September - Last Words 7 страница

"What's wrong?" I asked him. I had been worried that it hurt too much, or maybe that something had had happened that made him feel inferior, or confused, or anything. There were an array of emotions to pick from and I was sure we had all felt each of them at least once in the past fifteen minutes. But it took me talking to realize that I was crying too, and when I looked over at Gerard, he was brushing tears away with his free hand. We all looked at Paloma, and Lydia turned her back to start cleaning things up. The cheers faded out. It was only us in that room, in the world, and we were all crying.

"Nothing," Hunter said. "Absolutely nothing."

And so, Paloma Iris Wyatt was born. After Hunter had delivered the placenta, Lydia examined him and Paloma one final time before everyone was allowed to come inside. Our daughter was passed around the room, and many happy faces greeted her. I began to sob again, though I didn't really think I would. I had cried when she came out, but like Gerard, those had been small tears. I brushed them away and thought I would get on with things. When we let everyone inside, I had been all smiles. Hunter was tired, and sat up in his bed, his clothing now on again, although loose ones at that. He wrapped a blanket around his lower section and put one of his t-shirts on over top and sat up in the bed, Gerard and myself at his side. I had been the first, after Hunter, to hold Paloma, and when everyone came in it was me who passed her around. It had taken me seeing her outside of our own little triangle that made me really comprehend that she was real. She had suddenly come into existence in a different form, no longer an idea in our minds, but something very present. I could see her. I saw her face, her nose, her little tiny hands, and her eyes. They were dark blue, and her hair, what little of it there was, was more blonde than the brown I initially saw on her. I thought to myself, she is changing already, and that thought overwhelmed me. She had only been alive a few moments and I had already noticed something different about her. This was what my whole life was going to be like now, noticing how she was different, how she was growing, and who she was becoming. As I watched her go around that room, from Vivian to Alexa to Mikey and Cassandra and Noelle, my stomach dropped and the tears began. I saw her as different from myself, as her own human being and I was amazed. I had not thought this far ahead of the birthing process, and even if all the stories I had heard that night and the thoughts I had waded through, nothing could have prepared me for this. She was real. I saw her with my eyes and I heard her cries and gurgles with my ears, and it was amazing. I was crying I was so happy, and no one seemed to care and no one commented on it. It didn't matter, because she was here. I imagined our whole lives together, and then, when she began to cry as Noelle held her, I forgot it all in the blink. I had to have no expectations, I remembered. She was going to be full of surprises that way.

I took her from Noelle when her cries started and my own ended. Hunter seemed relieved. He was attentive and watched carefully as she went around, but he was exhausted. He had done the work, and now I was going to handle the first fussing of our baby. Our baby!

"You know," Lydia began, commanding the attention of the room. "I've given Frank and Hunter here this lecture about the diversity of families in the animal kingdom, and I've seen it before a few times with the people I've delivered too, but this time in particular has been an interesting experience."

I smiled at her, and she nodded. She focused on Hunter in the bed, and began to talk again. "I don't know if I've mentioned anything about seahorses, but they, too, have the father give birth. There are many animals that change to meet certain circumstances in order to live their life. Parrotfish are known for reversing what they were at birth, to live in the other's role, and to survive. It is always important, that will to survive." She looked at us all, and then nodded. "Please survive, the best way you know how."

I held Paloma, who had just begun to calm down, and I felt like crying all over again. I looked to Hunter, and he had started. At first, he may have been crying because he had finally given birth and the pain could stop, but now he was crying for a very different reason. He was crying for the exact reason that Lydia had been waxing poetic: he had survived. He, like me, probably hadn't thought much beyond the process of being pregnant outside of logistics and financial costs of raising Paloma. The physical reality of it, of giving birth with the body he had, that was what scared him. He didn't think that this was possible. Even before he really understood himself, he didn't think giving birth was going to be possible. It was his body, and he was adamant about that, but it had taken him a long time to realize that because it was yours, you could call it what you wanted, and then it became you. It had taken him all this time to realize you could do whatever you wanted with it, and once realized, this idea had been freeing for him. But to actually have that idea stand against reality and coincide was phenomenal and it made him cry. He started to sob in the bed because he was a father and he had given birth. He had done it, and it wasn't so scary anymore. We had our lives to figure out how to be parents, I knew, but right then, we were still enjoying the fact that this had actually happened, and now everything had changed. And we would survive.

