The Visit - continued, page 3

      "Here, let me," I say, taking the baby from Peggy and setting her up on the counter.  I look into her little face and try to make her laugh.  She smiles for a moment, but then I feel myself lose control of her; she's floppier than I remember babies that age being, or I've lost my grip, or something, and she begins to slide, just a little, down to where she's not sitting up anymore but is kind of reclining. Immediately I thrust my hand behind her head so she won't bump it on the toaster or the counter.  And although I am positive Clara hit nothing, didn't even slide all the way down, just slipped the tiniest bit, she begins to cry like I've smacked her or dropped her or let her head flop onto the tile backsplash. I have never heard such a wail and like I said I've got two kids.  She cries like she is hurt so bad she'll never get over it.
      Peggy quickly takes her from me and puts her to her chest.  My hands are shaking like I've just killed someone accidentally but I can see nothing wrong, no bump or red mark, no scrape.  "Does she always cry like that?" I ask, almost scared to talk.
     "Not exactly like this, but she gets upset," Peggy says.  She is almost matter-of-fact. It's weird.  "What did you do?" she asks calmly.

      "Nothing," I say.  "Honest.  I was holding her on the counter.  You saw.  And she must have slipped a little on the Formica. But she didn't touch anything or bump anything, I swear.  I may have pulled her up a little quickly and scared her. That's all I can think of."  Even to my ears I sound like a liar and a child molester.
      "That's a baby," Peggy says, walking Clara around the kitchen.  "Just a little scared, is all. That's a baby."  She turns to me and says seriously. "Don't feel bad, really.  She gets scared easily. That's why we don't go out much.  She doesn't like sudden movements or loud noises or things like that.  Of course," she pauses, and says, as if she has just noticed the fact: "she hasn't been exposed to them all that much, either."
     "Do you want me to make her a bottle?" I ask.  The baby is still screaming like I cut her head off.  I can't stand it.  It's unnerving, like something out of a horror movie. "Why don't I get her some formula?"  When Peggy nods, I microwave a bottle from the refrigerator and finally, what seems like hours later, hand it to her.  She puts it in Clara's mouth which stops the racket for a small moment.  But then she child pushes the bottle away and continues to wail. 

      If it had been my own child I would have put her to the breast, I used my breast for every ailment short of smallpox or a broken leg.  But Peggy hadn't been able to nurse, she said her milk hadn't come in.  And Clara was not having anything to do with that bottle.
      Tim calls down, "What's going on down there," and I run up to tell him what happened. He looks at me like I am crazy.  "That the whole story?" he asks.  "That baby crying like that because you startled it?  Hoo, boy, we're in for a long two days."  I almost burst into tears myself and then I tell him to shut up and I head back downstairs where I see Brian standing in the kitchen holding Clara and trying his best to soothe her.

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