Neighbors and Newborns

Our neighbors moved out suddenly the other week. A couple of retirees, Mike and Margie were the chattiest people on our block. Desperately trying to leave or get back into the house, it was easy to get trapped in a very one-sided conversation with Mike while his dog pooped on your grass. 

“That’s Moon, short for Moonshadow,” Mike said on one of these occasions, pointing to a black dog being walked by a woman. “HEY, MOON! HEY, SHARON!” he shouted, but neither one acknowledged him. 

“Like the Cat Stevens song,” I observed, feeling a little bad for him. 

“What?”

“Cat Stevens had a song called ‘Moonshadow,’” I clarified. I’d had one of his albums in college, back when I was really into the 70s. I fidgeted with the small stack of envelopes in my hands. Obscured by the dog poop station, Mike had ambushed me on the way back from the mailboxes. But maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if it turned into a chat about music.

“Oh.” Mike seemed genuinely surprised to hear a second voice in this conversation, or maybe by my sick Cat Stevens knowledge. 

Another neighbor, Liz, wandered over. “Amy, I heard you had a baby!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even know you were pregnant!”

I opened my mouth to explain that our daughter had been a preemie, so I’d never made it to the huge belly part of pregnancy. Plus, after struggling with infertility for so many years, I guess I was scared that talking about it too much might jinx us somehow. 

“She really keeps to herself,” Mike interjected bluntly. 

At this point, I still thought Mike’s name might have been Mark. Did that help or hurt my case for not being a shut-in? Either way, I kind of hated this guy now. How dare he call me antisocial, as if I weren’t standing right there? And just because I didn’t want a random 70-year-old man talking at me every time I stepped outside? Rude. I wanted to say something, but felt too addled from hormones and lack of sleep to muster up a response. 

“I noticed there’s been a green car in front of your house sometimes lately,” Mike pivoted, his comment directed at me. “Is that your mom?”

I blinked. “Uh, no. That’s my friend Jen. She’s a teacher, so she’s off for the summer.”

“I figured, with that baby, your mom would be over here all the time.”

I took a step towards the house, eyeing our front door. “Well, my mom’s getting older and doesn’t do as much driving anymore. But that’s okay; we don’t mind visiting her.”

“I figured she’d be over here all the time with that grandbaby,” he repeated. 

“Like I said, my mom doesn’t drive much anymore. We usually go to her.”

Mike looked at me sympathetically. “Maybe you’re not very close.”

I could see why Moon and Sharon hadn’t stopped to say hi. 

I would have been okay with someone who was just bad at conversation, but Mike was also so obnoxious whenever I’d take the baby outside. I guess he’d grown up in a time or place where it was totally fine to touch a stranger’s infant without permission. He’d get right up in her face (and also my face when I was wearing her), waving his hands and shouting in gibberish. Sir, nobody wants this. All I’d been hoping for was to enjoy a little fresh air and aerobic exercise before it was time to milk myself again. Was that really too much to ask? Apparently. 

One time, I was even holding our daughter and looking out the back window, and Mike saw us from the next street over. He ran into our backyard, put his face right up to the glass, and yelled, “HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!” It felt a little bit like the “Here’s Johnny!” moment in The Shining. My heart sank as I realized that this person truly had no sense of boundaries. I thought about just closing the curtain, but instead waved awkwardly until my kid started crying. 

As our daughter grew, she’d burst into tears at the sight of Mike loping down the street toward us. Standing well over six feet, he must have seemed like a monster to such a tiny human. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! I wanted to scream. I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU! GET AWAY FROM MY KID! But, instead, I found myself quietly slinking out of his reach or sprinting across lawns to avoid him. I hadn’t anticipated strangers doing things like this, and I hated myself for not knowing how to handle it. 

On one hand, I wanted to be somebody who was friendly with their neighbors. I loved watching the TV show Gilmore Girls, mostly for its family of eccentric townsfolk. For years, I’d dreamed of living somewhere like that, and now I had Mike. Did Lorelai Gilmore ever feel like macing the other residents of Stars Hollow? Probably, I decided. 

The thing I wanted most was to avoid another NICU stay. Premature babies are more susceptible to infection because their immune systems aren’t fully developed. So, the threat of germs was a constant fear. The idea of Mike breathing God-knows-what into my child’s face, and coming at her with his dirty dog-cleanup hands was enough to send me into convulsions. 

I wanted to be a chill mom. I saw other people posting pictures of their new babies at parties on social media. Church parties, work parties, birthday parties, family gatherings. They were letting everybody hold them. I mean, maybe go ahead and hand your infant over to your best friend or sibling, but Donna in accounting? Were those moms really okay with that? Was I being way too hypervigilant? Or were they panicking just like I was? My brain was so fried from making a hundred more decisions than I was used to every day. I didn’t have the energy to manage a bunch of dummies on top of all that. People who didn’t wash their hands or always insisted “it’s just allergies” when they were obviously sick. People who wouldn’t hold her correctly. To them, she was a cute little baby, something to provide a moment’s entertainment. But I’d spent years struggling to bring this child into existence, months growing her inside my body, and weeks with her in the NICU. This was likely my only shot at being a mom, and I wasn’t about to let Donna from accounting or neighbor Mike screw it up for us. 

I wanted to run as far and fast as I could from all the people. Whenever I felt compelled to say something, I found myself too frantic to speak. Why? Was it some sort of PTSD brain fog? Was I too polite for my own good? Was I just really tired? I didn’t know. All I knew was that my kid would need to eat again soon, so I had to pump and make a bottle before she got hungry. Was it time for her iron supplement or probiotic? Did she need a diaper change? How was her umbilical hernia looking? What doctor appointments did she have coming up? It’s like I was a computer in power saving mode. I had just enough energy for these essential things and very little else. 

