The Displaced Nation

Well, here I am again. Kate, that is, not Libby.

Not sure when Libby will have enough free time to write her journal herself, so you’ll have to put up with me this week, and possibly next week as well. After that, who knows? Maybe Libs can persuade Maggie to fire off a bulletin for you. Or perhaps her mother could do it…now that would be interesting.

~ ~ ~

Having changed my flight,  I’m going home rather later than I intended, so am now snugly ensconced Chez Patrick where I have agreed to stay for the next two weeks.

A somewhat rash decision, in retrospect. Might have been wiser to stay in the local Motel 6 and commute to my temporary job as Mother’s Help.

It’s not that Libby’s accommodation isn’t wonderful. I’m sleeping on a big sofa-bed in Oliver’s home office. It’s warm, cosy, and has free wifi with a strong signal. Being here means that Oliver can’t use his office much, because the contents of my suitcase are draped all over his swivel chair, but that doesn’t matter. He spends most of his time ten miles away at his workplace.

Yes, Oliver is back at work already. No paid paternity leave for him, but I suspect that is merely an excuse for his absence.

The real problem, for both Oliver and me, is his mother-in-law.

Oliver and Jane aren’t a good mix. We’re not talking chalk and cheese or even oil and water here. Think chemistry class, think sodium and water, think fiery explosions on calm water, and you’re on the right track.

“I thought you said they used to get on well together?” I said to Libby on Oliver’s first day back at work, when the twins were barely a week old. He had stomped out of the house before seven a.m. while Jane tagged after him, swiping ineffectually at his back with a clothes brush. This morning, just before he slammed the door on his way out to the garage, Jane asked him if he’d got a clean hankie in his pocket.

“They did,” she replied, wriggling around on the couch, a baby in each arm. “When I first started going out with Oliver, she pandered to him the way she panders to my father, and he lapped it up. Every argument we ever had, his trump card was ‘Your mother would never say that to your dad.’”

“So what’s his problem now?”

“Ah, well, everything’s got a flip side, hasn’t it? The reason she panders is because she thinks men are useless in the home. According to her, Oliver’s totally incompetent and shouldn’t be allowed near one newborn, let alone two.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t blame her in the case of my Dad. I mean — he is useless, although I sometimes wonder if she makes him that way. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. But Oliver’s quite capable of rustling up some bottles of formula and cooking dinner.”

“Not that you need to do any cooking for weeks.” The freezer was chock full of homemade, ready-to-reheat meals, courtesy of the Coffee Morning Posse. Every day, Charlie, Anita or Julia would turn up with more Tupperware boxes, labelled “Chicken a la King” or “Chilli Con Carne” or “Swedish Meatballs”. I’d got to the point where I was considering another pregnancy myself, just for the Meals-On-Wheels benefits.

“Just as well, isn’t it, if I had to rely on my Mum to feed me? She claims Oliver’s incompetent, but then she can’t get past the American-English differences. The other week she decided to make some scones, but couldn’t find the plain flour. It’s called all-purpose flour over here, right, but the leap of imagination to translate was beyond her. All I heard was, Ooh, it’s not the same as what I get in Sainsbury’s.”

“Did you get your scones?”

“Are you kidding? She walked to the gas station up the road and bought some Twinkies. Jack ate four, and he was awake until midnight. I used to take the mick out of Sandra because she once gave Jack some Red Bull, but this was actually worse.”

One of the twins started to cry, so I took the non-crying one from Libby. I think it was Beth. Or maybe it was George. Both twins wore green footie pyjamas, so I couldn’t tell which was which from the outside.

I rested Tweedledum over my left shoulder, absent-mindedly patting its back. Libby handed me an old towel, and I tucked it underneath the baby’s chin.

“I didn’t bring any babyproof clothes with me,” I said. “Mostly business work clothes, and I’m running out of things to wear.”

I’d forgotten the trick of keeping an old cloth on your shoulder when burping babies, and all day yesterday I had the sensation that a piece of ripe Camembert was following me everywhere, until Jane pointed out the trail of curdled milk on the back of my favourite white shirt. The local dry cleaners’ profits would skyrocket when I got home.

