Amphibrach¹

By Laura Nasr

 

In April, when Katie found out she was pregnant, she thought about how it was appropriate that the baby had been conceived around Easter, and wondered if she’d still be able to wear her two piece bathing suit that summer. She’d counted the months till her due date and realized it was four days after Christmas, and they’d decided it had worked out well – Jay’s workplace shut down for the week between Christmas and the New Year. And Jay’s parents could come visit for a week or two to help out.

The baby came early, though. They knew it could happen, that the due date was just an estimate, but three weeks early was a long time. Katie hadn’t finished packing a bag for the hospital, and she and Jay hadn’t yet been able to agree on a name.

Katie had needed to have an epidural. Jay was there the whole time, of course – though he felt alternately superfluous and incompetent – and he thought that he had a slight advantage in terms of choosing a name. He was coherent and not in pain, with nothing to do; he meant to use the hours of labor to make a mental list of possible names. There was only one, though – he could hear it repeat itself in his mind’s voice like a bad song. Medea. He tapped his fingernails against the table once for every syllable. Da-DUM-da. Neither of them knew what it meant, of course.

The morning after the baby had been born, there was a birth certificate to fill out, and they knew they needed to make a decision soon. “Well,” Katie said, “since we don’t have the baby names book, what have you been thinking?”

Jay paused. He wanted to be diplomatic, but he liked his name better than any of the ones Katie had suggested. “I know you said we wanted something that wasn’t ordinary, and I don’t think this one is ordinary.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“Medea.”

“That’s…interesting. Where’s it from?”

“It’s Greek, I think. It’s from a play. It sounds nice, though, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it does. Is it spelled just the way it sounds?”

Jay nodded.

“That’s good, then. And I bet there won’t be three Medeas in her kindergarten class."

***

After coming home from the hospital, Katie never had a chance to consult the baby names book. Jay had brought it to work before the baby was born and it remained, forgotten, in one of his drawers, underneath a yellow notepad he never used.

Jay was only been able to get a week off after the baby was born. It didn’t help that he’d used all of his vacation days earlier in the year. His parents were coming for Christmas. Jay and Katie had moved upstate directly after the wedding, and hadn’t seen his parents since. Jay’s father hadn’t yet retired – though he said often that he meant to do it in five years or so – and three hundred miles each way was a long drive if they were coming just for the weekend.

Katie didn’t think she would have gone to so much trouble if it had been her parents coming. She spoke to them rarely and saw them even less often, but she knew that she wouldn’t have protested when her mother insisted on doing the laundry and washing the dishes by hand and sending her father to the store for groceries and diapers. Depending on how things went, Katie might have said something about the diapers being the wrong brand, but she would have used them anyway.

Katie was sure she couldn’t expect Jay’s parents to help with the housework. She knew his mother hired someone to come in once a week and do all the heavy cleaning. Jay hadn’t been expected to help with the chores when he was growing up, but he had surprised Katie by always doing at least half the housework. He didn’t do as much of it now that Katie was home all the time, and she thought that was fair, but it was hard to keep up with everything sometimes.

Jay had brought home a Christmas tree one evening after work, but they didn’t have any decorations for it. Katie didn’t trust Jay to decorate well, so she left the baby with him for an hour on a Saturday morning and drove to Wal-Mart to buy strings of white and colored lights and boxes of colored balls. Jay untangled the lights and put them on, and Katie hung all the balls, but it looked like they’d borrowed the tree from the lobby of an office. Katie had thought about asking her mother to send a box with some of the ornaments they’d used when she was a child, but she never managed to remember to mention it during the few phone conversations they had after Medea was born. Katie would have called and asked, but she couldn’t remember if California was three hours behind or ahead, and she didn’t want to risk waking her parents over something so trivial.

***

One night, about a week before Christmas, Katie was lying half-asleep in the bed, and Medea was both silent and asleep in her bassinet a few feet away. Jay had told Katie that he was working late, but he had spent the evening wandering around in the mall looking for Christmas presents for his parents and Katie. He was tired. He stepped out of his pants and pulled off his socks and dress shirt and crawled into bed in his boxers and undershirt. He and Katie had been pleased to learn that the baby wouldn’t wake if they whispered to each other in bed.

“You asleep?” he whispered.

Katie mumbled something he couldn’t understand.

“I finally talked to my mom today.” Jay’s mother had been mostly unavailable whenever he had called his parents’ house. They’d spoken briefly after the baby had been born.

Katie’s eyelids fluttered promisingly.

Jay decided to continue. “She told me about the story behind Medea’s name. It’s pretty…interesting. I guess we should’ve looked it up in the baby names book.”

It was clear that Katie was asleep now. Jay thought faintly of imitating Medea’s cries in an effort to wake her up, but of course he couldn’t lie in bed next to his sleeping wife and make noises like a baby whose diaper needed to be changed. He had to finish his soliloquy, though – he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if he didn’t finish their one-sided conversation. “Anyway, it’s kind of crazy, but I don’t think it’s such a big deal. Nobody really pays attention to that kind of thing. She can use her middle name if it bothers her when she’s older.” Medea’s middle name was Katharine, like Katie’s given name.

Katie didn’t stir. Jay rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. He would still hear the baby when she cried, and then he would wake up and start to get out of bed, even though Katie was breastfeeding and there wasn’t much he could do to help. But it comforted him to fall asleep thinking that nothing would wake him.

Jay, of course, was more comfortable with his parents than Katie was, and he thought she was slightly ridiculous to spend so much time cleaning and decorating. Katie didn’t understand how it was possible, but Jay seemed to see no difference between his parents’ large, well-decorated house and their small, poorly lit house. Katie owned decorative soaps and unlit scented candles and guest towels – she’d purchased them using the gift cards they’d received for the wedding – but she’d stashed them on the top shelf of the linen closet, which she couldn’t reach. Three days in a row, Jay came home from work to find a list of things he needed to retrieve from that shelf. Katie meant to ask if the shelf could be lowered so that she could reach it, but the baby started crying and she forgot.

Jay, in any case, had something else he wanted to discuss with her when he returned. “Katie, do you remember what my mother told me about the baby’s name?”

“No. I don’t think you told me anything.”

“No, I’m sure I did. Anyway—” Jay was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. From where they were standing, he and Katie could see the front steps. A man carrying a suitcase and a woman holding an enormous pink gift basket were standing at the door.

“Oh, for God’s sake…” Katie said.

“It’s your parents,” Jay said.

“We’re not really ready for guests.” She walked over to Jay and lowered the baby into his arms, then went to the front door and opened it.

Jay watched Katie step out onto the porch and hug her mother and then her father. It was a surprise visit, they said. They’d found a great deal on plane tickets at the last minute and decided to come out and surprise Katie for Christmas. Jay had stepped away from the door after a moment to keep the baby out of the draft, and eventually everyone followed him into the kitchen. Katie’s mother sat at the table with the baby in her arms with Katie standing at her shoulder.

“Remind me how you spell her name again,” the mother said.

Katie opened her mouth to speak, but Jay spelled it first.

“And what exactly does that mean?” the mother asked.

Katie started to explain the circumstances behind their choice of the name. Jay stood facing her and, when he thought she was looking at him, tried to make eye contact with her. He mouthed “I’ll tell you later” over the mother’s head at Katie, but she had looked down at the baby again and didn’t seem to have noticed him.

 

1. A metrical foot consisting of three syllables, the second of which is stressed.

 

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