Papa's Gone a-Hunting

Madeleine E.Robins

Rhythm builds in the wheel’s spin; my foot taps absently.Trochaic tetrameter, 4/4: How many miles toBabylon? Threescore miles and ten, sir. Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, ifyour legs are long and light. There and back again, sir. The clay iscentered. I dip my fingers in water again and begin, pressing my thumbs upward,drawing the clay up slowly until it blossoms into a bowl. Two wet fingers intothe center, smoothing the inside of the shape. The wheel’s motor purrsgutturally, like a cat: Bye, baby bunting, Papa’sgone a-hunting. To get a little rabbit skin to wrap his precious baby in.Now draw the clay up to a neck; the bowl becomes a vase. Let the top blossomoutward again; raw edges of clay spread like an open hand, ready to cradleflowers.

I hit the switch and the wheel spins to a stop. Now thefinishing work, trimming edges, shaping one drooping petal of the vase’s lip,smoothing the rounded base. Karen says vases are womb-structures; damnedFreudians see sec in everything. Finally, cutting the vase from the wheel, wirebiting through the wet heaviness of clay. I move the vase to a drying rack ascarefully as if I were carrying a day-old child.

Magee is gone for the day; he left the radio playing. As Ireach for a sponge the news starts. Continued turmoil in the Mideast; animprovement of the dollar abroad; terrorist attack on the plankton farms in theGulf of Mexico; new data from the Valkyrie IVMars mission.

“Hello, Tom,” I say by habit. Howmany miles to Babylon?

The studio floor is dappled with the peach-colored light oflate afternoon. Time to go home; tomorrow is Friday. I clean my tools, put themwith the smock in my locker, pull out my jacket and bag. The studio cat, whichhas routes of entrance and egress unknown to the rest of us, yawns at my going.Magee must have fed him earlier. A last look behind me: already the new vase isdrying to the ashy white of unfired porcelain. Snap off the radio and thelights; fish through my bag for the keys; lock the door. Drive home.

Instructions for a quiet life.

Friday. A postcard morning that defines October: blue andred-gold and clear. The sun is warm on my face when I leave our apartment, butthe wind snaps at my jaw, a warning not to get too complacent. For a while Isaw Karen on Fridays, but it got to be too much, to go from the CommunicationsCenter straight to therapy. Just talking to Tom is upheaval enough withouttaking the feelings apart and examining them. Now Friday is just the day I talkto Tom.

There’s no reason to talk on Fridays, particularly, but NASAprefers these weekly, scheduled calls. With exceptions: birthdays, holidays,emergencies. So every Friday I sit in this little room whose privacy is anillusion (NASA and half the world monitor the link with Valkyrie constantly), and through signal breakupsand endless transmission delays I hear Tom’s sweet, distant voice.

“Janie?”

“Who else?” The awkward exchanges of two people, X-millionmiles apart, trying to assuage a world of longing. “What’s new up there?”

He tells me about the readings. I tell him about my pots,the show I’m in, the commissions I’m getting. I tell him I love him. He says heloves me too. We are funny, very casual, very stiff-upper-lip, and sign off aswe always do. Tom says: “Four hundred twenty-three days down.” I calculaterapidly and answer “Three hundred twenty-four days left.” Less than a year togo.

When the red eye above the camera dims and Tom goes back towork, I sit in the little room for a moment, holding on to the sound of hisvoice. Then out, smiling automatically at the receptionist.

Go to a movie. Take a drive. When I did see Karen on Fridaysat least it filled up the afternoon. I can’t work on Fridays: my mind is lostin the stars; my hands are not steady. So I drive through town. Stopped at atraffic light that lasts forever, there are a woman and infant in the next car,the baby strapped into a car seat. He waves his arms orchestrally, directingthe traffic sounds like his mother stares impatiently at the line of cars infront of her. After a moment (the little boy’s hair is blond, backlit by a haloof sunshine) I look away, too. Fridays are not easy.

