Now it was time to get down to brass tacks. Mack and I began to move quickly toward the fulfillment of our mutual goal – changing Mack back to his original sex. (I temporarily shelved my anxiety over the method.) All business, we called Maggie (I had to get her number from Dave’s) and asked if she could come over tonight. She said she could, but would have to bring her girls, this being her mom’s poker night. I said okay. Maggie didn’t seem the least bit surprised that Mack had changed his mind and was going through with the plan. Again, this made me feel as if I were the emotional live wire, the one who took everything hard, while Mack and Maggie, the two females, were so hard-headed and realistic that it gave me pause. What, really, are the differences between the two sexes? Maybe they’re not what I’d always been taught. And in the back of my mind I had the thought that in these next few months I might find out what men and women really were. I guess I’m an old-fashioned chauvinist, but it seemed easier and less painful to leave my stereotypes about what men and women are well enough alone. However, I was now deep in a mess that I could never have foreseen, and there was nothing to do about it, really, but go forward and get it over with. Like walking through a dark tunnel, we’d all eventually come out the other end; it would all someday be over. I didn’t let myself think about what we would resemble in the end, when we stepped out into the sunlight. Better not to think about that now. Better to just carry the picture of Mack as a beautiful woman – Mack as mine, holding my hand in front of the Justice of the Peace. That would be my Holy Grail. That I would carry with me, and that would keep me going.
I hoped.
I made dinner for Mack and me – just hamburgers, nothing special. I was too mentally worn out to make my special lasagna; besides, I didn’t have the ingredients and didn’t feel up to going to the store to get them. Mack ate well, though. Better than I’d seen him eat yet, and that comforted me. It was awkward, but we both managed to keep the conversation light and safe. I could feel his pull but was able to not give in to it. Maybe this was all going to work out after all.
It wasn’t until Maggie arrived – with her girls in tow – that things got surreal. Mack let her in, because when she came to the door, I was on the phone. The phone call was from a client with a problem that required an appointment as soon as possible; I put him down for Monday at ten thirty, since he lives all the way in Matues, a little nothing town about an hour and a half from here.
That phone call brought me back to the world, to my occupation – which I had completely forgotten I even had – and to the fact that I’d have to be gone most of the day tomorrow. This guy’s problem would take at least a couple hours of trouble-shooting to unravel, and then I had someone in town to do accounts for at three.
I hung up the phone. I put down the pen and closed my appointment book. I was a CPA again, and Mack was something that shouldn’t be here – shouldn’t be in my life at all. Something out of a science fiction movie. That’s what Mack was at that moment: a monstrosity. Strange thing to say about one you have just professed to love. And I got a sickening sense of the ups and downs my life was beginning to take. The different tacks, the loops and twists and nauseating plunges of a roller coaster ride. I had never liked roller coasters.
I could hear voices in the kitchen, and I went into the kitchen to join them. Maggie’s girls were adorable. I fell in love with all three at first sight.
The oldest, introduced to me as Misty, was solemn, almost reserved. She was dark and pretty, having what looked like a lot of Hispanic blood, with dusky skin and big brown eyes and thick straight black hair. Maggie added, after telling me her name, that she was eight years old.
Taylor, the next oldest, was six, and stood close to Maggie, her thumb in her adorable little mouth.
She looked just like her mom.
And Casey, the littlest, was eighteen months.
Maggie held her on her shoulder, and she looked like she had just woken up. Her hair was wispy blond, plastered to her head on one side, and turning up into a curl on the other. She wore a little red jacket and tiny sneakers. I wanted to hold her from the moment I laid eyes on her.
Mack was hanging back, and seemed very awkward. Maybe he didn’t have much experience with children. I didn’t, either, and wasn’t sure what to do. Fortunately, the cats came to our rescue. They greeted the newcomers, and both Jacob and Peter were amazingly comfortable with the children. Darling hung back a little, as might be expected – he had had the hardest life, the most difficult past, and was so emaciated when I found him that I worried he might not pull through. He did, but he’s still the shyest of the three.
Big Jacob offered his back for petting, and Misty got down on the floor with him right away. Taylor joined her, and the girls were busy petting and the Boys busy purring while Maggie took Casey into the sitting room.
“She was asleep – she’ll want to go back to bed now”, Maggie explained as she expertly removed the little red jacket while Casey was still in her arms. “She’s a good sleeper. You won’t have any problem with her. Will he, my Sleeping Beauty?” she said to Casey, who laid her head on her mom’s shoulder and looked askance at me. She stuck a thumb in her mouth.
‘Problem with her?’ Me? But wouldn’t Maggie be here with her, wouldn’t she be taking care of the children? It sunk in, then, for the first time. Mack and Maggie were going to be – together. Discussing things. Doing . . . things. And I was going to take care of the girls. All by myself.