“Do you want me to talk to Mike?” my husband asked. (In retrospect, maybe I should have taken him up on this.) But I felt like I needed to figure this out on my own, as if it were some sort of parental litmus test. I had to be strong enough to stand up for our baby, and myself. I was sick of the anxiety that came with a simple walk around the block. Being out in the world didn’t automatically grant everyone access to me and my family. I resolved to be firmer, more direct.

I took my daughter out in her stroller not long after, and she fell right to sleep. Perfect. I pulled the canopy down partway to give her a little privacy. Just then, Mike bounded over to us like a giant puppy. “Let me see that baby!”

“She’s sleeping,” I said curtly. “And she’s been a little fussy today, so let’s not disturb her.”

“I can cheer her up!” he insisted, reaching out to pull back the canopy. 

I deflected him by throwing my arms over the stroller. “DON’T. DO. THAT.”

He moved closer. “But I just want to see her!”

“NO.”

“Mike, leave them alone,” Margie chided from their porch, at which point I made my escape down the sidewalk. I’d done better, I guess, but he still hadn’t listened to me. What did I need to do? Scream bloody murder? Carry a taser? Threaten to call the police? What would my mom have done?

“It doesn’t sound like he means any harm,” my mom said when I asked her. “Who can resist a cute baby?”

Hmm… That wasn’t the advice I’d been expecting. 

I thought back to a time when I was thirteen. If you went over a hill near our street, there was a trailer park on the other side. My dad said it was originally built as a religious community, and some kids I knew from school lived there. My friend Alessa had a crush on one of them, so sometimes we’d take her Rottweiler for walks there hoping to see him. Anyway, a couple of little boys from that neighborhood shot a bird in my backyard with a BB gun. I was so pissed off that I walked over the hill to speak with their grandmother about it. 

I didn’t really know much about them, maybe not even their names. But a girl I recognized directed me to their trailer. Although the area wasn’t unfamiliar to me, it still probably wasn’t a great idea to confront a total stranger alone there. However, blinded by bird vengeance, that thought never crossed my mind. 

Stepping into their driveway, I was met with an old lady in a bathrobe and two tiny, aggressive dogs.

“M’am,” I called out over the yapping, “I’d like to talk to you about your grandsons. They shot a bird in my yard.”

“Get out of here!” she snapped, trying to wave me away with a hand. If I had to guess, I’d say she was about a million years old. Her hair looked like a dandelion puffball. 

Undeterred, I continued. “I like birds, and it’s also very unsafe to go around shooting BB guns on other people’s property. I’d like for you to speak with them about it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” This was the first time I remembered feeling well-spoken, the way I imagined I might be as an adult. 

“I said to get the hell out of here!” she shrieked. I could see the two boys peering through the screen door. They were younger than I was, but I’m not sure how much. Maybe this lady wasn’t well or maybe she just didn’t care about anything. I felt a little bad for those kids, having to live with such a horrible woman.

The dogs were still jumping and barking, and I wondered if they might eventually bite. “Please tell your grandsons no more guns in my yard,” I said firmly before turning away. When I looked back, I saw that the smaller boy had come outside and the grandmother was lovingly cupping his face in her hands. She rumpled his curly brown hair. I realized I didn’t understand people at all. 

I was struck with that weird grief where you miss the person you used to be. Where had that plucky version of me gone? What would she think of her adult self, slinking through her own neighborhood like an escaped convict? “Why can’t you just tell him to leave us alone?!” she’d probably yell. “You’re worse than the series finale of Seinfeld!”

“I’m sorry we turned out to be so lame!” I’d cry-apologize. “But it’s not like you got those kids’ grandma to listen to you. Please don’t hate us, home skillet! It’s not our fault!”

“Ugh; talk to the hand.”

Finally, one day, I was chatting with another mom on a walk when Mike appeared. He began his routine of trying to get right up in my kid’s face and jumping around yelling, “BOO! BOO!” Her eyes welled up, bottom lip quivering. 

I drew her in closer and turned away, sighing. “Come on, you don’t have to scare her.” I was surprised to hear a mom’s voice coming out of my mouth, speaking to Mike as if he were a pesky child. 

He looked at me blankly, suddenly stunned. “I… I’m not… I wouldn’t scare her…” The wind knocked out of his sails, Mike traipsed down the sidewalk, hopefully taking a moment to reevaluate his entire personality. 

Wow! It had been totally reflexive, a glorious tone: Patronizing. A little pitying. So tired of everybody’s crap. Apparently, this was Mike’s off switch. I was delighted, but also disgusted that it had been my responsibility to figure this out. It was a victory that came with the knowledge that I’d spend the rest of my life trying, over and over, to fend off a parade of pushy weirdos. But I was ready to take them on for the sake of my daughter. I wasn’t me at 13 anymore, or me at 37, but someone new.

“I know everyone around here,” Mike had bragged once, gesturing as if our tiny neighborhood were his kingdom. But, in the end, he moved out with barely a word to anyone. One day, Mike and Margie’s house was suddenly empty. 

“They mentioned it to me the day before they moved out,” Liz told me. “Kind of weird, right? I mean, Mike talked to me all the time. Why wouldn’t he say that they were planning to move?”

I was sorry if they left under duress, but honestly relieved to lose them as neighbors. I guess it goes to show that knowing people and having friends aren’t necessarily the same thing. Maybe Mike was right; I would rather keep to myself. I didn’t have to shoot the breeze with every single person in our neighborhood to know that my favorite ones were right under my own roof.