Chapter Five: Not a Toy
Four months later, my life was decidedly not perfect. Aaron and I, while formally engaged, had put the wedding on hold in order to deal with a more pressing matter: moving. We had decided to move to Newburyport, Massachusetts, when Aaron's interview at the local hospital (the one where I was going to do my residency) went so well that they hired him on the spot. They had a shortage of ER doctors because two of them had just moved away.
Anyways, we were both signed up to begin working there on the first of August. We had two months to move and settle into the new town, but Aaron and I both thought that it would be easier just to move out there as soon as possible so we could check one large item off of our massive to-do list. During his interview trip, Aaron had gone house hunting and found the perfect little cottage-style house, just a block away from the beach. Later, over the phone, I had settled the details. Now the house was ours. It put us into a larger debt than we would have liked, but we planned to live in Newburyport for a long time, and we wanted Holly to have a nice home.
Holly was still a medical mystery. Aaron and I had taken her to countless doctors and specialists in an attempt to discover why she was so small and why she ate so much. So far, no one knew. In addition to plans for a thousand-mile relocation across the country, Aaron and I were petitioning to the authorities to adopt Holly. It was a difficult process and involved many interviews and lots of paperwork. As tough as it was, we weren't going to give up. We loved Holly too much.
She really was a delightful baby. We fed her whenever she was hungry, which was quite often. Our grocery bills were much higher than usual, because every week, we had to buy more and more baby formula. Eventually, Aaron drove to the nearest Costco and returned with five cases of the drink. But despite Holly's eating habits, she still remained small. She gained three pounds over the months, but she barely grew any taller. She was very chubby and always very happy, though, so we tried to just live with the fact that she was so short. The downy fuzz on her head thickened, and soon she had a mop of honey-brown curls down to her little pointed ears. I also discovered that the same this, curly hair was growing on the tops of her feet. It mystified me, and Aaron started making very unamusing jokes about Holly shaving her feet.
With all these things on my mind, my patience had grown rather thin. I was on the phone with our landlord, who was an irritating man with the habit of repeating himself far too many times. "Yes, in one week," I repeated. I had been talking for over half an hour already, settling the facts about moving out. "We'll be out by Saturday, I promise," I reassured before hanging up the phone. I sighed as I turned around. Boxes were stacked all over the kitchen, the family room, and the bedroom. Even though we had been slowly packing for over a month, everything was still a mess.
Thank goodness the first moving truck would be arriving tomorrow to take the furniture. The second one, with all of our other stuff (who knew we had so much!), would be coming the next day. Aaron, Holly, and I would follow by plane.
I half-heartedly opened up a cabinet and started arranging the tea towels and tablecloths that lived inside into one of the open boxes. When I heard Holly crying from the next room over, I went over to her, thankful for a distraction from packing.
"What's the matter, my love?" I asked as I hung over the bar of her playpen. Holly grinned at me, her toothless gums open wide. She stretched her arms up towards me.
"Aaa!" she squealed.
"Mama," I told her, pointing towards myself. "Can you say 'Mama'?"
"Aaa!" was all that Holly said. I laughed then and scooped her up. Aaron and I didn't know how old Holly was, but from what the doctors had told us, we thought she must have been born in mid November sometime, making her seven months old right now.
Even though babies her age weren't supposed to talk yet – they just made babbling sounds, we were always encouraging Holly to talk as much as she could, trying to give her words to repeat.
I made my way through the maze of boxes into the kitchen, where I plopped Holly into the high chair I had acquired from the "New to You" store a month ago, when Holly got big enough to sit up by herself.
"Aaa!" Holly squealed again. I had come to know this as her word for 'feed me.' It could also be translated as 'yes,' 'no,' 'mama,' 'dada,' and 'more.' Shoving away a stack of closed boxes, I reached up into a cabinet for a sippy-cup. Holly was now very proud, as she could drink and feed herself… with a little help.
