It’s Possible

After a wet, cold summer and a wet, cold winter, there was another summer the same, followed by a winter that was dry and warm. Even though this August could have passed for October, nobody seemed to mind. There were picnics, pool parties and people wearing linen. Everyone talked about the premature spring as if it were a present, as if the yellowing grass, crisp underfoot, was not a sign of what might happen come January.

Bella knew that the smell of spring was actually the smell of worms. Now, as she ambled to the park with her young son, she scrutinised the revellers she saw on the way, with their bare arms and exposed legs, tanning in the winter sun. But she had to look away from those who swam boldly at the unheated public baths. It was simply too much.

Bella wore her coat—a Kathmandu puffer—to wish the weather away. She knew that if she changed her actions, she could change the future. There had been enough evidence of this for her to trust that this was true. She had, for example, kept her entire family alive by always knocking on wood, three precise knocks—though not necessarily on wood. The good things that had happened to her were because she had never broken a mirror, and she, in every instance, had thrown spilt salt over both shoulders. The bad things were clearly a result of her carelessness. She was an ethnic; she took old wives’ tales to heart.

Even better if the superstitions were backed up by a scientific study. When she was pregnant, she’d read that women who had heartburn gave birth to babies with hair and women without heartburn gave birth to babies with no hair. Bella was desperate for her baby to be born with hair. Most babies without hair—white babies—looked like a version of Mr Clean and not much cuter. True, most babies like her—Chinese babies—had hair. Her unborn son was only a quarter Chinese though, and early on she’d had no heartburn to speak of. So she ate Shin noodles, salads with large chunks of raw onion, obscene quantities of spaghetti bolognese. She drank pint-sized glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice with pulp. In week thirty-three, she had a single pang of discomfort behind her breastbone.

After Bella’s first twelve hours of labour augmented by Pitocin, an obstetrician came to check her dilation.

‘Does he have hair?’

‘You’re six centimetres dilated.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘The dilation?’

‘The hair.’

‘I have only delivered one Asian baby where I did not see the baby’s hair. I saw a foot,’ the obstetrician replied. ‘An undiagnosed breech birth.’

‘Did the baby have hair?’

‘It did.’

One emergency C-section later, she held her son in her arms and stroked his wet, black hair. He doesn’t have as much hair though, she thought, as I did. That was eighteen months ago. Her son had been born in the first cool January. Back then, she had been grateful for the mild weather. She’d been in what others referred to as the baby bubble.

In her short time as the boy’s mother, Bella’s mind had been populated with every single nursery rhyme and simple song ever sung in the Western world. There was one for every occasion: getting into the pram, leaving the park, driving in the car. For once in her life, she cared to know little besides this: how to please another person. In pregnancy, her mind had been a sieve, but now it was a colander—retaining only what she needed to know, like how he preferred his toast cut (small squares), what temperature he liked his bath drawn (38.5 degrees) and what flavour of liquid paracetamol he would tolerate (orange). Once upon a time, she had known things that mattered to other people. Once upon a time, she had gone to an office job and typed things into a computer.

They reached the park and entered the playground through a security fence. Bella handed her son a loose doggy bag from her pocket so he could pretend to be a dog owner by picking up fistfuls of tanbark. Solely by observation, he’d mastered the inverted-bag technique. Bella still struggled with this technique herself. Last week, rushing to retrieve her dog’s faeces while the toddler demanded a rousing performance of ‘B-I-N-G-O’, she’d smeared hot poo across the palm of her hand.

The playground was fully fenced in and situated across from the designated dog area, which wasn’t. The park was situated on a ten-lane dual carriageway, and before her son was born Bella wouldn’t take her dog to this park because of a fear he might run across the road. After her son was born, however, she took her dog to this park because it was the closest to her home. Sometimes she and her son went alone to the playground. Other times, they took the dog to the dog section. On rare occasions, Bella would let the dog into the playground. But only when there were no other kids there. Under no circumstances would Bella let the dog play at the dog park alone while she and her son were over at the playground.

Her son clutched a bagful of tanbark and walked to the bin. Bella sat on a swing and watched him trot back and forth, stooping down every so often to pick up a handful of tanbark or rocks or rubbish. He’d always been partial to chomping on, well, everything. Bella often googled when this would end. The answer was soon or never. She was a nail-biter, after all. Best to be on high alert. Most days, she left the park with a pocket full of hazards: half-empty soy sauce fish, dirt-encrusted bottle caps, triangle remains of cellophane bags.

Her son’s poop-scooping was interrupted by the click of the security gate. A white family entered the park—a mother pushing a baby in a pram accompanied by a small girl on a balance bike.

‘Bubba!’ her son said.

At first, Bella thought he was talking about the baby. Then she realised he was talking about the girl. He had a habit of calling a child older than he was a baby.

The mother parked herself and sat rocking the pram back and forth with her foot. The daughter sat next to her. The mother handed her an almond croissant, which the girl held up to her mouth but did not eat.