“Fridays suck,” I murmur. The light changes. The car pullsaway, the little boy is lost to me. Behind me someone leans on the horn and Iblink and put my foot on the accelerator and am in motion again, drivingaimlessly for hours, out of the city into the hills and back again, a long,lovely, mindless drive. I turn only when the growling of my stomach reminds methat I am hungry and there is nothing to eat at the apartment. The streets areblue with approaching dusk by the time I near the supermarket.

I shop for one, wondering what Tom will have for dinnertonight. In the aisle where they keep baby food I make selections in my head,imagining jars and packets. Davy would have half a dozen teeth won throughfretting and sleepless nights, the apartment littered with teething rings andtoys. Peas, pears, strained beef and arrowroot biscuits. I imagine my lost boywatching wide-eyed as I buy his supper, gurgling at the black woman in theyellow coat who stares at me staring at the toddler’s meals.

The drive home is short. At the door I balance three bags ofgroceries as I grope for my house key one-handed; the seam of one plasticgrocery sack is beginning to give way. All in a rush, the door is open and Irun in, dropping pens and scraps of paper from my open purse, and shove twogrocery bags onto the counter. There is no room there for the third, which Idump on the sofa until I can retrieve my keys from the door and pick up thetrail of small things seeded in the carpet.

It is only when I turn around that I see my baby nestlinginto the cushions of the sofa. He is reaching for a can of juice that hasrolled away from him. He has my dark hair and his father’s deep blue eyes, andhis fingers, even or a child of eleven months, are long and sensitive. Hesmiles and laughs and reaches again, and I can’t help but laugh, too, whileterror turns my stomach to water. In all these months of pretending I havenever seen him before. I close my eyes to stop the tears, and when I open themagain there is a bag of groceries on the sofa with one long can of juicerolling off the edge to fall without a sound into the carpet.

No baby.

oOo

In the bathroom I splash icy water on my face, trying toremember the urgency of defrosting food, a leaking milk carton. My reflectionin the mirror is haggard. Haunted. Only to be expected when you have seen aghost. Now when I look down at my hands as I wash them, I see Davy’s longfingers reaching for that damned can of juice. I amcoming unglued; I’ve been playing this dangerous game for too long.

I look past my reflection in the mirror as if my voice couldtravel through it. I cry, “Tommy,” knowing he cannot help me: my husband issomewhere between Mars and the orbits of LaGrange. He was gone when Imiscarried, and in all our Fridays together, all our talks, I have never toldhim about Davy, the son I’ve carried and nursed and sung to, the fantasy. Iknow it’s a fantasy; I’m not crazy. I just needed something to hold on to for awhile, when it happened. Then it became a habit, a comfortable game. I knew itwas pretend; I’ve known all along that it was just pretend. Until tonight.

I am afraid to go back in the living room. He might bethere. Or he might not. I could not say which scares me fore. Finally, though,I do go back, and there is only the mess I left: ice cream and a spill of milkon the counter, the contents of my purse littering the floor. I pick it all up,put it all away, forcing myself to look at the couch as I do; there is no babythere. When I am done, I make myself a very stiff drink and retreat to thebedroom, where there’s no haunting yet, and for the rest of the night I amentirely alone, no visitation except a phantom scent of talcum powder.

oOo

In the morning, Saturday, I rationalize. Nerves. I wastired. It was Friday. I go to the studio as early as I can, but Magee is therebefore me, his graying hair already grayer with the thick dust of the clay he’sworking. He greets me from his concentration with a grunt; his eyes never leavethe wheel. I get out my smock, tie my hair back, inspect Thursday’s work andfind it good. Then, with a mass of clay in one hand, I go to the wedging board.The studio cat rubs his jaw along my heel, marking me as his. Mozart’sThirty-ninth Symphony plays in the sunlit room; except for the radio there isno living sound, from Magee, the cat, or me.