"Which do you want… apple juice or milk?" I asked Holly, opening up the fridge. She just shrieked in response. "Apple juice, it is," I said to myself as I filled the cup up halfway with the juice. I quickly ran it under the tap to fill it up all the way before snapping the no-drip lid onto the plastic cup and handing it to Holly. She reached for it with both hands and hefted it over her head.
"Ba-ga!" she cried, slamming it onto the tray of her high chair.
"No, no, Holly," I said. "You're supposed to drink it. Drink." She whacked the poor cup again, and the juice sloshed dangerously inside. This wasn't the first time she had done something like this. Now that she could have all the food and drink she wanted to, Holly loved playing with it, just as she played with everything that was unfortunate enough to come within her path. As always, I was amazed that she could handle the cup so well with her tiny little hands. She banged the cup a few more times before she brought it to her mouth and sucked furiously. I could hear little air bubbles fizzing through the lid.
A moment later, Holly decided that she'd had enough juice and went back to abusing the cup. "Aaa!" she squealed. In this case, it must have meant 'how fun!' She raised the cup high and brought it crashing down on the tray. The lid popped off, spraying us both with diluted apple juice. "Ohh," said Holly, more quietly now. Her blue eyes looked at me tearfully. ""Mmmm," she said, sticking a finger in the spilled juice. She held it up in front of her for a second, and then stuck the finger into her mouth.
"'Mmmm' is right," I said to her. "That'll teach you not to hit the cup any more, won't it?" I lifted her out of the high chair and took her to the bedroom to change. "Now," I said as I unbuttoned her one-piece baby suit. "Cups are for drinking from; they aren't toys."
"Aaa!" she replied wisely.
Soon, I gave her a new cup of juice and went about mopping up juice from the kitchen floor, though half the struggle was actually finding the mop within the midst of the boxes. The house we were moving into had blue tile in the kitchen, not ugly yellow-ish linoleum like the floor I was cleaning. I couldn't wait to move and enjoy my own, beautiful house. For a minute, I simply stood, relishing in the fact of owning my first house.
"Gaah!" wailed Holly from her high chair, distracting me from my reverie. She banged the cup again, only this time it was completely empty.
"More?" I interpreted. I refilled the cup and handed it back to her. "Say 'juice,'" I instructed. "Juice."
"Aaa!" she shrieked, hurling the cup away from her. It hit the floor and the lid popped off. Again. Right after I'd finished cleaning the first juice explosion.
"Holly," I began, thoroughly exasperated. "Do not throw the cup!" She blinked her wide blue eyes at me. "Playing innocent won't get you anywhere," I snapped. "See what you did!" I pointed at golden puddle on the floor, and she followed my finger, ginning when she saw the mess. "It's not funny, young lady," I continued, reaching for a dishrag. "I am not your maid."
x.x.x
Holly lost her privilege of being able to hold the cup that day. When Aaron came home, he found me sitting on the couch, bottle-feeding Holly like she was still the itty baby we had found all those months ago.
"She lost the cup," I said when he looked at me, an odd look on his face. I didn't need to explain anymore; the same thing had happened before.
"You're just a natural mother, Lexie," Aaron said as he sat down next to me. "How do you do it?"
I giggled at his question. "I don't know… I guess it's just instinct. How was your day?"
He shrugged. "The normal," he replied. "Tying up loose ends before I completely leave, a bunch of paperwork, and a bit of ER work."
"Did you get any packing done?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"Um… not really…" I trailed off. Aaron looked at me; that special look that only he could do – a stubborn look telling me that he was disappointed, but at the same time trying not to laugh.
"You do remember that the truck is coming tomorrow, don't you?" he asked, exasperated. I nodded sheepishly.
"Oh, but won't it be fun now? We can do it together!" I gave him a bright smile. Aaron sighed, but then grinned at me.
