He didn’t buy a breast pump because looking at the pictures made him feel funny, and the YouTube video of a woman hooked up to a double electric pump was something he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. He didn’t buy bottles because they attached to various other pieces of equipment. They weren’t just bottles, they were feeding systems. He eavesdropped on Internet chats among young mothers about the relative merits of Medela and Avent and decided this was one decision he would leave entirely up to Lacey.
He joined a chat on circumcision and found himself arguing, lawyerlike, for both sides. On a chat about postpartum depression, he asked diffidently if there was such a thing as prepartum depression, to which all participants unanimously responded yes and encouraged him to talk with his wife’s OB. Dr. Vlk alarmed him, in much the same way as the breast pumps, but he called her to say he thought Lacey might be depressed.
“Lacey is doing very well,” Dr. Vlk said. “You should come to the next appointment. You need to sign up for a birth class.”
He was startled to realize their due date was that close. Lacey shut down the idea of classes. “Not yet,” she said. “Not till he’s bigger.” Phyllis was right, then—Lacey wouldn’t prepare till she was sure there would be a live baby. He complained on the postpartum depression chat that he felt he was going through pregnancy alone, and the women flamed him so badly for his insensitivity he didn’t dare go back.
He had his purchases delivered to Moranis Miszlak so they wouldn’t upset Lacey. On the Friday after the big rainstorm, with summer’s heat finally broken, Sammie hauled a box in from reception. “More of your loot,” she said. “What’s this?”
“Got to be the bassinet.”
“How come it’s coming here and not to your house?”
He explained Lacey’s odd behavior. Sammie laughed. “My grandma wouldn’t let anybody buy anything for my sister,” she said. “It’s an old-country thing. They think they’re going to jinx the baby. You better quit buying, she’ll want to do it herself.”
“We need the car seat.”
“You’ve got three days after the baby’s born to get the car seat. Listen, your four thirty canceled and I rescheduled your five for Monday. Go home. Try not to buy any diapers on the way.”
Released early, feeling ridiculously free, Eric drove home in daylight for the first time in weeks. He had a boxful of files in the backseat, twenty hours of work for the weekend, but it was only 4:45 and he was home. He sat in the car to admire the house. Lacey had been right about the green door. It welcomed him. Voices came from the backyard, so he walked around the side of the house to see what was going on.
Lacey, looking like a peach in a pale orange dress, was running water into a big plastic tub, while Bibbits chewed the hose and Harry Rakoczy hung around his own back porch, spreading mulch and watching. “Come on, you stinker,” Lacey said. She grabbed the dog and pushed him into the tub, holding him down with one hand while she squirted shampoo on his head.
Ella Dane came out of the house on the wings of her own raised voice. “What are you doing to my dog?”
“He’s filthy. Look at this, his fur’s all matted. Come and hold him while I scrub.”
They hadn’t seen Eric yet, and he hung back, unwilling to get involved with soap and water and matted dog filth in a suit that had to be dry-cleaned. Whatever was going on between Lacey and Ella Dane, he wanted no part of it.
“You haven’t been taking care of him,” Lacey said. This sharp tone surprised him; she’d never spoken to him in that voice.
“Oh, and you know so much about taking care of things. Who’s been washing your dishes and vacuuming your floors and doing your laundry?”
“I was on bed rest. It’s not like I asked you to come here.” Bibbits’s claws slipped on the plastic as he tried to climb out of the tub. Lacey pushed him down and squirted more shampoo over him. She dropped the shampoo bottle and held the dog in the water, working her fingers into the matted fur, scrubbing with both hands.
Lacey must be feeling better. Recovering from sickness always made her angry, and she worked her temper off by cleaning something. He’d learned to stay out of the house on the fifth day after she came down with a cold, so she could have the place to herself, although her furious bleaching usually ruined something, leaving rusty spots on her good black pants, or yellow stains on white Formica. It wasn’t too late to drive back to the office—the women hadn’t seen him yet.
“Let go of my dog!” Ella Dane said. “What’s that stuff you’re putting on him?”