Under There

They buried me in the snow and I was hardly ready. I was out shoveling the sidewalk, trying to keep it from piling too high, when they came home, Reggie and Dave. They’re two college students who live in the top portion of the house. We live in the basement we fixed up. They rent from me and my husband Wayne. They’re funny. Reggie is funnier than Dave, but when they’re together they’re equally funny. Wayne thinks they’re funny too, but now I don’t know.

Anyway, out of nowhere came this big snowball. They had hid behind some bushes and bombed me. I screamed because it hit me right on the head. I didn’t know what it was at first, but then they came out and started picking up more snowballs and throwing them at me. I just hid myself. I couldn’t throw hardly any very straight and the ones that did hit them didn’t count for much, mostly just broke up on the way causing big puffy snow showers over myself and a little bit on them. I was laughing and laughing and they were getting me good.

Then Wayne stepped out on the porch. Actually, he kind of hid himself behind the door a little and watched our snowball fight. Wayne is really quiet and really gentle and I knew he wouldn’t want to be in any snowball fight and, besides, he didn’t have anything on except a light jacket. I didn’t want him getting all wet and getting a cold and giving it to me, but mostly I didn’t want him giving it to the baby. But before you knew it, Reggie had pegged Wayne good with a snowball, and Wayne, to my utter surprise, jumped down off of the porch and began protecting me from the two marauders who by this time had made my hair crystal white.

We all fought like that for a little bit until I started to get tired and wanted to sit down. I told everybody that I was done and they let me alone. Wayne and Reggie ganged up on Dave and got Dave real good. I went in and looked at the baby who was asleep in her bassinet in the living room where Wayne had just been watching her. Wayne likes to watch the baby and I like to do a lot of the housework, including the outside work. It’s strange, I guess, but it works well. The baby looked so peaceful. We keep the thermostat up high for the baby and I went and stood over the heating vent and took some of that good warm air on to my legs. I always dress warm when I go outside, so I wasn’t really cold. All the play had actually made me hot so I took off my scarf and went back to the window.

What I saw scared me half to death at first, but I knew everything was alright a second later because Wayne was laughing his head off. They had him buried in the snow with just his arms and head sticking out. I couldn’t help but laugh. Wayne looked so funny there with his pink cheeks and the boys on top of him like that. But then I remembered how little he had on and I thought then that the boys had gone too far. I wrapped my scarf around my neck again and went outside and yelled to the boys to let Wayne up because he would catch a cold for sure. They both said “aaaah” like they would their mom. They’re older than me, but they always call me mom. Me and Wayne have only been married two years. He called me on the phone after I answered an ad he placed in the newspaper. He was really nice right away, really gentle and I couldn’t believe what luck I’d found.

Wayne came into the house after I brushed him off good on the porch. He was shivering and for a second I got mad at the boys for burying him in the snow. I sent Wayne inside and stood there on the porch. My snow shovel was still on the sidewalk where I dropped it when the boys first hit me with snowballs. I picked it up and started to shovel the snow just like before only this time I was shoveling away little hills of snow and skid marks where the boys and Wayne fell and all that. I hadn’t taken one shovelful when suddenly I was on the ground. The boys had tackled me and I’d landed in a big old fresh bank of snow next to our big bushes, I don’t know what they’re called, right next to the chain link fence on the Stutze’s side. The Mahafey’s are on our left.

First thing I noticed was the sky. The boys barely needed to bury me because I fell in so deep. The snow started coming down on me and there was that sky all white and grayish, but most of all, so moving. A million snowflakes were falling. I could see them so clear as they neared me. They were like a fuzzy cloud way up high, but everything moved up close, and my heart beat a little bit harder than I’d ever expected it to beat, and harder than it ever had beaten when the boys rough housed around.

The boys had got my shovel and were throwing snow on top of me. Dave shoveled and Reggie patted. I don’t know why I didn’t move really. I didn’t fight it at all as they put more and more snow on me. Maybe it was because I wasn’t cold. I was as warm as if I was in an igloo. The falling snow made me blink, but I watched Reggie’s big smile over me as he built up snow around my sides and placed more and more on top of my chest. I felt a million miles down. I wondered why Wayne laughed when they buried him because I didn’t want to laugh at all. I wanted to float there in the snow as though the snow were a magic carpet. I felt really connected to the world and the sky, but what was really weird was that every time I imagined anything other than the thought that it was like I was dead, and they were burying me, I came up closer to the surface of things and didn’t like it anymore.