I looked over at Gerard. He was the only one in the room who had not yet held Paloma, and the realization hit me hard. He had gotten into bed with Hunter, and the two of them lay wearily against one another. When he wasn't focused on him, though, his eyes wandered around the room, looking at everyone. I had passed Paloma off to Lydia so she could do some final tests before she went on her way, and I watched as Gerard focused solely on her, as if she was the only person in the room. I moved over to both of them in the bed, and I got in too. Hunter laid a hand on me, and I kissed his forehead. We were all so exhausted, and when Lydia finished the tests, she moved towards us. She handed the baby over to Hunter again, and then turned to the crowd that had formed. Callie and Dean were in the room now, along with the rest of Mikey's kids, though they were tugging at their parents' clothing and rubbing their eyes. It was nearly midnight.

"You all won't leave unless I tell you too, so, get out. Let the family have their rest, and go to your homes so you can take care of one another," Lydia said. People laughed, but after a few moments of her stares, began to obey the orders. While Lydia picked up her things, she informed us about coming into the birthing center in the next few days for another quick checkup, but that things were good from here. "Enjoy one another, she insisted. The room was clearing slowly, and Vivian waited behind to see if she was going to need to take Gerard and put him to bed.

I looked at him, and he was still intently gazing at Hunter with the baby. I felt a pang in my chest, and I knew I needed him to stay here, with us, tonight. "I can handle things," I told her.

"Even with all of this?" she asked, and I nodded. I wanted to. It was going to be a lot, but we needed to spend as much time together as the four of us as possible. While he could remember, I wanted to add, while he was still here and lucid. I had been so relieved when he had not shut down earlier in the day, and though his quietness now concerned me that the possibility was imminent, I knew that he was all right. But he had not held her yet, I remembered. I insisted to Vivian that we were all right, and she placed a kiss on my forehead.

"All right, dad," she said, teasing me. It felt good, hearing it for the first time out of someone else's mouth. I could not wait to hear it from her.

Cassandra and Noelle waved ‘bye before they left with Vivian, while Mikey and Alexa and their passel of children followed. Callie and Dean said they were going to stay in case we needed them around, and though I told them we were fine, they insisted. They were going to stay downstairs anyway, away from kids, and I knew it would be good to have the around for extra hands in the morning. Hunter was exhausted and I was the only person in the house that was fully mobile, and even I was running on empty. Once Callie and Dean were gone, Lydia now took her exit.

"Take care of yourselves and one another," she told us, and with a nod, she was gone. We were all alone, and I felt like bursting into tears all over again. Nothing was wrong, Hunter had said, absolutely nothing at all, and he was right. Everything had changed for us in that instant, and we celebrated and mourned at the same time. Hunter was still holding our daughter, and though she wasn't ours or mine or anyone's, we were all going to take care of her. She was Paloma, as simple as that. I turned to Gerard, I knew he needed to get to know this wonderful new person we had in our lives.

"How are you doing?" I asked Hunter, running my hand through his hair. He smiled, wearily, and then motioned towards Gerard. I nodded, and then asked Gerard the same question.

"Good. Happy," he said with a smile. It was the first time he had really said anything out loud in such a long time. He had whispered into ears, but that was it. Even with just us in the room, he still didn't say much, but he looked. He looked at both of us, and then back at the baby in Hunter's arms. I wasn't sure if he didn't know how to ask for her or if he didn't want to overstep his boundaries. He was used to being to the sides, in the background.

"Do you want to hold her, Gerard?" Hunter asked. He held up his arms, displaying Paloma. She was shrivelled and sleeping in her blanket. I touched the side of her face, still needing verification she was here.

"She's your daughter, too," I added and my voice quaked with emotion. I looked at Gerard, only him, and realized we had done the impossible and we had reproduced.

He swallowed hard and nodded, showing apprehension but wanting to be a part of this. He opened his arms shakily. His paralysis had gotten better, but I knew he would need some extra help with this. While Hunter sat up in bed and worked on shifting around his body to transfer Paloma from one father to the next, I went around to Gerard's right side. He held her up with his good elbow, and then I placed my hand underneath where his other arm couldn't quite support with the same strength. Once she had been transferred successfully to him, keeping both Paloma and Gerard safe, Hunter and I merely laid our hands gently on them. He had his arm around Gerard's waist and his head on his shoulder, and I slipped my hand around him too and kept the other there for support. We both exchanged glances, and then watched quietly as the artist held his daughter in his arms. It was his first child, all of our firsts, and it was overwhelming.

