After the Waning Moon, I Won't Wait for You

After my son was born, my parents were on medication all year round, and I was the only one bringing in money.

On Thanksgiving I quietly swapped my shifts and rushed home, wanting to surprise my wife, Marcella Sullivan.

The door opened, but it was her ex, Jude James.

He was wearing my slippers, a little girl in a pink dress in his arms.

Marcella came out from behind him, and the color drained from her face.

I asked, "Where's my son?"

She hooked her hand around my arm, her voice going soft.

"Honey, don't be angry yet."

"Jude's wife died in childbirth, and the baby won't take formula. She looked so pitifully hungry, so I helped feed her these past few months."

I stared at her. "So where's my son?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't have enough milk. I couldn't manage two babies, so I let my parents take him for now."

"Boys are tough. A little rice cereal won't hurt him."

The next day I hurried to my in-laws' place.

My six-month-old son was so thin his face had caved in, and there was only half a bottle of rice water in the bottle, so watered down I could see the bottom.

My mother-in-law even lectured me. "That other child has no mother. Marcy has a good heart. Don't be so difficult."

When I picked my son up, he was so hungry even his cry was faint.

I looked at my son in my arms, and for the first time I didn't soften.

"Marcella. From now on, go live with the one you feel so sorry for."

The line went quiet for two seconds.

Marcella let out a small laugh.

"Jealous again?"

There was even a note of exasperation in her voice.

"Alfred Gilbert, you're thirty-one. Can you not compete with a child who has no mother?"

I looked down at Drew Coleman in my arms.

Six months old, his face smaller than my palm, his wrist thin enough to close a hand around.

Before, when Marcella said things like that, I really would have wondered if I was being petty.

Five years married, and the worst fight we ever had was over Jude.

That year Jude got drunk and had stomach bleeding, and she drove to the hospital in the middle of the night.

I was so angry I slept on the couch all night.

The next day she crouched by the couch, holding my favorite beef noodle soup.

"No onions, no cilantro, double the beef."

I kept my eyes shut and ignored her.

"Mr. Gilbert, still angry?"

In under five minutes I got up and ate it.

She knew exactly how to coax me.

And she knew I could never bring myself to really fall out with her.

But today I didn't have the strength to fight with her.

I took Drew to the hospital.

The doctor lifted the baby's clothes, and his brow tightened.

"Six months?"

"Yes."

"Only about eleven pounds?"

My throat went tight.

The doctor asked again, "Has he had diarrhea lately?"

My mother-in-law cut in from the side. "What baby doesn't? His father's away all year. He doesn't understand these things."

The doctor looked up at her.

"This child is already malnourished and dehydrated. Substituting rice water for formula long-term, if this drags on any further, it'll affect his development."

My mother-in-law started to say they'd raised kids this way before.

The doctor shut her down. "Before, there was no other option. Now there's formula, there are hospitals. Why are you still experimenting on a child?"

The nurse jabbed three times before the needle went into the back of Drew's hand.

On the third stick he finally let out a bit of sound, faint as a kitten's mew.

My palms were slick with sweat.

I climb steel towers more than forty meters up in the mountains, a cliff right under my feet in winter.

A guy on my crew slid off a tower once, the safety line snapping two of his ribs, and I was never this scared.

At eight that night, Marcella finally came.

She'd run there in a hurry, still carrying a thermos.

"Where's the baby?"

The first thing she looked for was the child.

That knot of anger I'd held in all day actually loosened a little.

Marcella washed her hands twice.

"Let me hold him."

She reached for Drew.

The baby stared at her for a few seconds, then his mouth crumpled and he shrank back into me.

Marcella froze.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He probably doesn't recognize you."

"How could that be?"

She reached out again.

Drew started crying at once.

The people in the next bed all turned to look.

Marcella slowly lowered her hand.

"I've only gone two months without really caring for him"

I didn't correct her. It was almost three.

She couldn't even get that right.

She opened the thermos.

Inside was chicken noodle soup, no onions.

"You definitely skipped lunch again."

She pushed the chopsticks into my hand.

"Eat first. Don't have your stomach acting up before the baby's even better."

She still remembered I didn't eat onions, remembered my bad stomach.

I looked at that bowl of noodles and I wanted so badly to ask her: you obviously care about me, so how could you bear to treat our own child like this?

I'd barely taken two bites when her phone rang.

