My boss comes around hours after we’ve started working. It’s the last day of school and a week since finals; a lot of kids either did not come or have long since left. My boss, who likes to be the center of attention, comes in and asks what we’re doing, why my students aren’t in their other classes. They’re juniors and I haven’t been their teacher now for months. We don’t have other classes, says one of them. She’s helping us. He looks at me, then looks at them, and says, eyes back on me, You know she’s leaving you next year. She tell you yet that she’s not coming back?
They nod and know although I haven’t told them. I’ve been too afraid to tell them. They know, though, because so few of their teachers last more than a year. They’ve had years of learning not to ever get attached to anyone at school. I wish again, sitting with them, that I could be the exception, that I could be one of the few who stays for them. I’ve chosen not to, just like nearly everyone who looked like me who came before me. I wish I could explain that they’re the only thing about this place worth sticking around for. I imagine, watching all these teachers come and go so quickly—they’re children—it must still feel at least a little—they’re wrong, but I don’t think they could help but think it—like their fault.
* * *
I take the subway home. I read LaRose, by Louise Erdrich. Our girls are with my husband, so I walk into a bar close to our house and get a gin drink. I get out my book, but then I see Josslyn’s daughter. Ifeoma, I say in my head twice before saying it to her—I’ve googled it and listened to it pronounced back to me by the computer—wanting very much to say it right.
Hey, she says. I forgot your name.
I tell her.
Right, she says. Hi.
I didn’t know you were still here, I say.
I got an Airbnb close by, she says. I’m trying to sell all of my mom’s stuff. Find some way to bring the rest of it back down south with me.
Where do you live? I say.
Atlanta, she says.
I’ve only been there once, I say.
She smiles.
I almost tell her I’m from Florida, except Florida’s not the real South. Where I’m from is more like a weird, debased New York or New Jersey with a beach. You like it? I say.
Sure, she says. I grew up here and always wanted to leave.
Here, here? I say, meaning this neighborhood, this building.
Yup, she says.
How was that? I say.
She’s a nurse practitioner and went to a specialty high school in the neighborhood for science.
Mom wanted me to be a doctor, she says. But I got tired.
She was … I start. I’m so sorry about what happened.
You didn’t do anything, she says.
But, you know, I say. She was always so kind to me, I say. As if this matters.
Me too, she says.
I want to ask if she knows any more about what happened. I have this impulse to try to make sense of every tragedy, as if that is the way I will stay safe.
She made me lasagna when our kids were born, I say.
Oh god, she says. I hope you threw it away.
I laugh and nod. I did, I say.
She couldn’t eat lactose, she says. She cooked everything with rubber cheese. She’d lost it a little, she says. She was lonely.
You have siblings? I say, though I already know the answer.
Two brothers out west, she says. Neither of whom, like these assholes thought for a while, was the one who hurt my mom.
Did they come out? I say.
We all fought a lot, she says.
We all get selfish, I say. Or get so set on doing everything the way we want.
I called her, she says. Every Sunday.
I’m sure she loved that, I say.
She nods. She said she did.
* * *
I have unthinkingly, shamefacedly, invited Kayla for dinner. She has mentioned that she’s home alone and even though I know she’ll come from far away, that she’ll have to take the train home late at night, I want to have her at our house.
She texts to say, Is it okay if I bring my brother?
Sure, I say. I don’t tell my husband, until right before they get there and our girls are about to go to bed.
She’s bringing her brother, I say.
How old is he? says my husband.
Five, I say.
It’s a school night, he says.
This was all a terrible idea—presumptuous boundary crossing—but now I can’t take it back.
* * *
Kayla wears more makeup than she does at school. Her dress is short and her hair is done in long, tight braids. Her brother holds on tight to her and doesn’t look at me as I let them into the building and lead them up to our apartment. He still wears his uniform from school, is round-faced, stocky. His shoes are Velcro like our girls’.
The girls are brimming, anxious; Who’s here, who’s here, they say, wet haired, teeth brushed, bed ready.
Mommy’s friend, my husband says.
My student, I correct him.
They look at Kayla’s brother first, about their size. He keeps his face turned toward Kayla’s leg as she grins and leans down to hug each of the girls.
How was the train? asks my husband.
Kayla laughs and I’m relieved to hear her laugh and the girls look at her. Long, she says.
My husband laughs as well.
Our girls lead them into the small room off the kitchen where we all just barely fit. A small couch that sits two or three, two grown-up chairs around the kitchen table, two small, old IKEA chairs for kids.
I have to pee, says Kayla’s brother.
I’ll take you, says the four-year-old and grabs hold of him.
He starts at her but lets her hold his hand.
He’s adorable, I say to Kayla when they’ve walked toward the bathroom.
So are they, she says.