"Let's put Holly down, first. She looks sleepy, doesn't she?" I glanced down at the baby in my arms. True, she did look tired. Her usually large eyes were already closing, making them seem tiny. "Then we can put some music on and get down to work."
Handing the empty bottle to Aaron, I got up off the couch. I slowly rocked Holly back and forth in my arms as I walked through the kitchen and the hallway to the bedroom. Once there, I turned the lights out and tucked Holly into her crib. With a quick kiss on her forehead, I quietly closed the door and went back into the kitchen.
Aaron was bending over the desk that stood underneath the back windows, next to the door leading into our backyard. He pushed some buttons on our ancient boom box and the sounds of The Rolling Stones filled the room.
For a while, we worked in silence, methodically wrapping small objects found in the many drawers and cubbies in the desk and placing them carefully into a large cardboard box. It was a bit like Christmas. I couldn't wait until we unpacked at our new house; it was going to be fun to open the many 'presents.'
We finished with the desk and moved on to the kitchen. "Well," said Aaron, opening the pantry door and looking inside. "This is going to be a lot of fun." I caught the sarcastic tone and peered around his arm into the dark recesses of the pantry. I couldn't remember the last time I had set foot in there; I always used the spacious cupboards in the kitchen for storage. There were spice jars, both empty and full, spread haphazardly across the shelves and the floor; old paper towel rolls, boxes full some-or-another packaged food; and a few mousetraps.
"Do we have to?" I whined to Aaron.
"Yes," he said firmly. "Otherwise evil-landlord-from-hell will either charge us an extra month's rent for leaving a mess, or sue us. Take your pick."
"Okay, then," I said, resigned to cleaning up the atrocious mess that was our pantry. "Why don't we take everything out and sort through it all?"
"Good idea," he said, and hauled a stack of bruised wholesale boxes from the floor up onto my clean countertops. "We can start with these."
Fifteen minutes later, we had moved everything from the pantry to the main kitchen. We wiped down the shelves and the floor with a dishrag, and set about sorting the eclectic jumble from the pantry. "Do we really need to keep twelve empty spice jars?" Aaron asked, gesturing to the line of jars lined up like soldiers on the counter.
"No," I said, pitching them into the garbage can. "I don't think those were ours anyway. The people who rented this place before us probably left them."
He ignored my comment and continued picking through the pile. "Three boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese?" he asked. "That expired… last October?"
"No," I sighed. And so it went. We ended up keeping only a few items from the pantry, and throwing the rest away. We packed the rest of the utensils from the main kitchen, and then we were done.
We didn't keep anything unpacked; thinking that we could just eat out tomorrow. Our flight was early in the morning on the next day, too, so we could eat at the airport or on our way there.
"Oof," I said as I plopped down in one of the kitchen chairs. I surveyed the room; the only things left were boxes. Then I turned around and glanced around the family room. "Do we have to do that today, too?" I asked Aaron.
He looked over the room. "Well, we can either do it tonight or you can do it yourself tomorrow. Which would you rather?" I sunk my head into my hands. 'No more packing!' I mentally shouted.
"I'll do it tomorrow," I decided. A good night's sleep would help, wouldn't it?
x.x.x
Two days later, Aaron and I stood in line in security at the airport. I balanced Holly on one hip, a thin blanket wrapped loosely around body. Aaron rested on the handle of his carry-on suitcase, looking half-asleep. He had an excuse to be, since we had stayed up late last night, desperately trying to finish packing before the trucks would arrive. And then we had to get up at four in the morning to make it here on time. I sighed; I knew he would immediately fall asleep once we were in the air. I would be stuck trying to entertain Holly the entire ride.
We already had enough trouble with her when we checked our luggage. She was a bit frightened by the change of atmosphere and fussed the whole time we were checking our numerous bags and her brand-new carseat. Luckily, Aaron's sister, Jess, had driven us to the airport (Aaron's car was taken by the movers) and held Holly while we got our luggage and tickets in order.
