A Dirty Job Chapter 1

This book is dedicated to Patricia Moss, who was as generous in sharing her death as she was in sharing her liveness.ANDTo hospice workers and volunteers all over the world. violate ONETHE SORRY BUSINESSWhat you seek, you shall neer find.For when the Gods made man,They kept immortality for themselves.Fill your belly.Day and night generate merry,Let Days be full of joy.Love the child that holds your hand.Let your wife delight in your embrace.For these alone are the concerns of man. The Epic of Gilgamesh1BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH HE well-disposed STOPPED FOR ME Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might put him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below. Blessed with the Beta Male imagination, he spent much of his conduct squinting into the future so he might spot ways in which the world was conspiring to bolt down him him his wife, Rachel and now, newborn Sophie. But despite his at tention, his paranoia, his ceaseless fretting from the moment Rachel peed a blue stripe on the gestation stick to the time they wheeled her into recovery at St. Francis Memorial, Death slipped in.Shes non breathing, Charlie said.Shes breathing fine, Rachel said, patting the babys punt. Do you deprivation to hold her?Charlie had held baby Sophie for a few seconds earlier in the day, and had handed her quickly to a adjudge insisting that someone more qualified than he do some finger and toe counting. Hed do it twice and kept coming up with twenty-one.They act like thats all there is to it. Like if the electric s put one acrossr has the minimum ten fingers and ten toes its all going to be fine. What if there are extras? Huh? Extra-credit fingers? What if the kid has a tail? (Charlie was sure hed spotted a tail in the six-month sonogram. Umbilical indeed Hed kept a hard copy.)She doesnt have a tail, Mr. Asher, the nurse explained. And its ten and ten, weve all look into. Perhaps you should go home(a) and raise up some rest.Ill still love her, even with her extra finger.Shes perfectly normal.Or toe.We really do exist what were doing, Mr. Asher. Shes a beautiful, healthy baby girl.Or a tail.The nurse sighed. She was short, wide, and had a tattoo of a glide up her right calf that showed through her white nurse stockings. She spent four hours of all(prenominal) work day massaging preemie babies, her hands threaded through ports in a Lucite incubator, like she was handling a hot spark in there. She talked to them, coaxed them, told them how special they were, and felt their hearts fluttering in chests no bigger than a balled-up pair of sweat socks. She cried over every one, and believed that her tears and touch poured a bit of her own life into the tiny bodies, which was just fine with her. She could spare it. She had been a neonatal nurse for twenty years and had never so much as raised her voice to a new father.Theres no goddamn tail, you imbecile Lo ok She pulled down the blanket and aimed baby Sophies bottom at him like she might unleash a fusillade of weapons-grade poopage such as the guileless Beta Male had never seen.Charlie jumped back a lean and nimble thirty, he was then, once he realized that the baby wasnt loaded, he straightened the lapels on his gabardine jacket in a gesture of righteous indignation. You could have removed her tail in the rescue room and wed never know. He didnt know. Hed been asked to leave the delivery room, first by the ob-gyn and finally by Rachel. (Him or me, Rachel said. One of us has to go.)In Rachels room, Charlie said If they removed her tail, I want it. Shell want it when she channels older.Sophie, your Papa isnt really insane. He just hasnt slept for a couple of days.Shes looking at me, Charlie said. Shes looking at me like I blew her college money at the track and now shes going to have to turn tricks to get her MBA.Rachel took his hand. Honey, I dont hold her eyes can even focus th is early, and besides, shes a little young to start worrying almost her turning tricks to get her MFA.MBA, Charlie corrected. They start very young these days. By the time I figure give away how to get to the track, she could be old enough. God, your parents are going to hate me.And that would be different how?New reasons, thats how. forthwith Ive made their granddaughter a shiksa.Shes non a shiksa, Charlie. Weve been through this. Shes my daughter, so shes as Jewish as I am.Charlie went down on one knee next to the bed and took one of Sophies tiny hands mingled with his fingers. Daddys sorry he made you a shiksa. He put his head down, buried his face in the crook where the baby met Rachels side. Rachel traced his hairline with her fingernail, describing a tight U-turn around his narrow forehead.You need to go home and get some sleep.Charlie mumbled something into the covers. When he looked up there were tears in his eyes. She feels warm.She is warm. Shes supposed to be. Its a mammal thing. Goes with the breast-feeding. wherefore are you crying?You guys are so beautiful. He began arranging Rachels dark hair across the breathe, brought a long lock down over Sophies head, and started styling it into a baby hairpiece. It will be okay if she cant stir hair. There was that angry Irish singer who didnt have any hair and she was attractive. If we had her tail we could transplant plugs from