Baby Breath revised, John Andrew Durler Sr. [best short books to read txt] 📗

big Macy's shopping bag. She walked up the ramp and laid it alongside the emergency door. She picked up the brown paper bag, crumpled the note, cool as a cucumber, took out the coffee, ripped the tab off and sipped, picked up the jelly donut, shoved it in her mouth, took a swig of the coffee, and looked around. Then, suddenly looking furtive and scared, she reached in, took out the manila envelope, ripped it open, ruffled the bills with her fingers and ran back to her Chevy. As she sped off, Alex scribbled the license plate down on a scrap of paper. If there was no baby, he could trace her. He opened the car door, ran up the ramp, grabbed the bag, ran back to his car and headed for his furnished room. On the way, not even looking in the bag on the passenger's seat next to him, hearing a baby's cries coming from it, he stopped in CVS, bought infant diapers, baby bottles, nipples, an eye dropper, baby lotion, powder, four different kinds of formula, pabulum, rattles, and anything else he could think of. He drove home, parked the car, took everything inside,
Took the baby out of the bag, held her gently in his arms. He did not mind the after birth and blood that stuck her toes, body and blanket. He bathed her in the kitchen sink using Ivory soap and lukewarm water, dried, powdered, diapered, and slipped a T-shirt over her chest. He took a pink union suit, slipped it on, buttoned it up, and brushed her hair with a baby brush.

He named her Ariel. She was tiny, and couldn't have been more than a day or so old. He made a bottle of water and glucose, warmed it, squirted it on his wrist and gently dripped a little onto her tongue. She clamped her lips on the nipple and sucked. "Ariel." He said softly, as he rocked her. "Ariel, Ariel." He improvised Elvis's lyrics, "All your trials will soon be over. Hush little baby, don't you cry, Daddy's here, your Daddy's here."

Whenever she cried, he changed and bathed her, held her close, inhaled her sweet baby's breath, and exhaled his own away from her. She clung to him when he held her, staring up at him, her green eyes with little gold flecks. Ariel was not Jenny, but that didn't matter. Jenny was dead. Ariel was saved from the fate of an orphanage, and she would never die of reasons unknown. He took her everywhere, slept, every night with her in his arms, her fingers tight around his thumb. When she would fall asleep, he'd gently lay her in a bassinet pressed tight against the bed, her hand still clutching his thumb as he lay down on the edge of it. Every day he awoke and said, "You're still Alive. God has given my life back to me for me to take care of you."

He moved into a two bedroom apartment, establishing himself as a single father over the next two months. He decided when Ariel was old enough to ask about mammas, he wouldn't tell her she was abandoned by her mother. He'd tell her, "Your mamma died days after you were born. Your mom ma really loved you Ariel. She loved you more than anything else in the world." He imagined them crying together, he for Jenny and Ariel and Ariel for her mother. It's strange how death can create an undying love. She'd hold my hand and I'll gently wipe her tears. I'll hear her sometimes in her sleep, calling "mommy? I love you mommy."

Alex thought about school coming when she would be old enough. How could he enter an unregistered abandoned baby in any school? She needed a birth certificate. He called Brunswick hospital, Norma's name, and hospitals being busy places, Alex managed to get a birth certificate duplicate with little problem. a birth certificate with a few corrections. Everything was going in the right direction.

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He made an appointment with a doctor to get the patch or anything that could help him quit. He hired a baby-sitter, interrogated her until she was about to cry, then apologized and explained how he cherished Ariel. The sitter put on a smile and said, "Gee, Mr. Sinclair, I wish my dad cared for me as much as you care for her."

Alex smiled and said, "Ask your Dad. I bet when you were as young as Ariel, he didn't leave you alone for a minute."

Her face changed, brightened and answered, "Mr. Sinclair, you're probably right. I remember how he interrogated all the boys I saw more than once, asking them where they lived, their parent's occupations, what they wanted to be. I used to be so embarrassed."

"He just wanted the best for you, Jane." I said, not being condescending.


The phone call came back from the doctor the following week. He made an appointment for the following day for me to go to a laboratory in West Slip to have further tests done, assuring him there was nothing wrong. He worried anyway. The tests showed Alex had a cancerous tumor on his brain. At the doctor's office again, he was told, "Mr. Sinclair, I made an open appointment at Sloan Ketterering. They can help you live a little longer in comfort."

"Cancel it. I'm not dying with tubes in every orifice and a machine pumping air into my lungs."

"You don't understand. As it progresses in your brain, your mind will slowly deteriorate. You won't be able to control your behavior. It's for your own good and everyone else you meet."

