The Magic Bush

FRANK

I was taking our baby, little Tabitha, out for walkies and allowing Lyndsay some time for herself. As a new father and somewhat less new husband, I was already in the doghouse. According to Lyndsay, I was a careless, inattentive parent. She accused me of wantonly dropping baby garments throughout the neighborhood. My negligence toward the darling baby socks was on par with letting a toddler play on a superhighway.

So, yeah, I was a little stressed.

The problem was, I had put Tabitha in the stroller, wearing her Oshkosh overalls and a pair of Sponge Bob socks. Lyndsay is partial to Sponge Bob Square Pants, and when we returned an hour later with one sock missing, she took it as a personal affront. I went out later that evening, retraced my path, but could not find the lost sock.

“Maybe in daylight,” I said, trying to placate her.

“That's the third item this month,” she wailed. “You're bringing bad karma on us.” For a modern woman, Lyndsay talks a lot about karma.

“We can buy a new pair of socks,” I said. “It's not the end of the world.”

“It's a limited edition pair—and don't look at me that way, Frank!” Lyndsay scowled as she scrubbed some dried pablum from the counter.

“Well, no sense crying over spilled milk,” I said.

Slam. There went the doghouse door. Again.

The next evening, I took Tabitha out for our postprandial stroll. And there, dangling on the bush at the corner of Oak Street and Chestnut Avenue, was the lost sock hanging on a twig, moving slightly in the breeze.

Except, come to think of it, there was no breeze. Oh well, maybe I accidentally nudged it in my haste. I grabbed the sock and shoved it in my pocket. Another crisis averted! loads of good karma from matching the yin with its yang! Hang on, am I mixing religions here?

Lyndsay was elated to receive the sock—and I exited the doghouse.

Our baby Tabitha was in that body-exploration phase where she pulled off socks for maximum sensory input. She smiled goofily at us, as if to say, “Are all my toes here? Yes? No? I'm a baby, silly. I can't count.”

From then on, I kept a close watch on every sock, shoe, and bootie that covered those plump little feet.

If only I had paid the same attention to Tabitha's hands!

In the bleak midwinter, with sundown around four in the evening, I somehow overlooked her pudgy little fingers. We came home with one mitten AWOL and her fingers sticking out like little icicles.

Lyndsay hit the roof.

“I don't see why it's such a big deal,” I said straight off, figuring the best defense is a good offense.

“I strive for completeness in everything,” she said, massaging the baby’s fingers. “Matched mittens, matched socks. All 26 letters in her alphabet blocks.”

“You're not going OCD on me, are you?” I said. I’d heard of postpartum depression. Was postpartum obsession also a thing?

“As part of keeping a low carbon footprint,” she said in exasperation, “I recycle the baby clothes through the used-clothing store, Once Upon a Child. These unmatched things have zero resale value.”

I felt rotten. I was not only letting my family down, I was destroying the planet.

I needed to let off steam, so I took a brisk walk. Like a programmed Roomba, I followed the same path I had taken earlier. At the corner of Oak Street and Chestnut Avenue stood the skeletal bush, denuded of leaves, looking like an old bristle brush. The bush was so bare, I had a full view of the house lurking behind it: a gloomy Victorian mausoleum that faced the street with a condemnatory sneer.

I shivered and wished for foliage to cover the ugliness.  Yet there, glowing on the terminus of one gnarled branch, sat the mitten. How had I missed it?

Apparently, some neighborhood jokester had found the mitten and posed it in an unusual way, with the thumb jauntily stuck out as if hitching a ride. When I reached to pull the mitten off the bush, I had a sense it grasped my hand. “Shake hands with the devil,” was the bizarre phrase that floated through my mind. I looked around quickly, feeling someone's glance upon me—but no one was there.

In the wintry darkness only one flickering streetlight illuminated my way. Blinds of the darkened windows of the old house behind the bush shifted slightly, like eyes of someone pretending to be sound asleep. I quickly pocketed the mitten and ran home.

A few weeks later, we were in the final drawn-out stages of winter. The snowbanks became smaller, and our name inched up higher on the waiting list for daycare. We were alone among our friends for preferring daycare over an au pair (namely, a young foreign woman who helps with childcare in exchange for room and board). Even before our baby was born, Lyndsay said she wanted well-trained daycare workers caring for our baby. She argued, “Why would I bring a nubile young woman into our home just at the point when I am frumpy, out of shape, exhausted and drippy?”

I admit, I was curious about the exotic au pairs. But as a loyal husband, I support my wife’s decisions one hundred percent.

