockingly grand mess. It’s the sort of spectacle you can’t help gawking at, like a car accident. I stand there a moment, gaping, and then see that Grandma’s wheelchair is drawn up to the table and she’s snoozing upright. I walk past Little Mary and sit down to wait for Grandma to surface, so I can at least say good-bye to my oldest living relative.

While she’s sleeping, I watch her. I’ve never seen anybody old as her. I like the name Mary Virginia. Grandma Virginia. She has the softest skin, silkier than a baby’s, and her hands are little delicate curled claws. Her eyes are covered with thin membranes of skin. I think perhaps she can see right through her lids, they’re so transparent. I do know, from before, that she can stare a long time at you without blinking. She has not allowed anyone to cut her hair, I see, not for a very long time. Maybe an entire hundred years! It is braided into one thin white plait and wound into a bun. Her ears stick out a little as her hair is so thin. A pair of white shell earrings hang off her earlobes, which are fragile as flower petals. Most remarkably, I notice when she happens to yawn, she still seems to have most of her own teeth. Though they are darkened by time, her teeth are still strong.

Suddenly she’s looking at me, those bright eyes tack sharp. Startled, I say, ridiculously, “Grandma, what sharp teeth you have!”