Jude.

She didn't pick up the first time.

She didn't pick up the second time.

The third time, he sent a voice message.

A baby's heartbroken wailing burst out of it.

"Marcy, Joy suddenly spit up, her face is turning purple, I don't know what to do!"

Marcella shot to her feet.

She was already halfway into her coat before she seemed to remember me.

"Alfred, I'm going to go check on her."

"Drew's still on the IV."

"There are doctors here."

"And Joy doesn't have any?"

She stalled.

"Jude doesn't know how to do anything."

I laughed.

"It's my first time being a father. Am I supposed to know everything?"

She frowned.

"Do you have to fight about this right now?"

She quickly pushed down her temper and took my hand.

"Honey."

"Joy's only four months old. Her mother's gone."

When she said the words "no mother," her voice noticeably dropped.

Marcella lost her own mother when she was eight.

"Drew has you here, and the doctors, and my parents."

There it was again.

Drew had people, so Drew could wait.

Marcella bent down and kissed my forehead.

"I'll be back soon."

I didn't stop her.

She didn't come back that night.

At one in the morning she sent a message.

Joy's fine, she just choked on her milk.

Then one more line.

Did you not finish the noodles? Don't blame me if your stomach hurts.

I stared at it a long time and didn't reply.

In the middle of the night Drew woke up.

I carried him slowly up and down the hallway.

A nurse asked in passing, "The baby's mother still hasn't come back?"

I paused.

"She's busy."

Even I found it laughable once I'd said it.

On the fourth day of Drew's hospital stay, I went home for clothes.

The key went into the lock and wouldn't turn.

Jude was the one who finally opened the door.

He still had my slippers on his feet.

"Lock broke a couple days ago. Just got it changed."

I looked at him.

"You've got the new key."

His face stiffened.

"Marcy figured it'd be easier for me, carrying the baby."

I didn't answer him.

The living room had picked up corner guards, floor pads, a pink rocking chair.

After Drew was born, I'd brought up padding the corners twice.

Both times Marcella said it looked ugly.

"Wait till he's crawling."

Joy was only four months old, and the whole place was already wrapped up tight.

I pushed open the door to the nursery.

My feet stopped.

The pale blue walls were still there. The blue mobile was gone.

The closet was full of little dresses.

Drew's crib had been taken apart, the boards stood up on the balcony with two cardboard boxes stacked on top.

That crib was the one I'd taken leave to come home and put together when Marcella was seven months pregnant.

She'd sat beside me with her belly out, directing.

"The left side's too high."

I crouched on the floor, tightening screws.

"Mrs. Gilbert, I fix high-voltage lines, not cribs."

She laughed and nudged me with her foot.

"Then learn. Later, when the baby cries, you don't get to say you don't know how either."

I agreed to it easily back then.

"Fine. I'll learn."

Now the baby was six months old.

And she'd taken the crib apart first.

Jude followed me in.

"Alfred, it's only temporary. Just for Joy to sleep in."

"How long have you been living here?"

His face went a little uneasy.

"Half a month, a bit more."

"Why my house?"

"My place sprang a leak a while back. The walls keep coming up damp."

"And Joy's so little. Marcy said running back and forth was a hassle, so she had me stay here with the baby for now."

"Living here until when?"

Jude paused.

"We'll move once the place is fixed."

I pointed at the nursery.

"Temporary, half a month, and you needed to take my son's crib apart?"

I pointed at the balcony.

"So where does my son sleep?"

There was the sound of a key at the door.

Marcella was back.

One look at the mess on the floor and her face changed.

"What are you doing back?"

"Getting Drew's things."

She came straight over and grabbed my arm.

"Joy's been sleeping really badly lately, and she's fussy about a new bed. I figured, since Drew's over at my folks' for now anyway"

I looked at her.

"Why is he at your folks' for now?"

That stopped her.

Then the anger came just as fast.

"Alfred, does every single thing you say lately have to have a barb in it?"

"I know it hurts you that the baby's sick, but I didn't starve him on purpose."

"Not on purpose, so it's fine?"

"That's not what I said!"

Her eyes went red at the rims.

"I already bought formula, I already asked the doctor. What more do you want from me?"

"Do I have to get down on my knees and admit I was wrong before you're satisfied?"

This was Marcella.

She'd feel guilty.

But let her stay bowed too long and she'd start feeling wronged herself.