Unfortunately all the good nearby daycares had waiting lists as long as my arm. Waiting was hard for my type-A wife. Lyndsay was raring to return to the architectural design firm she worked for.

A week later, Tabitha was kicking her feet and squirming, but I monitored every article of clothing she tore off —shoes, socks, mittens and her fake-fur Unabomber hat — and made sure to bring it back. I was not going to lose another item of the baby’s wardrobe.

We turned onto Oak Street —and there was Lyndsay waiting for us! She was crouched behind the magic bush. Or so I thought, in the fading twilight. But no, it was simply her favorite cardigan, part of her cashmere twin-set that likely dropped from her bag. It was draped over the bush in such a way that, eerily, it looked just like her, even with her right shoulder being bent a little higher than the left.

Before I extricated the cardigan, I snapped a picture, so I had evidence of the peculiar way it was arranged. I trembled slightly as I retrieved the sweater from the bush. Not exactly sure why: perhaps I was worried about damaging the fine single knit; perhaps I sensed a larger, uncanny force at play.

I hummed a few bars of that old Gershwin hit, Embraceable You, because the sweater looked ready to unfold me in a romantic hug, and this reminded me of our long, delicious sessions of lovemaking in the years before Tabitha. How I miss those days. Nothing prepares you for the chaos of child-rearing.

Spring arrived like a fan-tail dancer. One day fog, the next day magnolias in bloom. A bewitching peekaboo performance. Tabitha now sat up and kicked her legs, straining against the stroller belt, stretching out her chunky little fingers to touch and grasp the verdant foliage of all the greenery we brushed against, weeds and hedges alike, but especially the magic bush, whose bright green buds winked invitingly at passersby.

One day, she grabbed a handful of its new leaves and tried to stuff them in her mouth. I tore them from her just in time. It was unlike any kind of bush I knew. Not dogwood, boxwood, caragana, cedar, holly…. It bore emerald-green, glossy leaves shaped like devil's tridents.

“No,” I said to Tabitha. “Do not eat, you will become sick.”

Peep, peep!

My scolding was interrupted by a shrill bird call. Peering under the bush, I saw a nestling that looked like the loser in a ten-round punch-up.

Its round eyes were swollen shut. Its oversized bright yellow beak was an unhappy mouth. Its lumpy body tilted to the left, and was covered with patchy gray fuzz. Its tiny, tremulous wings bore no feathers, only the gray, pre-feather stubs.

I scooped up the fallen nestling, intending to feed it to the nearest cat, but Tabitha shrieked with joy and instead, I said, “Birdie?” One eye popped open and I swear its unhappy beak appeared to grin.

“Cheep, cheep,” it said, giving me the bright-eye.

Birdie, tucked in a used take-out container, survived the trip home.

Lyndsay nursed the nestling back to health with an eyedropper and feedings of bloodworm stolen from our aquarium food supply. Most days, she left the bird cage open. Birdie twittered and jumped.

Birdie was a keeper, a combination sweet sound machine and Tabitha’s personal trainer. Until now, the baby had not been all that interested in crawling, but Birdie loved to sit and chirp about four feet away, fluttering away when the baby came too close. Tabitha crawled and crawled and soon toddled to keep up with the bird.

Our stroller walks now became hand-in-hand walks, Tabitha’s hand squeezing my big finger as her little body learned the mechanics of walking. At some point she would grow tired and I would put her back in the stroller. Every time we passed the magic bush she would point and squeal and do deep knee-bends. The toddler's version of remembering a significant moment.

As spring deepened into summer, the bush attracted more eyes. It became a neighborhood spot, beautiful and inviting. Tabitha loved to swat her hands on the bush. It was lush and hypnotic. Sometimes we saw a small toy underneath or forgotten keys. I always discouraged her from touching these things, for fear of germs.

Early one morning, we saw a runaway. She was curled under the bush and had a man’s overcoat pulled around her against the chill of the morning dew. I stared at her, how calm she looked in sweet repose.

“Shh, the lady is sleeping,” I whispered as I led Tabitha away from the runaway, who looked closer to “girl” in age than “lady.”

Tabitha shrieked, “Doo! Doo!” and I started to pull her, but her piercing voice woke the runaway.

“Well, hello there, sweetheart,” she cooed in a clear, high voice to Tabitha. “Do you play pattycake?”

My consternation grew. Lyndsay would hit the roof if I brought home this latest offering from the magic bush. So I speed-walked home with Tabitha squirming against my shoulder, her wail growing louder the farther we got from the bush.

“Cheerios! Time for Cheerios!” I tried to interest Tabitha in breakfast, but she was inconsolable.

