“Baby”

By Ivy Goodman

He shuttles from me, in Boston, to ex-wife and baby, in Baltimore, to me, to baby. He vacations three weeks alone with baby. He wants to get to know baby. He wants custody of baby. And when he gets custody (last month he shattered a tea cup to prove how certain he is of getting custody), he wants me to help love baby. I kissed his hands, one finger bloodied, sliced by a jagged piece of china, and agreed to love baby. Already, more carefully than they were my own, I love both the man and his baby.

Five months ago, I met the man at a party. Clearly, he wanted someone at that party. He is particular to a certain point, and then beyond that point he is not at all particular. For hours I watched him dance with a married woman who I knew would eventually refuse him. Eye to eye, hip to hip. Overheated, she took her vest off and stared at him as if that vest and the tight blouse beneath it mattered. Perhaps they did matter. But when she and her husband left, he came to me and talked about his baby.

"And how old is this baby?" I asked.

"Ten months".

"Do you have a photograph?"

"Not with me."

"Not in your wallet?"

"I don‘t have a wallet. But I have hundreds of pictures at home. Do you want to see them?"

"Yes."

"Should we go now?"

"Yes."

At least he had the integrity to wait until afterward to bring out the baby. Naked, we sat in bed, turning over the baby in Maryland, the baby in Massachusetts, the drooling, farting, five-toothed baby, holding his toes in zoos and botanical gardens, lounging in trees, hammocks, the arms of his father, his mother. No, I was not spared the eleven duo shots of the girlish ex-wife and mother kissing the baby.