After Emily was born, we lived in a one-and-a-half-bedroom apartment in a rundown section of Newmarket, New Hampshire. The apartment was a stark contrast of the neighborhood that surrounded it, thanks to Alison’s father’s talent in painting, minor repairs and her mother’s skill at dumpster diving and Good Will shopping. As poor college students, this was the best that I could afford which turned every manly gear in me the wrong way. The only soothing balm was that someday I was going to put more than a gold band on her finger and we would live in a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a quiet bedroom community and we would hear birds at night not sirens.
That day I sat at my study area which consisted of a three-legged card table and lamp. It was jammed between a dresser and the wall in our bedroom; a three-foot book shelf under the back corner (which was stocked with baby supplies) braced up the missing leg. The shelf itself was an inch or so too short and made a valley where pens and any spilled liquid would roll towards. To solve this problem, I had taken one of the baby’s diapers and wrapped it around the lowest corner of the table where it caught both items. One with a safe cushioned bounce and the other with fast absorption efficiency; unfortunately, the wetness indicator was not visible and I had to guess when to change it.
One day while studying, the sound of Alison’s laughter had caught my interest before I had even taken off my noise canceling headphones. The next-door neighbor who lived across the hall was sitting in our living room talking with Alison while Emily and some chubby baby dressed in a Yankees uniform leaned over and pulled on my princesses’ ruffled dress which she was wearing. A deep growl came from my throat which surprised me and startled the young women who moments earlier had been smiling.
Alison rolled her eyes.
I would not have felt bad for Joan or Joanna or whoever her name was, except I realized she was very young, barely eighteen and I had scared her. However, she had given birth to a male who was accosting my daughter and she was raising him to be a Yankee’s fan. Joan/Joanna rose from the couch, grabbed her child and headed towards the door; without taking her eyes off me. Alison walked behind her making sure I stayed back as she tried to make an apology for my Neanderthal ways.
Once the door was shut behind the fleeing girl, she turned to face me with a look I now know better than to go up against. However, still being in the early stages of marriage I hadn’t yet learned to apologize first and then explain myself.
“Did you see what the deviant boy did to our little girl?” I said
“Nine-month-old boys cannot be deviants,” Alison stated in a voice of finality.
“Of course, they are. All males of every species are horn dogs.” I countered, “The minute they discover the joy stick of life, they are dogs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We need to protect her from all men, boys and especially teenage boys.”
Alison looked at me with horror, “she is six months old!”
“So?” I asked, “a pinch of prevention is worth a pound of a cure.”
Throwing up her hands in frustration, “look buddy,” she pointed a finger very close to my chest almost touching, “I put up with you spraying disinfectant in every room before we enter and the car before we put in the car seat and every grocery cart-” I start to interrupt but a look and her finger made me think better of it, “and even at my mother’s house, even though it hurts her feelings, -”
“Your father laughs.”
She gives me the ‘not funny’ look and continues, “you have to calm down.”
“but-”
“No ifs, ands, or buts.” She now poked my chest, “You are being ridicules and you know it.” She took a step back, “just because you were a “horn dog,” she made air quotes, “doesn’t mean every boy she meets will be.”
“Spoken like a girl.”
Coming close she stood on tip toes, her nose to my chin and spoke with a grunting sound, “You are to stop this train of thought now.” She huffed out a some of her anger, “You need to have faith we will raise a strong confident woman who will not allow anyone to do anything to her she doesn’t want to happen,” stabbing his chest one more time, “that will include her sex life.”
As she stormed away, I shouted, “that is not a comforting thought.” I ripped open the twenty-year-old fridge and let out the stench of the musty old appliance which had the tinted smell of fish from some previous tenant. “We are sending her to an all-girl’s day care and school. Then she will go directly into a convent.”
“We aren’t Catholic!”
“We’ll convert!”
“Emerson, go study!”