That evening, when I got home from the office, there was the runaway sitting on my front veranda with Lyndsay and Tabitha. Lemonades all around.

“You didn't tell me you met Poppy from the volunteer play group this morning,” Lyndsay said to me, equal parts sweet and accusing. “She's Tabitha's favorite volunteer to play Pattycake with.”

What was I to say? I acted the friendly host and passed the plate of Graham crackers to our guest. “Terribly sorry,” I said. I’d never heard of this volunteer play group. I couldn't tell Lyndsay, “I found some random waif sleeping under a bush but figured you’d go ballistic if I dragged her home.” So I said nothing. I played dumb, something I get better at every day.

“Poppy is a refugee,” Lyndsay explained, “who was living with her old-lady sponsor in exchange for odd jobs while rebuilding her life. Unfortunately, the old lady recently died, and her son is selling the house and contents.” She grasped Poppy's hand and showed me her arm. “Do you see the finger bruises? He manhandled her.”

I pulled Lyndsay aside. “Darling, I don't want to get involved.”

Lyndsay looked at me as if I had suggested we drop off the baby at the nearest abattoir. I could sense a new Ice Age dawning in the conjugal bedroom, so I quickly backpedaled and said, “But I guess we could let Poppy couch-surf with us until she finds a place.”

Lyndsay set up a cot in the sewing room. Poppy set to work making Sponge Bob Square Pants curtains for the nursery.

The next time I walked past the magic bush, the leaves seem to rustle, mocking me with my best laid plans and all. I tried to check out Poppy's background—impossible to do in the chaos of war. On the surface, she was charming, attentive and an extra pair of hands for dealing with Tabitha, who was running and grabbing all the time. Poppy was exceedingly patient.

Furthermore, she told Lyndsay she was looking for an au pair position.

In private, I told my wife how I had first encountered Poppy, but Lyndsay laughed me off. “Why, she’d be perfect for us,” Lyndsay murmured in that tantalizing voice that reminded me of the early days of our courtship.

What about daycare, I wondered, but I gave in. “Okay, sure, we’ll use an au pair,” I said.

That magic bush really is magic, I concluded as Lyndsay took me in her arms.

LYNDSAY

Fall arrived and my maternity leave expired. To return to work, I bought a new wardrobe and splurged on a new cut-and-style. I saved the hair clippings for Birdie, who had graduated to nest-building.

If only my stodgy husband Frank would be more enthusiastic about Poppy, our new au pair. “She only plays with the baby when she feels like it,” he complains. “Also, she lacks basic common sense.”

What a curmudgeon he is.

But really, I have to laugh. Most of my friends have the opposite problem. Their husbands are only too happy to have a young, attractive au pair in the household. Whereas Frank treats Poppy like she crawled out from under a bush.

Can you believe it? He’s got a habit of blaming all his mishaps on one bush in particular.

Yes, a bush imprinted itself on his mind when he was a new, impressionable father.

“Beware of that bush,” he said whenever I told him about the fun things Tabitha and I found under the bush on the corner of Oak & Chestnut. The glow-in-the-dark ball; the pretty ribbons. “She’ll chase the ball anywhere—even into traffic!” he fretted. “She could choke on those damn ribbons!”

Winter descended and one day, feeling sprightly in my new coat and Kate Spade handbag, I detoured past the old bush, which had lost its leaves. Ha, what a pile of dirty old twigs! And that house behind it—how dilapidated! I snapped a pic to show Frank it was abandoned.

As I neared my own house, a cozy two-storey brick, I saw Frank and Poppy in the backyard. Frank was digging a deep hole; I could tell it was deep because he was standing in it and I only saw his upper half.

Blank-faced, Poppy was holding a bundle.

I drew nearer, looking for my baby. “Tabitha?” I called.

Wordless and startled, they turned to me.

“I'm so sorry,” Poppy said, lifting a solemn face. She laid a bundle, wrapped in a pale yellow blanket, in the hole.

I leapt toward the hole, not daring to look inside the bundle.

“Tabitha was really wild today,” Poppy said. “I couldn't control her at all. And look—.” She lifted the edge of the blanket.

“Where is Tabitha?” I cried, panic suddenly rising in my chest.

“The baby grabbed Birdie,” Poppy said. “Catching him at last—in his nest—and she squeezed the life out of him before I could—”

“Doo! Doo!” said a small voice. Inside the hole, baby Tabitha crouched by Frank’s feet, playing with her father’s bootlaces.

I backed away. And then stopped.

Tears of relief overwhelmed me.

THE END