Gerard didn't speak a word the entire time, but he looked at her. He looked at her with his eyes that seemed to be able to see what was there, but hidden, and he held her with the hands that had shaped this world so far. He held his daughter in his hands, the only child he could really call his own, and that deep sadness that was a part of him returned. He looked down on her and I wondered what he was thinking, what gears were shifting in the back of his mind, and how he comprehended all of this. All I could see was love and devotion, and I tried to press myself in-between and beyond that. He held her for what seemed like ages, as if he never wanted to let her go. She moved and squirmed a bit, but since we were both there, we weren't worried about her support. We knew that he could give her anything she ever wanted, because he had done the same for us. My life with him, and with Hunter, surrounded me again and I heard all of those voices in the silence between us. She started to gurgle and cry for a bit, and Gerard smiled.

He said, "shhhh" and then tried to rock her with his good arm. He calmed me, and Hunter, with his small words. "Shhhhh," he said again, rocking her with some gentle movement. When she started to cry again, and no amount of "shhhh"s would stop her, I leaned down and asked Gerard if he wanted me to take her. He nodded, but as he passed her off to me, he grabbed my arm and said from the deepest well of emotion that I had ever heard in his voice, "Thank you."

Chapter Four

I marveled in Paloma. Over the next few days, when I really got to know her outside of her birth, I maintained no expectations. She was her own separate person, and I tried to stick with that fact, even if all she seemed to do was scream, cry, shit, and eat. Oh, and throw up. She did that a lot, too. But she did each of these tasks in her own way, I told myself and all the other adults around us. She was shitting with distinct character, I was sure of it. All Vivian could do was look at me and shake her heard.

"You're a father, Frank. Plain and simple. No one else could say that but you," she teased me. I was beginning to really like the way that "father" and "dad" were sounding on people's tongues. I would test out new names and different variations of dad on Paloma to try and get it right before we ended up using it all the time. I would say "Daddy Frank" and wait for her response and ended up deciding that this got the most gurgles in her throat. It was completely unoriginal and I knew that I had made fun of Brian and Ryan for taking the same route with their names for their son. I felt like a hypocrite, but apparently all new parents felt like hypocrites, at least, according to Vivian. She had gone through the same string of worries and status as a parent that I was going through in those first few days.

"I wanted Cassandra to call me Vivian, like everyone else. I never wanted to buy the baby snuggly that strapped to my chest so I could carry her around. I wanted to avoid pastel colors and loud, annoying toys. But that was wrong, definitely wrong," she had told me. She was often here in the mornings with us, before I headed out to work and would stay until her first lecture at eleven in the morning. She held Paloma this day, making faces at my daughter and getting her to mimic the response. I watched and held up one of the toys in pastel colors that Mikey had given us and waved it in front of Paloma's line of vision.

"What changed?"

"Good question. You can never really get attached to your opinions, with children or not. If you do, you end up becoming the person that's ranting on the street corner because no one else will listen to you. Real life requires compromise. It doesn't mean that your first opinion was wrong, only if you hold onto it when you know it doesn't work anymore."

I nodded, and she passed my daughter off to me so she could see Hunter, and called me dad once more before she left the room. I was probably going to have to get used to this feeling. As I said "Daddy Frank" out loud a few more times, and heard her respond to each of them, I knew that it would get easier sooner rather than later. Hunter was still working through what he wanted to be called, and although I still liked the way that My Hunter sounded, he was probably going to take a similar moniker that I was. My Hunter would have just been too much and he would have looked like the cool dad by sheer name comparison alone. "Daddy Hunter" was still pretty awesome, I had to admit, and I realized that Hunter was definitely going to take on the cool dad role anyway. How many kids could say that their father had given birth? I couldn't compete with that at all!

But apparently, more and more men were now being able to say they had given birth and it was being recognized as something real. I had been surprised when Lydia had told me about her prior experience with this, especially since it did not appear to be reflected in any stories up until this point. But Hunter assured me, as he worked away in the days following his own experience, that this was not an isolated incident. We were a part of something much bigger than that. He had been working on a special for the magazine about transgender birth and was loading it with facts, arguments, and speculations for the future in addition to his own side story. It helped him to contextualize the many bizarre things that had just happened beyond the sobbing in disbelief that we had both done at the beginning. In the days after his recovery, he began to write gibberish in the mornings again, and then began to turn that gibberish into articles. It seemed like whenever I was up with Paloma in the early morning (her favorite times seemed to be from three until dawn), he was always in his room, typing away on his computer. He was writing so many articles now that I had started to tell him he needed his own magazine, or at least, a book deal.

"Don't you think that's my secret plan?" he quipped, and went back to writing. He was still in bed a lot of the time to maintain the pretext of rest, and Vivian had bought him a laptop for his baby shower present to make the creative process easier for him.

"Aren't you supposed to get something for the actual baby?" I asked, but Vivian rolled her eyes.

