“That’s one big baby,” said the Uber driver, eyeing us in the rearview. I instinctively held The Baby more tightly in my lap, swaddled in a soft pastel blanket. I met the driver’s gaze and tried to sense if there had been any hostility in his voice if there’d been anything implicit in his remark, but decided it had been neutral. In any event, it wasn’t a question. I didn’t have to answer, and he didn’t have to get the door, or help me with the stroller when he dropped me in front of The Good Taste Diner.

I was late.

The Good Taste had become our de facto drop-off and pick-up spot. Both the facade and interior were hideous, decorated in retro-future chrome ephemera. A past vision of a future world that only felt dated in the present. But the coffee was strong, and the waitresses never gave us any trouble, no dirty looks. They all loved The Baby.

“You’re late,” said Harry when I slid into the booth across from him.

When people used to ask how we met, they’d always say something like, “What, did he drag you off into the woods? Over his shoulder?” I would let them know, “That is a totally speciesist trope.” Another one we got all the time was “Well, you know what they say about big feet!” With a hand on Harry’s furry arm, I’d take the opportunity to educate them. “Bigfoot is an outdated term, a borderline slur in this day and age. The correct term is Sasquatch.” An apology was muttered, usually.

Harry and I actually met at the Trinity Pipeline Protest. The Army Corps of Engineers had granted permits to build the 1,300-mile, $4.1 billion pipeline to carry half a million barrels of oil daily through the Pacific Northwest. The proposed route would cut through some of the last pristine national park land in North America, right under Lake Trinity, poisoning a key drinking water source. Harry was there because protecting the land was a sacred belief of the Sasquatch Nation. I was there because my friends had an extra seat in the van, and I thought it might be fun. We brought beer.

Months of protests culminated in a final scrimmage after another District Court Judge denied yet another attempt to halt construction. Authorities used tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray on protesters who, they alleged, assaulted officers with rocks and burning logs at a blockaded bridge. Thirty-three protesters were taken to hospitals. One officer was injured. Construction moved forward quickly after that.

Things moved forward quickly with Harry and me too. After all, he needed a place to crash, on account of his ancestral homeland being ravaged by late-stage capitalism.

He was easily eight-foot-something, and I loved to climb him like a tree. I loved the way his coarse, thick fur felt on my bare skin, which was smooth and hairless thanks to the countless hours of laser hair removal I’d endured. I loved the way he’d hold me down. One big hand could immobilize my entire body, he didn’t even have to try.

Curiously, I was always the big spoon. Every night I would wait until he was snoring, harsh and guttural sounds like an engine backfiring, vibrating the whole bed. I’d stroke the long fur on his back, raking my fingers through until it was silky and magnificent like the hair of a girl in a slaphappy shampoo commercial. It must have been some recessive chimp-brain grooming impulse, something hardwired deep in my cortex. Harry was a deep sleeper, but once in a while he’d half wake up and look back over his shoulder, groggily open one eye, raise one eyebrow at me. “Ticks,” I’d say. And then, “Worst time of year for them,” no matter what time of year it was. He’d roll back over, letting me continue my ritual without protest, forgetting the whole thing by morning.

When summer ended and the nights got long, a dark cloud settled over Harry. City life was hard for him. People could be so cruel. The things people would shout at us from their car windows were probably not even half as bad as what they would shout at him when he was by himself. It hurt my feelings that I wasn’t enough to make him happy, and I told him so. He told me that was a narcissistic way to feel about someone else’s pain, that this wasn’t about me. That also hurt my feelings, so I started drinking a little, to deal with his sadness, and with mine. Harry didn’t drink. He had other vices. Imagine the amount of cocaine it takes for an eight-foot-something Sasquatch to even catch a buzz. The professional wrestler Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig was six foot three inches, 257 pounds, and had close to four grams in his system when he was found dead by room service in a Tampa hotel.

Even when he was high, Harry never laid a hand on me, although I knew sometimes he wanted to, and he knew sometimes I wanted him to. Not to actually hurt me, just to shut me up when I was really drunk and really out of line and honestly would have deserved it. But he never did. Instead, he’d just loosen the teeth of whatever unlucky passerby gave us a look while we argued loudly on the street.

Getting arrested on a Friday night, I learned, meant he’d spend the weekend in jail. I knew no one would fuck with him in there, because no one would seriously fuck with a Sasquatch visibly high on cocaine, but I always worried anyway. He was a sensitive guy deep down, especially when he was crashing. They’d let him out Monday morning with a splitting headache and a stack of paperwork, and I’d be waiting for him in the parking lot of central booking with the engine running. He‘d have me out of my sundress before I could even take my seatbelt off. Those Monday nights, I’d bathe him, shampoo and comb the hair on every part of his body, and as we climbed into bed we’d promise each other it wouldn’t happen again.