"Fuck you, Doc, I don't have any problem with reality."

You may have already had delusions. That angel you told me about, and the homeless person who was God. Those may have been completely different circumstances you subverted to so called messages from God. "I could commit you right now, Mr. Sinclair, you are certifiable. You have the propensity of having schizophrenia and paranoia. If you refuse to be hospitalized, then at least allow me to prescribe medication to contain them. I can also prescribe pain killers."

Doc, your bedside manner sucks. But I like the blunt honesty. Give me the prescriptions and I swear I'll take them as ordered, but if you fuck me and I become a zombie, I'll flush them down the toilet."

"Agreed, but you must call me on a daily basis at first. We may have to change dosages or combinations. You must read every word on the bottles, and keep a record of any side
effects. And if you get them, report them to me."

Alex felt like a dying man already--a dead man in progress. He stuffed the prescriptions in his pocket, stopped at Genovese, had them filled and went home. He paid the baby-sitter, held Ariel as he read the bottles taking notes, then popped a blue and a green, half a white, and called the Vanbuskirk's, making an appointment for eight o'clock the next evening. He spent the next day packing Ariel's things into boxes, except for what she'd immediately need. He bundled her up and he drove around until he came to a church with cars in the lot. He went in and held held her, prayed for her, lit as many candles as he could for Ariel and Jenny and left a fifty dollar bill in the poor box.

Eight o'clock, the Vanbuskirk's knocked on his door. The meeting was successful. They walked in, humble, yet with an air of confidence and I saw immediately they were loving and caring people. He gave them whatever papers he had, scribbled a will leaving Ariel everything he owned, made her the beneficiary of my hundred thousand insurance policy from his last job. The premiums were up to date. He took a red and a yellow pill, gave them the keys to the apartment, a spare to his car, signed the title and said, "It be in the glove compartment with your phone number and address. Ariel hasn't been baptized. I'm Presbiterian and I know you're Christians, so I've left instructions she can choose whatever she wants to be when of age."

They looked at me, tears in their eyes. "How will we reach you."

"I'll call you." Alex's eyes welled up. "She's in the bedroom. Take her. I can't bear to see her again. It'll be better for her. She'll forget sooner. Oh, let me get you my passbook. I still have eight thousand dollars in it, and I want it used for her education."

"You don't have to worry about that, Mr. Sinclair. We are educated people. I am Surgeon, a professor of mathematics and teach at Hofstra University. My wife Mildred is a stock
broker. She also has a Masters Degree in Social Science."

"Call me Alex, Mr. Vanbuskirk, and please leave now. I am exhausted and must rest."
Mildred took Ariel, and He came up again and again until Ariel's belongings were stripped from the apartment. Alex laid in his bedroom, with the door closed the lights out, and listened until they left. When he heard the door lock snap and the door close, he got up, ran downstairs and watched them pull away. The rear seat was packed with Ariel's things. Graham would have to use his mirrors to see behind him. he ran to his car to follow them, curious about where they lived.

Sitting on the hood of his car was the guy who looked like God, he met at Good Samaritan hospital. You have that ten you owe me?" Alex needed to hurry, so he pulled
a bill out his wallet, and handed him a twenty.

He held it up, inspected it, and said, "Thanks." He handed Alex a pack of Winstons and said "We are even. You better hurry, someone needs you."

Alex wanted to stay and find out just what kind of man this was, but he was right. He got in his car wanting to see where Ariel would call her home, and if by some miracle he recovered, he would come and take her back. He popped another red and blue, pumping his cheeks to get enough saliva to wash it down.

The trip ended in Sag Harbor on an estate sized piece of property. There was a running brook and a large pond, almost a small lake on one side. Fruit trees grew in an orchard and a horse roamed in a corral. Alex was fully satisfied. He watched them turn into the circular driveway to the large brick and stone house. The lights lit up the front yard, splashing on the car and the entrance as the car approached. Graham got out, ran around the front of the car and helped Mildred out. She held Ariel close to her as he assisted her up the steps. The front door swung wide and an elderly woman helped her in. Alex heard her say, "Oh my God Mildred, She's beautiful." Graham said, "Mother, please let us in, it's chilly."

"I know, she's beautiful mother. Don't get attached to her. Is her room ready?"

"Oh yes. The carpenters left an hour ago. Everything is perfect, you can hear a pin drop with the wall cut out so you can see her sleep from your bedroom. Mrs. Raynor is expecting you in the morning."

"The pediatrician? Good, we'll all go. I can't believe our luck. I'll run tests tonight. If her liver is good, I'll operate in the afternoon." Graham