"The baby won't remember whether or not she got gifts. Your husband, on the other hand, has it in for me," Vivian teased right back.

Hunter delighted in being called a husband and I delighted in being called his husband right back. It was another new word for me to get used to, and we both attached ourselves to this one before we truly embraced the moniker of fathers. He was getting a lot of new names and terms he had never heard before, all of them residing on the masculine side of the spectrum now. It was wonderful seeing his eyes light up with each new word he heard in reference to himself. He had picked his new middle name in the days following Paloma's birth and he and I both got his name change paperwork ready one night after she was asleep so he could make this change legal. He was still going to have to figure things out for the sex markers on all his identification, but we had Lydia to help us with that. Lydia always seemed to know a person, who knew someone else, who could help us with all the parts of this.

"I can't give you prescriptions, but I know people," she told us one evening when we had invited her to dinner. She had come, but tried to not make things too personal. She had her own network, as we could plainly see, but she still had a few more things to tell us. I was relieved that she was telling us together this time around. "I want you to think more, both of you, before you move forward. Change yourself on paper first and make sure you like it. I can send you a letter that will help with that."

The next day, we had done his name change papers and sent that away, and a few days later, Lydia's new letter showed up on our doorstep. Hunter was going to be able to change his documents soon and begin his own paper revolution. As for his body, it was still healing and he was still working out his ideas and images of his new life in words that he typed on Vivian's new present. I didn't push him to make a decision, because we were all trying to manage our new lives in our house. I began to talk to Paloma a lot out loud and tried to carry on a dialogue with her even when all she seemed to do was cry in my arms. It was beneficial for her to learn language, I had told myself, but I knew it was more than therapeutic to me. I was used to having conversations to work out my feelings. She was going to have to get used to my rants eventually. I had called myself her father several times, and took to introducing myself to her each time I saw her.

"Hi Paloma," I would usually say when I would care for her, no matter when it was. I would always greet her like an adult, even if she had just thrown up all over herself. "Hi again, you seem to have had a bit of an accident there, but no worries. I'm your father, and though that still sounds very strange to me, you can call me that and I will take care of it. I'm yours, you know. I used to go by My Frank before, because that word father scared me for a long time. It still does, but I'm getting used to it. And also, you have three dads. That's kind of confusing, but also really cool. You're so lucky, Paloma, to have that many men in your life who care for you so deeply. It's not just us, too. There are so many people here for you! I love you so much...."

I would tell her anything that came into my head some days, even the most asinine things. I told her when my application at work had been processed, and I was awaiting an interview for Human Resources.

"It's odd, I know, Paloma, you don't need to tell me twice," I was explaining to her as I changed her diaper. She looked blankly at me, and I laughed at myself. I was venting my frustrations and anxieties to my daughter. Her first words were probably going to be something like "crap I'm so scared" because that's what I said to her half the time. I was scared, but I was also taking care of her. I thought we were doing well, even if I was stumbling over that father moniker a lot during the first few days.

"I mean, I love that I'm your father it's just, you know, Paloma, my own father scares me a lot sometimes. I don't want to become him, even though he's worked out a lot of things. We both have, really. I also don't want to become my mom either-"

"You won't," Vivian said. She had been watching me as I changed her, and thought I was on the phone. My face blushed scarlet when I realized that someone had been watching my private panic sessions around my newborn, but Vivian just shrugged. She had seem me covered in Paloma's spit-up already, but somehow I worried that this scenario would have been more embarrassing than vomit that got into my own mouth and down my shirt.

"I did the same with Cassandra," she said. "I was living with Gerard then, and I had no idea what I was doing, so I would talk to him through his door though I knew he was busy. He ignored me half the time anyway so it didn't really matter. I was just talking to hear my own voice, to somehow reassert that I was not gurgling like she was. When I moved back to my own place, it was overwhelming being alone and far too quiet. I told Cassandra all about it. Maybe that's why she's so hesitant to get into relationships and have children now. Hmmm...." Vivian trailed off, but was only teasing. She came up behind me and we both watched Paloma for a while. Vivian touched the side of her small little fist and we watched as her fingers splayed and she tried to explore her own body and see what it could do.

After Vivian left for her lecture in the morning, she would be at the university for the rest of the day and usually Alexa would stop by. She would be there until her kids got out from school, whereby Cassandra and Noelle would pick them up and then bring them over here. When Mikey and I were off work, the group would shift again. Sometimes we would all have dinner with one another, but a lot of the time, everyone was too tired and needed to get home and start their homework. In the evenings, Callie and Dean would sometimes stop by and if not, then Vivian and Walter showed up. The house seemed to always be as full of life as the day Hunter gave birth. It was refreshing, especially to be around people who had already done all of this before and knew how scary something as small as a sudden cough could be. Gerard was still handling things fairly well, but since Hunter was out of commission for a while, the extra hands always helped. I thanked everyone, especially Vivian during those morning conversations, profusely for all the time they spent with us.

