A month or so after it happened, I decided to pack up
the crib and the bassinet and strip the pink and green
wallpaper out of the nursery. I wasn't any happier
about it than Janet was, but we had to get on with our
lives, didn't we? It was just too hard, having a room
full of reminders. The baby might as well have been
buried in there. And besides, our cottage only had the
two bedrooms --we needed the space for guests. That's
what I told myself.
Janet stood in the doorway with her arms hanging, not
saying a word, while I packed up the pink blankets,
the disposable diapers, the Vaseline, the stuffed
bear, the pacifier and everything else. I wanted to
sell it--I'd worked nights and weekends sacking
groceries to pay for most of it, and I was reminded of
the balance every month on the credit card bill--but
when I offered Mrs. Browning the stroller and the
changing table, for a very fair price, she came right
out and told me I was awful, that nobody would buy it,
and shouldn't I burn it all anyway, just in case?
People are old-fashioned about these matters, I guess,
but you can't fight them. So I called Goodwill and
they sent over two men in a truck. They wheeled the
boxes out on a dolly and carried the other small
things out while we watched. When they backed out of
the room with the crib between them, Janet grabbed the
rails, crying, crazy with grief.
"Janet, it's just furniture," I said, and pulled her
fingers loose. I held her while the men lugged the
crib outside. They lashed it to the trucked with twine
and a gray tarp, and hauled it all away.
I thought cleaning out the room would be a good thing,
but Janet became more withdrawn. Every morning I
brought her coffee and toast in bed, but she wouldn't
eat. She lost weight until her cheekbones stood out,
knobby and hard, and the skin hung loose and waxy from
her arms. Her eyes pulled back into her head. She
stopped bathing. Her hair hung around her face in
greasy knots. She wouldn't talk. I was worried about
leaving her alone, but it couldn't be helped: I had to
go back to work. We were already under a hill of debt.
Janet's mother was still back in Nova Scotia, not that
she would've been any good to her anyway, with her
diabetes and her oxygen tank, and no one else could
stay with Janet. It had always been just the two of us
before the baby came. But I worried now about how
quiet the house was during the day, and how too much
quiet can turn your mind against you, make you think
every squeak and rattle of a tree rubbing against the
house is something more than it is.
So I bought a dog, a puppy, out of a cardboard box in
the back of a guy's truck by the side of the road. I
hadn't planned to get a dog. I was on my way home from
the grocery store and when I saw the guy in his lawn
chair holding his sign--Puppies $10--I stopped. He
claimed that the puppies--five of them--were purebred
Jack Russell Terriers, but he didn't have any papers.
I didn't care. I stuck my hand in the box and rubbed
them all and pushed them around to see if they were
healthy. One nipped me hard between the thumb and
forefinger, and that's the one I took. I decided I'd
leave the name to Janet. It would be her dog.
I know a puppy can't replace a child. I didn't know
how Janet would react, didn't know if she'd just
ignore it or scream at me or what. It almost seemed
like a miracle when she let the puppy lick her fingers
and then picked it up and held it on her stomach and
stroked its bony little head.
She named the dog Ozzie. Maybe she would've come out
of her funk on her own, but I congratulated myself as
Janet started coming back to life over the next couple
of months. Ozzie wouldn't let her lie in bed. He'd run
yipping around the bedroom, under the bed, over the
bed. He'd grab untucked sheets and blankets in his
teeth and back into the hallway, tugging them to the
floor. Then he'd whip his catch back and forth, as his
ancestors had jerked the bodies of rats to snap their
spines.
Little by little, things seemed to be returning to
normal. Janet still didn't eat in front of
me--stubborn--but I'd find wrappers and cans in the
garbage, find food gone from the fridge. I came home
one day and she'd cut her hair short--easier, I
guessed, than untangling it. Ozzie was a good dog,
housebroken in a week, playful and a licker. He liked
to chew, though; he destroyed a pair of leather work
gloves before I knew it. I learned to keep things out
of his reach.
