The Other Mother

by Gwendolen Gross

  I was an awful snoop. Every time I heard the hum of tire noise on the road outside, I thought of what I should say when Aaron came inside. Not “Wow you’re late,” not “I was waiting.” Perhaps “Hi, honey, you’re home.” I licked my lips, my mouth hungry for kisses. I wanted his attention, his unmixed understanding of my exhaustion.

  I went to the drawers, which held the ordinary: rubber bands, coupon organizers, tape. I found a little notebook, and I knew I shouldn’t look in it. It had a green cover, and three photographs spilled out as I held it. The first one showed Thea, very young, with a woman who had to be her mother. They were standing at the front of this house, and they were smiling matching smiles. The mother was shorter, darker, and surprisingly round. The second photo showed Thea, very young again, in a way that made me realize, even in the vague glow of my flashlight, that she’d been through many things since that moment. She was sitting in a chair, holding her arm up to a young man beside her, someone handsome in a fragile way, his eyes looked almost made up, their lashes impossibly long. He was about her age, or a little older, and Thea looked happy. Her arm’s light gesture, fingers touching his sleeve, body full of light, eyes lit—she looked like someone in love.

  I was focusing my circle of light on the last photo: a young girl, probably Thea again, by the back fence of this house. This house, I thought, recognizing the garage, the corner of my own house, soffits, a window—had she lived in this house as a girl?—when I heard the shuffling on the stairs. I turned, suddenly panicked, because I didn’t know this kitchen, I didn’t live here, and because I’d left my infant downstairs unattended. In the low light of a lantern, something that could catch fire, what was I doing, snooping around? I yelped, lightly, all feeling in my throat. Then I breathed. Even in the dark I recognized Caius’s form. I slid across the kitchen and toward the basement steps, unsure whether I should say anything. He made his way toward the liquor cabinet.

  “’Night, Amanda,” I thought I heard him say, but I wasn’t sure, because of the loud hammering of my own heart.

  “’Night,” I whispered, because it was.

  10

  Thea

  “They get along so well,” said Amanda, as Oliver and Iris sat together working on a puzzle.

  I was sorting the recycling, newsprint smudging my hand like pollen on a nectar-drunk bee.

  “When I was a kid,” she continued, “my sister and I played these practical jokes…don’t get me wrong, I love her, but we short sheeted each other’s beds and dared each other to catch wasps with our hands and—oh, once I put Tabasco on her toothbrush.” She grinned and I cringed. Really? I thought that seemed a little cruel.

  “You have sisters?” she asked me, as Oliver grabbed the rest of the pieces and finished the puzzle.

  “I win!” Oliver yelled, and Iris began to howl her protest. So much for sibling harmony, I thought, washing my hands and trying to verbally stanch the flood of my younger daughter’s fury.

  I will admit that it was thrilling at first to have an infant so close, the sweet smell, the incredible smallness of her, all her unknowns. She was a calm baby, and Amanda was unknowingly lucky to be up only once or twice a night already, at six weeks. The evening witching hour was brief and Malena barely cried—she made do with a little fuss between dinner and bedtime. She went down to bed in our old crib, and Amanda and her husband slumped around, bleary and yawning. They had no idea how bad it could be with a newborn, how some babies cried every hour to be fed, how even feeding didn’t soothe some of them.

  But I hadn’t expected to have it all up close for so long. Two days, and two more until they went to the hotel. I thought of that saying about fish and houseguests. To be honest, I liked the idea of being a gracious hostess more than I actually liked keeping up that good front. My mother, who uncomplainingly catered to my father’s colleagues for month-long, math-madness visits where they stayed up late and talked too loud and left pale rings with their cups on her good wood and ate and drank all night, would’ve been disappointed in me.

  Whenever the phone rang, I secretly hoped it would be a cancellation, a room opening up earlier for them. Though I didn’t mind Amanda’s company, I’d seen too much with her crammed into the microcosm of my family, spreading her belongings everywhere—a dirty washcloth-turned-burp-pad on the couch, her half-eaten banana abandoned on the coffee table, her shoes, Carra’s old shoes, that is, beneath the kitchen table, a pair of my socks stuffed under the tongues.

