Walking up the steps to the front door of Ash and Rob's house, I knocked and waited for a minute. I could hear Ash rushing toward the door. She answered with an oversized floppy yellow semi sheer hat on. It was like an accessory from a cheesy 1970s wedding. She chortled and opened the door as wide as it would go.
"Come on in!" she excitedly offered. Unusually jubilant and alert, she led and I followed her into the kitchen where Teddy was set up with a rectangular-shaped plastic watercolor tray with 8 ovals of gummy looking, new and shiny paint, a clear jelly jar of water, a thin handled tiny tipped paintbrush and a fat pad of unblemished white paper. He was looking it all over pensively but hadn't touched a thing.
Ash removed her bridesmaid's hat with a flourish tossing it into the air toward the hallway. She stared me down with a wide eyed Cheshire cat grin, clearly eager for my reaction. Her hair was magenta.
"Wow! Holy cow! That looks great!" I gushed, although it was quite a shock even to me, a girl who had recently had magenta hair, mine made possible with spray-on color the previous Halloween.
"I had it dyed Friday, and hacked too!" She twirled for me, showing me the back where the curls had been undercut in a perky bobbed style, very popular for the day. She fluffed her ends with her fingers and talked about how the salon owner had been excited to try something new and how she herself had loved the results, over-tipping and making a second appointment for six weeks from now. Rob had been less enthusiastic about the overall hue but she didn't care. It all made her feel young and vibrant and a bit rebellious.
"I'm going to take that aerobics class today over at the YMCA." Ash squawked. "You're okay alone with the kids for an hour or so, right?"
I noticed then that she had on black stirrup pants, brand new white Keds and a melon colored sweatshirt which had been cut Flashdance-style at the neck, all perfectly fine for aerobics at the Y.
Certain of my readiness, I said,"Yeah, of course. Go ahead and have fun!"
Ash grabbed for her purse and car keys, kissed Teddy quickly on top of his head and sauntered toward the door, waving wildly like a deranged parade float beauty queen and promising in a lilting voice to see us soon.
As the door shut behind her, I asked Teddy if he wanted to have a dance party in the basement and he nodded, carefully putting down the paintbrush (with which he still hadn't painted). Checking Evvie in her room on the way down, I found her wide awake, holding her sock-covered toes while lying on her back staring intently at her mobile. It had a pig, a lamb, a cow and a horse, with a skinny plastic farmer in the middle bobbing pleasantly amidst the slightest bit of movement. I retrieved her and placed her on the changing table where she babbled nonsensical words as I wiped and diapered her. Teddy, scowling at the mobile, climbed the side of the crib. He swung at it mightily with a pink stuffed bear he'd found on the floor.
"Mine!" he pummeled. "Mine, mine, miiiiiine!"
"Hey!" I cried. "Stop that!" Teddy turned to look at me and stopped but the mobile repeatedly smacked against the wall reeling from the force of the heavily slung bear. He glared for an instant at Evvie and me, scrambling down off the crib and sprinting from the room toward the basement door.
"You! Wait for me!" I yelled after him but disregarding my instructions, he bounded recklessly down the stairs. Quickly, I yanked Evvie's little jean overalls up over her short sleeved pink flowered onesie and we scampered after him.
Sitting in wait on the bottom step, Teddy had his back turned; too short to flip the switch and too scared to venture further into the basement without a light source. I turned it on for him, and then powered up the television to MTV. Teddy didn't lose his gloomy countenance but he made his way to the front of the screen, hesitantly bouncing to the beat of a poppy Whitney Houston song as the box warmed up and momentarily broke the mood by transporting us to a tune-filled world.
I jostled Evvie around lightly singing "How will I know if he really loves me?" She smiled, pronounced "muh muh muh" and lifted her diminutive right arm skyward, flexing her fingers, searching my face for cues. Teddy came over by us when the song was nearly over, grabbed a good sized chunk of the skin on Evvie's leg exposed beneath her pants, and twisted it...super hard! Evvie sucked in her breath and held it, eyebrows aloft, poring over my face searching for an explanation for the pain. As her eyes began to water, she finally yelped tears of hurt and surprise.