I had never babysat before ever. Maggie lifted a big bag off her shoulder and set it on the sofa. “Here’s her diapers and all that stuff.”
Diapers. Oh my God. I looked at little Casey, and she looked at me. Her forefinger was hooked on her nose, holding her thumb in place. I’d never changed a diaper, never taken care of a baby. I take care of animals, and anything you get on your hands washes off, so I’m not squeamish like that. But I didn’t know how to change a diaper.
Maggie looked at me shrewdly. “You do know how to change a baby, don’t you, Doug?”
I couldn’t tell her no. I just couldn’t. I wondered in that moment if this is one of the differences between men and women – like men won’t stop to ask directions when they’re lost, but women will. It wouldn’t have been any disgrace or anything to admit that I’d never changed a diaper before – after all, I’m a bachelor, and an only child. I don’t have nieces or nephews or anything, and when would I have ever changed a baby? It was perfectly understandable, logical, and nothing to be ashamed of.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I do.” My face caught the lie and reflected it in a shade that would have made a nice color for a tomato, but Maggie only lifted Casey from her shoulder and placed her in my arms. She grinned.
“She’s all yours, hon.” And I bet she was laughing inside as she walked to the kitchen to join Mack, while Casey pulled away and looked at me as if trying to decide if I were the Boston Strangler or not.
“Maggie!” I burst out. Casey stared.
“What?” Maggie yelled back.
‘Help!!! “Uh – urn – did – uh – Casey have any supper?” Casey was leaning back, her little hand planted on my shoulder, her body leaning backwards while she stared at me.
“Yeah she’s all set. And her bottle’s in the bag if she gets hungry later.” Her face relaxed, and head disappeared back into the kitchen. I heard her say something to Mack and laugh.
Bottle?
“Bottle,” said Casey, perfectly clearly. I turned my eyes to her in amazement. Was she old enough to talk? This little person could actually say things? Ask for things? Tell you things? Her voice was the sweetest I’d ever heard, little and lispy and high, like a baby rabbit might make if it could talk. I was so charmed that I forgot all about changing diapers and all that, and gazed at the little human being in my arms. I had to smile, I had to smile at her, and she smiled back, lips still busy on her thumb, but the corners turned upwards just the tiniest bit, breaking the suction for a second. She made a small noise, a kind of little hum, like a little chuckle, and I just melted. The stiffness left her arm, and she stopped leaning back away from me, settling herself in my arms. I hugged her to my chest, and I swear – this little angel, this little cherub, this sweet and smiling little girl – she liked me. She trusted me. I was so big, and she so small, but she had accepted me, decided that she would grant me complete power over that tiny little body. My God – I just stared at her – stared and smiled. I could feel what a goofy smile it was, but she didn’t seem to care in the least, only gazing back at me with complete trust and friendly appreciation. And that’s when I realized that the wonderful thing about children, especially for a guy like me, is that they don’t have the same system of judging – of evaluating and rejecting, of scrutinizing and criticizing – that adults do. She hadn’t been indoctrinated yet, hadn’t had her values tampered with, and she could let herself like me – just go right ahead and like me, trust me, and not care whether I was short, or blushing, or socially inept. Those things that had been the bane of my existence up until this day mattered not a whit to her. She knew somehow that my heart was in the right place – and that was all she cared about.
Maggie broke up our meeting of the mutual admiration society. I just bet she wasn’t as carefree and nonchalant in that kitchen as she made out – she was probably worried all along. About how Casey and I were getting on. After all, I’m not an ax murderer or anything, but was she completely sure that I could care for these sweet girls – the children of her body, of her heart – as competently as they deserved?
But when Maggie strolled into the room, holding a can of beer and grinning, and got close to me, I saw this wasn’t the case at all. Whether she knew for sure that I was okay, or she was so used to farming the kids out that she was lackadaisical about their care, or she was under Mack’s influence again and subsequently didn’t give a damn about anything else in the world – even her kids – I don’t know. But she was easy and confident, swaggering a little as she approached me. I began to color heavily, and she seemed to enjoy my discomfort – a particularly irritating phenomenon for us sufferers.
“Well – what do you think, Doug? Cute, huh?”
I felt like turning away from her, shielding my little Casey from the big bad wolf with my body. Already, she was my girl. Maggie saw, and laughed. I saw Mack drift into the room and stand nervously by the fireplace.
“Real charmer, ain’t she?” grinned Maggie. “Wraps men around her little finger – already! She’s got it made, that one.” She took a sip of her beer. She must have brought it with her – God knows I didn’t have any beer in the house. I stiffened and gripped my Casey tighter. Misty and Taylor appeared in the doorway.
“Mama?” spoke Misty softly, “Can we watch TV?”
“Sure, hon,” Maggie said, taking right over in my house in a way that I didn’t appreciate. “Sit right here and let’s see what’s on.”