So I closed my eyes after awhile and simply felt the boys patting snow around me, the snow coming down and landing on my eyelids. The warmth was inside my body, under my scarf, my belly, between my legs, under my arms, my behind and that soft part of the thigh. Have you ever been somewhere and felt like your body has been shucked away from you and what is left is your soul? By the time I’d opened my eyes I felt exactly like that. But also when I opened my eyes, I saw the face of Reggie, and I found it oddly beautiful. Behind him was the face of Dave. Both of them were calm now, neither putting snow on me anymore. I noticed a little worry on their faces. I yelled at them to let me up and they did, each of them grabbing a hand. Then I stormed off into the house and slammed the door. They later came down and apologized to me. I accepted and it was polite, but I let them have it. It was a rotten thing to do.

That night after I’d taken a bath and put the baby down close to the bed so we could hear her when she moved around, I went over to Wayne who was sitting at his computer playing a game. I rubbed his neck for awhile, but I noticed that my hands were ice cold. I went over to the bed and lay down and read Redbook until I got sleepy. I asked Wayne if he was coming to bed and he said that he would in a minute, so I had a little bit of time to think about the boys and what they had done to me. I wasn’t thinking about the sky anymore or the snow all around me, but I was thinking about the boys. They were working so hard to make me comfortable there in the snow without even knowing what they were doing, how Reggie patted that snow around my side and made that part of my body alive for those few moments just through the care that he took. The boys didn’t know, and I really shouldn’t have gotten mad at them. It’s just that they didn’t know what it is like for a girl, how it feels when the snow is falling and how when you were a little girl you dreamed of snow almost every night and above you were trees and more snow and even though it was cold outside you were warm as ever inside and how in every dream there are bodies beside you and over you and everywhere, angel’s bodies, prince bodies. And they’re everywhere like the snow and you know that it is these bodies that are keeping you warm because they love you. How were they to know that those bodies were only supposed to be one body, that of Wayne, my husband?

Wayne came to bed and asked me if I was still mad the boys buried me in the snow. I told him ‘a little.’ He snuggled up to me close and I felt his arms relax around my waist. I looked up and tried to see snowflakes, but I couldn’t. Upstairs I could hear the boys laughing at some television show. I wanted to go up, but felt bad. I hate thinking evil thoughts.

The next day when Wayne was at work me and the baby walked down to the store to get some wipes and things. It was odd how everything looked different to me. Have you ever lived like you were in a bubble and then the bubble burst and you didn’t know where you were? That’s how I felt and I couldn’t explain it. The bubble is there for everyone, I imagine. You think it’s not there, but it is and when it bursts you’re left with everything you were before, but it’s not as protected. You feel vulnerable and yet you want to feel that way. Yet you don’t. The people you love become more human then, and those you know seem to have more complexity about them. Everyone in the world lives on the outside of the bubble, but none come in because they know that the bubble doesn’t really exist anymore, but they’re not at all sure that you do.

The snow was melting pretty fast and the baby had to go over a few little bumps, but nothing major. I don’t like to baby my baby. I think she needs to get used to the world as it is. Her name is Amber and she’s almost seven months now. She’s got these little blue eyes that sort of look through you. I don’t know how many times we have just sat in our living room, me at my knitting and the baby laying down and just staring. I think that’s what it was like for me in the snow with the boys. Every minute it is something else when you’ve got a husband and a baby, but for those few minutes I was unable to move towards anything or anyone and I didn’t want to. I had Amber’s eyes then, looking up at that falling snow. My body all but disappeared, and I remember now that I wondered about forever. I hadn’t done that in so long, not since before I married Wayne, back when I was alone in my room in Gilroy, dreaming of him while not even knowing him yet, as all girls do whether they like to admit it or not.

At the store I picked up toothpaste, the wipes, and a scarf for Wayne. There was a Perry Como Christmas CD for sale near the register and I got that too even though I’ve never heard him sing. I thought maybe Wayne would like that on Christmas morning. I have it all planned out. The living room is already decorated, but Christmas morning I’m going to sneak in and place down all the presents for Wayne that he doesn’t think he’s getting. The new Nintendo system. The new version of Doom. Already under the tree he’s got a new mouse in the shape of a UFO and some other things, a Bart Simpson mouse pad and some more computer stuff.

