Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,142

for her own mother, who had never mentioned weight when she and her siblings were kids, who gave them ice cream every night after dinner and taught them how to drink the soupy remains straight from the bowl.

Elisabeth lifted Gil out of the bouncer.

For the next half hour, she photographed them in different poses: Standing by the window, Gil’s head on Sam’s shoulder. In the chair, with him sitting on her left knee, her right knee, in the middle. With him lying across her lap.

Elisabeth stepped in from time to time, to tip Sam’s chin up slightly, or to wrap Gil’s golden curls around her finger, one by one, so that they fell in perfect formation.

When Gil started to rub his eyes, Sam was grateful.

“It’s his naptime,” she said.

“I guess we probably got enough,” Elisabeth said.

Sam put her sweatshirt back on and went to heat a bottle.

Elisabeth puttered around the house for an hour, before leaving to try to get some work done in her office.

She came home right at five.

“Thanks again for indulging me with the picture thing,” she said. “I’m so excited to have one of your paintings in our house.”

Sam smiled. “Thanks.”

“Have a great night,” Elisabeth said.

“I’m coming back over at nine, right? For the shot?”

“You don’t have to. I can do it myself. I was overreacting last night.”

“Are you sure?”

Elisabeth nodded. “Totally.”

Sam texted her at 8:45, asking if she was sure she was sure.

She was sitting in the dorm living room with a bunch of girls, watching a bad reality show about a family with six daughters who live at sea, on a yacht. Onscreen, teenage sisters in matching red bikinis and heels were bickering on the poop deck.

Elisabeth replied immediately. You’re so sweet to reach out. Honestly? Sam, I can’t do it.

Coming over, Sam wrote back.

On the floor sat a large tin of cookies someone’s mother had baked. Sam grabbed four of them.

“My friend needs me,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ve got to go.”

* * *

—

On Elisabeth’s kitchen table, there were two glass vials of liquid, a needle, a syringe, and a bottle of Cabernet, half drained.

She had been crying. Mascara pooled under her eyes. She wore glasses, which Sam had never seen before. She wondered if Elisabeth used contacts most of the time. It seemed like the sort of thing she should know by now.

“What are you thinking?” Elisabeth said.

Sam weighed whether to say: I’m thinking that you usually look as put together as Grace Kelly, but tonight you more closely resemble Courtney Love.

“I brought cookies,” she said, adding them to the strange array of items.

“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” Elisabeth said.

“Why? I could never give myself a shot. I totally get why you can’t do it.”

“No, Sam. I meant I can’t do this. Any of it.”

Elisabeth sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Sam sat beside her. She wasn’t sure what to say. She pushed the stack of cookies toward Elisabeth.

“These are really good,” she said.

Elisabeth picked one up, took a bite.

“That is good,” she said.

She rolled her head back, stared at the ceiling.

“Fuck,” she said. “What am I doing? I’ll just do the shot. Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Sam said. She filled the syringe. “Butt, thigh, or stomach?”

With Isabella, they had rotated the injection site each night.

Elisabeth seemed to be considering the question. Then she shook her head. “No. No. I was right the first time. I can’t.”

Sam wanted to suggest that she call Andrew, or her best friend. She felt out of her depth.

“I don’t want to be like my parents, with all that hostility,” Elisabeth said. “I want peace in my marriage. I need Andrew and me on the same page. So I said I’d try for another baby. I guess if I’m honest, I was trying to make up for something I did wrong.”

Sam wondered what it was. She held her breath, waiting to see if Elisabeth would say more. She thought of something George had said about a situation with Elisabeth’s sister.

“But that’s psychotic,” Elisabeth said. “Nomi’s right. I can’t have a baby so he won’t be mad at me. Andrew thinks I’m just scared. But every night I pray that this won’t work.”

“Oh, Elisabeth, that’s a lot.”

Sam’s mom always said That’s a lot when a friend confided in her over the telephone and she wasn’t sure what to say.

“I can’t do this, hoping against it. I have to make it clear to him