Expectations
Chapter 8
Jim reached up into his storage space in the basement of the apartment building and pulled out another box. It was heavier than the last three, he noticed, starting to feel hopeful. "What about this one?" he asked his neighbor, Cara.
Cara opened the box in Jim's arms and began to remove what sounded like some sort of packing material. "Yes," she answered. "There it is. I can't believe you've been keeping a TV down here in storage."
Jim reached for the box, sliding it onto the dolly he had borrowed from the janitor. "Yeah, I just stuck it down here when we bought the new one a couple of years ago."
"So she's breaking down and allowing a TV in the bedroom, huh?" Cara said, an ironic chuckle escaping from her throat.
Jim knew the lovable wrinkled face of his neighbor so well that hearing her laugh almost tricked him into believing he was seeing her, sharing in the connection usually felt only through eye contact. Cara had lived in the building for over thirty years, becoming the substitute mother and grandmother of many of the tenants. Even Jim had been drawn to her from the moment he met the kindly widow and she was one of the few people he had felt comfortable with immediately after the shooting because she had approached the topic with an openness and understanding that had left him with no need for the defenses he was already beginning to erect around almost everyone else.
"Yeah," Jim said, starting to feel around for the boxes he had taken out to find the TV. "Being on bed rest is starting to get to her."
"To your left," Cara directed casually.
Finding a box, Jim hefted it over his head and started to slide it back into the storage space.
"Must be nice to be so strong," Cara said. "Watch it or I'll have you over doing chores for me. I might decide to have you rearrange my furniture just to see you do it."
Smiling, Jim felt for the next box. Cara's phrasing often left him wondering if her flirty undertones were intentional or if she was speaking in innocence. Either way, he thought it was adorable.
With the storage space re-packed and locked, Jim took hold of the dolly with one hand and placed his other hand on Cara's shoulder. She was so tiny that being guided by her elbow would have been awkward.
"Thanks for loaning me your eyes," he said as they started walking toward the elevator. "It would have taken me forever to find the right bin and then the right box without you."
"But you'd've managed," she said. She always had that kind of faith in Jim.
"Well, I'm glad I didn't have to," he admitted. "And thanks for offering to check in on Christie every day. It makes me feel better about going to work, knowing she has you just down the hall if she needs anything."
"Oh, you know I'd've come over, invited or not. I'm excited about these babies of yours so it's nice to be a part of all that. My own grandbabies live so far away I like getting to be in on it from the beginning with you. You'll make wonderful parents. I can always tell."
They reached the elevator and Jim narrowly avoided upsetting the dolly by banging it into a corner as he turned to maneuver it into position inside. He sighed, unwelcome thoughts filling his mind. If Cara was anyone else, Jim would have kept his thoughts to himself, but something about her always made him long to be open.
"So if I'm having trouble with this dolly," he began, "how will I push a double stroller? I've been trying to figure out how to push it and still use Hank and it just seems impossible. I like to think I'll be able to take a walk with the girls without Christie once in a while."
"If you could figure out how to be a cop again, you'll figure this out too. There's a way around everything and you're very smart."
It wasn't an answer that solved anything, but somehow when Cara said it, things seemed that much less impossible. They stepped out at their floor and Jim walked, pulling the dolly behind. He started to turn it around so he could continue pushing it as he had been doing in the basement, but Cara stopped him.
"See what you're doing here?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You're pulling instead of pushing. Wouldn't that work with a stroller?"
The corners of Jim's mouth went down as he thought about it. "I don't know."
Hand still on Cara's shoulder, dolly trailing behind, they walked the hallway to the door of his apartment. "Yeah," Jim said, nodding. "This feels better. Like I have more control. It might look a little funny, but who cares about that? Hey, any tips about changing diapers while you're at it?"
His wry tone was deceptive because he really was hoping she would have some help for him in that area.
"You'll learn soon enough," she told him. "I'm sure it'll all amount to practice and common sense in the end."
"You found it," Christie said as Jim entered the bedroom. "Good. I know I never wanted a TV in here, but it's become a must."
"Where do you want it?" he asked, opening the large box.
"Well, the cable outlet is over by my side of the bed, but you won't be able to see it from—"
Jim grinned at her.
"Yeah," she said sheepishly. "I still forget sometimes. Well, why don't we move that old end table my grandma gave me over to this wall—I mean, the wall over here on my side—and then put the TV there? That would work for now."
"Okay." Jim moved the dolly, making a mental note of where he left it so there wouldn't be a collision on the way back in, and started for the living room to find the end table.
"You remember which one I mean?" Christie asked. "It's sort of in a corner at the far end and has some magazines and a plant on it."
Jim nodded, throwing a half smile Christie's way. "Sounds like waiting room décor."
"Want me to show you?" Cara asked.
"Yeah. Thanks. Hey, Christie? What do you want me to do with the magazines and plant?"
"Just put them somewhere else. I don't care."
Moving furniture and hefting television sets wasn't as easy as Jim remembered. Now, with the added possibility of crashing things into doorframes, dinging paint, scratching wood, and damaging electronic equipment, the whole situation put him on edge. Cara helped guide Jim—sometimes physically, sometimes verbally—through the process, but she wasn't as much of an asset when it came time to hook the TV up to the cable outlet. Jim had been the one to arrange the wiring on Cara's own TV and VCR several years before because she hadn't been able to figure it out so he eventually ended up doing it himself this time as well, his fingers working through all the cables and wires, experimenting and going from memory until the TV worked.
"Thank you so much, Cara," Christie said when Cara was ready to leave.
"My pleasure." The way she said it, Jim felt convinced that it really was her pleasure to do things for them. "So, grocery shopping this evening, Jim?"
Jim nodded. "Sounds good."
