they were little, when they were in the middle of a game and someone needed a break. They’d be running around, playing tag or kickball, and someone would yell, “TV Time-out!” and just like that, they’d all stop right where they were, put their hands on their knees, and catch their breath.
EVERY WEEK, MAX FORWARDED AN e-mail from a baby website to Claire that had been forwarded to him by Cleo. Claire was familiar with the website. Lainie had been obsessed with the same one when she was pregnant with Jack. “Do you believe this stuff?” Max would sometimes write at the top. The e-mail gave weekly information about skin and organs and fingernails. It gave comparisons to objects, so that you could imagine how big the baby was: The baby was a peanut, a grape, a kumquat, a cucumber. Okay, maybe they didn’t use that last one, but Claire couldn’t bring herself to read the e-mails. She knew that Max was overwhelmed, knew that he needed her to talk to, so that she could tell him that it was all going to be fine. So she did try.
Your baby is an orange, your baby is a peach, your baby is a plum, a watermelon, a fig. This is what Claire thought each night before she went to sleep. She listed them out of order, then went backward, making the baby smaller and smaller. Sometimes she’d keep going, creating her own list of objects: Your baby is a basketball, a watermelon, a dachshund, a couch. The list of items ran in her head fast, until it felt like she wasn’t in control of them anymore. How could you tell the difference, she wondered, between hearing voices in your head and your own thoughts?
And then one day, when the IT guy was working on her computer, she saw his eyes get wide and he turned to her with a smile. “Well, I guess congratulations are in order.”
“What?” Claire said.
“Your baby is a lemon,” he said. “You can barely tell.”
“Oh no, that’s not me. That’s my brother’s baby.”
“Oh, sorry about that.”
After he left, Claire tried to figure out what he meant when he said, You can barely tell. Barely tell? “I can barely tell that you’re a huge loser,” she muttered. And then she felt mean. And she deleted the e-mail.
FRAN’S PARENTS WERE STILL IN Florida and Claire started sleeping there a few nights a week. Whenever she left the house with a bag and said she wasn’t coming home that night, Weezy raised her eyebrows.
“What?” Claire would ask. Weezy would just shake her head.
It wasn’t much different with Fran’s parents gone all the time, since they’d seemed oblivious to Claire’s presence anyway. She’d met them a few times and they’d seemed uninterested and bored. His mom was a thin woman with short gray hair who wore sweat suits and looked tired. His dad was the same.
Claire knew without having to ask that these were not the kind of parents who asked after her, or asked Fran much about his life, for that matter. They were the parents who were truly surprised when Fran was caught smoking pot in his car at the high school, who were annoyed about it mostly because it meant they’d have to go in and meet with the dean.
One Saturday, Claire went over to help Fran watch his niece. Fran’s sister lived a few towns over, in an apartment building. She was divorced. Claire vaguely remembered her from high school. Bonnie was a couple of years older, and used to stand with the group of kids that huddled at the edge of the parking lot to smoke cigarettes in the morning and the afternoon.
Fran’s niece was about three years old, and was not an attractive child. It seemed horrible to think that, but it was the truth. She had stringy blond hair and her nose was way too big for her face. She always had food on her clothes and cried often and loudly. Also, she was a hitter.
When Claire got to the house, Fran was smoking a cigarette in the basement and Jude was sitting on the floor playing with a doll. Two lines of snot were running out of her nose.
Claire tried, but she couldn’t take an interest in the little girl. She pretended to, kneeling down to talk to her, but Jude just snatched up her doll to her chest and reached out to smack Claire. After that, she just watched. Fran seemed fond