that.Charlie Go homeYour parents will blame me. Their bald shiksa granddaughter turning tricks and getting a business breaker point it will be all my fault.Rachel grabbed the buzzer from the blanket and held it up like it was wired to a bomb. Charlie, if you dont go home and get some sleep right now, I swear Ill buzz the nurse and have her throw you out.She sounded stern, alone she was smiling. Charlie liked looking at her smile, always had it felt like approval and license at the same time. Permission to be Charlie Asher.Okay, Ill go. He reached to feel her forehead. D o you have a febricity? You look tired.I just gave birth, you squirrelIm just concerned most you. He was not a squirrel. She was blaming him for Sophies tail, thats wherefore shed said squirrel, and not doofus like everyone else.Sweetie, go. Now. So I can get some rest.Charlie fluffed her pillows, checked her water pitcher, tucked in the blankets, kissed her forehead, kissed the babys head, fluffed the baby, then started to rearrange the flowers that his mother had sent, moving the big stargazer lily in the front, accenting it with a spray of babys breath CharlieIm going. Jeez. He checked the room, one last time, then plunk for toward the penetration.Can I bring you anything from home?Ill be fine. The ready kit you packed covered everything, I think. In fact, I may not even need the fire extinguisher.Better to have it and not need it, than to need it Go Ill get some rest, the doctor will check Sophie out, and well take her home in the morning.That seems soon.Its standard.Shoul d I bring more propane for the camp stove?Well try to make it last.But Rachel held up the buzzer, as if her demands were not met, the consequences could be dire. Love you, she said.Love you, too, Charlie said. Both of you.Bye, Daddy. Rachel puppeted Sophies little hand in a wave.Charlie felt a lump rising in his throat. No one had ever called him Daddy before, not even a puppet. (He had once asked Rachel, Whos your daddy? during sex, to which she had replied, Saul Goldstein, thus rendering him impotent for a hebdomad and raising all kinds of issues that he didnt really like to think about.)He backed out of the room, palming the door shut as he went, then headed down the hall and past the desk where the neonatal nurse with the snake tattoo gave him a sideways smile as he went by.Charlie drove a six-year-old minivan that hed inherited from his father, along with the thrift store and the building that housed it. The minivan always smelled faintly of dust, mothballs, and body odor, des pite a forest of smell-good Christmas trees that Charlie had hung from every hook, knob, and protrusion. He exposed the car door and the odor of the unwanted the wares of the thrift-store owner washed over him. earlier he even had the key in the ignition, he noticed the Sarah McLachlan CD lying on the passenger seat. Well, Rachel was going to miss that. It was her favorite CD and there she was, recovering without it, and he could not have that. Charlie grabbed the CD, locked the van, and headed back up to Rachels room.To his relief, the nurse had stepped away from the desk so he didnt have to endure her frosty stare of accusation, or what he guessed would be her frosty stare of accusation. Hed mentally prepared a short speech about how being a good husband and father included anticipating the wants and needs of his wife and that included take her music well, he could use the speech on the way out if she gave him the frosty stare.He opened the door to Rachels room slowly so as not to startle her anticipating her warm smile of disapproval, but instead she appeared to be asleep and there was a very tall black man dolled up in dope green standing next to her bed.What are you doing here?The man in mint green turned, startled. You can see me? He gestured to his chocolate-brown tie, and Charlie was reminded, just for a second, of those thin mints they put on the pillow in nicer hotels.Of course I can see you. What are you doing here?Charlie moved to Rachels bedside, putting himself among the stranger and his family. pander Sophie seemed fascinated by the tall black man.This is not good, said Mint Green.Youre in the wrong room, Charlie said. You get out of here. Charlie reached behind and patted Rachels hand.This is really, really not good.Sir, my wife is trying to sleep and youre in the wrong room. Now please go before Shes not sleeping, said Mint Green. His voice was soft, and a little Southern. Im sorry.Charlie turned to look down at Rachel, expecting t o see her smile, hear her tell him to calm down, but her eyes were closed and her head had lolled off the pillow.Honey? Charlie dropped the CD he was carrying and shook her gently. Honey?Baby Sophie began to cry. Charlie felt Rachels forehead, took her by the shoulders, and shook her. Honey, wake up. Rachel. He put his ear to her heart and heard nothing. nurseCharlie scrambled across the bed to grab the buzzer that had slipped from Rachels hand and lay on the blanket. Nurse He pounded the button and turned to look at the man in mint green. What happenedHe was gone.Charlie ran into the hall, but no one was out there. NurseTwenty seconds later the nurse with the snake tattoo arrived, followed in another(prenominal) thirty seconds by a resuscitation team with a crash cart.There was nothing they could do.