"Teddy!" I screamed, looking down at him, "What are you doing to her?" He let her go.
At that moment, I realized he was insanely jealous of Evvie. Somehow, he'd kept it in check when Ash was around but with just me, he had shown his brotherly displeasure within minutes of us being alone. Unsure how to handle his misbehavior, I wasn't provided clear direction with regard to discipline and there hadn't been any need for it on the other days I'd been helping.
"Upstairs!" I commanded. Turning off the television with a flourish and pointing in a way that showed I meant business, I sternly ushered Teddy where he needed to go. He obeyed, looking back several times on the way up, making sure we were still behind him. Rubbing her back, I locked a slightly calmer Evvie into her high chair and hurriedly got out the Zwieback toasts. I placed one carefully on her tray and turned to Teddy who was standing like a soldier at my heels.
"What is going on?" I demanded. Looking me in the eye, he mustered himself with balled up little fists and blurted "Not heppy!" Then he plopped down hard on the tile floor and began to cry. Pointing at Evvie, he made unintelligible noises in the back of his throat suggesting frustration and possibly an overdue for a nap kind of weariness. As I began to squat down beside him, he started to launch his body backward onto the floor. I caught him and quickly pulling him to his feet, despite his body being purposely limp and rubbery, I hoisted him up like a sack of potatoes. Scooting out a chair, I heaved him onto my lap with his jangly legs dangling off my left side. He finally surrendered, leaning his head into my chest. My attempts to soothe him as he sobbed ugly sounds was futile. Evvie began crying again, too, so I rubbed her arm in an attempt to provide comfort when, without warning, Rob walked through the front door. Sensing his presence, they looked at one another and began to wail louder.
"Jesus! What have we here? Where's Ash?" he said, swiftly putting down his briefcase on the floor and scanning the room and hallway.
"She's at the Y taking a class." I stammered. "The kids are upset because Teddy pinched Evvie hard and, well..." I didn't finish. Rob scooped Evvie out of the high chair and positioned her over his shoulder. Then he brought her into the living room and sat on the couch rocking forward and back. Teddy, snorting and wiping his nose on his arm, wriggled off my lap and trotted to join them. I followed, offering napkins and hoping I wasn't in trouble for not being able to suitably maintain the peace.
Rob soothed Evvie and dabbed at her nose while she breathed heavily. Teddy tucked into Rob's side, mumbling about wanting to paint. Rob reached around and rubbed Teddy's back, tucking his blue sweater into the back of his droopy gray sweatpants.
"So what happened, again?" He implored. I explained about the teddy bear fight with the mobile, the running away down to the basement, the pinch, the wailing. Rob acknowledged and listened. Because he seemed to understand so readily what I was telling him about Teddy, I began to feel that this wasn't out of the ordinary.
"He's mean to her sometimes, " Rob articulated. "He gets jealous. He pinches. He pokes. He yanks her arms. We try not to overcorrect because it's attention he wants. Paying attention to it won't make him stop."
"But what if he hurts her?" I said, incredulously. I couldn't believe he knowingly allowed this hurtful, physical behavior to happen.
"It's not a big issue. Don't make it one." Rob shrugged. He pushed his sneakers off with his toes and left them on the white carpet, and then he and Evvie sauntered back out into the kitchen. He snapped her back into her high chair, placating with another biscuit from the package on the counter. He rubbed his elbow, looking at me. He was wearing scrubs. He said he needed to get out of them.
Offering to take Teddy, he guided him down the hall and went to change out of his work attire. He returned wearing jeans and a well worn Lemieux Penguins jersey. His feet were bare. I couldn't help but notice that he had hairy toes. Teddy meandered behind Rob, peering at me as if to assess my level of disappointment in him. I walked over and took his hand, leading him firmly to the chair where his paints were still laid out.
