[cont.]
During Grandpa Billy’s disciplinary sprees, which occurred at least once on every visit regardless of how she behaved, Maggie and her brothers would hide under the feather beds. He couldn’t get down on his hands and knees anymore, so if they were careful to tuck their legs and arms like little hedgehogs and kept away from the edges, they could escape until he put away the belt. They would wiggle around under there, collecting dust and tiny white feathers in their hair and clothes, waiting to hear him leave the house or start watching TV. Grandpa Billy at least was unbiased in the switching. Anyone within reach got it. After he died, her grandmother launched into her own campaign to discipline the sinful, although she always hit girls harder and longer. Growing up with those parents, Maggie’s mother was accustomed to abuse. It must have felt normal to her.
Alex’s storage unit was remarkable, so much so that Maggie borrowed video equipment from Barbara to document it. All of the shiny bits and pieces looked like specimens in clear containers, a Mutter Museum of industrial waste. Boxes of pulleys and long screws. Irregularly cut sheet metal scraps, bent nails categorized by weight. He also had a column of boxes filled with dolls heads, just the heads. Each with long hair. Each container was carefully marked with the contents and number. It was more an installation project than most installation projects.
She showed the footage to Barbara, who absconded with it, later folding it almost uncut into her documentary. Maggie didn’t object: Barbara seemed genuinely pleased and for a week treated her kindly. The shift in behavior helped clarify for Maggie that she too had inherited a tolerance for abuse. She was her mother’s child.
Twenty Four
Lori at first refused to be interviewed for Barbara’s film. She didn’t want to think about Hondo or Tommy; she wanted to move forward. She had no need to dredge up memories. She now had a brand new life in spades: two little bundles who sucked her dry. She would tell her new friends from the Lamaze classes that she was enormously thankful not to have been born a cat or a pig. Two tits were quite enough. Most of them, overwhelmed with feeding one baby through the night, nodded with sympathy, a little alarmed with her vehemence.
When she first got pregnant, she had nightmares about being an awful mother. Everyone kept telling her not to worry, but the hormone that nursing is supposed to produce to bond mother and child didn’t quite kick in, and she found herself one night, as she propped the second screaming girl up against her engorged breast, wondering if Hondo’s dealers might possibly have a synthetic version she could buy. Her nipples, it turned out, weren’t shaped properly and the babies weren’t getting enough food. So the best option was a breast pump and bottles for the milk.
Once she had the system going, her breasts stopped aching every second of the day, the babies stopped crying as much and her husband and mother-in-law were very happy to help with the bottle feedings. Her father-in-law even volunteered to help. He was actually better with the diapers than any of them. She teased him that he should try for the Guinness Book of Records and offered to find dozens of babies for him to change. What a sweet man. He blushed. She could see where Brendan had inherited his nearly infinite patience. With a little extra sleep in her life, she started enjoying the babies more, making them laugh, encouraging them to make tight fists, giving them butterfly kisses, blowing bubbles on their bellies. But being a milk machine was exhausting. No wonder cows are so lethargic.
Barbara and her film crew arrived while the girls were on the floor, one in yellow, the other in green, little pudgy arms and legs jerking around, on the verge of being able to flip over all by themselves. The crew consisted of two young women who quickly became entranced and kept trying to take more footage of the babies, particularly the babies cooing with excitement while trying to grab the microphone, but Barbara yelled at them to focus on the entire environment. With the raised voice, the babies launched into crying and Lori had to comfort them, glaring at Barbara who was oblivious. The crew apologized to Lori before moving on to document the house. Not a single painting adorned the walls, only photos of the babies and the wedding in someone’s backyard. Lawn chairs and a plastic swimming pool were visible in the background behind the wedding party. Lori wore a white linen dress and sandals, clutching a bouquet of Shasta daisies. The one piece of art up on the walls was in the hallway, a drawing, a pencil sketch of two newborn babies asleep.
When the babies settled down, Barbara had Lori sit in the kitchen filled with cheap pressboard furniture. It had the best lighting in the bungalow and the fewest visible globs of baby barf. While the crew set up the two video cameras, tested the sound and adjusted the flood lights, Barbara stood to the side reading her notes. When they finished, she jumped in, asking a few questions about the babies, how old they were, how much they weighed at birth. Lori answered, all smiles, and then Barbara asked her if she felt any regrets about abandoning her talent.