“Raid my closet,” Libby suggested. “Take some home with you. I’ll never fit into half of my clothes ever again.”

She’s sweet, but — no. Even at ten days postpartum, she’s thinner than I am now.

If I didn’t like her so much, I’d hate her.

“Or you could go to the mall for some more things,” Libby went on. “Take Jack and Mum with you, and I’ll have some quiet time with the twins.”

That didn’t seem like a bad idea. I’d take Jane, tire Jack out on the little indoor playground there, and when they got home they’d both be ready for bed.

“It’s got possibilities,” I said, and went in search of Libby’s mother and first-born.

*  *  *

Once you get Jane out of the house, she’s different. She even opened up a little to me.

“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” she confessed. “It’s just that I feel very inadequate around Libby, as if I’m going to get everything wrong no matter how hard I try. She’s not the same person who went away a year ago. She’s so much more…confident.”

“She’s not expecting you to be Superwoman,” I said. “Just her mum. And by that I don’t mean Oliver’s mum as well. He can work out himself if he needs a clean hankie or not.”

She had the grace to look a bit ashamed.

As well as going clothes shopping for me, I dragged her and Jack into a supermarket and a craft store. It’s Jack’s fourth birthday in just over a week, and I’m pretty sure Libby won’t have got her act together enough to do anything really special. Between the three of us, we picked out birthday napkins, party favours, and all the stuff Jane needed to make a 3D Lightning McQueen cake.

“I do hope Libby won’t mind me doing this,” she kept saying. “I don’t want to end up being more of a hindrance than a help.”

I told her that she had a long way to go before she attained Oliver’s mum’s standards  of “helping” and that her birthday cake was unlikely to put Libby and Jack into hospital.

She seemed mull this over, and by the time we got in the car to drive home, was the perkiest I’d seen her all week.

When we arrived at the house, a strange car was parked in the driveway.

“Another food delivery from Libby’s friends, I expect,” I said to Jane as we hauled the shopping bags into the hallway.

“Libs?” I called. “We’re home. We’ve got everything sorted out for Jack’s bir–Libs? Are you OK?”

Libby walked unsteadily towards us from the living room. Her face was pale. Following behind her was a woman: tall, fair-skinned, with sparse, sandy-coloured hair. Another of the Coffee Morning Posse, I presumed.

“I’m fine,” Libby said, giving me a too-bright smile that pronounced her a fibber. “Did you get what you need?”

“Yes,” I said, holding up a Macy’s bag in one hand and a Stop and Shop carrier in the other. “Your mum’s going to make Jack’s birthday cake.”

The woman behind Libby spoke to Jack who, at the sight of the stranger, had hidden himself behind his Granny Jane.

“It’s your birthday soon? When’s your birthday, darlin’?”

An English accent. Definitely one of the Coffee Morning Posse.

“Thirteenth of May.”  Libby replied for him after a pause.

“Aww. He’s shy.” The woman put her head on one side. “Just like our Damian.”

Silence from Libby as she looked down at her bare feet. The silence grew until it filled the two-storey room.

“Is Damian a friend of Jack’s?” I asked.

The woman laughed.

“I hope he will be,” she said.

In the living room, one of the twins began to whimper. Normally this would have Libby running to see what the fuss was about, but she didn’t look up from studying her toes.

“This is my mother Jane and my friend Kate,” she said sideways, in the general direction of the stranger. “They’re both staying here, so you can see that it’s not really feasible for you to stay as well.”

“No problem at all. You’ve got your hands full, I can see that. But I’d love to stay and see Oliver.”

“Well, as I explained, Oliver’s on a business trip for three weeks, and that’s why these two wonderful ladies are helping me out–”

Oliver? Business trip? First I’d heard of it, but Libby must have a good reason for telling such a whopper, so I went along with it.

“That’s right.” I nodded, and looked across at Jane to make sure she was going along with whatever plan Libby was hatching.

She wasn’t.

“But –” she said, in a tone of bewilderment. “But Oliver left this morning and said nothing about being away for three weeks. In fact, I heard him say he’d be home in time to cook dinner.”

The woman called Tania folded her arms. “You know, I thought something didn’t sound right. What kind of man leaves his wife on her own with newborn twins, for heavens’ sake?”