  At the very beginning, it had felt a little like an adventure. I cooked on my old Firefly single-burner camping stove; as I unpacked it, the pine and mildew odor of the trail had spilled into the unlit kitchen. A mom was always in charge. I’d learned about this work, I’d trained on the job from the minute I first went into labor, reorganizing all my impulses so others’ necessities, comforts, and emotions went before my own. It was a relief in a way. It made my own needs dull.

  Once, when Carra was one and a half or so and teething terribly—crying, drooling, stumbling around the house with her unstable walk, reaching for me all the time and then crying to be put back down—I had hired a baby-sitter, a grandmother from the retirement center around the block who’d advertised in the paper. She wanted to care for babies, and I had a headache, a backache, my old sore hip spot hurt, and I needed to go to the dentist to have a tooth refilled. Carra cried when I left. I could hear her howl of indignation as I walked from door to car.

  And when the baby-sitter phoned the dentist, where I sat back in the powder blue chair with my mouth numb but not yet drilled, because Carra had thrown up with despair and could I please come home, she didn’t know what to do in such an extreme case, it felt logical, almost expected. I smiled a crooked, Novocain smile as I grabbed my purse and left the office. It took a month before I left her with Caius on a weeknight, when the dentist’s office was open late.

  Since then things had gotten easier. Harder again, then easier.

  In the few days the Katzes had been with us, Iris wasn’t as clingy. Sometimes I thought I’d made her that way, I’d made her need me even more than the others, because she wasn’t planned and I felt guilty, or because she was my last chance to be entirely essential.

  “Do you think I can convince them not to bother with a hotel?” Caius asked on Wednesday night as he was brushing his teeth. “It’s so expensive.”

  “Insurance,” I said.

  “I suppose they’d like their privacy at this point.”

  “Hm,” I said, thinking me, too. Was I uncharitable, or was I just ready for things to get back to normal?

  “She’s a good one, isn’t she,” he said, teeth clean, climbing into bed. He snuggled against me and his feet were cold.

  “Sweet,” I said, not positive he meant Malena and not her mother.

  “I think we should go to the shore next summer. Or up to the cape to see my mother.”

  For a moment I imagined both families camped out on the beach. I’d chase Iris and hold Malena. Aaron and Amanda would walk along the sand, holding hands. I’d watch Oliver jumping too deep out into the waves. I’d watch Carra tugging on an embarrassing bikini. Embarrassing to me, because I was used to her naked and tiny, not blooming. Everyone would need sandwiches.

  “…don’t you think?” Caius asked. Now he had his arms behind his head, in the beach of the bed.

  “Sure,” I said, wondering how much of his summer musing I’d missed for my own.

  The next day, the power burred and buzzed and came back on for good. The kids flocked to the TV like birds to bread loaves. Oliver proudly reset all the clocks. I brought out an old baby monitor for Amanda to use with Malena in the basement. With everything on, I noticed how much our house hummed.

  “Do you mind if I make a phone call up here while Malena’s sleeping?” asked Amanda. She looked exhausted: Her eyes looked bruised, her cheeks dry in tiny red patches.

  “So sorry about this,” she said, pointing to the infantile offenses—stains all over the sweatshirt
she wore, which belonged to my husband.

  “Oh, no,” I said, “we should wash it. He has plenty of sweatshirts. And right now, you don’t.” I wasn’t trying to remind her, but her lips grew tense with grief. I was afraid she’d cry. She hadn’t yet, in her whole stay. I would’ve cried, at least privately.

  “And of course, help yourself to the phone. I have to clean out the fridge, but I won’t listen.” As I said it I realized how silly that sounded. I might not listen, but of course I’d hear.

  She sat down on the couch with a day planner and a pen and dialed.

  “Work.” She smiled, looking up at me. Her pen fell between the cushions, and when she picked it up, I saw the quick scratch of ballpoint ink on my fabric. Argh. That stuff never comes out.

  I made myself busy, starting with the top shelf. A bottle of pineapple juice from before the industrial revolution, some cheese Oliver had to have but didn’t like, Gruyère, now exquisitely molded. I unloaded the cooler. We had enough milk for another day or two, though I wasn’t sure how much they were drinking. Aaron had it in his coffee, but that was just a little. Two dollops, a wrist twist each time. How strange to learn the intimate habits of strangers. Neighbors, not strangers. I took out the butter dish, scraped crumbs off the stick and pried it from the dish. Then I washed the dish itself, and replaced the butter.