My husband gets the dinner from the stove and the table’s already been set and I get all of us a glass of water and Kayla answers questions from the two-year-old about her shoes and dress.
How’s school? asks my husband, perhaps because he doesn’t listen when I tell him what the school’s like, perhaps because he’s not sure what else to ask a teenager.
It’s fine, Kayla says.
I try to remember what we talk about at school, but we’re not at school.
She teach you anything? my husband asks.
I’m not her teacher, I say.
She’s taught me things, Kayla says, and I feel my face turn red.
The four-year-old and Kayla’s brother come back, their hands wet from the sink, and sit on the couch playing with the magnet tiles the girls have brought out from their room.
You hungry? I say to the boy.
He shakes his head.
He doesn’t talk much if he doesn’t know you, Kayla says.
He talks to me, the four-year-old says.
Kayla laughs. That’s good, she says.
It’s late and I can feel my husband getting anxious. If the girls don’t get to bed soon, they’ll begin to disassemble. The four-year-old will pass tiredness and start spinning, scaling the furniture, impossible to calm down. The two-year-old will start to cry and not stop.
You want to take him to go play? I say to the four-year-old.
She takes the boy’s hand and they both run down the hall into her and her sister’s bedroom.
The two-year-old watches briefly, her eyes bleary. Can I sit on your lap? she says. I think that she means me, but just as I say yes, I watch as Kayla lifts her.
You’re good with kids, my husband says.
Kayla nods. Some of them, she says.
Yeah, he says. Some aren’t great.
She smiles.
The two-year-old has hold of one of her braids and runs it back and forth through each of her fingers.
Baby, I start to say, reaching for her. But Kayla shakes her head and tells me that it’s fine.
&
nbsp; What grade are you in? asks my husband.
Tenth, says Kayla.
You know what you want to do?
I realize that I’ve never asked her.
Psychology, she says.
Makes sense, my husband says.
I wonder if she thinks I told him about her slipping out of class, her leaving. I haven’t, though I’m not sure why.
I want to understand why people do the things they do, she says.
You’d be good at it, I say.
We hear a scream from the kids’ room. I get up and go to them and Kayla follows.
Kayla’s brother sits on the floor in tears and the four-year-old stands holding three stuffed animals.
What happened? I say.
They’re special to me, she says.
You have to share, I say. We have a guest and you need to share.
I watch as her lip trembles. Kayla has hold of her brother and he’s slowly calming down.
Which one do you want to play with? I say to him. He nods toward a purple octopus our four-year-old is clutching fiercely.
Kiddo, I say, give it to him.
She shakes her head more surely, her teeth grabbing hold of her lip.
Hey, says Kayla, looking toward her from her brother. Her voice sounds different, sweeter, softer. I have an idea, she says, to the four-year-old, come here.
The four-year-old looks back and forth between us, toys still clutched to her, teeth still clamped overtop her lip.
Come here, Kayla says again.
She walks to her slowly, eyes on her little brother. Kayla pulls her closer still and whispers to her. I watch her let her lip loose. I watch the corners of her mouth turn up.
The four-year-old nods as Kayla finishes talking. The four-year-old hands Kayla’s brother two of the toys and smiles at him.
Sorry, she says.
He mumbles back to her and grabs hold of the two toys and they go back to playing.
You’re so good, I say.
Kayla laughs. I know, she says.
We’ve finished dinner and the two-year-old nurses on my lap. My husband gives Kayla and her brother a couple of the cookies that he baked with our girls and suggests he order them a car.
I don’t know what to say and so stay quiet. A car from here to where she lives would be close to a hundred dollars.
You sure? says Kayla.
My husband looks at her brother, chewing on his cookie, our four-year-old close to him still, asking if he wants to come again to play with her. I know as soon as they leave she will cry on the floor because he’s gone and it will be hours before we get her to sleep.
Of course, says my husband. You have school.
We don’t have a hundred dollars that we won’t miss. I’m grateful to him for not caring. I hug Kayla and her brother goodbye and we all sit out on our stoop together, quiet, as we wait for the car.
* * *
I can’t do it, says the text from Sasha when I find my phone and bring it into bed to scroll through, after the hour and a half we spent convincing the children it was time for sleeping, after I lay in bed with the two-year-old and then her sister, after we read six books each and they cried and we rubbed their backs and sang them songs.
I don’t know how, she says.
I stare at her text, thinking maybe I should ask my husband. I don’t either, I think.
You can, I type back, then delete it. I think I should call her, but then I take the phone back from my ear and try to type the perfect text. I delete all of them, and my husband’s passed out beside me and the two-year-old has woken up and cries again, asking to come sleep with us, so I go get her and I nurse her and once she’s asleep again and exhaling hot breath against my side as she sleeps, I text back: You can.