I lose track of time when I am working. The clay is wedged,settled onto the wheel, and I envision what I want of it. A shallow bowl,almost a platter, with one elongated side that I will glaze a clear gold. Theimage in my head is beautiful. A healthy image, I think. Immediately I knowwhat an unhealthy image is, and there he is in my head, the blue-eyed baby. Ican almost see him settled in a playpen in the corner, where I have imaginedhim often enough before. Only almost seehim, I remind myself. It’s just a game.

“Jane, you OK?”

I jump guiltily. Magee’s voice is a raspy tenor, like aflute with sand in it, and in the stillness it is startling. “Fine,” I say. Myvoice is a squeak to my ears.

“You look shitty,” he says factually. “You eating OK?”

“Yeah.” Thank God he doesn’t ask how I am sleeping.

“Any new word from the Astronaut?” Magee has turned off hiswheel and is watching me. “Tom doing OK?”

“Says so,” I say. I have known Magee for years—we have beenteacher, companion, friend to each other, but the renegade Magee sees nothingto my husband but his uniform In turn, Tom regards Magee as a shaggy, shambling,middle-aged kid; one of Jane’s strays. Magee calls Tom the Astronaut and eyesme with edgy protectiveness.

He is still watching me. His eyes are dark and fringed withlong, dusty lashes. I will not see the baby’s face again, I insist to myself. Iam not crazy. Something must flicker across my face: “C’mon, Janie, what’sgoing on?” Magee asks.

“Nothing.” My voice is too loud. “Nothing, Magee. Just alittle tired. I get a little tired, that’s all.”

“Bullshit. There’s tired and there’s looking like you’reseeing ghosts.” He turns back to his wheel, looks at the bowl growing there asif it were an alien artifact, throws a wet cloth over it, and stands up. “Dropthe clay and have some coffee,” he orders quietly.

We drink coffee from plastic mugs, make patchy conversation,keeping it light for a while. Until finally Magee asks, “What’s eating at you?”

“Nothing’s eating at me,” I say coldly, knowing he won’tbelieve me. Magee has a trick of knowing my internal temperature, as Tom does.But Tommy and I have a pact to ignore the fevers—with the distance between us,what else can we do? Magee doesn’t believe in that kind of tact; he wantseverything ripped open to light and air.

“Right,” he says. “Ever since your miscarriage you’ve beentightening in on yourself, like no one can touch you.”

“Magee, I miss my husband. I’m entitled.That has nothing to do with the—with the miscarriage.” As I say the words Iremember the baby on my couch last night, the scent of him on the air. Ishiver. “I’m OK.”

“Right. Have you talked to him about it?”

“About what?” I stonewall, wondering if the whole world cansee the craziness that suddenly seems to well up in me. “We talked yesterday;I’m fine, he’s fine. Lay off, will you?” I twist away from the gray regard ofMagee’s eyes that doubt and love at the same time. With my back to him, I hearMagee mutter something but don’t catch the words. “What?” I ask, and turn backto him.

“You’re filling the studio with weird vibes, You’re scaredabout something, and it’s driving me crazy.Will you for Christ’s sake talk to me?”

From somewhere far off, I hear my voice, thin and high,panicky. “Dammit, Magee, back off. I’m fine.” I repeat it over and over: I’mfine, as he gathers me up in a strong, dusty hug and lets me cry. His workshirt with its permanent patina of clay dust is smooth against my forehead.

At last am done with crying, and he says again, “Talk to me,Janie.” His heart beats with a steady rhythm under my cheek: Bye, baby bunting, Papa’s gone a-hunting...andacross the room my baby sits on the floor, smiling a clear-eyed smile likeTom’s, watching his mother.

“No!” I push Magee away so hard he falls against a table.Dimly, as I watch the baby waving to me from the playpen in the corner, I knowMagee has followed my gaze, trying to see what I see. I ignore him. I take astep toward the playpen; if I reach for the child, surely he will be there,warm and sweet and wriggling. “Baby?” I whisper.