She settled down once we joined the security line. We waited, half-asleep, until we were close enough to the metal detectors for security guards to come check us for liquids. "Any liquids in your luggage, sir?" The portly guard asked Aaron. "Toothpaste? Deodorant?" Aaron rummaged through one of the suitcases and produced two plastic bags full of our toiletries. The guard checked the bag, nodded and moved on to me. "Any liquids?" he asked.
"Jut a sec," I said hurriedly, slinging my backpack off one shoulder. I had checked my other suitcases, but filled my backpack with juice and milk for Holly. I unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a few bottles of apple juice. "For the baby," I explained to the security guard. He eyed it suspiciously.
"Standard procedures will be taken ma'am," he said. "I need to see the bottles." He unscrewed the lids of each and sniffed the contents. "I need you to take a drink from each one," he instructed. I took a tiny sip from each bottle. He nodded in approval. "Thank you. Now I need to check the rest of the bag." I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I hated the tightened security, even though I knew it was probably saving our country. The guard rummaged through my backpack. "What's this?" he asked, holding up a large plastic bag full of white powder.
"Powdered milk," I said. "Also for the baby," He opened the bag and sniffed, just to make sure. A look of disgust crossed his face, and I hid a grin. Powdered milk smelled awful.
"That will be all, ma'am," he said. "Thank you." He moved down the line, asking other people to show the liquids in their bags. I zipped up my backpack and went back to waiting.
After what seemed like hours, we were at the front of the line. I held my breath as I walked through the metal detectors. Though I had never set one off, I had always been afraid of them. A thought struck me while I waited for Aaron; of course he had set it off… it was just our luck today. But was this the first time Holly had ever flown in a plane? I didn't know; I probably never would.
"Oh, she's so cute!" The comment startled me from my thoughts. I smiled at the security woman who was admiring the bright-eyed Holly.
"Thanks," I replied.
"How old is she?" the woman wondered.
"She'll be seven months in a few days," I was surprised at how easily the lie rolled off my tongue. Though we knew the month Holly was born in, we hadn't decided on a birthdate at all. I glanced over at Aaron and saw that he was being led away from the main security area to be checked more thoroughly. I looked around me some more; trying to find a chair that I could rest in.
"You can wait over here, ma'am," the security lady told me when she saw my searching.
"Oh, thank you!" I gratefully sank into one of the chairs she pointed out. To my surprise, she followed.
"Is your husband that one?" she pointed Aaron out amongst the few other people in the checking area.
I decided that it was just easier to go along than to explain the whole story, "Yes, how'd you know?"
"She looks just like him," the woman responded. Then she was called away to work at another station. Holly had been sitting in my lap, leaning against me. I picked her up and turned her around, so she was sitting on my knees. I surveyed her appearance… she did look a little bit like Aaron and me.
I had never noticed it before, but Holly's soft brown curls were the exact same shade as Aaron's. Her big blue eyes didn't resemble his green ones, of course, but they did look a little bit like mine. And something about her face shape reminded me of Aaron, too. Yes, Holly could pass for our daughter; quite easily, in fact.
The thought reminded me of the paperwork we had postponed. The courts hadn't been happy when we wanted to move out of the state, Holly in tow, but they had allowed it nonetheless. Actually, they had even done more than that when Aaron had argued with them. They had started preparing for the adoption process. It would be more difficult after we moved, but Aaron and I were thrilled that they had accepted our request.
I smiled at the memory, bringing Holly close to my chest. I wrapped the blanket tighter around her and tucked the ends in. I started to rock her back and forth, hoping that she would fall asleep. I had a feeling she wouldn't like the train that would take us to the terminals very much.
Several minutes later, a disgruntled Aaron joined us, bags in tow. "Let's go," he said, picking up our bags. "Let's get the hell out of Dodge before they try to strip-search me!"