  “Hey, yeah, me too. I don’t think I can, though…For Ethel?…I know, I should. It’s just the house…no, I can leave the baby, it’s not that…. You know I want to see CBF. God, the books alone! And I know Ethel loves having company…. No, she probably wouldn’t like it as much with Jessica, you’re right. And I love being there for the dinners. Someone always says something—what? Okay, I’ll hold.”

  She leafed through her planner with a crooked tiny smile, one corner of her mouth up, the other flat. Disappointment. She looked up at me and I brandished the orange juice out of panic.

  “Um, want some?”

  “No thanks,” she said.

  “Yes,” she said, back on the line. “Guess what—I think I can come. Just one day, and I don’t think I can make the dinner…. Saturday, yeah. Tell Ethel I’ll meet her at the signing booths in the morning…. I know…. Yeah. It’s not much longer, I’ll be backsoon. So tell me about Herr Director…. What’s going on with Harper?…No? Oh, well I…oh, okay, if you have to go—I’ll see you Saturday the tenth…. Yes.”

  She put the phone down on the couch and picked up her planner again. Then she called her husband. I wasn’t really listening, but I got the general idea that he’d take over with Malena, that she was going somewhere for work, that she was nervous about it. I couldn’t imagine leaving one of my babies for a whole day, and so soon.

  “You know,” she said, softly enough so I wasn’t sure she was speaking to me. I stuffed the browned bitty trees I’d cut from the broccoli down the garbage disposal and put the good remainder in the crisper drawer.

  “I might like that juice if you’re still offering.”

  “I am!” I said, a little too brightly. Malena’s stirring sounds came over the monitor.

  Amanda got up, shuffled downstairs toward her baby. I wasn’t sure whether that meant she still wanted juice. I poured a glass and left it on the counter, and when she came back up again she took it along with Malena back to the couch.

  “Thanks,” she said, settling her girl in to nurse. She spilled a little juice on her chest, trying to drink and hold at the same time. I remembered that problem; it made me slightly wistful to recall.

  “You know,” said Amanda, though I was wiping down the bottom shelf now and couldn’t hear her clearly.

  “I really love my job. It’s—”

  “Sorry,” I said, coming out and wiping off my hands. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “You know how you love certain things about your job, just certain ones? I mean, I could do without all the politicking—and I do it, too, so I’m guilty. But now that seems so petty. Still, all the brightness of the finished product, all that work gone into it. I really should go, it’s like the big group book bat mitzvah or something.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Oh, CBF—Children’s Book Fair—it’s this new huge event. There are going to be talks and signings and dinners and authors and booths with a thousand free copies of books. It’s been in the works forever. And one of my authors is this amazing old lady—she loves going to the fairs, and I love going with her because people want her to sign their books. Last year at the book expo she wore pink high-top sneakers with her dress; she’s kind of a kook, but it isn’t contrived, not like some kids’ book authors who pretend to love kids and pretend to be spiritual and light. God, there are some huge egos. You should see the correspondence files…. Sorry, I’m justrambling.”

  Malena had dozed off at her breast. Amanda held the empty glass. I took it, then came back to the couch and sat down, two cushions between us.

  “I just miss it all, I guess. Don’t get me wrong; it’s wonderful to be with my sweet pea.” She gazed at Malena, dopey; I knew that look, the biggest love. “But it’s kind of lonely, too. And I don’t want to miss CBF—we’ve been talking about it forever. There’s the political currency of going—I know I said I hate that, but it’s just true—and there’s also the fact that it’s fun to see what everyone’s doing. Maybe learn something. I got this book last year that had unbelievable pop-up cutouts, an astonishing feat of children’s book engineering. I should show you. It ripped really easily, of course, but it was gorgeous the first time around. Like an ice sculpture or a paper snowflake or something.” She yawned, a huge gasp for oxygen.

  “But what about you? Was there something you loved about your job? Is there something you miss? I forget where you worked?”

  How presumptuous of her to assume I worked. But I had. I thought immediately of being a naturalist at the Lakes of the Clouds. Then of being a school-group guide at the Museum of Natural History, which I’d done for quite a while but which never took much of my time. Then I thought of the bank. I laughed.