She patted the sofa, and they came in. Misty looked up at me – warily, I thought – as she passed me, skirting my body in a deliberate way that bespoke a lack of trust, or a dislike.
Maggie was channel surfing and the girls expressing their vetoes as the different shows flashed on and off. Casey and I were watching. Mack looked uneasy. Suddenly this whole scene took on a surrealistic quality that troubled me. I wasn’t used to having so many people in my house, for one thing. Not since the funeral had there been more than two people here at once, counting me. So that felt strange. Holding a child was unfamiliar to me, and made me feel as if somebody else – somebody’s dad – had stepped into my skin. I wasn’t myself. The TV, moving in jarring bites and gulps, was disturbing; the different pictures and sounds – gunfire, laughter, dramatic music, a commercial jingle – were discordant and disturbing. She kept on changing channels – maybe the girls needed her to go around once more before they chose their show.
And Mack? His arms were hanging at his sides, and from the corner of my eye, lit by the flashes of the changing TV patterns, he appeared to be shivering – caught and trapped. I started to get very apprehensive, and my apprehension turned to outright fear when Maggie abruptly raised her head from the set, which had halted on a cackle of canned laughter, and said to the figure by the fireplace, “Okay, Mack. You ready?”
All eyes focused on him, even the children’s. I could see now that he really was shaking – it wasn’t an illusion projected by the flickering television. He was shaking like a leaf and his face was pale. I got a quick, sharp sense of an imminent negative action – his shooting out the door, or slamming his fist into the wall – or crumbling into a crying mess on the floor.
“No,” he said, looking up a Maggie. “No. I can’t.”
My eyes darted to Maggie, who straightened from the TV slowly, and began to move carefully toward Mack with the soft step of an orderly toward a mental patient with a knife.
“Now, Mack. It’s really okay, you know. It’s going to work out fine. Just fine. I’ll help you. I’ll help you every step of the way. We’ll do this together. . . ” she reached him, finally. I realized that he was ready to bolt. But he stood and let Maggie take his upper arm in her hand. “Okay now, Mack. It’s okay.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Yeah, I know. I know. But it’s all going to work out.” The shaking hadn’t stopped. Maggie was holding his arm hard, I could see his thin arm and shirt crushed in her grip.
“Doug,” she suddenly hissed in my direction. “Get the bottle.”
Slow on the uptake as I am, innocent as I am, I was confused. Now? I reached doubtfully toward the diaper bag.
Maggie grimaced and rolled her eyes, obviously cursing my stupidity. “In the kitchen. The bag on the table.”
I gripped my baby and scuttled into the kitchen, and comprehension (and worry) flooded over me as I reached into the paper bag standing on the table and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.
Alarmed, but not knowing what the hell else to do, I rejoined the waiting group in the sitting room and handed Maggie the bottle.
“You could’ve brought a glass,” she groused as she took it from my hand. I quickly put that hand on Casey’s little back. Maggie twisted the cap expertly and Mack snatched the bottle and upended it, his mouth greedy, Adam’s apple bobbing as he tilted his head and swallowed. A tremor of revulsion and pain swept through me.
“Maggie – I don’t think – “
“Shut up,” she said, whipping her head to me and glaring fiercely at my face. “You want to do this?”
“God, no, I – “
“Well, shut up, then – unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Wordless, I shook my head.
“Yeah, okay now,” she said, redirecting her attention to Mack, and putting her hand on his to gently force him to lower the bottle. She took it and rapidly replaced the cap. He started to protest, but she handed him the bottle, and that shut him up fast. “It’s here if you need it, right? Let’s just give what you had a chance to do its job. If you get too drunk this ain’t gonna work at all.”
Reminded of his mission, fear came back into Mack’s eyes. “I can’t. I just can’t do this.”
“Hey now, what kinda attitude is that, huh? A defeatist attitude never got anybody anywhere. This is all gonna work out fine. Just fine.” She jerked her head to me again, and hissed. “What bedroom?”
Bedroom! Bedroom! Oh my God!!!
Maggie’s eyes could have cut through steel plate, and she looked exasperated in the extreme. “Get it the fuck together, Doug, for Chrissake. I don’t need to go through this with you, too. Grow up! What bedroom?”
“Th-the second one …”
“The second door?”
Mack was beginning to cry, and Maggie grabbed the bottle from him, and, still looking at me, worked at the cap. “The second door?” she repeated, her voice soft now, hiding her emotion, keeping cool and calm for Mack. She handed him the bottle, and he fastened his lips to its mouth.
“Third door,” I replied weakly. “Third right at the end of the hall.”
And as I watched their retreating backs, I felt a sharp tug on my trousers. I looked down to see little Taylor at my feet.
“I hafta go baffroom,” she said.