“Janie.” Magee’s voice pulls me away from the hallucination.In a moment there is no playpen, no blue-eyed baby, jus the corner of thestudio with dust motes swimming in the midday sunlight. Magee drags me out ofthe studio, out into the parking lot where everything is breeze and brightlight. His hand on my arm is strong but tentative, as if he is not sure what heholds; under the brush of gray brows, his eyes are worried. For a while we siton the low fender of his old red sports car. “Was it Tom you saw?” he asks atlast.

“Not Tommy,” I say. It’s a relief to tell someone. “Mybaby.”

Magee sags, head in his hands, not looking at me at all.

oOo

For almost an hour we stand in clear, chilly sunlight; Mageekeeps his distance as if afraid to touch me, and I shiver in the breeze as Iexplain it to him. How I began, lying muzzy and unnaturally cheerful in ahospital bed with the slow drip of drugs and blood in my arm. Wondering: Wouldthe baby have been a boy or girl? With Tom’s coloring or mine? What would wehave named it? Imagining the expression on Tommy’s face when he came home togreet his child. Just a game, harmless, to make the losses easier; imaginingbaby clothes, baby food, toys, games. Finally I come to last night, tasting theblend of panic and longing that has become familiar to me in the telling.

“He was just there.Watching me. The way he was in the studio just now.” I stutter over a laugh.“Like my grandmother used to say: out of the everywhere into the here.” Magee’slook is blank. “When I asked her where babies came from, Gran told me that theycame out of the everywhere into the here. Like swarms of free-floating moleculescoalescing into a baby.” I giggle stupidly.

Magee looks at me. “Janie, you have to stop it.”

“I know.” I do know. “But—“

For the first time, Magee turns fully to me, grabs meungently by the shoulders. “He’s not real.”His eyes fix mine with hot intensity; he is afraid enough to be angry, angryenough to be afraid. “You have to stop.” Promises rise to my lips. I’ll stopbefore Tommy gets home; I’ll stop next month after Davy’s first birthday; I’llstop, I promise... The flash of panic that wells up in me is so sudden, sosharp, that I say the thing that really scares me.

“I can’t lose him again.”

He grimaces. “Jesus, Janie. What does your shrink say aboutall this?”

“Karen doesn’t know about it,” I say sulkily. Magee saysnothing, just looks at me gravely until I shrug. “It started out like a game. Ineeded something.”

“You never told her anything about your little game?”

“Dammit, Magee, what was I supposed to say? Oh, yeah, Karen:I’ve been pretending I had the baby for months now; I just didn’t want tobother you.... I don’t need Karen. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Magee’s gentle eyes and voice are inexorable. “Now, Janie.” I look at my old friend and see hisdetermination and know, know, that he is right. For a moment, Magee becomes myenemy. Looking at his eyes, I feel as if I were journeying through my need andhis sympathy, through his love and my fear, until I arrive at the absolutenecessity to destroy this ghost.

“Now,” I echo.

oOo

For days I am good. Each time I think of the baby, I remindmyself: There is no baby. When I murmur Davyunder my breath, I counter: There is no Davy. As the fantasy was built, it canbe unbuilt. It’s not so difficult.

Still, I must seem different somehow. On Monday in therapy,Karen waits, patiently, fruitlessly, for me to tell her about the thing that isweighing on me. On Friday, Tom’s grainy image on the video asks if I have beeneating well. “You look too thin, baby. You OK?” Tommy speaks awkwardly; thepowerlessness in his voice when he worries about me hurts, and I rush to tellhim I am fine; all is well.

Magee watches me.

“I’m all right,” I tell him. “I’m doing what you said. I’mstopping. No daydreams, no browsing in the baby food section. Relax, Magee. Youwere right. I’m stopping.”

Still he watches me. Every day in the studio he worries hisclay, building and tearing down pots and vases, his concentration broken up.All right, his problem.

