Absent Friends

Kevin was eight hours old when Marian first saw him, his hair already red and his arms and legs already in motion. She'd planned just to go to the hospital nursery and take a look, not to bother Sally (though when Markie called Jimmy and Marian to tell them about it, to tell them it was a boy, he and Sally had a son, he said Sally felt great, he said it was an easy delivery, maybe an hour, the baby just popped out; he told them Sally's mom said that meant the boy would never give them any trouble). But when Marian got off the elevator, Markie was in the corridor, looking through the glass, grinning at the babies. His grin was so big it included them all, but when a nurse came and picked one up, Marian thought the way he smiled then would split his face in half.

“I guess that's him?” she said.

“It sure is. Isn't he great?”

“Yes. He's great.”

“It's time for Sally to feed him. Come on, say hello.”

So Marian visited with Sally and Markie while Sally nursed Kevin. “It usually takes a while,” Markie told her. “Like a day, the nurse said, before they really figure out how to do it. But this kid, he figured it out already.”

Sally looked tired but radiant. Because, Marian thought, being this happy makes you radiant. When Kevin was finished nursing, Markie took him from Sally, wrapped his blankets a little better—his blankets, as far as Marian could see, were just fine—and asked Marian if she wanted to hold him.

“Really?”

Markie grinned and handed Kevin to her. Marian had held babies before, many babies, many times. She took him with practiced hands, cradled him in experienced arms, and found he was the smallest, softest, warmest thing she'd ever known. Holding him, wondering at his tiny eyelashes and his miniature fingers, Marian found herself suddenly overwhelmed with two sensations she had always thought of as separate, even contradictory: an enormous energy and a deep, boundless peace.

Kevin stirred in her arms. He opened his eyes, and then he smiled right at her, a wide smile like his father's, of recognition and joy. They can't even see yet, Marian tried to tell herself as her heart leaped, they can't make expressions, he doesn't have any idea who you are or who anybody is or anything. None of that, true though it all was, had any effect on her whatsoever. Marian had never been happier than she was at that moment, holding her best friend's baby, and she knew she never would be until she was out of school and Jimmy was out of the Academy and on the Job and they had babies of their own.

Now, a lifetime later, Kevin stood at the door, smiling that same smile. “Aunt Marian, I didn't know you were coming over today.”

Something was caught in Marian's throat; she had to clear it to answer. “Me either. Is it too early?”

“I just got up.” He looked abashed, the way he used to when he was a little boy and she caught him in mischief. “But Mom's been up for hours. Come on in.”

He moved aside so she could pass in front of him. She turned back to say something, something innocuous about the beauty of the day, and found herself unable to speak, overtaken by the same fullness of heart she had felt on his first day on earth. Caught by this, she watched Kevin push the door shut with the tip of one crutch. It was an unconscious act; he appeared to be preoccupied, thinking about something else, and he did not notice her eyes on him as he swung himself down the short hall. He moved smoothly and quickly, and in his casual, newly learned grace, Marian saw, and was dazzled by, hope.

Kevin's world had changed. Friends had died. He was disabled, though only, thank God, temporarily; he was in daily pain—yet he'd adapted. And when he was finally rid of the crutches, back on the Job, and once more the man he had been—different, but the same—he would adapt to that, too.

Since September 11 Marian had been grateful to be middle-aged, glad at least that she'd had her youth, under some clouds and some looming shadows to be sure, but not like this. Her heart had ached for the young people who would have to live the rest of their lives with the knowledge of what had happened and what therefore, at any moment, could happen again. But watching Kevin now, Marian became less sure that she was fortunate in this. Perhaps the sheer forward momentum of youth, the impulsiveness and lack of subtlety (the subtlety that could be in people her age a cause of, and cover for, an unwillingness to choose and commit), would carry the young through into a world whose changes they would accept, adjust to, and even thrive within.

“You should see him when he's clean.” Sally's voice startled Marian. She spun to find Sally in the kitchen doorway behind her.

“What?”

“Kevin. He's much more worth staring at after his shower. He's almost handsome if you can get him to shave.”

Kevin dropped himself onto a chair and rolled his eyes.

Marian said, “Was I staring?”