Christie shifted in bed, sounding like she was going into a sitting position. "Jim, you don't need to make Cara go to the store with you, do you? She's done enough for us today."
"Nonsense," Cara said. In his mind, Jim could see the wave that accompanied the word. "I need him as much as he needs me. He borrows my eyes and I borrow those nice bulgy arms of his and we all get our food brought up. Works for me."
"If you're sure…" Christie said, her tone still dubious despite Cara's assurances.
"Why did you do that?" Jim asked her when Cara had gone.
"Do what?"
"That whole grocery thing."
"I didn't want you to take advantage of her."
"I don't take advantage of people." He turned and started for the door. "You heard her. She needs me as much as I—"
His foot made contact with something unexpected, and then he and the dolly were tangled on the floor, making a loud crash that was sure to disturb the downstairs neighbors. Wrist throbbing from its bang against metal, Jim kicked the dolly away and stood.
"Oh, Jimmy, are you okay?"
He felt his lips grow tight as he cradled his sore wrist. "Damn it, Christie! You couldn't have warned me? You saw me headed straight for it."
"I'm sorry. I just—I forgot. I thought you knew—"
"You thought I knew?"
"Well, you put it there. Come here and let me see your wrist. Are you hurt?"
The concern in her voice was unmistakable. His flash of anger subsided and he longed to be comforted.
"You on your side of the bed?" he asked walking toward her. The fall had disoriented him so he was surprised when his knee made contact with the foot of the bed when it did. It wasn't where he had thought it would be.
"Yeah. You gonna to come sit with me?"
He crawled across the bed and then nestled against Christie, who took his arm gently and held it where she could see it. "Does it still hurt?"
He shrugged. "It's fine."
"You might've bruised it," she said, her fingers settling on a tender spot so that Jim winced. "There it is. I knew you hurt yourself."
"I'm fine," he said, sliding his arm from her grasp so is hand could trail down her front to where he knew his twins were hiding. "They active today?" he asked.
"Oh yeah," she said, laughing with her words. "Feel here."
She took his hand and pressed it against the side of her rounded stomach.
"I don't feel anyth—"
"Just wait," she ordered.
And then he felt it. Not so much a kick as a stretch.
Being able to feel his babies moving was possibly even more exciting than listening to their heartbeats. Leaning down, Jim kissed the spot where he had felt the movement while his hands continued to feel around for the other twin.
"She isn't as hyper as her sister today," Christie explained, anticipating Jim's question.
"Is she okay?" he asked anxiously.
"I'm sure she is."
"Let me check."
"The Doppler again?" she asked, sighing. "Oh, all right. Go ahead."
So Jim took the device from his nightstand and, before too long, was able to find both heartbeats. He had become adept at knowing how to locate them.
"Feel better?" Christie asked.
"I do. You know, I just like to be sure."
"Such a good dad already."
Her voice was developing a sleepy note. Jim slipped from the bed and headed out of the room, sliding his feet carefully because he didn't know exactly where the dolly had fallen.
"To your right," Christie said groggily. "A little more. There."
"Thanks," he said in the quiet voice of someone who is making it clear he knows the other person is getting ready to sleep. He rolled the dolly out of the bedroom, setting it carefully against the wall at the end of the hall so he wouldn't be tripping over it again.
He thought of those unseen babies inside Christie. He could feel them and hear them already. How much closer to them would he be able to feel once they were on the outside? During his painstaking internet research, he had encountered many stories of blind parents—particularly fathers—who had had a hard time connecting with their babies when they were young. Maybe they just didn't touch them enough, Jim thought, heading for his computer so he could research some more. There had to be non-visual ways to feel connected with a small baby.
He sighed. If only he could have been experiencing this with his eyes. Sometimes he imagined Christie was pregnant back in the old life and that he was the one showing off her ultrasound photos at work. He saw himself in the birthing room, camera in hand, ready to photograph his girls the second they emerged. He saw his babies bundled, one in each of Christie's arms as she held them for the first time. He saw Christie, exhausted and radiant, smiling as he took his proud daddy pictures. Where was his old camera, anyway? He would have to make sure someone would be there to capture the moment for posterity.
Logging onto the internet, he found the Blind Parents list he had been reading through online. This was by far the most useful resource he had yet discovered, full of the wisdom and experience of hundreds of people who had done it before him. He was often humbled by their insight, realizing that many of them were blind single parents or blind couples. At least Christie could see. But…a few of the blind parents expressed thankfulness that their spouses couldn't see because it was always a temptation for the sighted spouse to feel superior and better able to care for the children; quicker to doubt the blind spouse. All was equal among the blind couples as they finagled ingenious ways of doing things sighted people took for granted.
If they were both blind…Jim brought a thinking hand to his lip and mulled it over. He would never wish it upon Christie, of course, but the idea of Christie knowing first-hand what he was going through and figuring everything out right along with him was a sweet one. But if she couldn't see, he reminded himself, many of the mundane things she now did for him, reading his mail, taking care of the bills, giving guidance when he wasn't sure of something, would have to be figured out a different way. There was no way around getting help from time to time and Jim was always grateful when that help didn't have to go beyond his wife. And, he realized, people were dubious enough about him being a blind father but, if they were both blind, social services might even try and take the children away. He had read about that happening online. He had also read about blind couples who weren't allowed to adopt non-disabled children because they were thought not to be able to handle it. Jim's hand went into a fist just thinking about how underestimated blind people were.
He took a deep breath and then started typing his first post to the Blind Parents list.
"I haven't been blind for very long and my wife is pregnant for the first time—twin girls. As you can imagine, this is a lot for me to take in. I've been reading through the posts here and have learned a lot of techniques, but if anyone has any advice for how to deal with newborn twins, I would appreciate it. I don't know much about babies to begin with so I need to start with the basics…"