Another week. I go to movies, to a party thrown by one ofthe other Valkyrie wives, try to avoid thedangerous silence of my apartment. I turn away from dangerous thoughts with theself-righteous virtue of a reformed addict. I am good, so good. And somehowFriday comes around again. In the cubicle, hemmed in by gray carpetedparticleboard, I smile at the red eye of the camera and see Tom’s face in themonitor.

“Hey, schweethaht.” I roll my eyes at his bad Bogart andstart reporting the events of my week. Somewhere between dinner at SueGhiadelli’s and the film that I saw last night, I hear myself saying: “Tommy,do you ever think about the baby?”

Someone else is moving my lips, making these sounds. Notonce in more than a year have I ever brought Tom into the game. Now I amhorrified to hear myself prattling to him: Would it have been a boy, his eyes,my smile. How old when he sat up, began to crawl, took a step. The powderybaby-smell of him, his first word, the feathery softness of his hair...

“Janie, hey—” Tommy breaks in. “God, sweetheart, I know howit hurt you to lose the baby; it hurts me, too. I hate being so far away fromyou—”

The voice that isn’t mine tumbles over his, cuts him off.“I’m just saying, do you think—“ The voice gives away all my secrets. Somewhereinside I am howling: Shut up! But my lipskeep moving, and the words keep tumbling out.

“Stop it—” Tom, foiled by the distance and transmission lag,looks helpless; on the monitor screen, one hand reaches futilely to draw meacross the miles. “Dammit, Janie, I can’t do anything. When I’m home, we’llhave time; I promise you—” He is so helpless, as bad as a baby. Something aboutthe low-pitched frustration in his tone stops the voice at last.

“I’m sorry,” I finish lamely. “I guess — I was just thinkingabout some of this stuff the other day.”

“Don’t,” he advises curtly. Then, more gently, “Janie, don’tdo this to yourself. Talk to someone, will you? And when I get home, we’ll tryagain; I won’t be so far away. OK? Please?”

“I’m sorry. I’m OK. Don’t worry.” The silence between us,stretched by transmission delays, seems an hour long. I smile: “I’m all right,Major. No lie.”

“OK, then.” In response to a signal off-camera, he nods. “Dammit.Look, they need me. I have to—love you—” He looks away from the screen again.

“Hey, Tommy.” Superstitiously, I call him back. “Threehundred ten days to go.”

After a pause he turns back, his attention already somewhereelse. “Right. Four hundred thirty-seven gone. See you soon.”

“I love you,” I say, as the red eye dims.

oOo

My driving is aimless without the satisfaction of beingnumbing. I can’t turn off my mind, and what I keep thinking of is the baby, andthe scene with Tommy. This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

It’s dusk when I pull into the parking lot at the studio.Magee’s car is still there, and the light throws a warm stripe on the pavement.I enter the studio quietly, not to work, but just to be around a friend, to seework being done. When I look at Magee’s drying rack, I realize he has had agood day indeed: three new pieces stand there. He is hunched over a fourth onhis wheel, breaking the bad streak of the past week or so with a vengeance.Sometimes the work goes like that. Without saying anything I perch on a stoolnear the sink and watch. He’s doing something fine and finicky; from behind,his back is tense; his elbows describe small circles as he works.

At last he gives a snort of disgust and tears down the pot,throwing chunks of torn clay into the bin. “Dammit, dammit,” he mutters. Thenturns his face to me, roaring. “You couldn’t allow me one goddamned day to getsome work done?” His wiry eyebrows and beard make a fierce gray frame for hisanger. “Dammit, Janie, you drag that kid with you wherever you go; and whenit’s here I can’t fucking work.”

Can’t work. Magee’s eyesare desperate; his anger has the primitive savagery of a man seized from hislover in mid-thrust. “Oh, God, Magee,” I say, appalled. Can’t work. “Magee, I’m sorry.” I back away fromhis anger. He is the best friend I have on earth, and he’s breaking under theweight of my dream. Everyone has such different needs: Tommy needs the stars;Magee, an unclouded place to work. Janie, her son, work, husband, friend.