  “I miss nothing about my job job. It was awful. A bank. But I also worked as a school guide at the Museum of Natural History—”

  “Really?” Amanda interrupted. “Wow! I’d never have guessed. What was that like? That place is fabulous. It has that weird smell though, you know—in the hallways? Is that formaldehyde? What did you show the kids? Have you seen that new space wing? Aaron and I went when I was pregnant—” She yawned again. “I’m so sorry. I guess I have a lot of chatter stored up.” She patted her lips like a child, zip your lips.

  “It was fun, actually. But my favorite job was being a naturalist. At this hut in the White Mountains. Have you heard of them?”

  “No way, really? Sure, isn’t there one of those on the top of Mount Washington? Cloudy Hut or something?”

  “Lakes of the Clouds. That was mine. Have you been there?” No way, she’d said, as if she didn’t really believe me.

  “Just to the top of Mount Washington. In a car. I’d love to take that train that goes up. It seems like a great thing to do with kids someday.” Again, she yawned.

  I’d always meant to bring my own kids, when they were older. Of course, they were older now, two of them, anyway. I wondered why I never took them, why we never went.

  “That job I miss. It’s how I met Caius,” I said. I told her the story, as briefly as I could: He’d come on a whim to the hut with a client; he’d come back for me, playing hooky from his job. And ultimately, I’d left the mountain for him. I felt flushed and embarrassed toward the end, as if I’d just opened a journal and read her a week of entries.

  “Amazing!” said Amanda. “You are more complicated than you seem. But you gave up your own life for this.” She gestured around the living room, then clapped her hand over her mouth again. “I didn’t mean it that way, I’m sorry. Sleep deprivation.”

  “I never imagined working while they were young,” I said, sounding very brittle. I couldn’t help it. I had g
iven it all up for this, but it wasn’t as if I’d walked down off the mountain and become a domesticated little Heidi. She didn’t mean it. She’d said so. But she’d also said it. Who was she to tell me I’d given up my life?

  “I never imagined not working,” she said. “Until now…sometimes now I can imagine it. I just need to get a nanny, someone I can really trust, so I don’t feel so terrified of leaving her.”

  “Oh, my mother always said, ‘Why bother having children if you don’t want to raise them?’” Had I really just said that?

  For a minute, Amanda picked at a crusty spot on my couch. Then she barked at me, “Was she happy?” She glared. I couldn’t bear her eyes, so I looked at Malena.

  “My mother, you mean?”

  “Yes, was she happy?”

  The phone rang under her leg, and she jumped, and Malena started to cry. Amanda got up and stalked down to the basement, leaving me to pick up the phone, still warm from her body.

  One of my high school friends, Belinda Crew, decided five months into motherhood that she wanted to be a screen actress. Since her husband was an investment banker and never home, it must have been sharply lonely in their big stone house in the Glens, the fanciest section of town, where all the lots were at least an acre. It had been part old-money estates, part farmland when I was growing up, but now it was all posh. In the Glens, neighbors cared what kind of car you drove. The residents frequented the outrageously overpriced supermarket right in town instead of going out half a mile to the shopping center and the giant A&P with double coupons on Fridays. The expensive supermarket was where you went if you didn’t mind paying another three dollars for your loaf of bread because it would be a brioche loaf with blackened mustard seeds and because you’d have a chance to show off your right kind of car in the parking lot.

  Belinda hired a nanny from Senegal and used her time to work out at the gym with a private trainer, to get an agent and a just-so haircut, to go in for photo shoots, and eventually, to get bit parts and advertisements—she was the dog walker in a New York sitcom one week; she posed boxes of tampons to show the flowery labels indicative of freshness the next. Meanwhile her little boy, Mitchell, never Mitch, learned to sit, stand, walk, and speak French and a few words in Wolof, and he went to his first day of kindergarten with his nanny. I was being terribly judgmental. But, tampons! I tried not to condescend. Belinda had been one of the Seven in school, the seven most-popular girls who had their own group number, who flocked through the hall all silver winged and desirable. Everyone wanted the Seven, girls and boys alike, for their good clothes, for their certain shades of lipstick—Pouty Pink and Smack Me Scarlet—for the power of being in that cream, the top. In high school I was popular enough, did well in my classes, had friends and a decent locker, and was caught up, but not too caught up, in the social swirl. I played the viola in the orchestra for the high school musicals and some of my drawings were chosen for the art and literary magazine. I still saw high school friends and nemeses all over town; I knew I’d left, but sometimes it felt as though I never had.