The Paris Library(52)

“What do you think?” I asked Odile, who’d stepped out to get the mail.

“She needs some color.”

Mary Louise untied the fuchsia scarf she’d “borrowed” from her sister and wound it around the snowwoman’s icy neck. Unfortunately, Angel drove by and saw we’d used something of hers. She grabbed a shovel and beat our creation into a heap of dented snowflakes. After she was done, we couldn’t even find the marbles.

When Eleanor’s parents drove up, I hugged Grandma Pearl before she got out of the car. Taking the luggage, Dad and Mr. Carlson evaporated into the living room, while we women got to work on our ginger cookies. At the kitchen counter, Odile hummed “Silent Night” as she flattened the dough with the rolling pin; I sunk the Santa molds into the sticky molasses mass. Grandma Pearl stirred the hot cider. Eleanor bounced around like she had to pee.

“Girl, what is wrong with you?” her mother asked.

“I can’t keep it inside anymore!” Eleanor squealed. “I’m expecting!”

“My baby’s having a baby!” Grandma Pearl said.

Say what?

“When’s the due date?” Grandma Pearl asked.

“April twenty-eighth.”

Did Dad know? Why didn’t he tell me?

“A baby!” Odile clapped her hands together. “How wonderful!”

“Your christening gown is in my hope chest,” Grandma Pearl said. “I’ll send it.”

“I’ve got some yarn that would be perfect for a baby blanket,” Odile added.

We didn’t have an extra bedroom. Where would they put it? Sparrows steal nests from martins, forcing their young ones out. Starlings steal from sparrows. Sneaky, but Mom had said it’s nature’s way.



* * *




OUT WENT THE metal desk and banged-up filing cabinet. Out went bank statements and phone bills. Out went programs from band concerts and photos of birds—any reminders of life with Mom. Maybe to Eleanor they looked like old papers, but to me they were memories. Luckily, I saw them in the trash and hid them in my room.

Dad’s den was now a nursery. Eleanor held up pastel paint swatches that resembled the Easter eggs we’d just colored. In the end, we painted the room a sunny yellow. Mom would have said that the wooden bassinet resembled a nest, but I didn’t tell Eleanor. I no longer mentioned Mom to her because when I did, her nose wrinkled as if my words stank.



* * *




ON MAY DAY, Eleanor—so enormous—saw me off to school, hand twitching above her big belly. That evening, she lay in the hospital bed, looking tired but happy, like she’d run a long race and won. Men offered Dad cigars and slapped him on the back. He grinned like Dopey the dwarf. Mrs. Ivers gave the baby a savings bond. Crotchety Mrs. Murdoch had crocheted booties. The whole town crammed themselves into the sparse visiting hours. When Mary Louise came by, we rolled our eyes and mimicked what we heard.

“A boy! Praise the Lord!”

“The name will be carried on!”

Later, when I held the baby, I thought of my mother, and melancholy washed over me. Then Joe snuggled into the crook of my arm, and I bent down to breathe him in. He smelled like sugar cookies. Maybe things would be okay.

Back home, Eleanor barely slept. If she could have stayed awake all night long to watch over Joe, she would have. Mom had been right. Babies didn’t know how lucky they were—they slept through most of the love. After three months of no rest, Eleanor yawned constantly, no longer a perky parakeet, but a plump pigeon that waddled from the crib to the rocking chair. Her skin became blotchy and her hair clumped together in tufts.

“You’re a mother, but also a woman,” Odile told her. “Take care of yourself. You need rest and exercise.” She and I took turns holding Joe so Eleanor could dance to her Jane Fonda aerobics tape. We peeked into the living room to watch Eleanor in her pink unitard, legs kicking as high as they could. Odile whispered, “Like the cancan in Paris.”



* * *




WHILE ELEANOR AND I waited for Dad to get home from work, she asked, “How much did your mother weigh?”

“I have no idea.”

The following day, she cornered me at the counter. “What kind of diapers did she use? Did she breastfeed?”

Next she’d ask what the milk had tasted like. We didn’t have a scale until Eleanor moved in. She used to weigh herself once a week. Now, puffy and trying to “lose the baby weight,” she stepped on the scale ten times a day.

“Did she breastfeed?” Eleanor asked again. “Did she use cloth diapers?”

“She used silk ones. Yeah, and she breastfed me five times a night. Grandma Jo came, but Mom wouldn’t accept help. Said she didn’t need it.”

I expected that to be the end of it, but Eleanor started in again, “How much did she weigh?”

“Ask Dad.”

“How much?”

Her stupid questions drove me nuts. It took me a while to understand that she was comparing herself to Mom. Well, Eleanor could cook in my mother’s pans, eat off her plates. She could live in her house, she could mother me all she wanted. But Eleanor would never be my mother. I gave an impossible answer: “One hundred pounds.”

“One hundred pounds?” Eleanor’s mouth quivered.