Magee stands and watches me, fury ebbing. He is pantinglightly, and his face has gone pale with the release of his anger. Who reachesout first, I can’t tell. We are holding each other and shaking, gasping forair.

I realize what I have come to say. “Help me.”

oOo

 “What we have to do,” Magee says solemnly, “is make magic.”We are in Magee’s apartment, ten minutes drive from the studio, eating supper.He leans earnestly over the table so that the steam rising from his chili—piledwith cheese, onions, jalapeños—catches the light in his beard. “Magic,” he saysagain. “Ritual. The psychotherapy of the ancients.”

“Ritual.” I take a bite of my chili. “You have anything inmind?”

“I just had an idea. Let me think a minute.” He turns in hisseat and starts to look through the books on the shelf behind him. Staring athis back I think: I don’t want the situation analyzed; I want to be left alonewith my baby. I can feel muscles tighten as this mulishness plays over my face.I don’t care. I just don’t. To hell with Magee and Tommy. I want my baby.

“Janie?” I look up and Magee is handing me a small stack ofbooks. The Golden Bough; The Way of the Sufi, various Casteneda and moreobscure books on mysticism and the occult. “Start with exorcisms.”

“Davy’s not some kind of incubus.”

Magee, book in his left hand and spoon in his right, shakeshis head. “What is he, then?” We read.

I wake in the morning on Magee’s couch, my head uncomfortablypillowed on The Golden Bough. The lightsare still on, and Magee is asleep on his back on the floor; his mouth is openand each thumb marks his place in a book by his side. I hop over him, rattle inthe kitchen until I find the coffee and pot and a cache of sticky breakfastrolls. The smell wakes Magee; he shuffles into the kitchen, leading with hisnose, and myopically pours himself a cup of coffee. "Ummmghh.” He waveshis cup at me in acknowledgment.

“Thank you. Good morning,” I say.

“Ugghmm.” He takes another sip. “Did we find anything lastnight?”

“Lists of stuff. Last thing I remember was you talking aboutthe Sufis...” Through the kitchen door I can see papers and books piled on thetable in the living room. “Something about a doll, or a bowl, or something.”

“Right! Kachina dolls,” Magee agrees. “Boats. Vessels to putspirits in. The somebody-or-others of Malaysia trick smallpox into a boat, andthen send it downriver to some other tribe—”

I don’t believe this. “Magee, what am I going to do? Go downto the waterfront and hire a rowboat? Maybe you should talk to Karen—”

“Dammit, Janie, you want to go to your shrink with this—youcould have done that months ago.” He takes another long swallow of coffee andconsiders. “Look, give me thirty-six hours.”

“And then do what? Go to the attorney general with what Iknow? What are you thinking of, Magee?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll tell you tomorrow around—” hechecks his watch—”around 9:00 PM, in the studio. Meet me there.” My expressionmust be more irritated than I realize, for Magee comes to me, puts his bighands on my shoulders, and looks at me hard. “Janie, if we can’t lay this ghostof yours to rest my way, I’ll drive you to your shrink. I’ll make you go.” Heshakes me gently. “Go home and sleep or something. Read a book. But meet metomorrow night at the studio. OK?”

When I get to the studio it’s dark, filled with blue shadowsthat dance like ghosts. Magee has left only one light on, and he sits acrossthe room in the dark, arms crossed, slumped with his head on his chest. When Isnap the lights on and the ghosts disappear, Magee straightens up like a shot.“It’s done,” he says quietly.

“What’s done?”

He gestures toward the table, where a new pot stands. It isshort and rounded—chubby—with a beauty that is potent and slightly comical. Thelid stands next to it and I can see how it will complete the pot’s soft curve.I walk around the table, admiring the soft matte glow of the porcelain. Evenunglazed and unfired, it’s a handsome thing. Magee has laid in a design incolored clay, an earthy red figure that looks like a character in Chinese orJapanese. “Magee, it’s beautiful. Is that what you’ve been working on?” Henods. I wonder what this had to do with Davy, and hope he won’t tell me, but hedoes.

