Read There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In for Free Online Page B

was scared he’d say she had TB—but no, schizophrenia. Thanks a lot. Alena called from the hospital, her voice weak: the boy was beautiful, she told me; he had curls. (Later I saw those curls—three hairs, the rest of his head smooth and bare, like Chairman Mao’s, his eyes like Mao’s, too.) I told her that in our family all the men and women were beautiful, she and Andrey especially, and then broke into tears. I cry easily—it’s my weakness.
    Together the dud and I went to collect our Precious. The nurse brought him out and placed him in the dud’s arms; I gave her three rubles and managed, in a stroke of luck, to flag down a cab that had just arrived with a mother-to-be. The poor woman could barely move—her water had broken on the way, and the seat was wet and sticky. I should have walked her to the door, but I was so overjoyed at finding a cab that I almost knocked her over, and was rewarded with a filthy seat. I complained to the driver, and he wiped off the mess, cursing his wretched passenger, who was crawling, semiconscious, the baby’s head probably craning between her legs.
    I think of her often. The baby, assuming it survived, is six now, and she must be at least forty. Mothers—a sacred word, yet—when it comes down to it, you’ll have nothing to say to your brats or they to you. Love them—they’ll torture you; don’t love them—they’ll leave you anyway. End of story.
    Sixteen days flew by like a bad dream. Day and night became one. There was constant washing and ironing. My daughter developed cracked nipples, plus constipation, plus mastitis with high fever. Screaming Tima, sick Alena, the shaking dud, and silent me. Imagine: Alena forbade me to touch the baby after I made a simple comment that when I was at the library the dud had again gobbled down all the food. In the morning—surprise, surprise—there was nothing to eat. Why do I have to stuff this throat, too? I appealed to Alena, who was in her warm little room that smelled of milk and fresh diapers, washed by me. My happiness snoozed in the corner. But I was torn to pieces. Andrey was coming home—where would he sleep? What would he eat? How would we manage? I couldn’t sleep and woke up in a cold sweat. And the dud was always hanging around, preparing for his finals, ostensibly. For God’s sake, my darling girl, kick him out! We’ll manage! What do we need him for? To stuff his face with our food? So you could humiliate yourself night after night, begging his forgiveness? But I said only this: “Let him go and make some money. To Siberia, to the Far North, where his daddy had made a living. You are not allowed to sleep with him anyway. I refuse to feed him.” I overheard the dud on the phone whispering about long-term construction jobs in the north.
    “No,” she said. “That’s not happening. He is my husband. Go and write your stupid poetry.”
    “Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe. But it’s how I feed all of you.”
    Our conversations always came down to my poetry, of which she was ashamed. But I had to write or my heart would burst.
    “Anyway. Let him go. Andrey’s coming home. Amnesty’s been declared. I saw the lawyer.”
    “Amnesty doesn’t mean anything. Stop talking about it or you’ll jinx it!”
    “Is that what you’re hoping for? That Andrey won’t come back? He will. And I don’t want him to end up behind bars again, because of the dud!”
    I spoke loudly, counting on the minuscule size of our apartment. The dud, it turned out, was standing right behind me, not saying a word, as usual. A lot of sweat was spilled in those first weeks, but at least I saw him, my Precious, I saw him always and in everything. Even in the dud’s face I learned to see his mouth, his beautiful, wide brow. The dud had emerged from his provinces with those assets, and he put them to good use. Now he is grazing on greener pastures: he married a foreigner, although his salary, judging by Tima’s child support, hasn’t increased