The news site blurred the photo. A two-year-old refugee, drowned and washed ashore. At his desk, the new dad clicked to see the picture. He was feeling bigger things than ever and wanted to press the corners of his empathy.
After work that day, his wife and baby were a cozy little unit on the couch. He knew that cozy could be confining, that a little unit has walls.
The couch was by the front door, making for a sitcomish “Honey, I’m home” moment when he walked in. The baby gave him a gummy grin. His first. That smile of slick pink gums connected them after six disjointed weeks.
In the photo, the two-year-old was curled up as if warding off a chill while sleeping, on wave-wet sand, with fingers of ocean inching away. A parent would put a blanket to his chin. A medic would cover him in a white sheet. It’s alarming to see a child alone.
He worked in the big office of a company that no longer needed the space. A wrong turn would lead him through half-lit abandoned corridors, rows of beige cubicles, undisturbed air, dusty framed photos of the CEO shaking hands with the Governator.
They lived in an L-shaped duplex where he had to raise the roof if he wanted to pass the dining room table. It had a white PVC fence and was three-point-two miles from the ocean. On weekends, he’d strap the baby into the aerodynamic stroller and run to the top of a hill overlooking the water. Waves rolled in and receded, air for the baby’s breath.
That night, after the unblurred photo, after the gummy grin, after an exhausted forty-four minutes of TV, but before bed, before waking up two-and-a-half hours later for a bottle, he slipped into the sleeping baby’s room, a silhouette, and kissed the baby’s forehead, body folded over the crib railing, air trapped in his chest until he heard a little whistle of exhalation. Plumes of ocean breeze curled through the window.
He quit the job for a marginally better job that shared an office-building floor with gold salesmen who’d take BC Powder and cocaine in the bathroom. His huckster bosses would call last-minute meetings at 4pm, and pretend they’d been on the calendar for days. He’d sit in the conference room and watch through vertical blinds as traffic clotted the freeway below. Each night, he’d kiss the growing forehead and wait for the breath, feel the ocean.
He posted a pic of their new apartment, on the second floor of a big house, further inland. A friend commented, “Fish don’t fry in the kitchen.” Copter blades chopped the breeze. The forehead grew bigger, the breaths louder, and so did the waves.
He listened seven hundred times. The railing came off the crib after the baby vaulted it and waltzed into the kitchen with a triumphant grin. Shots popped off a couple streets over, but maybe they were fireworks, celebrations. On the thousandth night, he walked into the bedroom and the baby’s eyes were open, bright gray in the streetlamp. Salt water lapped his ankles while the baby held eye contact, probing those corners. He watched, frozen, as the bed lifted, leg by leg, then floated out the window and away, bobbing and obscure on the water.