Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,120

place because she promised they wouldn’t leave any embryos behind.

“We have two,” she said when he brought it up. “If the first one works, then what? Will you be able to leave the other? Because three kids? I just can’t.”

“I don’t know,” Andrew had replied. “I guess we would cross that bridge when we got to it. We should be so lucky, right?”

Now she said, “You made an appointment without telling me?”

“We said we’d sit down with Dr. Chen the next time we were in the city. I figured I’d save you the call.”

Elisabeth was trying to decide how mad she should be when the doorbell rang.

She went downstairs, thinking of how, under normal circumstances, she would have called Andrew on this odd decision. But after what she had done, he had all the power. She couldn’t say anything.

She opened the front door. Sam was there, beside a guy Elisabeth could have identified as British without hearing him speak a word.

He was tall, so tall. Too tall.

“You must be Clive,” she said.

“Pleasure to meet you, madam.”

He extended a hand and a crooked, mischievous smile.

Elisabeth had an immediate, visceral dislike of him. His silly outfit. The way he addressed her, as if he were Sam’s peer instead of hers. He looked all wrong standing next to sweet Sam, her baby face covered in makeup for the first time Elisabeth had ever seen.

Still, she said, “Come in. I’m so glad we’re doing this.”

Andrew came down with Gil and said hello.

What happened upstairs was forgotten, for now. Elisabeth was happy to focus on her husband, on getting out of the house. She couldn’t look at Clive.

“Gil checklist,” she said to Andrew. “Jacket? Stroller? Diapers? Wipes? Cream? Pack ’n Play? Toys? Puffs?”

“Check check check check check check check and check,” Andrew replied.

The baby whined.

“He’s tired,” Elisabeth said.

She took him from Andrew’s arms and began singing softly, the song she sang each night at bedtime: Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep, baby Gilly.

Andrew came close. He joined in on the second verse: Eyes are closed, eyes are closed, eyes are closed, my little sugar. One eye closed, two eyes closed, go to sleep, baby Gilly.

Gil grinned up at the two of them. Elisabeth knew he would be asleep as soon as the car started rolling.

“Aren’t they adorable?” Sam said.

“I’m taking notes,” Clive replied. “That’ll be us before long.”

He stood behind Sam and wrapped his arms around her. Elisabeth wanted to snatch Sam away, to carry her to safety. For the first time ever, she wondered if she ought to call Sam’s mother.

* * *

—

Elisabeth insisted that Clive ride shotgun, but he said he would rather sit in back with Sam.

Gil’s car seat was on the passenger side. Sam sat behind Andrew. Clive was in the middle, knees protruding into the front seat.

For the first hour of the journey, Elisabeth kept glancing at them in the rearview mirror. They were holding hands. At one point, he whispered, “Give us a kiss.”

Elisabeth looked away.

His accent was not the buttery Hugh Grant variety she’d been imagining, but something unrefined, coarse.

When the baby woke up, Clive was annoyingly good with him—he made Gil laugh. But he also kept sneezing. Elisabeth pictured the germs, collected on his transatlantic flight, now filling the air inside their car. Clive said it was only allergies, but no one had allergies at this time of year.

Even though Andrew was driving and should not be checking his phone, she knew he would, and so she sent him a text: If this guy gets the baby sick, I will murder him.

Andrew read it a few minutes later, but didn’t look at her.

He was annoyed when she told him she had invited them.

“They won’t be with us,” she said. “We’re only giving them a ride. This way, we get to go out on our own without Gil one night.”

“Because there are no babysitters in Manhattan,” Andrew said.

“None that he knows and loves.”

The traffic was brutal. Brake lights as far as she could see.

By hour three, for no reason whatsoever, Clive began to whistle.

Elisabeth thought she might hyperventilate. They were trapped in a car, with this too-tall man, this creep, and it was her fault. She took out her phone for distraction. The BK Mamas were embroiled in a debate about whether to change the group’s name to BK Caregivers, since the current name was sexist (ignoring dads) and elitist (ignoring childcare workers). They were taking a poll. There were already three hundred