I didn't argue anymore. I crouched and opened the bottom drawer of the closet.

Empty.

"Where's the locket?"

Her face stiffened.

That locket wasn't expensive.

My mother had saved from her medicine money for half a year to have it made for Drew.

His baby name was engraved on the back.

Drew.

Marcella didn't answer.

I followed her eyes.

There was a little glint of gold at Joy's neck.

I walked over to look.

It was the locket, all right.

"Who put it on her?"

Marcella was quiet for two seconds.

"I did."

"Why?"

"On Joy's hundred-day, Jude's parents weren't around. I thought a bit of gold on the baby would be lucky."

"So you took my son's?"

"Just for the one day."

She frowned, impatient.

"I'll clean it when it comes back. What's the problem?"

I stared at her.

"Give it a few more days and are you going to lend him his wife too?"

The room went dead quiet. Jude's face changed.

Marcella's head snapped up.

"Alfred, can you not be so filthy with your mouth?"

"It's one locket. Why are you dragging me and Jude into it?"

"My son's name is engraved on it."

She flared too.

"So a name's engraved on it and it can't be lent out?"

"Joy doesn't even have a mother. I just thought it was too sad, her having nothing on her hundred-day!"

The noise scared the baby into crying.

Marcella turned almost by reflex.

"Shh, Joy, don't cry."

She took the baby out of Jude's arms.

Rocking her gently, patting her back, cheek to cheek, the movements so practiced it hurt to watch.

That day in the hospital room, Drew cried the moment she picked him up.

She didn't know how much milk her own son took in a feeding, but she knew how to hold Joy so she wouldn't spit up.

Suddenly I didn't want to fight anymore.

I packed Drew's clothes and papers into a duffel bag.

Marcella chased me to the entryway.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking him."

"Alfred, do you have to tear this family apart?"

She stared at me for a few seconds, then abruptly turned and pulled out a box.

"Take it."

Inside was a new pair of cold-weather gloves.

The brand I always used.

Under them, frostbite cream.

"The cold came early this year."

Her voice went soft.

"You won't wear the thick gloves up on the mountain."

My fingers paused, and she caught it at once.

"It's not that I don't care about you. I just think Joy's the one who's worse off."

I lifted my head.

"And Drew?"

Her face went white for a second.

I took the gloves and set the old key on the shoe cabinet.

"Don't bother cutting me a new key."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Drew stays with me from now on. You two keep the place."

I turned and got in the elevator.

Marcella stood in the doorway, her eyes rimmed red.

"You're just using the fact that I'm in the wrong to jerk me around on purpose, aren't you?"

"You think I'm jerking you around?"

"Aren't you?"

She bit her lip.

"When have you ever stayed angry more than three days?"

The elevator doors slid slowly shut.

I said, "Then it starts this time."

After Drew was discharged, he had to go to the children's rehabilitation center for regular feeding intervention.

The first session, he cried the moment the nipple touched his mouth.

The therapist showed me how to hold him.

I was so clumsy my arms went stiff.

The nurse smiled. "Take it slow, Dad."

I smiled too.

"I was never home before. Lots of catching up to do."

Before the third assessment, Marcella brought up the timing herself.

"I'll take the afternoon off."

I didn't say no.

She was visibly relieved.

"Don't always assume I don't care about anything."

One thirty in the afternoon, I got there first.

One fifty, she still hadn't come.

Two o'clock, she texted.

On my way.

The therapist pushed us back twenty minutes.

Drew was so hungry he started gnawing on his hand.

Two forty, still no sign of her.

I called. Someone picked up on the second try.

It was Jude.

It was loud in the background.

"Alfred."

"Where's Marcella?"

"Inside with Joy."

"Put her on."

A few seconds later, Marcella took the phone.

"Honey."

"I really was about to leave."

"Jude's parents came to Denver to see Joy for the first time today. The old folks don't know what's been going on these past few months, and they keep pulling me aside asking how to take care of the baby."

"And?"

"Joy's shy with strangers. The second I step away she cries."

She was talking fast.

"I'll stay a little longer. Once she warms up to her grandparents I'll go."

I glanced at the time.

"It's two forty-five."

"I know."

"The assessment started at two."

She was quiet for a few seconds, then her own temper flared.

"Alfred, I'm not playing around here!"