One bright blue Saturday Janet surprised me by saying
she wanted to go for a ride, to get out of the house.
I packed a lunch and we got in my truck with Ozzie on
the seat between us and set out. For a long time I
just drove, up and down the two-lane roads, miles from
the freeway, enjoying the countryside. The wildflowers
were blooming orange and purple, the grass shone
green, and we rode with the windows down.
After an hour or so of driving and not seeing another
soul, we crested a hill and saw a field full of parked
cars, next to a white church. A crowd milled around
and beneath colorful tents, and a hand-painted sign
told us it was a church bazaar.
"Let's stop and stretch our legs and let Ozzie pee,"
Janet said.
We got out and arched our backs and squinted into the
noon sun. Ozzie raced around the tent, full of
himself. We walked past the tables of baked goods and
crafts, mostly watching the plump old ladies and the
red-faced husbands pick over the offerings and haggle.
At the rear of the tent, we came upon a woman,
somewhat younger than the others, sitting behind a
long folding table on which was arranged a half-dozen
life-sized baby dolls wearing elaborate lacy gowns.
The dolls were made of fabric, rather than the hard
rubber of manufactured dolls, and they seemed to be
very old.
I didn't see the dolls soon enough to steer Janet
away; I watched her carefully, expecting the worst
sort of reaction. But she seemed calm, and approached
the woman behind the table with a smile.
"These are lovely," Janet said.
The woman wore jeans and high leather boots. Her
blonde hair was gathered behind her head in a tight
ponytail. "They belonged to my aunt," she said. "She
made them all herself, years and years ago."
Janet picked up one of the dolls, dressed in a billowy
violet nightgown. She cradled it in her arm, its head
against her bosom. A dull ache filled my chest, but
Janet appraised the doll impassively. Ozzie sat at her
feet with his ears perked.
"Your aunt was quite a seamstress," Janet said.
"She was sort of a spinster, I guess you'd say." The
woman straightened one of the other dolls. "She and
her twin brother lived together all their lives, never
married. Reclusive. She never had children. She used
to say that her dolls were her babies. She would sit
for hours, holding them in her lap, singing lullabies.
'My babies, my babies,' she'd say. It's a shame she
never made more, but after her brother died she
stopped. Lost interest, I guess. I only have these
here, and a couple I sold this morning."
Janet stroked the cheek of the doll in her arms and
said, "How much for this one?"
"Twenty dollars. It's antique. I'm sure you could sell
it for a lot more."
Janet looked at me. "Do you have twenty dollars?"
It was all the money I had, but I paid the woman,
trying to ignore the uneasiness I felt when I looked
at the doll.
When we got home, Janet propped the doll up on the
sofa in the living room, between two pillows. When she
was satisfied with the arrangement, she announced that
she was going out by herself, to the grocery store,
and that she would cook lasagna for dinner. She hadn't
cooked in months. I kissed her and hugged her hard.
"It's just lasagna," she said, but her eyes shone.
She took the truck. I lay down on the bed and drifted
into a dark sleep.
I awoke to a scream that tore my heart out of my
chest, a scream that I'd heard the morning that Janet
had found the baby in her crib, cold and blue. I
staggered from the bed. In my confusion I opened the
door to the nursery, but it was empty. The scream
continued, desolate, a scream of madness. In the
living room I saw Ozzie, contrite, head down,
surrounded by chunks of flesh-colored fabric, wads of
white cotton, and shreds of the doll's violet dress.
Janet stood against the wall, her face a horrified
rictus.
"Janet, Janet, it's just a doll, it's not real, it's
just a doll." I rushed to her, arms out.
She pushed me away and pointed, sinking against the
wall. I looked to the sofa. There sat the doll, the
toothless yellow skull of an infant rising from its
shoulders, its shroud, at last, torn away.