The sun was out, but it was still cold. Walking home from the store I noticed a dog left a gift for somebody’s hiking boot. There was a foot-long streak where the person had tried to wipe it off. I laughed. With all that big sidewalk to choose from that person couldn’t avoid the small offering. It was as if they had meant to step into it. I guess it just shows we’re all off in our own little worlds most of the time. It’s funny the things you see in the snow.

When I got home Reggie and Dave sat in the living room watching television. I said hello and they both said hello and as I passed to go downstairs to our apartment I was hit in the back of the head with a wad of paper. Reggie pointed at Dave and Dave at Reggie.

“Children!” I harumphed at them.

“Ma-Ma!” Reggie clowned.

Dave then jumped up and went to Amber and unbuckled her and lifted her out of the carriage.

“How’s my superbaby?” he asked her. Then he goo-goo’d.

Reggie stood next to me and I could almost feel the warmth from his body. He stood almost a foot over me and he was handsome, with long blonde hair and a small pert nose. I thought he looked a lot like Brad Pitt.

“Sorry again about yesterday. We didn’t think you’d get so mad,” he said.

I was so embarrassed about getting mad that I completely denied it. Reggie then tickled Amber a little bit while I put away the stroller in the closet. Then me and Amber started down the stairs. As I walked I noticed my heart beating fast again. I hated that. I was starting to hate myself. I had to make a point to slow down because the stairs are steep and I was holding Amber. I damned my breaths to hell as I walked because I didn’t want to feel so tense. I’m twenty and old enough to control myself around boys, but you’d never think so.

As I walked down those stairs I realized that Reggie’s face floated with me like some balloon following me down the stairs. All I could think as I walked down the stairs was what would happen if Reggie really did follow me. Balloons always go down after awhile. I was so uncomfortable that I walked faster even though I was holding Amber. We finally made it down and I put her in her bassinet and then started getting her bottle ready. My hands shook a little bit and I finally was able to get my breath back.

Upstairs I could hear the boys begin to kick a milk jug across the kitchen floor as they often did. It made me breathe deep with relief. I realized there was room for a million faces in my world other than my baby’s and Wayne’s. I imagine faces are like those snowflakes. There’s one for Reggie and Dave, one for people I’ve never known but only dreamed of knowing. All would be there in front of me, but eventually they would come together, become blended like the cloud from where the snow fell, and I wouldn’t care so much about the beauty of snowflakes if I just knew they were all there safe and themselves, making this world a better place. And then maybe I could let Wayne’s face be all of those snowflakes, because only Wayne can truly keep me warm. And Amber.

One thing about being a new mother, and men will never understand this, is that when we are alone in our homes taking care of our children we are able to watch the world go by so completely that we have a real sense that it is impossible for us to miss anything. I never felt smarter until I had Amber. She makes me feel like a genius because I just know everything about her. I know when she’s hungry, when she needs warmth, every feeling she ever has. Mothers know every thought of their infants, I guess, and then this somehow spills over and applies to the rest of their world. It’s a sort of real wisdom that belongs only to mothers. A man never gets that completely. Without it us women would probably go crazy sitting alone at home all day.

But there is another side to knowing everything. It makes us more sensitive. Men think we’re hysterical when we get upset over little things. I’ve watched Wayne’s eyes glaze over after I started crying at the memory of a goldfish that died when I was a little girl. Worlds collapse as we sit in easy chairs. There is never a record of these transactions we make with our world, but something always changes. The world changed for me yesterday in the snow. I don’t know why. No man will ever know why. All I know is that it isn’t for any man to know because it is never what he thinks it is.

I’m afraid for the first time because I don’t think Wayne is so sure anymore. It was apparent this morning before I got him off to work. I sneezed and Wayne asked me if I was maybe catching a cold from being buried in the snow. Instead of saying no I said that Reggie had really meant no harm and that made Wayne take a second look at me. I guess it was in the way that I said Reggie’s name. I don’t know.

I stood there as I finished making Wayne’s sandwiches, just biting my lip because I knew something had happened. Reggie had broken the bubble that Wayne had placed me inside of. Of course, I would have to re-join the world and accept flirtations and the like, but Wayne was too sensitive, and it was too soon, and maybe, I have to admit, we didn’t know each other well enough yet. But that didn’t change the fact that it had happened. Yet I couldn’t tell Wayne it meant nothing to me when I couldn’t even admit that it happened. Because nothing actually happened. But it did. I felt so rotten.