"Two grandparents are meeting their granddaughter for the first time. If I just dump the baby and walk out now, what are they going to think?"

I laughed.

"What are they going to think?"

"That it's strange my wife's been the one taking care of their granddaughter these past few months?"

"Or that you look more like this kid's mother than their own son does?"

"Do you have to be so cruel?"

Her voice shot up.

"There's nothing between me and Jude!"

"I didn't ask you that."

I looked at Drew, already starting to cry in my arms.

"I only asked you one thing. Are you coming or not?"

The line was silent for a long time.

Finally she said, "You go ahead and start."

I nodded.

"Fine."

The assessment took over an hour.

Drew threw up twice.

The second time it landed right on my jacket.

I was wiping his mouth when someone tagged me in the crew group chat.

Mike Lyons had posted a photo taken outside a hotel.

Mr. Gilbert, who's that next to your wife?

Jude stood in the middle holding Joy.

His parents flanked him on either side.

Marcella had been pulled in beside the old couple.

Her body was clearly leaning away, but frozen in the photo, they still looked like one family.

Someone in the chat asked, Who's the guy?

The photo was pulled down fast.

I didn't say anything.

At nine that night, Marcella rushed in.

The moment she came through the door she asked, "Did you see the photo?"

"Yeah."

"It's not what you think."

"I know."

She froze.

I lowered my head and washed the bottle.

"The grandparents didn't know the situation, and Joy can't be without you."

I repeated back what she'd said that afternoon.

Marcella's face got worse and worse.

"Do you really have to put it like that?"

She set the cake down hard.

"I know I was late, and I'm trying to make up for it!"

"I came the second it was over. Can you stop acting like I'm out to kill Drew every single time?"

Her eyes were already red.

"You're gone all year. I got pregnant, gave birth, went through the whole recovery alone. Do you have any idea what that was like for me?"

"You come home for a few days, hold the baby, hand over some money, and think you've done everything!"

I listened in silence. She wasn't entirely wrong.

I was gone all year.

Late in her pregnancy she went to a lot of the checkups alone.

Two weeks after Drew was born, I was back up the mountain.

I asked her, "So you got tired, and you gave Drew away?"

Her lips trembled.

"I only"

"You could have told me you couldn't handle it. You could have had me quit the project. You could have hired a nanny."

"You could have had my parents come."

I looked at her.

"You didn't say any of it."

"You just sent him away, and brought the other kid in."

She couldn't get another word out.

After a long moment, she pushed the cake toward me.

"I bought it for you."

I glanced down.

There was a card stuck to the box.

Happy 100 Days, Joy.

The color drained from Marcella's face.

"Wrong one."

She reached out to grab it back.

I closed the box first and handed it to her.

"It's fine."

She didn't take it.

"Alfred."

"If you're angry, yell at me."

"Don't be like this."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a stranger."

I put the bottle into the sterilizer.

"Don't bring me food anymore."

"I'm sick of it."

Her tears spilled over.

"Sick of the cake, or sick of me?"

I didn't answer.

She threw the cake into the trash.

"Fine. Eat it or don't, I don't care."

At the door, she stopped for a couple of seconds.

Like she was waiting for me to call her back.

I kept my head down and wiped the water off the counter.

Until the door closed, I said nothing.

Before my leave ended, I put in for a transfer.

From high-voltage repair in rural Montana to distribution maintenance inside the city.

More than four thousand less a month.

I never used to be able to give that up.

My parents' medication, the mortgage, the kids every one of them cost money.

Marcella had begged me not to go, more times than I could count.

One year there was a bad snow in Montana, and my whole crew went dark for seventeen hours.

When the signal came back, I had forty-three missed calls on my phone.

Her last message was: Alfred, if you dare let something happen to you, I'll remarry tomorrow.

I sat in the snow and laughed for a long time.

I always knew she loved me.

Which was exactly why I couldn't understand how she kept pushing our own son behind someone else, again and again.

The day the transfer came through, I rented a two-bedroom near the office.

My parents moved in for the time being to help me.

At the same time, I stopped the automatic transfer of twenty thousand I sent Marcella every month.

She called that same day.

"You turned off the transfers?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I'm raising Drew from now on."

"And the house?"

"Mortgage split down the middle. You pay your own utilities and HOA."

The line went quiet for a few seconds.

"Alfred, you're keeping the accounts this clean with me now?"

"Yes."

