Mickey - The View From Here PART TWO - Gallavich

The Crib

“I can’t believe you let that old lady get under your skin,” I chuckled.

Ian’s eyes widened with rage. “You’re one to talk! I’ve held you back from attacking two separate old ladies in the last year and a half!”

I held up my hands defenselessly, my chuckle now a hearty laugh. “I know. I know. It’s a first for you, though.”

Ian pulled the ambulance up to the curb in front of Kev and V's place.

Stomach grumbling, I wondered, disappointed. “No pizza?”

My husband shot me a glare but quickly softened. “We'll grab something after this, all right?”

I gave a nod of my head in agreement and we both got out of the ambulance. Ian fetched a random rock by the door, revealing a key hidden underneath that he used to get us inside.

“They keep a key under a rock in the yard?” I sneered. “I’d have known that, I would’ve cleaned them out years ago.”

Ignoring me, Ian ran down our plan. “All right, V said everything in the living room and on the dining room table's up for grabs.” He eyed the table, impressed. “A lot of good kitchen stuff we could use. We got a mixing bowl, some pots and pans, cutting board.”

While he browsed, I wandered into the living room to do the same. “What, you gonna start cookin' now?”

“One of us has to,” Ian informed me. “Takeout’s too expensive.”

“Hey, ramen, some water, and a minute in the microwave, I’m all set,” I stated, knowing with extreme confidence that I was a horrible cook. I continued to skim over the articles of clothing and random junk up for grabs in the living room. I smiled when I found Kev's leather chaps from when he had been a stripper. “Hoo!” I exclaimed with glee. I picked them up, surprised by the weight of them before I remembered how tall Kev was. It was a lot of leather. Ian and I could probably make our own sets of chaps from each leg. “Look at this, leather chaps.” I held them up so Ian could imagine me in them, but they were as tall as I was. “What do you think, huh? Dress up in leather, go cruisin’ for some flabby dentist dudes we can roll?” I chuckled to myself then tossed the chaps back onto the pile.

As I went to sift through more of the clothing, Ian’s attention fell onto one particular item. An item we didn’t need. “Hey. Take a look at this crib.”

Kev and V got knocked up around the same time Svet was pregnant with Yevgeny. After she left us, Svet had helped care for their twin daughters just as they helped with Yevy. When I looked at the crib, I wondered if my son—or fake son, brother, whatever, had slept in that crib. So, when asked, I begrudgingly glanced over, repressing the pain in my chest over a longing that didn’t make sense to me before turning back to the pile of clothes.

Ian inspected the old crib with piqued interest. “It’s in pretty good shape.”

Why were we talking about this? “What do you mean, ‘come take a look at this crib’? Crib means baby."

All I got was a, “yeah.”

I furrowed my brow, still pushing Yevgeny and Svetlana to the back of my mind. “’Yeah,’ what?” I turned so my shoulders were square with him, confused and disheartened. We had joked about having kids since we got married, but a real conversation never took place. I assumed our marriage would continue on in the same ways, sex, drinking, little to no responsibilities. A child didn’t fit in that scene. “What, you wanna have a baby?”

Drawing his attention away from the crib for a moment, Ian looked over his shoulder to meet my gaze. “You don’t want a baby?”

I tried to breathe through the panic. “W--h—hold on. You do?”

Ian’s face lit up. “Hell yes.”

As he smiled at me, I reeled for a lifeline, drowning in panic. “All right, man, well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t exactly have to right equipment. Although the way you been talkin’ about pans and fucking taupe furniture, you might be growin’ a vagina.”

He paid my comments no mind. “Help me move this thing.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Why does he want this so bad? Is there a kid on the way I don’t know about?

“’Cause if we have a crib, we gotta fuckin’ put somethin' in it,” I pointed out.

“Just grab the other end,” he instructed.

“Where are we even gonna get a baby, huh? No one’s gonna let two ex-cons adopt a kid,” I told him, hoping to burst this bubble of temporary insanity.

“So, we’ll steal one,” Ian reasoned.

“What?” I asked, shocked. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to jump to conclusions, but I had to wonder for the first time in a while if Ian was taking his meds. Steal a baby? The only time Ian had been capable of such a thing was when he’d had a manic episode and took Yevgeny on a “trip.”

“I’m joking,” Ian clarified without a hint of humor. “Look, there’s gotta be a neglected Milkovich baby crawling around your family tree somewhere.”

Without realizing it, I took a step away from the crib and Ian as I tried to envision what that would look like. Suddenly so real of a possibility, it stuck me how incompetent I was as an adult, how unqualified I was to be a father, how Ian would take away this child just like Svetlana took Yevgeny, how Ian could relapse and simply disappear with our baby. Worst of all, I worried Terry had twisted my head up so badly that I would only cause damage if I tried to be a parent.

Getting hyped up on his new idea, Ian droned on. “You guys are like horny little rabbits. You pop out a Milkovich fucker at least once a month.”

The more excited he grew, the smaller I felt until I couldn’t look him in the eye anymore out of fear he would notice mine misting.

When I didn’t make a sound, Ian probed, “what?”

Don’t make me say it. We both already know.

Still, he waited for me to reply.

“I’d be a shitty dad, man,” I confessed, though my own words sent a fracture to crack through my heart.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

My memories brought me back to my father's house. Mandy always said I was like Terry. What if all of those monstrous desires that resided in him were passed down to me? Maybe I just didn’t know it yet. “Yeah, what if I, like…beat it or…” I couldn’t finish. He knew what I meant.

“You won’t.”

I let him see the tears in my eyes as I scoffed. “Spare the fireplace poker, spoil the child. That’s the kind of shit my dad always said.”

Realizing I was hurting, Ian told me to, “come here.”

But I was already shutting down. “Fuck you.”

“Come on,” he insisted, closing in to embrace me. I didn’t want it though. He had to have known coming here, looking at what was probably my son's crib, then talking about stealing a kid would have triggered me. It was bad enough I failed Yevgeny. Why did he need to remind me, asking me to find an unwanted Milkovich to start the process over again? Ian knew I was a horrible parent. He had seen it himself.

As he tried to hold me, I kept him at arm’s length. “Fuck off. No, I don’t—”

He seized me, wrapping his long, strong arms around me in determination. He was going to comfort me whether I liked it or not.

My struggles were fruitless, so I stood with my hands at my sides, letting Ian hold me as my heart broke all over again. “I hate this,” I told him, my voice quavering. Fuck, I wanted to be everything Ian wanted me to be. I wanted to be a dad, I had for a long time. But how could I trust myself not to become Terry?

Gentle yet firm in his embrace, Ian assured me as though he knew it for a fact, “you’re gonna be a great dad.”

I wanted to believe him. I just couldn’t.