It would have kept happening if not for The Baby. We both got sober as soon as we found out. The doctors warned us outright that it would be a high-risk pregnancy. A natural birth was out of the question because The Baby would be huge, would literally tear me in half unless they cut her out of me. This didn’t worry me. What worried me was what we would do about The Baby’s hair. People could be so cruel.

She had my eyes and her father’s feet. Sixteen pounds, four ounces, healthy. I had a bottle of red wine to myself in the delivery room to celebrate. I honestly deserved it.

Harry’s mood picked up. Fatherhood suited him, and it felt like things were going to be okay.

He didn’t wake up the night I found it, the wad of pink bubblegum caught in the fur on his back. It took me a moment to register what it was, the imprint of unfamiliar teeth had felt so sharp on my fingers.

He didn’t wake up when I got out of bed. Was still snoring when I picked up The Baby from the crib and walked out of the house with her in my arms. But The Baby woke up when I pulled out of the driveway. She started crying, and then so did I. It was dark out, and my fat, salty tears made it hard to see the lines that divided the highway. I blinked them away, over and over again. I can’t remember how long we drove, how long we cried. I didn’t know where we were going, I just knew we had to get there fast. I just needed a sign. Not too far ahead, I saw one, glowing like a halo: 24-HR CAR WASH, it beckoned.

The Baby was crying so loudly. “Baby,” I said to her, trying to steady my voice, my hands on the wheel. “We just need to wash the car.” I can’t remember if I had my signal on when I turned. I don’t remember if there was a single human employee. I can’t remember, but I assume that the whole car shook as the motion sensors activated and the machines roared to life around us. I imagine the car lurched forward on the automated conveyor belt concourse, and that The Baby shrieked as the brushes thrashed against the car, slapping the windshield with soapy tentacles, blocking out the fluorescent light and surrounding us in darkness. “It’s okay, Baby,” I probably shouted over the robotic monsters that surrounded us. The Baby was probably hysterical, wailing at the top of her lungs. “We’re just gonna clean the car. And then when the car is clean, we’re both going to stop crying. And then we’ll go home. Okay, Baby? Okay?”

The Baby stirred in her stroller when the nice waitress dropped the check at our table. She’d only charged us for two coffees, even though Harry’d had three while he was waiting.

“Ohhhhh, someone’s awake!” She said, gently squeezing one big, hairy toe that hung over the edge of the stroller that had always been too small. “No rush,” she chirped over her shoulder.

With some effort, I lifted The Baby into my lap. She was already so heavy. “We had such a nice day today, didn’t we?” I cooed melodically into her ear. She grunted, grouchy, probably hungry.

Harry reached for his wallet. “Please,” he said, neatly folding a crisp bill on top of the downturned check without glancing at it. “Try to be on time next time.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Listen, It’s not like I love taking these Ubers everywhere with her. If you would just let me —”

He exhaled sharply, forcefully enough that it cut off the end of my sentence. “We already talked about this, Emma.” The conversation was over. He stood up and took The Baby from my lap, placing her gingerly back into the stroller. It creaked and bowed under her weight. Her feet almost touched the ground.

Harry turned to me again, but his energy had shifted. There was a softness in his voice, “Hey. I’m proud of you, though. Don’t think I’m not.” He reached out his big hand, which I took, and he pulled me to my feet. With his knuckle, he gently touched the bottom of my chin, tilting my head to look up at him. “You look good, Shorty.”

What he meant was, I looked better than I did a few months ago. But he’d intended it as a compliment, so that’s how I took it. Hearing him evoke the tender old nickname stirred up a fuzzy, almost tipsy feeling deep in me. I felt myself smile, and then we were embracing. I buried my face in the thick fur on his chest and breathed in deeply, savoring his scent, trying to gather enough of it in my lungs to last until next week. I was sure for a moment I felt some stiffness stirring, the shape of something hard, or at least semi-hard, pressing against my body, until he pulled away abruptly.

“See you next week?”

It wasn’t really a question, so I didn’t have to answer. I gave a shallow wave as I watched him maneuver the stroller through the swinging doors of The Good Taste, careful not to knock The Baby’s feet. I watched with my nose pressed against the greasy window as he hoisted her into the back of his new van and strapped her into the car seat, checking every buckle twice. He folded up the stroller, tossed it in the trunk, and then climbed into the driver’s seat. The woman on the passenger side blew a big pink bubble at him. He popped it with his finger and it deflated, flattening on her face like a rubber mask. They both laughed.
By the time the Uber pulled onto my street, the sun was setting, the last traces of its golden fingerprints glinted on my car’s shiny new bumper as we approached my driveway. At least my car was clean. What a relief.