“The Father”
by
Raymond Carver
The baby lay in a basket beside the bed, dressed in a white bonnet and sleeper. The basket had been newly painted and tied with ice-blue ribbons and padded with blue quilts. The three little sisters and the mother, who had just gotten out of bed and was still not herself, and the grandmother all stood around the baby, watching it stare and sometimes raise its fist to its mouth. He did not smile or laugh, but now and then he blinked his eyes and flicked his tongue back and forth through his lips when one of the girls rubbed his chin.
The father was in the kitchen and could hear them playing with the baby.
“Who do you love, baby?” Phyllis said and tickled his chin.
“He loves us all,” Phyllis said, “but he really loves Daddy because Daddy’s a boy too!”
The grandmother sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “Look at its little arm! So fat. And those little fingers! Just like its mother.”
“Isn’t he sweet?” the mother said. “So healthy, my little baby.” And bending over, she kissed the baby on its forehead and touched the cover over its arm. “We love him too.”
“But who does he look like, who does he look like?” Alice cried, and they all moved up closer around the basket to see who the baby looked like.
“He has pretty eyes,” Carol said.
“All babies have pretty eyes,” Phyllis said.
“He has his grandfather’s lips,” the grandmother said. “Look at those lips.”
“I don’t know . . .” the mother
said. “I wouldn’t say.”
“The nose! The nose!” Alice cried.
“What about his nose?” the mother asked.
“It looks like somebody’s nose,” the girl answered.
“No, I don’t know,” the mother said. “I don’t think so.”
“Those lips . . .” the grandmother murmured. “Those little fingers . . .” she said, uncovering the baby’s hand and spreading out its fingers.
“Who does the baby look like?”
“He doesn’t look like anybody,” Phyllis said. And they moved even closer.
“I know! I know!” Carol said. “He looks like Daddy!” Then they looked closer at the baby.
“But who does Daddy look like?” Phyllis asked.
“Who does Daddy look like?” Alice repeated, and they all at once looked through to the kitchen where the father was sitting at the table with his back to them.
“Why, nobody!” Phyllis said and began to cry a little.
“Hush,” the grandmother said and looked away and then back at the baby.
“Daddy doesn’t look like anybody!” Alice said.
“But he has to look like somebody,” Phyllis said, wiping her eyes with one of the ribbons. And all of them except the grandmother looked at the father, sitting at the table.
He had turned around in his chair and his face was white and without expression.
Biblioklept 