by KC Courtland
That year, I drove a ‘96 Chevy Venture, a beat-up old minivan, and hauled bodies. It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounded, except it was. I had three babies and one on the way. Even with the van shouldering part of the load, I was weighed down. I’d buckle one kid then another then another into a car seat (the entire second row was a row of mismatched, dirty car seats) and toss the rest—diaper bags, strollers, a backpack instead of a purse, front carriers, back carriers, breast pump, cooler—into the trunk along with the stack of overdue and unread novels from the library and a map of the Metro, which I sometimes dreamed I’d boarded and couldn’t get off. I could never tell if it was a nightmare.
My father had flown out from the Bay Area, and he thought the Mid-Atlantic was a sweaty armpit full of hot air. “And I don’t mean the humidity,” he’d say. “I know humidity. I mean these hothead politicians who can’t see a slight rise in this godforsaken swamp and not mistake it for a soapbox.” My father hated politicians. Also lawyers, though you wouldn’t know it by the number of times he asked me when I was going back to Georgetown. “Finish the goddamn degree, Mara,” he’d say. “Then you can play around with these gremlins.” My father also told me that because I drove such a wreck of a van, I could drive it into the city and park anywhere, doors unlocked, windows down, and not worry. “Even if a car thief deigns this heap worthy of a closer look,” he said, “one whiff of the inside, the sour milk and dirty diapers, one look at the ground Cheerios and smears of unknown substances across the windows and armrests, and they’d back away slowly, crossing themselves and thanking the Madonna for their luck. Their luck, Mara!” he said. “Chrissakes, this car’s a wreck.”
I remember driving out to Brookside Nature Center, my father in the front seat talking, the babies across that row in the back, my left arm resting on my bulging belly, and looking out the window at the Metro station as we passed. Row after row of sleek metal cars pulling well-dressed people into the city, briefcases carrying important documents, legal papers, policies, the next bill to face Congress, and wondering listlessly how I’d gotten here. Wasn’t I supposed to be on that train?
It was May and hot and I was four weeks away from delivering baby number four. My nights were plagued with Braxton Hicks contractions and heartburn. Exhaustion felt like an extra appendage I wished I could amputate. I remember that my father had had business in Northern Virginia with Richard Hendersen, “Ricky” until the baseball player made it confusing. A man my father had known since before even my brothers were a concept in my parents’ minds, the man who’d given my father his first order when he started his own power supply design firm, and the man who’d convinced my father to take a few extra days and stay with the grandkids so my husband and I could get away for a night. I don’t know who was more surprised when I agreed, me or my father.
We went to Baltimore, my husband and I. Packed up the breast pump and a change of underwear and drove up after dinner Saturday night. We were back before lunch the next day. Scariest sixteen hours of my life. No one’s hair was brushed, my father’s included, and the girls were all wearing the same pajamas I’d dressed them in the evening before, but everyone was breathing and intact, though my father looked five years older. I can’t remember him ever being so happy to see me. “There’s your mother, Sport,” he said to my oldest daughter, who had just turned three. “I told ya she’d be here after breakfast. No whining required.”
He stayed through the weekend because “the Monday morning flight is fifty dollars cheaper,” and I remember he and my husband took the girls to the duck pond down the street after Mass (I’d stopped going to church by then, but my father didn’t leave room to argue—“You can’t hedge your bets with an hour a week?”), each pushing an umbrella stroller while my oldest walked behind my father like a shadow. I can’t be sure, but I think I stripped the sheets off the beds and got started on Sunday dinner while they were gone.
Monday morning, I helped him bring his bags to the car. The baby was napping and I put The Wiggles on for the older two while we stood in the driveway watching them through the window. He lit a cigarette. “They’re something all right, Sport,” my father said. “Great kids. Really neat.” He inhaled through his Marlboro, then exhaled over his shoulder. “But that oldest. Keep an eye on her, Mara.” When I asked him why, he told me that when we were gone, he hadn’t wanted to smoke in front of the kids. “But I couldn’t go cold turkey, could I? So I did just what you did now. Put on Sesame Street and slipped out the side door and Bob’s your uncle! I could watch the kids and smoke out here, like this.” He looked at the sky. “But your oldest, Mara. I swear ta God and on my dead father’s grave, she waited until I turned my back.” He shook his head and looked at me, his green eyes moving back and forth across my features. “Then quick as you please, she hopped up and locked the door. Locked it! Deadbolt and all!” Another shake of the head. “What are ya teaching these girls, anyway, Sport?” I opened my mouth, but he rolled right over me. “I knocked on the window. I asked nicely. ‘Open the door for Grandpa, please, Sport.’ Then I demanded. ‘Open the door now!’ Nothing. Crickets. She just went back to watching the yellow bird flap his jaw. So I went around to the front and rang the bell.” Here he pointed to the front door, which was a few feet away. “That only woke the baby.” He looked skyward again, head swinging from side to side. “Finally, I came back here and do you know what finally got that kid to open the door?” I said I didn’t. His green eyes found mine. “I told her, ‘Your mother wants you to open this door right now!’ And what does the little gremlin do? Up she hops, quick as you please, and bing bang boom! The door is unlocked.” He flicked the ashes off his cigarette. “I guess you’re teaching ‘em something. Anyway, I didn’t spank her, though she deserved it for Chrissakes.” A shoulder shrug. “But your mother told me not to, so I didn’t.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, then blew the cloud of smoke away from me. I fanned a hand in front of my face just in case. “No harm, no foul, I suppose, right Mara?”
He turned before I could answer, opening the door of his rental car. “Listen,” he said, with one foot in the car and one foot out. “There’s something else.” I held my breath, bracing. He reached a hand back and pulled his wallet out from his back pocket. When he opened it, I could see the St. Christopher medallion my maternal grandmother had given him when he and my mother got married taped inside. He rifled through a stack of bills and handed me three. “Here, take this. You’re looking a little spaghetti face.” He waved a hand in front of me. “Spaghetti face! You understand?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Go get yourself some new clothes, a makeover. Something.” He shook his head. “Jack’s a good guy, but even he has to have his limits.” He got in the car and closed the door. Whatever I wanted to say was lost to a Braxton Hicks contraction that stole my breath. He rolled down his window. “Take care of yourself, Mara. Your mother will call you.” The car backed away.
I can still see his shiny rental car, the red lights at the curve, the red tip of his cigarette as he waved a hand at me again before disappearing around the bend.
KC Courtland makes her home in Northern California, where she earns a living as a substitute teacher and spends the rest of her time lost in stories — sometimes the ones she reads, sometimes the ones she writes. Away from the page, she can be found painting with more enthusiasm than skill, stretching into yoga poses of questionable grace, or curled up with her two cats.
January House Literary Journal 
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