SEA OF TRANQUILITY

76 American Short Fiction
for air, as if he couldn’t breathe unless she did. Th e tightness worked
its way up into his throat. Yes, people were saying. Th at’s right.
You’re doing great, and all those voices were jumbled together with
the sound of falling rain. He held his breath without meaning to,
and he didn’t exhale until he heard his son screaming in the room.
He weighed six pounds, eleven ounces exactly. Th e drill sergeant
said he was nineteen and one-half inches long. He’s got a good
pair of lungs, she told them. You’ve got yourself a screamer. Marci held
him fi rst, and she kept him for the longest time. Th e nurse told her
to smile so she could take a picture. You too, Daddy, she said. Get
a little closer to the bed. She took three pictures and he wasn’t sure
where to look, and when the nurse was done, Marci took their boy
and set him in his arms. Don’t be afraid, she said. He looks like you.
He’s got your nose exactly.
His son squirmed against his elbow. He worked his legs like a
turtle fl ipped on its back. Th is was light as he’d ever be. A clumsy
moment, and they could lose him. He might drop his boy on the
hard fl oor if his attention wandered. He might bump him against
a doorframe or a wall. He ran his thumb over that waxy newborn
skin, but his hands weren’t sensitive the way blind people’s were supposed
to be. Th ere wasn’t anything distinctive about that bald head.
Th is baby could belong to anyone. Th e doctors could switch one for
the other, and he would never know.
❖
Th e cloudy days were hardest. Th ose nights when the baby cried,
all those starless nights when Marci ran to feed him. You can’t just
sit there forever, she’d say. Th e house smelled like diapers and burnt
baby formula, and he should have tried to help her. He should have
found a way, but he just sat there like a train passenger and looked
outside his window. He was waiting, and she wouldn’t understand
this. He was waiting for the winds to come and give him back
his sky.