She shot a look of triumph at Libby.

“Not my brother, that’s for sure.” She held her hand out to me.

“Tania Patrick,” she said. “Oliver’s long-lost sister. Pleased to meet you.”

.

Previous: Me and my shadow: LIBBY’S LIFE #48 – Hospital visiting hours 

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Kate here. Sorry. No journal entry from Libby today, so I’m writing it for her — but I think you’ll agree she has a good excuse.

Three days ago on Monday, April 23rd, at 2:02pm and 2:11pm, Libby’s twins entered the world.

Understandably, Libby has been a little preoccupied  since then.

~ ~ ~

It’s a little over a year since I first met Libby. We were both browsing in Waterstones last March – or rather, I was browsing and she was buying self-help books by the truckload, desperately trying to make the best of her enforced expatriation. Over a couple of Danish pastries, I gave her the idea of writing this blog, and I’ve been surprised by her doggedness in the endeavour.

Admittedly, I’ve also been taken aback by her candid accounts of life in small town America. Presumably her landlady and husband don’t read the blog. Not to mention her mother-in-law.

As it happened, I’ve been in Albany on business this month, crossing my fingers that my time here would coincide with the birth of Libby’s twins. When I got a text from her on Tuesday, announcing their arrival the previous day, I was thrilled. She’d beaten the system and had the twins before her scheduled C-section.

“Twins r here! Overjoyed! Visit us!” her first text said, exuding that post-birth hormonal high. I remembered it well.

The next text, twelve hours later, was less high. It said: “Pls bring Boston Cremes and decaf iced coffee. Or normal coffee but don’t tell nurse at desk.”

I duly arrived at the maternity ward — “Family Birth Center” — clutching a box of the requested doughnuts and clandestine joe, and was given lots of suspicious looks by a nurse who appeared to have been trained by the TSA.  When I’d convinced her that I was here to see a friend and her new babies, that I wasn’t going to abduct said babies, that I hadn’t imported TB from Europe, and hinted that it was none of her damned business if I intended to stuff six Boston Cremes down my throat in front of my friend, she grudgingly allowed me to knock on Libby’s door.

The rooms in American hospitals compared with English hospital wards are…Well. Think “Waldorf Astoria.” Then think “Youth hostel.”

Libby’s room contained two beds, and she sat on one with her back to me, chatting on the phone. She seemed to be the only occupant, which is just as well because the spare half of the room was taken up with a flock of helium balloons and the contents of the local garden centre. I felt rather silly with my modest pot of one pink and one blue hyacinth, but took consolation at the sight of an empty Dunkin Donuts cup by the wastepaper basket, which indicated my food offering would be more welcome.

She heard me enter and turned around. “Just a minute,” she mouthed at me before plastering a fake smile on her face.

“No, Mum,” I heard her say. “You put maple syrup on pancakes, and peanut butter on toast. No, not the other way round. Yes, I’m sure. Marmite is fine on American bread, Jack will eat that too — he didn’t? That’s unusual…Oh. Well, I suppose Marmite doesn’t taste too good on cinnamon toast, so — look, just give him a banana now, and Oliver will sort him out later. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. I’ll be home tomorrow. Hang in there, OK?”

Libby clicked the Off button on the phone. The fake smile disappeared.

“Jesus wept!” she shouted. “I leave the house at 9:30 on Monday morning to give birth to twins five hours later — without an epidural, I’ll have you know — and she can’t even cope with the correct topping for cinnamon toast?”

She breathed in deeply, then let it out slowly. Five times she did this. She’d obviously had lots of practice at this quite recently — whether in labour or while trying to cope with her mother, I couldn’t tell.

“Anyway,” she said eventually, this time with a genuine smile. “You came to see us! That’s lovely.”

“I brought these.” I set the flowers and coffee on one of the bedside tables, and fished around in my tote bag. “Baby clothes. M&S.”

“How cute is that!” She’d adopted some of the American vernacular since our last meeting, I noticed. “They’ll look very sweet in these little vests, won’t you, my babies?” she cooed in the direction of the balloons.