"Aaron!" I scolded mildly, stepping onto the escalator. "Language!"
"Sorry, Mother," he grinned. "I'm just not too happy about being given 'special attention.'"
"Obviously," I replied as we arrived at the train station. The train pulled up with a rumble, and the doors whooshed open, expelling throngs of travelers hauling suitcases. I hefted Holly higher on my hip; afraid that her undersize body would we squashed by someone who wasn't paying attention. I was glad that Aaron was carrying all the suitcases, leaving me with only my backpack and my purse. We boarded the train and I immediately sat in one of the flimsy plastic chairs, murmuring reassurances to Holly. She was doing remarkably well in the crowded, noisy environment. We had never taken her to a place with so many people before.
When the train started moving, she shifted in my arms and let out a little whimper. The noise and movement were more than she was used to, especially since she had only ridden in the car a few times. "It's okay," I whispered to her. "We'll be there soon."
x.x.x
We arrived at our terminal with an hour to spare. Aaron wandered over to the nearest Starbucks to buy us breakfast and I fed Holly so I would have less of a hassle when we got on the plane. I filled her sippy cup with water from a nearby drinking fountain and added some apple juice. She took it eagerly. "You were hungry weren't you?" I asked her as she drank. Her blue eyes never left mine over the rim of the plastic cup. "Of course you were," I answered for her. "You always are."
Aaron returned with a tray bearing two steaming venti lattes and a blueberry scone. "You are a god," I told him. "You just saved me from a mortal peril known as starvation."
He laughed. "And you're a goddess. You're saving Holly from starvation." He handed me my drink and my scone. Mmm… I loved Starbucks.
The rest of the time passed slowly, as nothing really happened. Holly kept Aaron and I entertained; as she loved seeing all the people rush past us in the aisles. It seemed that at first, all the people scared her, but now they were some new, grand adventure.
"Rows sixty through forty-five!" the flight attendant yelled. Aaron checked our tickets for the thousandth time.
"Not us," he muttered.
"We're in row twenty-one, Aaron," I replied, clutching Holly to my chest. "You know that." Even though Aaron had offered to hold Holly for a while, I didn't give her up. Though Holly didn't look scared at all to be in this huge, crowded place, I was frightened for her. There were just so many things that a baby could get into… and I knew Aaron thought it was really cute to watch her crawl around on the floor. No way was I letting my baby crawl around on the nasty airport floor.
"Forty-five through thirty!" came the call a couple minutes later.
"We're next," Aaron said, standing up. He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and wheeled the other one near the door to the on-ramp. I followed him, clutching Holly in one arm and my purse in the other.
"Thirty through fifteen!" she finally called. Aaron and I entered the small tunnel that led onto the plane. Oh, how I hated flying. There were just so many things that could go wrong… I realized, at that moment, that when I was a kid I had never hated to fly. In fact, I had relished in the delight of the adventure. Holly. She was the reason I was scared, I realized. I was always so fearful for her… I guess it was just another maternal instinct kicking in.
But Holly wasn't in any danger at all, I told myself. By now we had sat down in our blue diamond-patterned seats and stored all of our carry-ons in the overhead compartment or under the seats in front of us. I battled Aaron for the window seat, and he conceded when I pointed out that Holly might like to look out the window.
"Fine," he pouted, slumping into the middle seat. "I'll just it here for three hours, then."
"Fine by me," I said. Then I turned to Holly. "See the trucks?" I said, pointing out the little window? "Can you say 'truck'?"
"Excuse me," a voice interrupted. "I believe you're in my seat." Aaron and I both looked up to see two well-dressed middle-aged women glaring at us. One of them waved her ticket in Aaron's face. "I'm in seat 21B," she said.
Aaron fumbled for his ticket. "So am I," he said, showing it to her. "There must have been some mistake." He reached up and pressed the button for the flight attendant, and a moment later, a smiling woman in a navy uniform joined us.