 If I told him he would think that I love Reggie and I don’t. I love my husband and my daughter so much. But I have to admit that Reggie did something to me on another level that Wayne had never done. He smiled in the cold snow and made me warm. That simple image held me its prisoner. His red nose and white teeth, the simple, playful eyes. It all belonged to someone who wasn’t Wayne. I did not want Reggie, but I wanted that moment. How are we to live in a world where we deprive ourselves of moments? I can see this, but I don’t think that Wayne ever would. How many moments had me and Wayne shared already? We are so cemented together in our love. All that has happened is that, for the first time since knowing and loving him, I’ve noticed somebody else. A single thread has been pulled out of the fabric that is our marriage, but I can mend any tear. I am in charge of my life and can protect myself from any intrusion, even those that look like Reggie and have a pure and lovely sense of the beauty and importance of snow.

When Wayne got home that night I made a point of making his favorite dinner. We had pot roast and potatoes and carrots and good old fashioned clam chowder using a recipe his mother gave me when we were married. For dessert we had cheesecake with strawberry sauce. I gave Wayne the Christmas CD and we put it on and laughed about it. Wayne stood up and sang Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire using a candy cane as a microphone. Halfway through the song the boys joined in from upstairs. It was funny, but Wayne’s spirit dropped suddenly so I went to the intercom and joked that they needed to shut up with the moose calls. I think I laughed, but I didn’t really know just then how badly Wayne felt. He picked up Amber and went into himself the way he does when he doesn’t want to talk to anybody. His eyes are always innocent and blue, but there was a vacantness there that I knew I could never live a lifetime with.

“What’s wrong, Wayne?”

He didn’t answer.

“C’mon, baby. What is it?” I went over to him and put my arm around him and kissed him on the forehead. We looked at each other for a second before he looked away.

“What is it, honey?”

“Do you like Reggie?” he asked.

I hated to lie, but it wasn’t a lie. All that Reggie had done for me was make me think of good things. I didn’t like Reggie. Not the way Wayne meant it.

“No. Of course not,” I said. Wayne looked away. I could see my answer didn’t fulfill him. Just because somebody’s face is in your mind for whatever reason doesn’t mean you like him. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to leave your family for him. He’s just there with all of the other faces in the world. But Wayne looked frozen.

“Honey!” I pleaded. “Don’t.”

“Do I bore you?” he asked.

“No!” I said. “Why do you talk like that?”

“Because if I’m boring I want to change.”

“You’re not boring. You’re the most exciting man I’ve ever known.”

Wayne went really quiet then and I got really worried about him. There was some thought that he just didn’t want to have to face, but I could see it lowering in on him like a dark cloud. He lowered his chin and his cheeks looked all pressed in on themselves, almost as if he were going to cry. I felt so sorry for him and so lonely that I wanted to cry too. Just then Reggie buzzed down and we both listened to him on the intercom.

“Kathy. Wayne. Dave needs some sugar for cupcakes.”

I went to the intercom without taking my eyes off of Wayne.

“Sure,” I said.

 Wayne held Amber close to his chest and then looked at the door as though a monster would appear. I went to the cupboard and took the sugar down and held it and started moving toward the door to give it to Reggie, whose footsteps up above we could already hear.

“Don’t give it to him, Kathy,” Wayne said.

“What?” I said.

I knew what he was saying. He was acknowledging the change in our relationship, how for the first time, almost as if part of the promise of our wedding vow, he wanted me to prove to him that he was my everything. I could see that he wasn’t sure. How many times does a woman have to tell a man she loves him? I felt so sorry for him. He was so scared. Reggie’s footsteps were getting closer.

“Please,” he said softly.

“Okay,” I said.

I went back to the kitchen and put the sugar back into the cupboard. I then went in and took my husband’s hand and held it, guiding him to the couch. He came easily, holding the baby, and we all sat down together, both my face and my baby’s face on his chest. I could hear his heart beating. The three of us stayed there quiet as a mouse listening to each other’s breaths, ignoring the knock at the door and then the calling out of our names. Then Wayne’s heartbeat got softer and slower as Reggie ascended the stairs and, in my own heart, I realized that I was married.

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