“I don’t mean to overstep,” Gen said. I believed her. “I’m sure you have these already, but I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed.”
“My sister would be thrilled to know about another person so invested in the baby’s health.” I picked up one of the bottles, unsure of half the words listed there. “And I’m thrilled, too.”
“For the baby, of course, but what’s really important is your health,” Gen said. “You have to take care of yourself through all this. It’s a trauma on the body, pregnancy. It’s important to take care during and long after.”
I stared at Gen, who must be an authority on this subject, havingpresumably birthed all the many children that made up Barry and his siblings. Of course, I knew my health was important, but only so much as it had to do with the baby. I didn’t realize that somewhere in the last few months I’d begun to think of myself as a sort of incubator, not as myself, a human at risk of suffering my own damage.
Gen looked at me in this all-knowing, understanding sort of way. Pity and love both. My mother looked at me that way, too, like I was entering a club I didn’t know existed, this club of motherhood where all mothers were tasked to look after one another. It all sounded very Divine Feminine Horoscope (my favorite Instagram page to laugh at with Kate even though both of us secretly took it very seriously).
I wanted to hug her, or be hugged by her, I wasn’t sure which.
“That was really kind of you,” I said.
Her bangles clinked as she patted my shoulder. “I’m just glad to meet you.”
Barry’s face was openly softer when I turned back to him. His insistence to move in with me still didn’t make total sense, but meeting Gen showed some of it; he knew something about pregnancy that I didn’t, something that he learned from his mother. Kate, too, and my dad, Josie, Mom and Ron, each of them knew that this was not something to be done alone, not if it could be helped.
“And just who is this?” Gen crouched to meet Junior, a hand reached out in the cat’s direction. She spoke to Junior like he, too, was another grandchild to be cared for.
Back at the island, Barry hinged at the waist, considered for a moment, then placed another puzzle piece.
I don’t know how I ended up alone with Barry’s parents at his game the next night, only that both Jeremy and Kate were rudelybusy, and I was unreasonably nervous to be sitting with the future grandparents of my child.
I showed up a little late to the game and found them in the room with all the food, both greeting me with a full hug, even Barry’s dad who I hadn’t met before. The whole family was tall, but Barry was the most freakishly tall of them all. One of the team employees found us and brought Barry’s parents a bag with some team merch in it, similar to what they’d done for me.
“There’s so many games in a season,” I remarked as we settled into the seats I’d become rather familiar with over the past few weeks. There were three home gamesthis week. I had no idea they played so often. I don’t think I’d been to five professional sports games in my life, and now I could say I’d been to that many in one month.
“Oh yes, they work hard, don’t they?” Gen said. Her husband, Stuart, sat on the other side of her, a box of popcorn in his hands and wearing one of Barry’s jerseys from his previous team. I wore a warm team half-zip atop the usual overalls, and a team hat. I was telegraphing that I was a true fan, obviously. The jacket had Barry’s name on the sleeve because, well, it was his. It just looked so warm hanging from the hook by the back door when I left, and I was entirely certain he wouldn’t mind. In fact, he’d probably get that dangerousI-really-want-to-kiss-you-and-make-another-babyface that he got anytime I wore something of his.
Also, it smelled like him, a smell I liked, which meant something since pregnancy had given me an especially sensitive sniffer.
“You’ve been going to games his whole life. Does it ever get old?” I asked.
“Oh, we love it. Always something different every season. It’s a bit addicting, isn’t it?”
“A bit.” I could admit that the more I knew about the game, the more into it I became. The first game I watched was overwhelming—fast, it seemed so lawless and intense. I could recognizethat it was strategic, and the guys out there made it look easy only because they’d practiced so hard for so long. I couldn’t remember the last time I put on a pair of ice skates, but I don’t think I could literally sprint across the ice, much less handle and shoot a puck while I was at it, without breaking multiple bones.
“You a hockey fan, Hannah?” Stuart asked, offering me some of the popcorn across Gen. I took a handful and smiled.
“I didn’t know much about hockey until I started working at the practice facility, and then when Barry got traded, I guess I really started learning.”
“You work for the team?” Stuart asked, surprise etched across his face. Gen’s face mirrored it, and suddenly I was nervous to tell them. Had Barry not told them I was a janitor because they never asked or because he was embarrassed? And if hewasembarrassed, was it something I should be embarrassed about too?
“I—uh—yes. Well, no, not really. I work for my dad, and his janitorial business does the cleaning at the facility. So, in a roundabout way, I work for the team, but more so I work for the building.”
They both looked stunned at this news, and either fortunately or unfortunately, the stadium chose the perfect time for the lights to lower and the team skate-in music to start playing, cutting off any questions they could have had about my noble profession. We didn’t chat while they introduced the players, then sang the anthem. We cheered when we were supposed to, waved at Barry when he located us in the crowd, and I ate another two fistfuls of Stuart’s popcorn. I supposed him offering me his snack was a good sign that my job hadn’t disqualified me from esteem in the presence of two highly educated medical professionals.
When the game officially started, Gen leaned over and picked up where we left off: “Now, how long has your family been doing janitorial?”
“Or is it called facilities management?” Stuart asked while hiseyes remained on the ice. I looked at the game, too, if anything just to keep my nervous gaze away from what I feared would be judgement on their faces.
“It’s janitorial,” I said, then sipped some water I knew was just going to make me have to pee again. “My dad started the business before I was born. Both of my siblings work there, too. We’ve all been doing it since we were teenagers.”Or earlier,I didn’t say. Just in case they thought us helping do carpets on weekends as kids was in violation of child labor laws and ethics in general.
“And how do you like it?” Gen asked.
“It’s mostly good. Been harder the more pregnant I’ve gotten, but it’s a good job. Benefits, overtime pay, I get to work with my family—I like it.”
It wasn’t a lie, though I still felt somewhat embarrassed to admit it. Did I want to work full-time janitorial for my whole life? Not particularly. Did I like it well enough to keep going for as long as I needed? Certainly. It wasn’t the most flexible job, but I figured it was better than a rigid nine-to-five in an office. At least with this, I could work early mornings and have the days to do with what I liked.
