kept them warm in the oven while I fed the baby his cereal and applesauce. It was satisfying, his willingness, his swallowing. His gums squeaking against the rubber of the spoon, the flourish of my wrist as we emptied the bowl together.
“Why does he always get to eat first?” Emma whined.
“He eats first because he goes to bed first,” I said firmly.
I was pretty certain this was true, that I’d always nestled him in his crib before tucking her in.
After dinner I played a few games of Candy Land with Emma, then made a point of putting the baby down first. He seemed sleepy and didn’t fuss when I turned to leave. I watched as his eyes made the progression from open to closed, fluttering the same way Emma’s used to, as if he were trying to stay awake and couldn’t. I smiled and stood there a few minutes, watching him sleep, synchronizing the rhythm of his rising and falling chest with my own.
I closed the door when I left, but the bell I’d left hanging inside was gone. A wispy fiber of red ribbon trailed between the knob and the wood, like something a forensics lab would unearth.
When I went in to read to Emma, she said she missed Daddy. I cuddled her against my shoulder and asked if there was anything I could do for her instead. She said that maybe a snack would help. We walked down to the kitchen together and I hummed as I made her a grilled cheese sandwich. It smelled buttery, slightly smoky, as I slid it onto the cutting board and cut it into triangles.
But as I watched her eat, all hunger and no hesitation, no gratitude, I felt I was being slowly choked, strangled by bad manners in my own kitchen.
“What do you say?” I asked as she finished.
She looked at me with blank eyes and I realized she had no idea what I wanted her to say. My prompt held no meaning. My aunt Caro told me once that it took over a thousand times of saying something to a dog before it understood the command. How long did it take with children?
I sighed. These were my coworkers—the toddler, the baby. This was my job—the meals, the dishes, the diapers, the tantrums. The world’s tiniest, most claustrophobic factory. The hours were unbearable and the conditions were apparently not going to improve.
When Theo came home I told him I had to go pick up milk at the new minimart. How was it possible he didn’t hear the lie in my voice? He didn’t look up from his floor plans, didn’t say anything except, “Fine.”
I stood at the door and held my breath, testing him. Let him look up, I thought. Let him notice that something is wrong. He didn’t. I left. Milk.
I turned on the car and pulled out of my parking space. After a few blocks I rolled down my window, despite the slight chill, and breathed in the night air gratefully. I kept going in the direction the car was pointing: east. I passed Haverford College and then left our township, driving slowly past the minimart. Its lights struck me as too bright, almost blue compared to the dark edge of the town. Inside a clerk stared out at the street; he looked bored, a look I recognized from a great distance, even without illumination. I changed course slightly and headed southeast, passing through a few towns I hadn’t seen in years, and which looked seedier than I remembered, until I crossed the intersection near Route 1. There it was. The shopping mall site that occupied Theo nearly every night and weekend. The construction was nearly complete, and the landscapers had brought in several backhoes to start preparing for the garden beds that dotted the parking lot and hugged the facade. As if they could make up for the large concrete structure by softening it with plants. The sign in front said UPPER VALLEY SHOPPING CENTER in curling green type accompanied by an illustration of a tree. What a ridiculous name, I thought. How on earth could something be both “upper” and a “valley”? As I circled around, I saw lights through the window of one entrance, where one of the large “anchor” stores was going in. A group of men rolled white paint along the ceiling, and I commiserated with them. It’s terrible to have to work at night, whether you’re diapering a baby or painting a wall,