I can’t stay here, she says, immediately.
What’s wrong? I ask.
I’m bad at it, she says. The dots pop up, then disappear, then pop up, then disappear. I sit up in the bed and accidentally knock the baby. She starts and murmurs, then grabs hold of my arm and settles back again.
No one’s good at it, I say.
I can’t lose her too, she says.
What can I do? I say.
7
I THOUGHT MAYBE she would ask for me to come and I could help her. I could hold the baby and we could take care of her together. We could do what we should have done before. I wasn’t up for it then, maybe we both weren’t, but I think I know how now; I could make all of it better, if only I still believed that there was such a thing as making it better after all. I want to go to her and meet her husband, hug her, hug the baby, hold her while she takes a shower, do her laundry; I could bring her dinner, to be friends just like I’m friends with other people, where no one expects more than whatever you can give. Two days later, I get a text as her plane lands at JFK and she gets in a cab to our apartment. Five minutes away. I don’t know who she tells before she comes, who she’s left with the baby. I’m by myself, she texts. I’m sweating and I keep looking at my face in the mirror of our tiny bathroom. I keep running my hands through my hair and wondering if I will hug her without realizing I’ve hugged her, wondering if I might finally be able to give her what she needed all those years ago.
SHE’S HER BUT not her: bloated, splotched skin, no makeup; her hair up and unkempt; still beautiful. I look down furtively to see if there’s a car seat that I somehow missed, if she brought the baby with her. I look at her abdomen, wondering if the baby was made up.
Hey, I say.
All that talking, years of reading: There was a time I thought that all language might contain something of value, but most of life is flat and boring and the things we say are too. Or maybe it’s that most of life is so much stranger than language is able to make room for, so we say the same dead things and hope maybe the who and how of what is said can make it into what we mean.
* * *
She looks like she might melt, she might disassemble in our hallway. I think I should pick her up, carry her into our room and hold her, rub her back until she falls asleep.
I almost hug her but I stay standing in the doorway.
I like the place, she says.
Come in, I say, backing away.
Is something burning? she says, having still not come in.
I look past her to Josslyn’s door.
My husband’s working. The girls are home but with the babysitter.
Who’s here, Mommy? they both yell. They come running out of their bedroom.
The four-year-old grabs Sasha’s hand and tries to pull her into her room. You want to play with us? she says.
Mariah, I say, to the babysitter.
Guys, I say.
Sasha’s started crying. Our four-year-old still holds her hand and tells her crying is how your body gets the sad out and it’s fine.
The babysitter scoops them back into their room.
You want coffee? I say. Water? I look through the pantry. Gin?
These are the only beverages I have on hand. She looks up at me from underneath a tent of hair; she says, Water would be great.
I hand her a glass, not meeting her eyes, not wanting to make her cry harder. I see stains popping on either side of her shirt and realize that her breasts are leaking. I nod toward her chest. You want to use my pump?
She looks down.
Fuck, she says.
I get the hand pump from the bathroom and the electric pump from our bedroom just to give her options. She nods toward the electric pump, which does both breasts at once, and I twist the bottles onto the horns for her while she sips her water and I plug the machine into the wall.
Such a fucking mess, she says.
She pulls her shirt up and I see she doesn’t have a bra on. Her belly has that wore-out, saggy look of having held a baby recently.
The pump starts its whir and I see her breathe. The milk drops into the bottles, filling slowly. I pour myself a glass of water and sit at the kitchen table while she sits on the couch so I don’t accidenta
lly rub her back.
How was the trip? I say.
Long.
I don’t want to ask about the baby, but we can hear my babies, playing, laughing; the four-year-old yells at her sister and both Sasha and I smile and then she starts to cry again.
They’re so big, she says.
I know, I say, shaking my head.
They look like you, she says.
I stand up and walk over to the couch and I take the horns from her so I can screw the caps onto the bottles as she wipes herself. I bring the apparatus over to the sink to wash it while she pulls her shirt down, sips more water, sits back on the couch. I put the bottles in the fridge.
It’s cold, she says. She did not have a coat when she got here.
I wasn’t really thinking, she says. When I left.
What were you … I say.
Are you okay? I ask.
She looks at me. This was a stupid question.
I hear the babysitter yell out the name of our two-year-old as she opens up their bedroom door and waddles, quickly, toward me. Milk? she says, reaching underneath my shirt.
Not now, baby, I say.
Please, mama, she says.
I don’t mind, says Sasha.
The two-year-old takes this as assent enough and climbs up onto my lap as Sasha watches. I unhook my bra and let her latch on, calling to the babysitter that it’s fine.
I watch Sasha seem to reach for the baby’s foot, then stop.
It’s so mammalian, she says.
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