The Changeling. Victor LaValle
THE DAY BEFORE, on Emma’s first morning back to work, she woke up alone, the two boys already off on a book hunt in Riverdale. After taking a piss, she ran the shower. Half an hour under the water, and Apollo never walked in to shit, Brian didn’t cry to be changed or fed or held. She’d never want a life without those two, but thirty minutes?
Yes, please.
Emma shaved her legs in the shower, though this had to be done slowly because it hurt to bend over. She washed her hair. She applied makeup in the mirror after the steam dissipated and felt surprised by her own face. How could she feel so different and look, largely, the same?
First day back to work. She surprised herself with how eager she felt to get there. Only part-time, but she retained her health insurance. That alone made the job worth having. Apollo never had health insurance. Once she’d been cut from full-time, he made more money, but her health insurance made a big difference. For instance, Kim would still be paid for her work as their midwife. Though, sadly, they were refusing to pay her for the delivery because, technically, she hadn’t been the one to do it.
Before getting dressed, Emma went to the freezer and found her storehouse of pads doused in witch hazel. She slipped one inside her panties and enjoyed the cold relief. Before leaving, she found her phone, tapped it on to find the message from Apollo. Eleven pictures of Brian deep asleep. She laughed at the sight, and her face flushed with love. She texted back: Why is my baby sleeping in a basement?
Then she left for work.
Emma passed Holyrood Episcopal Church on the corner of Fort Washington and 179th. Maybe they’d have Brian baptized there. Only two months, and already Lillian, raised Episcopalian in Uganda, had been hinting about the need. Emma’s family had been Catholic, rare birds in Boones Mill. But after her parents died, there hadn’t been much churchgoing for Emma and Kim. People were kind to them, invited them to worship all over the place, but the Valentine girls became a congregation of two.
Emma headed east, passing a worn-down Papa John’s branch and the new pharmacy that had replaced a butcher’s shop. St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church on Wadsworth Avenue, then 24-Hour Dental Lab, N&C Brokerage, and New Age Financial, all in a close row on the next block. At this hour the sidewalks were blurry with working people headed to their jobs and swarms of teenagers buzzing toward school. Emma announced herself as a problem to all those around her because she moved slowly. People muttered, even growled, as they sped around her, but she didn’t give a shit about them. Worse was the growing pain she felt the farther she moved from her apartment. A strange sort of swelling filled her chest, her throat.
She missed her son.
The feeling, nearly like grief, forced her to stop at one corner and lean on a mailbox. She cried quietly while the light went from green to yellow to red. She missed Brian, and now her breasts swelled, both filling with a stabbing pain. She’d brought her breast pump in her bag, planning to empty them during lunch, but she couldn’t wait that long. She sobbed softly and felt the distance from her child as surely as the ache in a phantom limb. Passersby noticed her, then ignored her. She caught her breath, straightened up, and made her way to work.
The three-story limestone building, built in 1914, had been funded by Andrew Carnegie, and the list of former locals it once served included Marianne Moore and Maria Callas, Ralph Ellison and Lou Gehrig. But Emma preferred to think of all the kids, anonymous and important, who’d been served at this branch, by women like her, for a hundred years. She hoped to be for each of them what Ms. Rook had been for her, a low-key liberator, a safeguard and a salve. Emma loved being a librarian.
Emma reached work at 8:35 and let herself into the building to find her colleagues—her friends—had strung up a sign that read WELCOME BACK in gold letters. Sheryl bought a cake from Carrot Top, best carrot cake in New York City. Carlotta had already brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Yurina, the youngest librarian, was the one who’d bought and hung the sign.
“I missed you,” Emma said as she hugged each woman.
Carlotta, overcome, kissed Emma on the forehead. It felt like a blessing from a high priest. They asked to see pictures of Brian, and Emma happily obliged. They cooed about his beautiful big eyes, the shape of his darling ears. Carlotta and Sheryl, mothers themselves long ago, gave unsolicited advice and made Emma promise to “cherish every moment because it all goes so fast.” Oh, the clichés of parenting! She knew that someday she’d be saying them to new parents, too, and so what? Really, all of it was lovely, and Emma couldn’t have asked for a better return. She ate cake and sipped tea. The older ladies crowed with praise when they heard Apollo had taken Brian to work with him. Then the librarians prepped for the day.
Emma grabbed the books in the book drop bin, then got the newspapers from outside. Down to the basement—the adult reading room level—where she replaced yesterday’s editions with today’s. Carlotta had already begun unpacking the new arrival books and checking them against the packing lists. Sheryl would be on the second floor today, the children’s section, though the branch was so small that all of them traded floors, and jobs, a few times a day. At the front desk Yurina powered up the two computers, and Emma checked that the four loaner laptops were fully charged. Then it was ten o’clock, and they opened.
Just then her phone rattled in her bag. When she took it out, she found another photo blast from Apollo. Father and son in the driveway of a large home. Apollo is leaning into the minivan he’d rented, either loading or unloading bags. Meanwhile Brian is lying on a blanket in the driveway staring up at the trees. Before she could do more than glance, a group of daycare kids entered the branch, and Emma found herself fully occupied.
Emma made it all the way to noon with the feeling she had something stuck between two of her back teeth, that kind of irritation. It didn’t let up until the end of her day, returning home at three P.M., when she realized the problem. That second photo sent to her phone this morning. The shot of Apollo and Brian in the driveway. Her first thought was, Why the hell are you letting my son lie down in a driveway? But then a second thought came to her: Who took the picture?
She found her phone in her purse and spent the next ten minutes on 179th Street trying to find the picture to confirm her memory, but it had disappeared. It wasn’t in her texts, her downloads, her photo gallery. Just gone. As if the person who’d sent it had snatched it away.
“I’M GLAD YOU brought the kid.”
Apollo and Brian made their morning meet-up with Patrice downtown on Avenue B. Patrice waited outside a tiny computer shop. At about this same time, Emma was opening the Fort Washington branch on her second day of work.
“Check out this rig,” Patrice said, turning his phone screen toward Apollo. It showed the photo of a desktop computer with two monitors, four speakers, and more. “I’m going to build me an even better one than this.”
Apollo was wearing Brian turned ’round in the BabyBjörn, so the kid faced Patrice. He lifted the baby slightly higher as if to show off his own rig.
“You know who you look like?” Patrice asked. “Master Blaster.”
“Who runs Bartertown?” Apollo said.
Patrice sneered, “Master Blaster runs Bartertown.”
Apollo and Patrice hugged each other as best two men could with an eight-week-old dangling between them.
“Really though,” Apollo said. “Master Blaster had the little guy on the back. Me and Brian are more like Kuato and his brother.”
Patrice held open the door to the computer shop. “You going to compare your baby to motherfucking Kuato?”
Apollo rested his hand gently on his son’s head. “The Martians love Kuato,” Apollo said. “They think he’s fucking George Washington.”