Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,125

I still think of myself as a BK Mama, and always will.

Amen! wrote someone.

Preach, said someone else.

And then the woman in Queens announced the creation of a new group, the clunkily named Once and Always BK Caregivers.

Elisabeth clicked to see how many people had joined. One hundred and forty so far, though she doubted many of them had left the original group. She joined this one too. What the hell?

The clock on her laptop read 10:32.

Sam and Clive were probably out somewhere, beginning their night. Elisabeth wondered what Sam’s friends thought of him. They couldn’t possibly think he was good for her. There was something off about Clive, beyond the age difference, something she sensed but could not put into words.

She still had access to all her research tools from her days at the paper. There, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she casually conducted a records search: Clive Richardson, age 33, London.

Nothing of a criminal nature came up. No bankruptcies or DUIs. But there was a marriage license, issued not even two years ago at the London City Hall. And divorce papers, signed six months later.

Elisabeth was almost positive Sam didn’t know about this.

She searched online for the ex-wife—Laura Garcia. But it was too common a name, and it was getting late. Elisabeth closed her computer and tucked the information away, to be deployed at the appropriate time, whenever that was.

Before getting back in bed, she went and stood over her sleeping baby. He didn’t yet know anything bad about the world, didn’t know that people were so often something other than what they claimed to be. Gil woke up each morning with a smile on his face, expecting the best from everyone. When did that change? She hoped she could make it last as long as possible.

She was excited to show him her city in the morning. To take him to Central Park if it wasn’t too cold.

How can you not want another when you’re so great with him? Andrew had said.

She was stubborn; she knew that. Maybe she ought to consider what he wanted.

Elisabeth had always been ambitious, self-interested; you had to be to make it in the city. The first few months of Gil’s life were easier than she’d imagined. Friends said the shock of having to be everything for someone else had depressed them. But in her case, it was simple when she gave her whole self over to him. Things got trickier when part of the old Elisabeth returned.

A month ago, she spoke to a class at the college. She arrived for Narrative Nonfiction 201 feeling far more nervous than she had expected to. The professor, Gwen’s neighbor, read Elisabeth’s bio aloud as an introduction. Elisabeth could tell the students were impressed.

They had a million questions. Afterward, they all wanted her email address.

Walking home that day, she thought about her nineteen-year-old self. If she heard all this, she would be amazed.

“They made me feel like I’ve made it,” she said to Andrew later. “I never feel that way.”

Ever since, Elisabeth had felt fiercely ambitious again. She wanted to work on her new book. She had ideas for articles, op-eds she might write, if she ever found the time. Whereas once having a sitter three days a week had seemed like a lot, she already knew that, after Sam graduated, she would hire someone full-time. She needed more hours to spend immersed in her work.

A second child would make that impossible, put her right back where she was nine months ago.

For an instant, looking at Gil, Elisabeth imagined two—riding down the driveway in their double stroller, babbling away to each other. But the image didn’t stick.

She saw herself instead in her office, working again. It was a small space on the first floor of a building downtown. It had only one window. Her kitchen table might have been a preferable place to write, but at the office, she could be truly alone. She only rented the space from noon to four. Other people worked there at different hours of the day. They weren’t supposed to leave stuff, but she sometimes caught traces of them. A CVS receipt. A Chinese takeout container in the trash.

There were days when she went into that room and fell asleep with her head on the desk. Days when she went to the BK Mamas page and typed something into the search box—best infant booties or nine month sleep regression—and found herself leaping from one post to another,