"I'm your wife!"

I was patting Drew's back to burp him.

"Which is why I'm still covering half the mortgage."

Eight in the evening, she found the rental.

Groceries in her hands.

My mother's face went cold the second she saw her.

"Don't trouble yourself. Looking after other people's children must have worn you out enough."

Marcella went pale for a beat, glancing at me on instinct.

Before, I would have smoothed it over without fail.

This time I didn't. She swallowed the humiliation and went into the kitchen.

Four dishes and a soup, all the things I like.

No ginger in the beef, no cilantro in the soup.

The ribs on the sweet side.

Marcella put a piece on my plate.

"You always used to say the mess hall in Montana put ginger in everything."

I didn't answer.

She looked at me, and all at once she was frantic.

"Alfred, I didn't forget everything."

"Your stomach acts up. You can't drink coffee on an empty stomach."

"The backs of your hands crack in winter."

"You run hot when you sleep. The AC can't go above seventy-five."

Her eyes went redder and redder.

"It's not that I don't love you."

I set down my chopsticks.

Her voice slowed.

"When Joy first came, I really only meant to help for a few days."

"Her mother was gone, and she wouldn't take formula."

"I didn't have a mother growing up either. You know that."

Marcella lost her mother at eight. Of course I knew why she went soft.

But going soft wasn't something you filled with Drew.

"Then Joy got more and more attached to me, and I kept thinking, Drew has a mom and dad, he has you."

She wiped away her tears.

"Nothing's going to happen to him."

I looked at her.

"So you figured we'd never leave."

She froze.

"Drew's your own son, he won't hold a grudge."

"I'm your husband, a little coaxing and I'm fine, so the people closest to you can wait as long as it takes."

The color drained clean out of her face.

When we finished eating, she washed the dishes without being asked.

I went back to the room for Drew's sleep sack.

I'd barely come out when she wrapped her arms around me from behind.

"Honey."

My hand almost lifted on instinct.

Five years of habit.

The moment she held me, I'd cover her hands with mine.

My fingertips had already touched the back of her hand.

Marcella felt it and held on tighter.

"I know you still care."

I stopped for two seconds, then slowly lowered my hand.

Pried her fingers open one by one.

The hope on her face went stiff.

"I already made Jude move out."

"Mm."

"I got the keepsake locket back too."

"Mm."

"From now on I won't get involved with anything about Joy."

"Suit yourself."

Her head snapped up.

"What do you mean, suit myself?"

"Alfred, aren't I changing right now?"

"I've gone this far, what more do you want?"

She finally broke.

"I made a mistake, I didn't kill anyone!"

"We've had five years."

"You'd sentence all five years to death over these few months?"

She laughed through her tears.

"Don't act so above it all."

"You used to skip meals for two days straight because you were angry about Jude."

She took out her phone, opened her messages, and held the screen out to me.

"Delete him. Block him, whatever you want."

"Isn't cutting him off exactly what you always wanted from me?"

I didn't take it.

"Alfred, delete him."

I looked at that profile picture.

I really had thought about it, more times than I could count.

But now that the moment had actually come, even touching the screen felt pointless.

"There's no need."

Marcella went blank.

"What?"

"Who you talk to is your business."

"Whether you help Joy from now on is your business."

"Whether you end up with Jude, you don't have to tell me either."

The blood drained slowly from her face.

"What are you saying?"

I set the spare key to the house on top of the cabinet.

"Here's your key back."

"Alfred."

Her voice started to shake.

"Don't do this."

"You can curse me if you're angry, you can make me get on my knees and apologize, just don't say things like this."

I didn't respond.

She lost it completely.

"Didn't you hate Jude more than anyone?"

"How could you suddenly not mind?"

"It wasn't sudden."

"When Drew was drinking rice water, a little went."

"When you went to take care of Joy, a little more went."

"When my son's crib got taken apart and the keepsake locket was hanging on someone else, a little more."

"When he was waiting for his mom at the assessment and she never came, a little more went."

She grabbed my arm and held on hard.

"Then how much is left?"

I lowered my head and took her hand off.

"None."

She looked like she hadn't understood.

"None of what?"

"I don't love you anymore."

Marcella stood there, the tears falling one by one.

Before, I cursed her, I fought with her, I slammed doors over Jude.

All of it because I wanted her.

And now.

I didn't even want to know who she'd choose.