Nice Big American Baby

Later I wandered up and down the rows of painted white lines in the lot. I had forgotten where she parked the car. When I finally came upon it I saw her there, leaning against the bumper. For a moment I thought she was smoking a cigarette. She didn’t smoke.

When I drew closer I saw that she was nibbling on a pen.

We got in the car and drove home.

All of a sudden I thought of something I wanted to pick up for dinner, she said at one point.

Some fish? I said.

We drove the rest of the way without speaking.

So how did it go today, ladies? my father said that evening.

My mother didn’t say anything.

Did you go with her? he asked me. Yeah, I said.

So, you’ll hear the results in a few days, right? he said, with his hand on my mother’s back.

She looked away.

Right, I said.

She looked at me strangely but said nothing.

I told them not to but they both came to the airport Sunday night when I left.

Call me when you get the news, all right? I said.

All right, she said.

I wanted to ask her about the fish in the toilet, whether it had really been there. Whether she had followed the same route out of the clinic it had. But I couldn’t work myself up to it. And the topic never came up by itself.

We said good-bye at the terminal. My hugs were awkward. I patted their backs as if I were burping babies.

I told them to go home but I knew they would wait in the airport until the plane took off safely. They always did. I think my mother liked to be there in case the plane crashed during takeoff so she could dash onto the runway through the flames and explosions to drag her children from the rubble.

Or maybe they just liked airports. That airport smell.

I had a window seat; I pushed my carry-on under the seat in front. A man in a business suit with a fat red face sat down next to me.

I wondered if my mother even knew what I had done for her. I had helped her escape. Although at the time I hadn’t thought of it that way; I hadn’t really thought at all; I had gone in when I heard my name, automatic schoolgirl obedience, gone in to the bright lights and paper gowns and people who kneaded your breasts like dough. I began to feel beautiful and noble. I felt like I had gone to the guillotine in her place, like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities.

I called Piotr when I got home. I’m back, I said.

Let me come over, he said, I’ll make you breakfast.

It’s seven-thirty at night.

I just got up, he said.

My apartment felt too small and smelled musty. I’d been gone three days but it seemed longer. Piotr came and brought eggs and milk and his own spatula—he knew my kitchen was ill-equipped for anything but sandwiches.

He seemed to have grown, since I last saw him, and gotten more hairy; I looked at the hair on the backs of his hands, and the chest hair tufting out of his T-shirt.

He took up too much space. As he talked his nose and hands popped out at me, huge and distorted, as if I were seeing him through a fish-eye lens. He came close to kiss me and I watched his eyes loom larger and larger and blur out of focus and merge into one big eye over the bridge of his nose.

I was embarrassed. My mouth tasted terrible from the plane.

What kind of pancakes do you want? he asked.

The pancake kind, I said.

He broke two eggs with one hand and the yolks slid out between his fingers.

I can do them shaped like snowmen, he said, or rabbits, or flowers.

He was mixing stuff up in a bowl; flour slopped over the edges and sprinkled on the counter and the floor. I’ll have to clean that up, I thought.

Round ones, please, I said.

There was butter bubbling and crackling in the frying pan. Was that pan mine? No, he must have brought it with him—it was a big heavy skillet, the kind you could kill someone with.

He poured in the batter—it was thick and pale yellow—and the hissing butter shut up for a while. I looked in the pan. There were two large lumpy mounds there, side by side, bubbling inside as if they were alive, turning brown on the edges.

He turned them over and I saw the crispy undersides with patterns on them like the moon; and then he pressed them down with the spatula, pressed them flat and the butter sputtered and hissed.

There was a burning smell.

I’m not feeling very hungry right now, I said.

But I brought maple syrup, he said. It’s from Vermont, I think.

The pan was starting to smoke. Pushing him aside, I took it off the flame and put it in the sink. It was heavy; the two round shapes were now charred and crusted to the bottom.

Well, we don’t have to eat them, he said. He held out the bottle of syrup. Aunt Jemima smiled at me. She looked different. They must have updated her image; new hairstyle, outfit. But that same smile.

There’s lots of stuff we can do with syrup, he said. It’s a very romantic condiment.

He stepped closer and reached out and turned the knob on the halogen lamp. His face looked even more distorted in the dimness.

What? I said. Where did you get such a stupid idea?

Read it somewhere.

I’m sorry, I’m just not feeling very social tonight, I said. Peter, I said.

Oh, come on.