I glanced around the room, peering into the depths of the flowers and balloons for evidence of cribs and newborns.

“Libs? Where are the babies?”

She looked alarmed for a moment, then relaxed. “Oh! That’s right, they’re not here. They’re in the nursery. The nurses keep running off with them when they haven’t got enough to do, which is quite often. There’s only me and two other women in the unit at the moment. Quite surprising, when you consider the circumstances of the conception. Then again, I suppose I was early.”

I was confused for a moment, then remembered. Hurricane Irene. Not much else in the way of entertainment when the electricity is out for a week. In a couple of weeks, this place would be a lot fuller.

“And how are Sam and Megan doing?” I asked.

She tilted her head on one side. “Who?”

I frowned, wondering if the old saying about losing your brain cells in the maternity ward was doubly applicable when you had twins.

“The bay-bies?” I said, enunciating slowly.

Libby laughed.

“Didn’t I tell you? They’re not Sam and Megan any more. They’re George and Elizabeth. They were born on Saint George’s Day,” she explained, “so Oliver and I thought that something more English, more regal, might be in order. And of course Elizabeth is my real name, but we’re going to call her Beth — Oh, look! Here they are!”

Two nurses wheeled two trolleys topped with clear plastic cribs. In each little crib — bassinet, I think they call them here — lay a tightly wrapped bundle with a stripy hat perched on one end.

One pink hat, one blue.

Libby sighed. “They’re hungry again. Especially George. George is always hungry.”

She shuffled around on the bed, twiddling with controls that raised the head into a backrest. One of the nurses propped a couple of pillows in front of her and handed her a baby. Libby tucked it under her left arm, and then tucked the other baby under her right. She nodded at the two nurses, and they left the room.

The babies fed, their eyes closed. One of them  – the pink hat; Beth, I assumed — worked a fist loose from the swaddling and waved it around. The fist bashed the owner’s face, and she stopped feeding and howled at the unprovoked attack by a strange flying object.

“Silly baby,” Libby murmured affectionately.

Beth twisted her head from side to side, looking for the food source again. Libby helped her find it.

“You’re very pro at this already,” I said, impressed. Feeding two babies at once; one had seemed complicated enough, as I remembered. But Libby seemed a different person from the uncertain little mouse I’d met a year ago. This Libby was confident, efficient…

I’d spoken too soon.

Libby’s eyes filled with tears, which ran down her cheeks unchecked because both her hands were occupied, holding the twins.

I stood up, plucked a tissue from the box by the bed, and wiped her face.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head and sniffed.

“It’s nothing. The baby blues — remember those?”

I nodded. They’re not easily forgotten, those third-day blues.

“Remember wondering how you’re going to cope at home on your own?”

I pondered. As I recalled, I was overjoyed to leave the noisy NHS hospital, where six mothers in the same ward insisted on “rooming in” with their squawking babes.

“I was glad to get home for some sleep.”

“But it’s different here! They wait on you, hand, foot and finger! I don’t have to do a thing — not even change nappies! And tomorrow I’m going to go home, and my mother will want nursemaiding because she doesn’t understand how the shower works or something, and I’m going to be all…alone!”

She wailed, and one of the babies — Blue Hat — lifted its head and wailed in sympathy. Pink Hat followed suit. All three Patricks wailed together.

“Can’t you stay?” she pleaded.

“I thought I’d stay a couple of hours — “

“No. I mean, stay with me. At our house. Just for a few days. My mother is useless, and I’ve asked too much of Maggie already, and Oliver means well, but… We have internet, you could work from Oliver’s den. It would mean so much to me, just to have someone sane and female around the house until I get my act together.”

I thought. I only had one more meeting tomorrow morning, and would be working at home in Milton Keynes after that for a week. It would make no difference to anyone else if Home was MK or Woodhaven.

“I can probably change my flight,” I said, although it did occur to me that perhaps Oliver might not be overjoyed at this arrangement.

Libby leaned back against the headrest, and sighed shakily.

“Thank you so much.”

Then she sat up again.

“And guess what! You can write my blog again next week!”

.

Previous: LIBBY’S LIFE #47 – Showered with affection

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Img: Map of the World – Salvatore Vuono