"You act as if this is something I'm forced to do," Vivian stated, shaking her head. "I love being here. I get to see all of my favorite people in one place." She was still a little melancholy, and that was probably because she missed her own daughter and the days when she could vent to a child and have them listen, but not really comprehend or judge. I asked her if she wanted to be left alone with Paloma, who was probably going to be a therapist when she grew up at this point, but she declined.

"I have other places to be and this is your time with her. Enjoy it. It goes by really fast," she said, and then went to see Gerard. I nodded, and went back to my story, knowing the validity of what she was saying. Paloma grew overnight, I swore. It seemed so impossible to me since she shit and threw up so much and I began to wonder where on earth the food we gave her went.

"So, where was I?" I started again. She was wearing her diaper now, and had sort of fallen asleep mid-change. I sighed. "I believe I was telling you about my father, but you know, you'll get to meet him yourself one day. Then you'll know why I'm afraid to be him. But trust me, Paloma," I got close to her ear. I smelled baby-powder on top of baby crap, and ignored the aroma. I kissed her small face, on each cheek, and told her, "I will never hurt you. I will fuck up," I countered, wanting to be realistic with her because she would know soon enough. "But I will never try to hurt you."

I picked her up and took her back to her crib and watched her sleep as my own experience with my parents seemed to get compounded onto this experience right then. Their email had been waiting for me when I went back to work the next Monday (Hunter gave birth on a Thursday, and I took that Friday off. Having just had four days with a screaming infant and my crippling confusion, the last thing I wanted to do was open my email. Since there had been a ton of work to catch up on, I had been returning calls all morning before I even remembered the email by lunch. Taking a deep breath, and my hand ready on my phone to call Mikey during his break just in case, I clicked the email open and covered my face with my hands.

My worry was misplaced, though, because they had responded well. They had sent it on the Sunday, and said that it had taken them so long because they wanted to see the exhibit, first, before they could fully understand. They had broken up the email into two sections: one where my mom typed out all of her feelings on the exhibit and gushed about the work there. She was regaining her voice through text, and I was so glad that I had sent them what I did. I knew my mother could not speak very well, and was relieved where she finally had a medium to express herself. It was a long section and I mostly scanned it at first trying to find signs of disapproval. Seeing none, I braced myself for my father's section of the email. His was much shorter than my mother's, so much so that I was surprised that there had been a response at all. I had chastised him a little in the last email, about not mentioning Gerard, and I figured it would have completely thrown him off and not wanted to talk to me. From what I had read in my mother's section briefly, he had gone to the show with her. He had seen the art too, and when I read his response, my heart stopped:

"Frank, this is odd. I don't like emails but your mom insists and it's been a while. I want you to know that I saw the work and I'm glad. I don't always get art, but I can like something, and I liked a lot of it. Not all of it," I wondered vaguely if he was referring to the photos of Gerard and myself, "but a lot of it. Including Gerard's work. I'm sorry that I've never mentioned Gerard until now. I just didn't really get it for a long time and you know that. I'm better, but I'm still getting used to it now too. And though this Hunter stuff is still a bit odd, I think I understood some of it from the exhibit. Let me know when I can see him because I think we should be introduced again. Gerard, too. All of you, actually, and especially the baby, whenever she is born."

I sat back in my chair when I finished reading it, still taking it all in. It almost didn't seem like my father, and part of me wondered if my mom had typed it up, but I shook that idea out of my head. It was him. He was talking in small sentences and words, but it was him talking, and he was talking about the hard topics. He was bridging the gap, using a computer when he didn't want to and going to a gallery to try and understand me and my life now. He didn't admit to knowing it all, but he was slowly getting it. He understood now that I wasn't going to change, though a few key things around us had. People didn't change, and he either needed to accept me or leave. But there was another side to that statement, because all relationships were reciprocal. At the same time that I thought it, I knew I needed to accept him or leave. Neither of us wanted to leave the other and this was the point to celebrate. I let out a huge breath at my desk. He was still going to be resistant and distant, but he was going to make the effort. I needed to make that too, and try to explain things the best I could. I felt like I had the words now to do that and I began to respond. I told him first that there was no more waiting for that grandchild and that she was here to stay.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14