Rob grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down at the table, motioning for me to sit as well; then he started talking about work and how hard it was, how demanding operating in the ER had turned out to be; and how difficult it was to settle down after being in hyperdrive all day. As he talked, Evvie chewed her biscuit, and Teddy bit his lip while thoughtfully making art. Then, he leaned back, rolled a brown vial out of his front pocket, shook a small tablet into his hand, and threw it back with a big swig of Michelob. Then, he shoved the prescription bottle back in his jeans without missing a beat. Feeling slightly unsettled about these seemingly inappropriate actions, I didn't know whether to carry on as though this were a normal, everyday happening, or to ask what it was he just took; I mean, after all there were babies here. Maybe I should know in case he passed out? My mind began spinning with concern and unease.
He thrummed on about work and the hospital staff while I made a solid attempt to look him in the eye as he spoke, making certain his pupils remained the same, unaffected size. Missing much of what he said, but maintaining eye contact, he assumed I was interested in his tale of woe and kept right on talking. Because it was past time for Evvie's bottle, I took one out and warmed it for her. I also poured Teddy a glass of milk and gave him a generous handful of goldfish crackers on a napkin. The kids seemed well at ease. I continued to attend and observe.
Hearing a car in the driveway, I stood erect, mid sentence, and excused myself. It was Ash! Relieved, I couldn't wait for her to come in and figure out what was going on. I got to the window just in time to see her irritably slam the door of her Fiero, stomping toward the door with a gait suggestive of anger. Letting herself in, she threw her purse on the floor announcing, "Well THAT sucked!"
Rob called to her from the kitchen, suggesting she calm down and come join us. She strode past me and stood threateningly, arms on hips, over Teddy's chair. "He's STILL painting?" she said, looking accusatorily at me.
"We had a small problem." I started to explain, nervously.
Rob jumped in, making hand motions that looked like pinching and twisting and said, "Stop. Please? Pinching. Again." Ash, understandably a bit more subdued, said, "Oh, Jesus. That. Well, that just SUCKS too."
Dramatic in her movements, she stepped heavily to the refrigerator, and swung it open. Passing Rob another beer, she grabbed a big green glass bottle of Perrier for herself, unscrewing the cap and swallowing several big gulps. Then she took Evvie's fully drained bottle from her tray where she was spinning it in her sticky little hands, put it in the sink, threw a kitchen towel over her shoulder and lifted her up for burping.
Ash revealed, as Rob had minutes before, that Teddy had a bit of a sibling rivalry-inspired mean streak and that they were doing their best to manage it, although there were no specific suggestions offered as to how. Teddy, nonplussed, smiled at Ash and painted big red, then black, then blue streaks of color across his paper, not bothering to rinse the brush in between colors and smearing it with his hand. He painted over the paper's edge more than a few times and was aggressively composing what appeared to be an abstract design on the table cloth. No one seemed to care. Ash then passed a satisfactorily burped Evvie over to me and politely suggested I take her for a stroller walk. She and Rob would stay behind and watch Teddy. As she sat down next to him at the table, I saw him reach in his front pocket again, rooting for the pill bottle. Disillusioned, I shoved my feet into my docksiders and turned the two of us toward the door, grateful for the opportunity to go.
I dressed Evvie in a tiny red jacket with blue piped trim that was hanging on the hall tree and tied a matching navy knit hat under her chin which I found stored in its sleeve for safekeeping. With her on my hip, we ventured outside and down to the open garage where the stroller was kept. Evvie looked around, gurgling softly as I buckled her into the stiff webbed straps. In her bitty voice she sounded out "buh buh buh" and sighed as I crouched in front of her. That sigh made my heart hurt. It seemed like a mixture of sadness, resignation and an emotion that I couldn't place but deep in my guts knew shouldn't be felt by babies. I straightened her warm hat, pulled up her fuzzy white socks and made sure she was comfortable. Then I took her little doll hands and nuzzled them telling her I wouldn't let anything bad happen. I think we looked at one another for a full minute before I started pushing her down the street.
The sun began setting as we walked block after block, and I kept going, not wanting to bring her back. She sat erect, not fully relaxed because she was engaged in the surroundings: a barking dog, a car driving past, trees, birds, crisp leaves underfoot, children running past bay windows inside well lit houses. About an hour into our jaunt, she purposely turned her face toward the sinking rays, closing her eyes in what appeared to be, eventually, contentment.
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