"Is there a problem?" she asked.
"Yes," cut in one of the other women, sounding very unhappy. "This man is in my seat."
"I see," said the flight attendant, still smiling. "May I see your ticket please, sir?" Aaron rolled his eyes and gave it to her. She scanned it with a practiced eye. "Well, it seems that you are in the right seat," she said, handing it back to him. "May I see yours please, ma'am?" She looked at the other ticket for a moment and her smile faded. "Oh, dear. It seems that we have a duplicate ticket. If you hold on for just a moment I'll go see if there's an empty seat somewhere."
"There had better be," sniffed the woman.
The flight attendant returned a few moments later. "I checked the record," she said. "There's only one empty seat on the entire flight: 51E."
Aaron and the woman looked at each other, both daring the other to move. "I most certainly will not sit anywhere else," proclaimed the woman. "My ticket says 21B, and that is where I'm going to sit!" Aaron gaped at her disbelievingly. The woman could obviously see that he was with me and – supposedly – his child… Wouldn't anyone in their right mind let him sit with me?
"To hell with it," he muttered under his breath, digging his carry-on from beneath the seat. "I'll move."
"Oh, you're too kind," simpered the woman.
"Thank you so much," chimed in her friend.
Aaron looked at me. "Sorry, Lex," he said. "I'll see you when we land." He strode up the aisle, and I could hear him fuming about rude people coming and taking seats from people with babies, damn it, and why the hell couldn't he sit there since he was there first? Poor Aaron. Not only was he suffering from lack of sleep, but everyone in the airport seemed out to get him.
I tried to smile in a friendly way at the woman who took Aaron's seat, but she was deep in a tirade with her friend about "airlines these days."
I sighed. It was going to be a long flight.
x.x.x
Holly was a little scared during takeoff, but she enjoyed the rest of the flight. When the flight attendants came around with drinks, I ordered her a can of grape juice, which she absolutely loved. She sucked down the entire can from her plastic cup in only minutes, and then screamed and banged the cup against the tray when I had no more to give her. The women next to me glared at her when she let out her favorite word in protest. "Aaa!" she cried.
"No, no," I shushed her. "No making loud noises on the airplane. You're going to disturb people."
"Goo," she said. She banged the cup again, causing the tray to bounce up and down. "Eee!" The woman sitting in Aaron's rightful seat sniffed at Holly. I could have sworn I heard her mutter 'Babies!' in a disapproving tone.
I pressed the button for the flight attendant and asked for several more cans of juice. "She really likes it," I explained to the confused woman bearing the cans. "It may be the only way to keep her quiet."
"But… four cans of juice?" she asked incredulously. "For that tiny baby?"
"You may need to bring her some more," I warned. "You have no idea how much she can drink."
The flight attendant saw the truth to my words when I summoned her half an hour later: Holly had downed the juice and was still demanding more. Unfortunately, she also caught the attention of the two women seated beside me.
"Such a small baby!" one of them said. "How old is she?"
"Seven months," I replied.
"No!" her friend broke in. "She can't be! Was she premature?"
Annoyed with such a rude question, I answered: "No, she's just very small."
"Poor dear," the woman said, reaching out to ruffle the fuzz on Holly's head. "Oh, will you look at those adorable little ears!" to my horror, she pinched Holly's ears between her thumb and forefinger. Why was she touching my baby? I bit back the sarcastic remark that threatened to pop out of my mouth. "Oh, my," she continued. "Wait, are they pointed? Look, Doreen," she said to her friend. "The baby has pointed ears!"
"How odd," commented the other woman. "Wasn't I just telling you the other day how common birth defects are among young mothers? Too many young people going out and making babies these days…"
I slumped back in my seat, furious with whoever had made the mistake of printing the same ticket twice.
x.x.x
As a holiday present, we're giving you this extra-long chapter, and very quickly after the last one, too! Merry Christmas and please review!