Walter, the day before, haul her junior suitcase to her beater car and leave it in the trunk beside its larger partner. She’d gotten her things down to where they fit in half a grocery bag. Now all she had to do was wait until things quieted in the hallway. Meanwhile, Diane cooed at Baby Doe. She put her nose to his and said, “Hi there,” softly. She drank him in up close and rocked him. Her son looked rather like her half-brother John—he had John’s constabulary brow, nose, and chin—but his green eyes were more like her half-brother Club’s. Did he look like Club or did he look like John? She hoped he’d be more like Club than John, because John was dense, and Club was charismatic. Who else did he look like? Did he look like her? Diane held him out, carefully, at arm’s length, the better to observe his features while he hung there. She decided that one day he’d have powerful shoulders. Plus, his birth height was in the seventy-fifth percentile, so he was going to be tall, and, she could see—after all, she was his mother—very,
very
handsome. All of this without forgetting the important point: that she hadn’t planned on being a sixteen-year-old unwedded mum, especially not of a child whose father was Walter Cousins. Nevertheless, she opened her blouse for her son, and let him take her nipple for whatever he could get—she gave him both breasts, and held him with affection. Then, after buttoning up and getting on her coat, she put a folded sweater in her half-full grocery bag, gently set her baby on top of it, and, carrying the bag against her chest, went out to the parking lot.
Down the road three miles, Diane pulled over in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. The coast was clear, so she went to the trunk for a suitcase, emptied it, lined it with her coat, propped it open on the passenger seat, and settled her baby inside. In his intermittently loud company, she drove south, because north lay Canada and, maybe, a border request for her nonexistent driver’s license, and east and west lay, respectively, mountains and water. South it was, then, at a steady, modest clip. Leaving the freeway once for gas, once for nappies, pins, a terry-cloth washcloth, and baby powder, and once for a baby bottle and a quart of milk—which she had no way to warm other than to leave it by the car heater—Diane obeyed every American driving law. When her baby cried, she felt anxious and ill-equipped. Twice she pulled over to put the bottle’s rubber nipple in his mouth, twice to change his nappy and toss his old one in the weeds, and twice to burp him with soft jolts to the back, which she thought was proper technique. Too bad, she thought, that her au-pair year hadn’t included infants. She’d have to do what she thought was right and hope for the best. She turned on the radio, talked to her baby, stroked his head with one hand, and worked the steering wheel with the other, all the while fretting about being pulled over, because, it occurred to her, not only was she driving without a license, she also couldn’t produce a birth certificate if asked, just a passport with an expired visa. What she did have, though, was $250, and a plan.
That afternoon, in Portland, Oregon—in the wrong part of town—Diane paid cash for a motel room rife with spiders and saturated with tobacco. She got herself installed in this squalid fleabag, removed both hospital ID bands—her own and the baby’s—changed another nappy, worked the bottle, watched television, took a shower, and then, for the umpteenth time already, burped her son—who spat up on her, wailing—and slept when he did. In the morning, bleary, she bought a twin packet of cupcakes and ate them with chocolate milk in the car. Well into afternoon, she drove broad circuits, surveying Portland, while the baby, swaddled in his suitcase-nest, rode shotgun with, unfortunately, distress, odors, and complaints. Portland seemed smaller than Seattle, but leafier and just as
very
handsome. All of this without forgetting the important point: that she hadn’t planned on being a sixteen-year-old unwedded mum, especially not of a child whose father was Walter Cousins. Nevertheless, she opened her blouse for her son, and let him take her nipple for whatever he could get—she gave him both breasts, and held him with affection. Then, after buttoning up and getting on her coat, she put a folded sweater in her half-full grocery bag, gently set her baby on top of it, and, carrying the bag against her chest, went out to the parking lot.
Down the road three miles, Diane pulled over in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. The coast was clear, so she went to the trunk for a suitcase, emptied it, lined it with her coat, propped it open on the passenger seat, and settled her baby inside. In his intermittently loud company, she drove south, because north lay Canada and, maybe, a border request for her nonexistent driver’s license, and east and west lay, respectively, mountains and water. South it was, then, at a steady, modest clip. Leaving the freeway once for gas, once for nappies, pins, a terry-cloth washcloth, and baby powder, and once for a baby bottle and a quart of milk—which she had no way to warm other than to leave it by the car heater—Diane obeyed every American driving law. When her baby cried, she felt anxious and ill-equipped. Twice she pulled over to put the bottle’s rubber nipple in his mouth, twice to change his nappy and toss his old one in the weeds, and twice to burp him with soft jolts to the back, which she thought was proper technique. Too bad, she thought, that her au-pair year hadn’t included infants. She’d have to do what she thought was right and hope for the best. She turned on the radio, talked to her baby, stroked his head with one hand, and worked the steering wheel with the other, all the while fretting about being pulled over, because, it occurred to her, not only was she driving without a license, she also couldn’t produce a birth certificate if asked, just a passport with an expired visa. What she did have, though, was $250, and a plan.
That afternoon, in Portland, Oregon—in the wrong part of town—Diane paid cash for a motel room rife with spiders and saturated with tobacco. She got herself installed in this squalid fleabag, removed both hospital ID bands—her own and the baby’s—changed another nappy, worked the bottle, watched television, took a shower, and then, for the umpteenth time already, burped her son—who spat up on her, wailing—and slept when he did. In the morning, bleary, she bought a twin packet of cupcakes and ate them with chocolate milk in the car. Well into afternoon, she drove broad circuits, surveying Portland, while the baby, swaddled in his suitcase-nest, rode shotgun with, unfortunately, distress, odors, and complaints. Portland seemed smaller than Seattle, but leafier and just as
Similar Books
