“He’s not even three months!” Eric shouted. Nina shushed him. “He’ll smile,” Eric whispered. “Don’t worry.”
Luke stayed asleep. Her arms hurt from his dead weight. She told Eric to go in ahead of her, tell the others she was coming in with an unconscious Luke, and turn the lights off while she passed through. That way they wouldn’t see her red eyes.
It worked all the way around. They couldn’t see her face, and Luke, other than sighing and retracting his legs, stayed asleep after the transfer to the crib. Nina sneaked off to their bedroom and undressed. She turned out the light, not wanting to squander a minute of the precious hours of Luke’s rest — his record for consecutive hours of sleep was two and a half — but she couldn’t rest.
She opened a window, despite the blocks of cold it let in, and listened to the night earth, the watery, leafy dark earth. Her muscles ached and her brain couldn’t make order out of things. She hadn’t been in the comfortable rewarding embrace of sleep for so long that the real world seemed like a dream, a half-awake world, something she imagined while dozing off on a train ride.
She was almost afraid of real rest, of deep, warm sleep, afraid of the regret and rage she would feel when Luke interrupted it. Better never to have another taste, to forget that delicious fruit existed, than to have it yanked away after a few bites.
Eric entered. He always waited awhile to make sure Luke had settled in, if two hours could be called settled. “Whew,” he said, on feeling the cold.
“You can shut it,” she said, and he did.
She lost the world. The room’s human air corrupted the clean, cool atmosphere of nature. She again heard the sounds of things, the hum of appliances, the clink of a glass; someone’s tread.
Eric took off his clothes. The last three months he hadn’t exercised or slept much more than she, but his body was still smooth, the long ropes of his muscles taut, his chest expansive, decorated by a small patch of curls, his narrow hips without an ounce of fat, the cheeks of his ass like chunks of smooth marble. Clothed, with his frizzy hair and open face, he could almost seem meek; but when he was nude, the graceful power of his six-foot-six frame, upholstered by two hundred pounds of muscle, made Eric a warrior, a young chief ready to lead his tribe.
They hadn’t made love since Luke’s birth.
Her body felt dead, not passionless, but flattened by exhaustion. It took thought to rise, to sit; it hurt even to lie still. An embrace only made her sleepy.
But in the dark of the country night, watching the only man who had loved her tenderly, the shimmering stars and faint moon glowing on his strong body, she felt her skin awaken, the surface tingling, covering the fatigue of her bones, dispelling the despair of her muscles.
She beckoned to him. He came over and she pulled him on top, pressing his wood-hard back to her, her hands touching the hump of his thighs, the smooth of his neck, the span of his underarms. He tried to get to her body, but she urged his head up, not interested in knowing herself. She didn’t want to sense her own decay and weariness, she wanted to feel his vigor.
She fell asleep after he had spent.
She fell into the dark, the absolute rest. In her dreams Eric and she made love on the lawn under the sun. She played in the backyard at Brookline. She rode on Brandy’s shoulders. She made cookies with her mother. She kissed the head of Eric’s red penis and drank wine. She laughed. And she slept deep. She watched her father walk through the woods. She saw him steer the car, the length of his face quiescent, in command.
Her eyes opened. It was day.
Her body was still and warm and relaxed.
It was day? She looked at the clock. Seven-thirty. Eric, his face buried into a pillow, had his mouth open, his eyes blanked by the closed lids.
Had he gotten up with Luke and let her sleep all night?
No, he was still naked. If he’d gotten up—
Like a stab, the thought split her brain.
She pulled the covers off, her heart back in the real world, the world of anxiety. Crib death.
She pulled on jeans, rushing, reached for her bra. Then she slowed down. If Luke was dead, she was in no hurry to find out.
Eric sat up and peered around. He looked stunned. “Wha—”
“I’ll go,” she said, and finished dressing. Eric scanned the room. She knew he was figuring it out.
“He slept?”
“Shhh,” she said, and began the walk, every step heating her blood, widening her vision. She had images: holding a limp body; standing beside her mother in black. She stopped right outside Luke’s door.
She heard Eric dressing. The sounds were frantic. He had arrived at the same terminus of terror.
She didn’t put her body in the doorway, but let her head peer about the edge.
Luke’s little body was still. Deathly still. And in the same position she had put him the night before.
She stared so hard at his back, searching for movement, that her eyes watered.
And she saw it. A slight rise and fall. His eyes twitched. She waited for him to cry. But he slept on.
The joy of this discovery was almost as awful as the earlier tear.
Eric came thudding toward her. “He’s asleep,” she whispered, stopping him with her hand.
“He slept through the night!” Eric said, his mouth open stupidly.
“Three months,” she said. “He’s three months old today.”
“You think it’s over?” Eric said with such simple trust in her, so sure that she would know.
She felt a chill of pleasure.
She could move. She could dance! She was rested, her son was normal, life was going to be life again, not war, not misery, but life.
They heard Luke peep. Then a rustle. And another peep. Not a complaint, but a noise of curiosity.
They looked. Luke’s head, resting on its side, was turned in their direction. The blue jewels of his eyes peered at them. He fought to move, to rise up.
“Hey, fella,” Eric said, and entered. “You slept, baby.”
Nina followed. She got ahead of Eric and picked Luke up. His face glowed from warmth and newness. He stretched his arms and wiggled his body. The long black hair was askew. She put him down on the changing table and unsnapped his stretchy.
His mouth opened. The tiny fluted lips widened. And widened. The semicircles of his gum appeared.
“You’re smiling!” Eric said.
Nina couldn’t speak. She didn’t dare break the enchantment, but she found herself leaning down and kissing his white belly.
And she heard a laugh.
A laugh she had never heard before: the first laugh of Luke’s life.
Her core of joy exploded. Everything was beautiful. She and Eric began to babble at Luke. He smiled again. He winced at the cool wipes, but didn’t cry. Eric, almost hopping with pleasure, went to get coffee. She heard Eric brag shamelessly to whoever was in the kitchen: “He slept through the night! And he’s smiling his head off.”
She didn’t care that Eric showing off his happiness to her family would be an admission they had been right to be critical.
Luke was feeding heartily. His eyes stayed on her, and when she smiled at his glorious beauty, he paused and smiled back. When she grabbed his foot and squeezed, he giggled. Even his eyes glittered cheerfully.
The colic was gone. This was a beautiful, happy baby.
After Luke ate, he beamed at everything. She carried him into the kitchen and showed him to the family. Luke watched them all calmly. He laughed when Brandy made a silly face. He touched her mother’s hand and let her hold him without a whimper of protest.
“Let’s take him out,” Nina said to Eric.
She showed Luke the pretty, pretty morning, the new golden light of this glorious day. She put Luke’s face to feel the shore air. He closed his eyes and rolled his head in rapture. She felt so good, so proud that she began to twirl.