How Much I Love You
By Robin Tung
Published December 2022
Notre Dame Review
Xin Ping stood at the window, holding the hospital gown closed behind her in case the nurses came in. She watched him drift slowly across the parking lot toward his truck and disappear into the cabin, the door closing without a sound.
She shuffled across the room, the stitches hot and itchy. There was a little pressure on her bladder, but she was afraid to sit on the toilet. The nurse had said that the stitches wouldn’t burst, but what if they did? She shrugged the gown off and slid into the silky striped summer dress. The baby was just waking up, blinking her eyes, taking in the room through a milky haze and making Os with her rosebud mouth.
With both hands, Xin Ping very slowly scooped up the baby. The blue and pink hospital beanie was pulled snugly to her brows, and the white onesie with the yellow daisy print covered her tiny feet. The baby was wrapped in the hospital’s white and turquoise blanket. Todd’s sister had told her to take as many hospital supplies home with her as possible—blankets, beanies, diapers, and those big puffy pads that felt like a bicycle seat was being stuffed into Xin Ping’s underwear.
It was hard to tell what the baby would look like. She had creamy skin and also flat, Mongolian cheeks, and little brown wisps of hair that came to a V at the top of her forehead. Her eyes were golden honey and amber. Did all half-Asian and half-white babies look so undecipherable at birth? On the drive to the hospital, Todd said he’d never thought he’d have an Asian baby, and when she’d turned to look at him, it was clear the thought truly astounded him. But why did he have to say things like that out loud?
He’d wanted to name the baby Hawk, without a last name, like Prince or Cher. But in the end, he’d grown to like the name Lena so much that he’d thought it was his idea. Xin Ping had decided to give Lena Todd’s last name, and a family name as her middle name: Ping, which meant balance or an even keel. This name matched her birthdate, which was the exact middle day of the year. But aside from that, Xin Ping really didn’t know enough Chinese to come up with a full name, and her Taiwanese parents, who emigrated three decades earlier, had reserved their input on the baby’s name and everything else. They’d come to visit at the hospital for a half hour, thoroughly sanitizing their hands, cradling the baby, never speaking above a whisper. And now that they’d met Lena, they were anxious to see her again though they remained cautious, it seemed, not wanting to upset Xin Ping.
It’s okay, it’s all right, Xin Ping sang to herself and the baby. Then looking down at her daughter, she willed it to be true. “Everything will be all right. I’m going to take good care of you,” she whispered.
With the baby in her arms, she tried to kick the duffel bag to the door but it was too much a strain on her abdomen. She lowered herself into the wheelchair. It was such a relief to sit down. It was the most delicious thing that had ever happened to her. Her body felt like it had been in a car accident, if that’s what car accidents felt like. She felt puffy, weighed down, bruised, impossibly slow, always about to overstretch her stitches, exhausted.
She’d been awake for 27 of the 32 hours of labor. For the first 12 hours, she cramped so hard that, between waves of pain, she ordered Todd to find the nurse to summon the doctor for a Caesarian. The doctor arrived, bright-eyed and calm, her black skin gleaming, the braids in her hair neatly tied back. In her practiced voice, she said that Xin Ping was still on a normal timeline, and that it would be harder to recover from major surgery than a vaginal birth, and then the baby’s heart rate spiked, and they had to restart the Pitocin. Before Xin Ping could despair, the Dilaudid flooded her system, shutting off all the pain like a massive blackout. And just as she began to describe how it felt like she was walking through a tunnel of candy-striped hula hoops, she realized Todd was taking a video of her, telling her he couldn’t wait to show her how hilarious she was later.
He acted sometimes like he was nineteen, but he wasn’t. He was forty. And when she thought about it, she really couldn’t imagine herself with him anymore. And now whenever she was reminded of this, it made her heart sink into a lonely place.
She watched the nurses pass the door, sometimes glancing in, too busy to smile. Where was that nurse from last night? The expressionless Korean nurse who’d come in at 2 a.m., weighing Lena when she wouldn’t be soothed, and calmly telling Xin Ping that the baby had lost 10 ounces. Then without alarm, asking whether Xin Ping would like to give the baby a bottle of formula or keep waiting for her milk to come in. Todd had looked utterly panic-stricken. Xin Ping told the nurse to bring the formula, and then not hearing the instructions to feed her only one ounce, let the baby guzzle the whole thing down, her eyes lolling back in maximum satisfaction.
She made a promise to herself to come back and bring pastries or donuts for the nurses once she was healed up. Because of the Korean nurse who had saved Lena from starvation. Not the Filipino one who had talked about her in the third person to the doctor. And not the overly cheerful white resident who had shadowed the doctor during one of the dilation checks. Residents shouldn’t appear so enthusiastic when approaching people in pain, thought Xin Ping, it was rude, and made them look vapid.