Bella’s son, who was an extrovert like his father, approached the family. He waved from the wrist, his hand cupped like a pageant contestant. Then he said, ‘Hello, croissant.’

The little girl did not reply. Perhaps because he was talking to the pastry and not to her. The croissant also did not reply. The girl’s mother peered into her phone as if it held a formula for how to parent.

Bella’s phone knew more than she did, too. She did not have the motherly instincts that women mentioned to her before and after her son was born. Her gut simply told her that something terrible had happened or would happen soon. Before she even served her son’s breakfast, he choked on an unsquashed blueberry. He ate dirt and contracted botulism instantly. He stopped breathing every time she placed him in his cot. Thankfully, her intuition had so far had a strike rate of zero. And the rest of the information she did need on parenting was waiting to be discovered on Reddit. Or on one of the four Due Date Facebook groups she had joined. Or a quick search away on the Mumsnet forum.

‘Hello, bubba. Hello, croissant.’

‘Let these people eat in peace, honey.’ Bella led her son away towards the slide.

At some point in time, the little white girl stopped holding the croissant and started playing near the swings. She’d brought with her a white baby doll. At first, she put the doll in the baby swing and pushed the doll up into the air as high as she could. Next she twisted the seat round and round and round until the swing’s chains were tightly coiled like a snake enveloping prey. Then she let go. The doll spun rapidly until it flew off the swing. The mother continued to stare at her phone. Bella and her son watched the girl in amazement. In her previous life, Bella had never shown any interest in physics, but since her son had been born she was fascinated by the world and the way it worked. She’d marvelled at dinosaurs and diggers, at automobiles and aeroplanes.

‘Wheeeee,’ Bella said as the doll spun around again in the swing.

‘Wheeeee,’ said her son.’

The girl said nothing but smiled widely. She stamped her light-up runners in the tanbark. Bella’s son stamped in reply. He was wearing gumboots. Bella had been optimistic there would be rain.

‘Again,’ said her son.

The girl did not reply but placed the baby doll in the swing again and began twisting, twisting.

Bored of the game, Bella peered across at the dog portion of the park and saw her nemesis, the owner of a schnauzer who had once gotten in a blue with her chihuahua cross Pomeranian. This schnauzer got into many disagreements. He did not like other dogs. This was a common trait in dogs. It was a common trait in people, too. Her son, as if intuiting where she did not want him to go, walked to the fence that separated the playground from the dog section. The schnauzer waltzed over, as did the owner, who had a lit cigarette in one hand and a retractable lead in the other. Bad owners always reeled their dogs in like they were fish.

Whenever Bella saw the schnauzer at the dog park, she would tell him, ‘Get, you get.’ But since her dog was not there today, she could not in good conscience tell the schnauzer to leave. She looked at the other dogs at the park; she knew them all. They could all hold their own against a schnauzer.

‘Bella returned her attention to the playground. The girl was now crouched down beside the pram, pawing at an unopened bag of lollies in the basket.

‘If you touch that packet again, you can kiss your croissant goodbye!’ the mother said.

The girl dragged her light-up shoes back and forth in the dirt. The mother returned to her phone. Her foot still jiggled the pram even though, as far as Bella could tell, the baby had made no sound. Strange how the mother never peered in to see if they were still breathing.

Her son followed a line of ants up the playground stairs and across the wobbly bridge. He’d recently graduated to crossing the wobbly bridge without her hand, an accomplishment that made her proud and plaintive in equal measure. He poked at an ant with a stick. The ant became a smear.

‘Ant, ant?’ he asked, and even though Bella knew he had not meant to be cruel, she couldn’t help but remember the summers she had spent as a child with a magnifying glass pointed at the pavement. She knew what it was like for a body to burn to death.

A dog barked, alerting Bella to the arrival of a greyhound in a black skivvy with a silver-studded collar. The owner let the dog off a rope slip-lead and it began to run in circles. The schnauzer paced back and forth in a puddle at the foot of the drinking fountain, paws shrinking in size like a dog after a bath.

A man in his sixties or seventies—the owner of the greyhound—now entered the gated playground. He was weedy and white and wearing exercise gloves. Since birth, her son’d had a fondness for white men like that of his paternal lineage. She wondered when she’d have to burst that bubble.

‘Man,’ her son said. She had never taught him the word.

‘Person,’ she said.

‘I’m here to use the monkey bars,’ the man said. ‘Cheaper than the gym.’

‘Ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh,’ her son replied. ‘Monkey.’

Bella forced an expression that resembled a smile and scooted closer to her son. The man did not seem like a predator, which was at once reassuring and unnerving. But what did a predator seem like? Surely a predator would not announce himself so boldly or have a greyhound that was dressed up so divinely.

Bella looked to the other mother for guidance, but she did not look up. Bella did not trust herself or her assertions about a situation. She was prone to act on her paranoia. She had asked her husband once if he trusted his father to change their son’s nappy.

