All these feelings.
Turning off the water, he pulled the curtain aside, climbed out of the tub, took a fresh bath towel from a shelf, and rubbed himself dry. While he was drying himself, he heard the doorknob rattle. “Honey? Gary? Is that you?” It was a woman’s voice. Strange and almost familiar.
He took a deep breath and let it escape slowly as he notified himself that it had to begin sooner or later. “It’s me,” he answered, his voice still small and squeaky.
There was a profoundly stunned silence from the other side of the door. Wrapping the towel around his body, he unlocked the door and opened it. A woman’s sleep-puffed face looked back, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. She was incredibly tall. She pulled her flower printed flannel nightgown in to her lap, squatted down, and placed her hands on his shoulders. She smelled of sleep and a familiar perfume.
“Andy? Andy, honey? You talked.” Tears filled her eyes. “You talked.”
At this observation Andy’s eyebrows went up and he said, “Yes.”
She looked up, saw the blue pajamas on the floor next to wet footprints. “You can stand, you walk …” She looked into his eyes, her own eyes showing confusion. “What have you been doing? How did you get out of your crib?”
Her hands moved down his body. “You’re wet and where’s your diaper?”
He turned and nodded toward the diaper pail. “In there. It was dirty.”
The woman stood, rocked a bit as though dizzy, walked to the blue plastic container, and looked in. On her way back from the pail, she stooped to pick up the blue pajamas. While she was bent over, she looked into the shower. “You had the water on.”
“I took a shower.”
Her eyes opened wide and she almost fell over. She straightened up, her hand held to her mouth, and she lowered herself down until she was seated on the toilet. “Oh, Andy! You could’ve scalded yourself! You’re never to play with the water!”
“I wasn’t playing,” he answered curtly. “I was taking a shower. I was dirty and I wanted to get clean. I want to go to bed now. I’m tired.”
His mother looked down at him, her brow wrinkled in confusion. She blinked her eyes, shook her head, and held a hand to her forehead. She lowered her hand and looked at the boy. “I must have taken too many of those pills. Everything is just a little unreal.”
“That’s no lie,” agreed the boy as he shivered in the draft from the hall.
“Talking after all this time. Talking, walking …” She reached forward, placed her hands on his cheeks, and studied him.
“You are talking. Standing there. And you sound so smart.” She took him gently by the shoulders and kissed both of his cheeks. Her eyes were blue as they stared into his. Another tear streaked down her right cheek. “But you did talk to me, didn’t you? I should call Gary. Didn’t you talk to me? Say something, Andy.”
“Yes. I talked.”
She shook her head, chasing away those pieces of reality that didn’t fit. “We both need sleep, honey. First a fresh diaper then back into your pajamas then back to bed for both of us.”
“No,” he answered flatly.
“No?”
“No diaper. I don’t wear them anymore. I don’t want those pajamas near me ‘til they’re washed. They stink.”
The confusion on the woman’s face grew deeper. Lifting the pajamas to her nose, she sniffed at the garment and then smiled. “Why, honey, they smell like baby oil.”
“Baby oil stinks,” said the boy. “It makes me sick to my stomach. I won’t use it. No baby powder either. It stinks, too.”
She studied the strange creature with the strange requests and squeezed his shoulders. “Honey, you have to wear a diaper. You’ll wet the bed.”
“No I won’t. I’ve already shown I can make it to a toilet.”
The woman’s face filled with love. “Andy, honey, let me change you.” She smiled warmly.
“I’m too old for that, too.”
“Honey, you haven’t been well, and an important part of being a mother is changing her baby.”
With an effort the boy shrugged her hands off his shoulders and said, “Go buy yourself a baby doll to change. From now on, I do my own changing.” He left her there, sitting on the toilet, her expression even more confused.
He walked into the nursery, closed the door behind him, and flicked on the lights. His heart was pounding, his mouth dry. She was huge, the world was huge, and he was desperate to find something real. At last the cold drove him to find some clothes. After trying several drawers, he found a fresh set of yellow pajamas. This pair had feet sewn in them. He put them on, turned off the light, and walked over to the crib. There was a faint smell of urine in it and the overpowering stench of baby oil. He turned away, took an afghan from the overstuffed chair in the corner, wrapped it about himself, and settled into the chair.
His heart was still pounding. He didn’t talk right. He knew that. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. The woman could tell that. She said so. Tomorrow he would talk like a kid. He had to say something to her, though. He couldn’t have some strange woman strip him and clean the crap out of his pants. The thought of it filled him with embarrassment.
But what about how he talked?
It’s late at night, he thought to himself, and the woman had taken some pills. Maybe too many. She won’t even believe herself. He had almost dozed when he said out loud, “That’s my mother !” In another moment he said, “My name is Andy !”
He felt a lump beneath his rump, pulled out a small brown teddy bear, studied it for a moment, and tossed it to the floor. He curled up once more and watched the lights from the squat gray building. There were more lights, some of them moving. He got up, walked to the window, and watched as a long black car left the building through a gate. Somehow he knew the car was a hearse. He knew that the building was a prison. He knew that there was a fresh corpse in the hearse.
Andy shuddered as he ran back to the chair, climbed up on the seat cushion, and curled into a ball. The tears in his eyes were for someone he never knew; someone who could never cry for himself. The woman came in, picked him up, settled into the chair, and arranged him on her lap, his head resting on her ample bosom. He was surprised at how comfortable it was.
“Why are you crying, honey?” asked the woman.
He just shook his head and buried his face in the woman. In a moment he was asleep.
A gaunt man with hooded dark eyes wearing prison grays. His head was shaved. He was sitting in a field of wild flowers. Next to him was a little boy with black hair. The boy picked a bright orange flower and handed it to the man. The man held the flower and wept. The man looked at the blossom for ever so long. He stood, turned, and began walking, the flower still in his hand. The boy watched until the man was gone leaving him all alone.
A noise. There was a noise from downstairs. The front door closing. A familiar voice talking to the woman. It was still dark and Andy noticed that he was in the crib. Although slightly annoyed, he felt too tired to make an issue of it. He thought about the man’s voice, couldn’t place it, but decided before he fell back to sleep that he had a father, too.
The next morning Andy was awakened by voices. “He talked,” said the woman from the bedroom next door.
“Talked? You mean … talked? Words? Really talked?”
“Honest.”
“After all this time, and what the doctors said?” The man’s voice was giddy from lack of sleep and, perhaps, a pain killer or two of his own. Andy frowned. The voice seemed very familiar. “What’d he say?”