“It’s to put the baby in,” he says.

Oh my God. “It’s beautiful,” I say again. “But what are youtalking about?”

“The ritual I was talking about. You need to lay that wholefantasy to rest, and I wanted to give you a concrete, beautiful place to putit.” Magee comes to stand beside me. In the cool of the studio, he feels likethe only source of heat in the world. I should say something appreciative—thepot is exquisite. I say, “You’re nuts. It won’t work.”

“Try,” he coaxes.

I would turn away, but something in his voice, and the sightof his beautiful work, stops me. I start to shrug out of my denim jacket. I owehim something. Besides, it can’t work. “What do you want me to do?"

Magee takes the jacket, kneads briefly at my neck. “You haveto make up a ritual that will work for you. Look at the pot; think about—uhh,it. Him. Davy.”

“Dammit, Magee, if I think about Davy, I won’t go throughwith this stupid—” Suddenly this dumb idea scares me, as if it might have achance.

“Stop it, Janie. Close your eyes. Put your hands down atyour sides. Breathe, very slowly. Yeah. Now think. About, uh, Davy. Fillyourself up with your feelings about Davy. We want this pot to be Davy, to be aplace that will hold everything you made Davy.” His raspy flute voice is lowand persuasive. Distantly I am surprised at how he has relaxed me, taken myguard away. Obeying Magee’s words, I fill myself with Davy’s clean sweetness,his smile, his quick, merry look. When Magee stops talking, I stand for amoment more. Then, without planning, I step to the table and run my fingersover the pot, learning its gracious curves that are as rounded as a baby’s. Ican feel Magee move away behind me as I stroke the cool smoothness of theporcelain. It is soft: I think of Davy’s skin, of his hands reaching out to me,of what his weight and volume and solidity would feel like. Something brushesmy ankle; I look down expecting to see the studio cat watching me hungrily.

What I see is my son smiling up at me. It is his hand on myankle, his fingers scrabbling, touching me. I can feel him. It was allmake-believe, wasn’t it? But I swear I can feel my son’s breath on my leg. Thepanic and joy that fills me are explosive: either I am completely crazy, or mybaby is real and no one, not Tommy or Magee or Karen or anyone, can deny him.

Davy grins, grasps the knee of my pants, and hauls himselfto his feet hand over hand, gurgling and smiling. He teeters back and forthtrying to find his balance, grinning all the while, and just as he is about totumble forward, I swoop down and pull him into my arms. He is warm and heavy;he smells of powder and apple juice, and his skin is the softest thing I haveever touched. “Such a big boy,” I murmur singsong into Davy’s neck. My breathruffles his downy hair.

Behind me, I hear a low exhalation. “Jesus...”

I turn and say, “Look,” before I see the terror on Magee’sface. “No, Magee, it’s OK, really. Here—“ I take Davy’s hand and reach it outto him. “Feel him! He is real; we werewrong. See?”

“Janie.” Magee pulls back sharply. “Stop it.” He sees; Iknow it. I try one more time. “Magee!” Reaching for him with my hand andDavy’s. Magee leans away from us, terrified, refusing to understand. All right,then. “Then leave us alone,” I say, and turn my back, rubbing my cheek againstthe top of Davy’s head.

“Janie, please don’t do this. Turn around. Janie. It isn’treally there; I don’t care what you see or what I see.”

Unbidden, I think of Tommy’s grainy, broken image on thescreen at the center, his smile. I close my eyes, but the image remains.

Magee presses his advantage. “Tom needs you, Janie. I—Janie,you’re a good potter. You’re my friend. I love you.” The last words arewhispered. “Don’t let this thing get you.”