‘That man raised me,’ her husband had replied.

Even this hadn’t been enough for her. She quizzed her sister-in-law, poking and prodding her with questions as if some unknown family trauma would come spilling out. None did. It’s still possible, though, she thought to herself.

Upon the greyhound owner’s arrival, the little girl had left the safety of the spot of ground next to the pram to veer at him. It was fast becoming clear that he was no more threatening to the little girl than her own son was; in fact, he was even less threatening. The girl waved and watched as the man did pull-ups on the bars and then push-ups. He was noisy and vocal. He could have been an actor performing exercise on a stage.

The girl ventured back to her mother. She pointed her finger towards the man.

‘My turn. Monkey bars.’

Bella waited for the mother to look up and catch sight of the man working out, but when she did, Bella was relieved that the woman seemed unfazed by what she saw huffing and puffing on the jungle gym.

‘Sure,’ the mother said. ‘Fine.’

The little girl ran back towards the bars—still occupied—and past them to the slide. She climbed onto the bottom and sat there staring at the man working out. She wore the same delirious grin as she had while spinning the baby doll round and round in the swing. It was then that Bella noticed the girl had wet her pants. The pee soaked through her leggings in the shape of a horseshoe.

For a minute, Bella stopped sensing what was happening there in the park and started remembering something about her own childhood. At first, it was just the memory of a sensation, of that warm wetness. Then the recollection that it had been on a family trip to Disneyland. She must have been seven. She had no spare clothes and so her mother bought her Little Mermaid pyjamas from the shop in Fantasyland. Her mother made her wear those pyjamas to school every day for a week to remind Bella of her error.

It was not Bella’s job to be a mother to this child. It was not her responsibility. Children wet their pants. They were ignored by their mothers. They were denied soft lollies and scolded and even spanked!

She felt it was better to pay attention to her son, who was currently poking a stick in the tanbark. He was using the stick to drum on the sheet metal stairs that led to the slide. Her son was singing Old MacDonald to himself. He was singing ‘E-I-E-I-O-O-O’. He was calling out: ‘Dog! Dogs! Doggy! Baby dog!’ He was approaching the man and blowing him a kiss.

The man seemed to look past her son and across to the park to where the greyhound sprinted, playing, perhaps.

‘Beautiful,’ the man said to Bella. ‘Beautiful boy.’

‘Where the fuck is my dog?’ someone at the dog park shouted.

Bella paused. She knew intuitively her nemesis could not recall her dog. It’s possible the owner had been training the dog. But it’s possible she had not. When Bella’s dog had gotten in a fight with the schnauzer, the two dogs had engaged in a standoff, both baring their teeth, not moving. Since the owner of the schnauzer could not recall her dog, the woman had been forced to walk over to him and kick him with her boot until he backed down. Bella had not been able to intervene because she was nursing her baby on a park bench. Not the right time or place for it, she knew.

So when she now heard someone screaming ‘Here, boy, here,’ she hoped it was not the owner of the schnauzer. But it was. The dog was standing at the edge of the dog park about to step onto the road. The other day Bella had counted five cement mixers that drove by. It was a game she and her son played. Her son spotted countless motorbikes and buses and ambulances. They saw a dump truck and an auto carrier. Before her son was born, she had only noticed how busy the road was. She had never noticed what the road was busy with.

The other mother recalled her little girl. She was pleading with her, begging for her to get on the balance bike. She either did not notice the soaked pants or did not care. The baby woke up and began to wail.

It was too hot for the goddamned puffer.

Bella unzipped her coat, took it off. The other mother cajoled her daughter onto the bike with the promise of sweet television, and then they were gone. From a distance, Bella couldn’t tell if the baby was still crying or if she was simply still hearing it.

The man left through the security gate, returned to the dog section and put his greyhound on the roped lead. That racing dog was regal in his turtleneck and jewellery. Perhaps he had not been playing after all. Perhaps greyhounds only ran for a reason.

The schnauzer stood still on the kerb between the park and the carriageway. The dog did not turn back to see what was no longer behind it but looked forward to see where it could not go. The owner ran towards the schnauzer, the retractable lead limp in her outstretched hand. Bella did not watch as the owner latched the dog’s collar to the clip. She turned her attention to watch which way the man and the “greyhound had gone; it was not the same direction as her own home.

‘Up, up, Mumma,’ her son said. She picked him up and pressed his flushed cheek to hers. His small hands were toasty. She shivered even though it was unlike any winter she’d ever known.

‘I’ve got you,’ she said.

‘Mumma got you,’ her son replied.

She did, but for how long?

Despite everything, other people couldn’t see what was coming or didn’t care.

You can listen to a reading of ‘It’s Possible’ on the Unfolded podcast, as well as an interview with Paige Clark with hosts Tony Birch and Seth Robinson on the story here.