When no one passed in the hallway for a few minutes, Xin Ping thought that maybe Todd had actually just driven away. The cliché of that made her laugh, and she hoped she wouldn’t start crying. If he didn’t come in the next five minutes, she would push herself backwards to the window to see if his truck was still there. But here he was now; he had come back. He asked her if she was okay, but he was really only looking at the baby, and he bent down close so that he could touch the baby’s little face and adjust the line of the beanie. Then he picked up the duffel and pushed Xin Ping and the baby down the hallway. It was only ten in the morning.
As they rolled toward the elevator, Xin Ping wished she had asked her parents to stay with her at the hospital. She’d been afraid that they would be overbearing and make her nervous, but they hadn’t. They’d been quiet and in awe, and so considerate that now she regretted keeping them at bay. But they were coming back tomorrow to her studio. They were going to bring an air conditioner to install in her window so she and the baby wouldn’t burn up in the heat wave. It embarrassed her now that she was living in a studio with a baby. She was twenty-nine. Any of her few peers who had children were married and living in houses.
The elevator dinged but a nurse was running after them. Had they forgotten something? Todd put his foot out to keep the doors open. The nurse said something in Spanish to the nurse behind her who brought them another hospital blanket. Together, the nurses cocooned the baby more snugly, and now her tiny stockinged feet were not sticking out anymore. Did baby feet always have to be covered or tucked in? The nurses waved, smiling in a tired kind of way, and the elevator doors closed.
“They’re really letting us take her home?” Todd said quietly, half-joking, as if reading her mind.
“I know, right?” she said, in actual disbelief.
Outside, everything was so dazzling it gave Xin Ping a headache. While Xin Ping laid the baby in the carrier and pulled the canopy to shield her from the sun, Todd blasted the air conditioner. They both took turns checking all the buckles and straps, tugging on the seat belt at the base until the car seat was completely immobile.
Xin Ping nearly collapsed into the front seat, the leather scalding the backs of her legs, with hardly the energy to buckle herself in. Cold air blasted her right shoulder and cheek. All the new onesies, bibs, burp cloths—some of them gaudily embroidered—were folded in separate baskets beneath the changing table. The baby shampoo, towels and baby bath sat beside her tub. The special trash can promised to keep the studio from smelling of soiled diapers. And the rocking bassinet had been rolled beside her bed.
They drove very slowly down the too-bright roads, and Todd called every car that whizzed past them a maniac. They’d gone into the hospital three days ago and now emerging from that cold, beeping cave, the city had transformed into an intensely alien world. She noticed now more than she had ever before, the grime and chaos of the city. Trash cans overflowed. People flicked cigarette butts out of car windows. Jaywalkers ran through the grid of cars. A woman slept in the middle of the sidewalk, both arms flailed open.
The truck rolled slowly up the driveway to Xin Ping’s apartment complex. Todd got out and grabbed the duffel and unclicked the baby carrier. It took the entire time he was getting her bag and the baby for her to climb out of the truck.
After she unlocked the side gate, he went through ahead of her and up the stairs. She took the steps slowly, one foot up and then the other to meet it, a grace period, and then again. She saw him at the top, looking impatient.
Inside her studio, the air was stale and muggy. The main room with her bed, couch, bookcases, TV, the used rocking chair and new bassinet felt absurdly small with the three of them in it. He set her duffel bag on the couch and lowered the baby very carefully to the floor. Then, he got down on his hands and knees and kissed the sleeping baby’s forehead and cheek, and lifted her tiny, curled hand with his finger. When he stood up again, his eyes were rimmed with red. He kissed Xin Ping on the forehead and said that he’d help with the baby after he closed out the bar around 3 a.m.
When he shut the door, the apartment went dark. The shades were still closed to keep out the heat, and the sliding door to the kitchen was shut, too, though a seam of light shone through. Xin Ping got down on her hands and knees and looked over the baby. What had he felt, kneeling here over their daughter? She thought he’d looked heartbroken, the same as when she’d told him she was pregnant. Nestled in the carrier, the baby was perfectly cushioned inside.
Xin Ping touched the baby’s soft cheek and breathed in her warm, milky breath. She touched the baby’s dimpled hand. She touched the beanie where Todd had adjusted the line, and with her thumb, she gently brushed the baby’s downy hair. Then she unbuckled the carrier and lifted the baby out, draping her soft animal body on her own. So this is what it felt like, she thought, nestling the baby against her chest. This kind of love was so immense it destroyed you. It shattered what was brittle and useless and overly precious and small—it obliterated you to make room for an entire new world.