It’s dangerous to hear this. I try one more time to make himunderstand. “Magee, hold him; feel how real he is. If you can do that, thentell me what to do. Then I’ll listen.”

Magee slumps against the cabinet; his face is white. For amoment I think I have won, then he turns his arms out. “OK, he whispers. “I’lldo it.” His hands tremble, and he watches my face as I unclasp Davy’s arms fromaround my neck. Carefully I had my son into my friend’s arms. Magee’sawkwardness would be comical if the fear that comes from him were not sooverwhelming. Davy nestles to Magee’s chest, and his searching fingers tanglein Magee’s beard. Magee grimaces at the tug.

“Well, Magee?”

He looks down at my baby in his arms. There are tears in hiseyes. “You have to,” he whispers at last. “You know you do.” He does not lookdown at my son again, but he is gentle when he pulls Davy’s hand away from hisbeard and hands him back to me. Magee stares at his hands, large and gnarled,filthy with clay dust and dried slip, trembling violently. I have seen thosehands, steady and certain, pull the most beautiful shapes from raw clay. With asigh, Davy settles in my arms, head pressed to my heart.

I look back up at Magee as he takes a step backward, thenanother, still staring at his hands. Halfway across the room, Magee turns andruns out with a low sound. I start after him, but with Davy’s cool weight in myarms, I’m too slow.

The baby’s arms twine around my neck as I look down at thepot Magee made for him. Gently, I pull his fingers from my neck and sit himdown on the counter next to the pot. “Stay still,” I tell him. “Be good forMama.” I turn to call my friend back, but before I can take more than twosteps, there is the sound of unfired clay breaking behind me and sudden burstof clay-smell on the air. When I turn around, Magee’s beautiful pot is in ruinson the floor, shattered. Round-eyed, Davy stares at me, one arm stilloutstretched from the push he gave the pot. Uncertainly, he reaches for me;such a baby.

“No.” I make my voice, not loud, not angry, but stern. “No.”A voice I rehearsed and fantasized, firm enough to make the baby mind, but notfrightening. “No.” This time my voice is gentler. “We don’t do that. We don’tbreak things just because we’re scared.” Davy’s expression wavers, puckers. Ipick him up again, settle him so his head rests on my shoulder, and stroke hisdowny hair, murmuring softly to him, explaining. How we hurt Magee, what we’vedone. I’m sorry, sweetie. It was my fault. It wasn’t your time. I was afraid tolose you, and I just didn’t think...” He frets noisily into my shoulder as Istroke his head. “Shhh, shhhh. It’s all right, sweetie. Nothing is lost, youknow. Not anything. There will be time, sweetie, but not now. We’ll be togethersomeday, you and Papa and me. Nothing is lost. Shhoh, sho.”

I don’t know how long I stand there with my eyes closed,murmuring and crooning, stroking and talking, comforting the baby with all thethings I should have told myself months ago. Finally there is a soft brushagainst my ankle. I look down to see the studio cat watching me dispassionately.My left arm wraps across my belly; the right rests on my shoulder. As if I werehugging myself. There are only the cat and myself in the room. Nothing else,not even the scent of powder on the air.

In the parking lot, Magee is sitting on the hood of my car, shouldersstooped, head down. He does not look up when I approach him, sit next to him. Heis shivering. After a long moment, without looking up, he says, “He was real.”

“For a while,” I say. I put one arm around his shoulders, tryingto give him some of my warmth.

“I didn’t know.” Magee turns to me, weeping without tears. Ipull his head down on my shoulder, my fingers in the coarse, wiry hair that alwayssmells of clay dust.

“Hush, shhh,” I whisper. “It’s OK. Shhhh.” I find that I am rockinghim gently. The same things comfort us at forty-five as at eleven months. As werock, Magee’s shivering gradually stops. I hold him, looking out over his head atthe night sky. It is alive with stars, and somewhere up there the Valkyrieis making its way home to me.

The End

Copyright © 1991 by Madeleine E. Robins

Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction