times, she would come over and lick Cleo’s hand softly, as if to say, I know you didn’t mean to bring this one home. It’s okay. It was clearly an accident.
One night, Cleo was up feeding Nina, and she noticed Ruby lying in the corner of the room. Cleo watched her for a while, and then became convinced that Ruby wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. She crept over to her, holding the baby in her arms, trying to figure out how she was going to tell the family that the dog had died. She wondered if Ruby had just given up, if she was so unhappy with her house being so noisy that she simply willed herself to stop living. Cleo didn’t think she could handle being responsible for the death of the Coffeys’ dog. But just as she bent down, she saw Ruby’s pink tongue dart in and out of her mouth, licking her nose, and Cleo sighed with relief.
CLEO HAD NEVER KNOWN TIRED like this before. It was constant and violent, like someone had beaten her up when she wasn’t paying attention. She was still sore, everywhere, and sometimes the edges of her vision were blurry, like she was going blind. She was heavy-limbed and clumsy. She found herself walking into doorframes, tripping over her feet, and knocking glasses over. She had no sense of space. Once, she sat on the toilet and started going to the bathroom before realizing that she hadn’t pulled her underwear down.
Cleo ached for her mom in a way she never had before. Elizabeth felt so far away when she was living in the Coffeys’ basement, even though they talked every day, something they’d never done before. Elizabeth listened to her talk about Nina’s spit-up and diapers. She drove to see them often, sometimes twice a week.
Of course, no matter how much Cleo ached for her, as soon as they got together, there was some sort of squabble. Often Cleo ended up snapping at her mom, then felt like crying when she left, like a guilt-filled toddler who had done something wrong.
Cleo prayed that this would be over soon, this feeling of wanting things and then not wanting them as soon as she got them. It was exhausting not to know your own heart.
CLEO AND MAX WERE AFRAID that Nina was going to die, always; or that they’d hurt her or break her in some way. Clipping her nails almost always resulted in drawing blood, and Cleo often wondered why anyone let them take this baby home. Surely they were not equipped.
Some days she and Max fought over nothing, over everything. They were so tired that it didn’t take much to get them going. Once she yelled at him for putting Nina in a day outfit in the middle of the night.
“It was the closest thing I could find, and who cares? They all look the same anyway? Her pajamas were all wet.”
“The yellow pajamas were there for her,” Cleo said. She held them up as proof.
“You and your yellow pajamas,” Max said. Neither of them was making any sense, but the anger was real.
Cleo often imagined packing herself and Nina up, heading to New York, never talking to Max again. There was power in this image, scary and absolute. Whenever she thought about it, she felt strong, then immediately sick and afraid.
They apologized all the time, and sometimes Cleo was grateful that they were in such a tiny space. There was nowhere else for them to go, so eventually one of them had to say something. After they fought, Cleo often felt a wave of panic rise up. But usually, she was too tired to let it overtake her, and she just let the fight go. She figured it was the only upside of exhaustion.
THEY PROBABLY WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO let Nina sleep in the bed with them, but almost every morning she got up to eat around four thirty, and they’d feed her and change her, and then take her back into the bed. They’d put her right in the middle, and the three of them would doze for a couple of hours before Max had to get up for work.
Right after she ate, Nina acted like she was drunk, eyelids fluttering, happily drooling. Max would always say, “You hit that bottle hard, didn’t you?” and lean down to rub his nose against her hair.
Those were Cleo’s favorite moments, when they were all in bed together, before the day started. She and Max