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On the first morning, I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. I sat up—it had to be done quickly or the odds of staying put doubled every minute—and reached under the bed for my computer, where I slipped it every night away from the kids. I hadn’t slept well. One ear had stayed continually cocked through the night, listening for the movement of light feet. My dreams had been filled with the sounds of children calling my name and a vague sense of panic that I’d misplaced them. I’d fallen asleep in the chunky cardigan I’d borrowed from my sister, so I merely slid my feet into slippers and padded through the silent house to the kitchen. I listened at the top of the stairs for the baby crying, but heard nothing. The clock on the stove said 5:15. I’d wanted to be at the dining table by 5:05, and the lost ten minutes sent a cold shot of anxiety into my stomach. Already it felt as if I were losing the day. I opened my computer, and before I could look at anything I turned on the app that cut me off from the internet. Then I wrote. At home, the start of writing was a long, long ritual: Were the dishes done, the bathroom cleaned? Maybe I’d just quickly duck out and get another coffee, or do a quick grocery run, and drop off the laundry at the same time. Now I simply dove in, racing against the day that was chasing me down. I had fourteen days to research and write a forty-page book proposal that would hopefully result in us selling the book to a publisher.
Time sprouted wings and flew. My ninety minutes of allotted time whipped by in what felt like seconds. At 6:55, I closed my computer and placed it high atop the hutch. I retraced my steps down the hallway, stepped back out of my slippers, and slid back under the covers. I could have squeezed out a few more minutes of writing, but that would have meant giving up my few minutes of cuddle time in bed with the kids. No sooner had my head touched the pillow than I heard the shush of the door.
“Auntie Glynnis, I brought you coffee.” It was Zoe holding a tiny plastic teacup from one of her toy sets. Since they’d started walking, I’d been encouraging them both to bring me pretend coffee so that when they were old enough to make actual coffee they would just bring it to me automatically. That was my plan, anyway. This was the first time it had actually worked. I felt a surge of joy, a sharp little jolt at the knowledge that I was a thread in this little mind that was continually knitting itself together. I sipped the pretend coffee theatrically, as if it were the most magical thing I’d ever tasted, while Zoe clambered up, staring at me with wide, happy eyes. A second later Quinn arrived, doing a running leap at the bed and sending my head smacking into the headboard and the coffee cup flying. I picked Zoe up and put her on the opposite side of me and wrapped both of my arms around them tightly, hoping to keep them out of arm’s reach of each other. The bed was practically vibrating with their energy. No quiet cuddle time today. I reached for my phone. I had about three minutes before the battle over the sheets would spin out of control and reach a pitch that would wake the baby.
“Let’s take a selfie.” I knew sooner or later (probably sooner) both of them would get tired of the phone and refuse to pose for it, like sulking teenagers on a family road trip, but for now it was a surefire way to get their attention for about ninety seconds. They leaned in, Zoe smiling as if she were auditioning for a reality show about toddler beauty schools, and Quinn with his fingers in his mouth pulling it in various directions while he stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes around. I knew a woman in New York, a professor of gender studies, who swore gender characteristics were learned, not innate; if true, I could only marvel at what these two had absorbed in their short time on earth.
We returned to the kitchen like a herd of elephants. I had dined with enough newborns in New York to know it was possible for babies to sleep through anything, including crowded restaurants and blaring fire trucks. Hopefully the one downstairs could sleep through his siblings. I looked at the clock. It was 7:15. We had to be in the car and pulling out of the driveway in forty minutes. I went into military mode: there was no time for anything that didn’t move us closer to our target. I opened the dishwasher to unload it. Time for negotiations.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Pancakes!”
“You can have cereal or toast.”
“Why? Mommy makes us pancakes.”
“Well, Auntie Glynnis can only make cereal or toast.”
“Why?”
“Because I live in New York. Cereal or toast? You have thirty seconds.”
“I want to see Mommy.”
“Mommy needs to sleep. Cereal or toast?”
“What are you having?”
“Toast with peanut butter.”
“I want toast with peanut butter, but with the crusts cut off and in four pieces that are a square and on my Anna plate.”
I put the toast on; I poured cereal for Quinn. I swept in and out of the kitchen, back and forth from the dining room table to the dishwasher to the cupboards to the sink and back to the cupboards, dodging their little bodies as they wandered in and out. I was reminded of the old musicals I’d watched as a child with my mother. This felt like the choreography of life. Every five minutes I said, “Eat!” At 7:35 I sent them back to get dressed. Quinn, age five, was easy.
“Do you think you can get dressed AND brush your teeth in ninety seconds?” I said, dramatically pulling out my phone.
“Yes!”
“I’m not sure you can.”
“I can!”
“Okay, I’m going to start the stopwatch. But you have to brush all your teeth. I’m going to look after.”
“Wait! Okay, now.”
“Go!”
He thundered down the hall.
Zoe, even at three and a half, was already superior to my ways. (Whatever these supposed learned gender traits were, there was never any doubt to me that girls were just smarter.) She sidled over to the hutch and, as I watched, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out an enormous container full of what appeared to be more than two hundred markers. She dropped it on the table with a bang.
“I’m going to draw you a special picture,” she said sweetly, tilting her head.
“Not now, sweetheart, you have to get dressed. You can draw it in the car.”
“No. Now.” Her shoulders hunched and she leaned over the construction paper that had suddenly appeared from who knows where, with the determination of a conqueror planting a flag.
“No, you have to get dressed.”
“But I want to make you a picture.” The note of whining in her voice was an early warning signal that if I wasn’t careful, this would head south, and likely at a pitch that would wake my sister.
“Okay, as soon as you’re dressed you can make me a picture.”
She stared at me from across the room, her body perched somewhere between sadness and fury. I waited, wondering which way it was going to tip. Would this be one of those mornings I would be called on to carry a screaming, flailing toddler to the car and strap her in like a convict, or would she go on her own? She released herself from the table. Arms crossed, legs dragging, the slow, resentful march to the bedroom began. Quinn pounded past her and leapt onto the couch, his elbow barely missing my eye. He was fully clothed except for his shoes.
“I’m done! Was it ninety seconds?”
I’d forgotten to turn on the stopwatch. I glanced at my phone, mustering my most serious face. “Eighty-eight! Good job. I think that’s a new world record. High five.” He hauled back and slapped my hand as hard as he could.
“Can I play a game on your phone now?”
“No.”
“But Auntie Glynnis.”
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted movement. Alexis appeared on the stairs, babe in arms, and sat down wearily on the sofa. “Go put your shoes on,” she said in a quiet voice, as though the phrase were emitted simply by routine, like a clock striking the quarter hour.
Zoe came out of her room dressed in what appeared to be a Halloween costume from the movie Frozen. I glanced at my sister. I felt as if I saw kids dressed in what appeared to
be Halloween costumes on the streets of Brooklyn all the time. Maybe this was acceptable? I hoped it was acceptable; it was 7:45. We had ten minutes.
“You can’t wear that to school,” Alexis said in the same voice she’d used to tell Quinn to put shoes on. She was still on the couch, breastfeeding Connor. Quinn perched beside her, leaning as far in as he could over Connor’s face. Zoe’s face began its slow windup to a howl.
“Come on,” I said, putting down the school bag I was packing, “Auntie Glynnis will be your salon stylist today.” I rolled my eyes to myself even as I said it—a salon stylist for chrissake, and from someone who ran a feminist group for women. But we were running out of time. “Your Princess Leia salon stylist,” I corrected myself, as if this one exchange was going to ruin or ensure her ability to negotiate pay raises on her own behalf twenty years from now.
We pulled out of the driveway at 7:51. I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. My curly hair, so fascinating to infants, had not seen the shower since I arrived on Saturday and was now matted to the back of my head. I looked down to make sure I had my phone in case Alexis needed anything—we had only the one car—and saw that my pajama bottoms had coffee stains in awkward places, probably thanks to my jamming a cup between my legs because it wouldn’t fit in the coffee cup holder.
Quinn went to one school a half-hour drive away. Zoe went to a half-day at the local school. I had to get him to his school and then turn around and get Zoe to hers before the stroke of nine o’clock. If I didn’t, we’d be locked out and I’d have to go to the front office and sign some sort of slip explaining why we were late. I knew schools required lists of pre-approved adults when it came to picking kids up—my sister had had to submit one so I could get Quinn off the bus once—but I didn’t know if the same applied to dropping them off. I didn’t want to find out and be forced to call my sister from the school, especially since I was in the only car. Nope! We were going to make everything on time. Everything else went out of my head except that goal.
In the back seat the kids began arguing about watching a DVD.
“Auntie Glynnis!”
“I don’t know how to work the DVD in the car.”
“Why?”
“I live in New York. Look out the window.”
“No fair,” said Zoe, who’d been silent up until now. “Quinn has his iPad, and I don’t.”
“You can play with it on the way back.”
“Nuh-uh,” Quinn chanted in his most taunting older brother voice. “I’m going to hide it so you can’t play.”
“NO FAIR.”
“Let’s play ‘who can keep from talking the longest.’ Whoever wins gets to play one game on my phone after dinner tonight.”
Silence. And then more silence.
Holy shit, I thought. It worked. I felt like a magician. How long was this going to last?
It lasted until I missed the turnoff to my nephew’s school and, looking at the clock, opted to do a U-turn in the middle of the suburban street instead of driving around the block.
“Auntie Glynnis, you’re not supposed to do that!”
“Quinn spoke first! Quinn spoke first!”
“But it’s not fair, you’re not supposed to do that.”
“I know,” I said.
“But how come you did? How come, Auntie Glynnis? How come?”
“Because I’m a grown-up.” Oh God, would every inane thing uttered by an adult in my childhood soon come out of my mouth?
I pulled into the parking lot, on the alert for small children.
“Quick, quick!” I said, clapping my hands. I was on a mission. “Let’s go. Bag and coat.”
Quinn was now halfheartedly attempting to get his jacket on while finishing a game on his iPad. My niece was also unbuckling herself.
“No! Stay there,” I said to her and reached for my nephew’s iPad.
“Wait!” He pushed a button and dropped it on the car floor out of Zoe’s reach and climbed out. I knew I should make him pick it up and apologize. Instead I twisted around and grabbed his hood with one hand to keep him from wandering in front of traffic, picked the iPad up, and handed it to Zoe. “Stay here.”
I hit the button to shut the door automatically and briefly wondered if I was breaking a law by leaving Zoe in the car unattended while I dragged my nephew the twenty feet to the place where the crossing guard was standing. Could someone drive away with her? No, I had the keys. Still, I started jogging with the vague knowledge that the rules of my eighties childhood were no longer considered kosher, even though it was always unclear to me where the new borders of acceptability had shifted to.
“We have to go the other way, Auntie Glynnis.” Quinn pulled my hand toward a ramp whose only entry was at the other end of the parking lot. The crossing guard was ten feet ahead of us.
“Why?”
“We just do.”
I knew he was right. Five-year-olds knew the rules better than most and still liked to follow them, but the clock was ticking and so I pulled him to the crossing guard anyway. I attempted to walk through.
“Hold up there, Mama.” The crossing guard was a heavyset woman who appeared to be in her late forties, though I suspected there was a solid chance she was younger than me in reality. I recognized the tone of an absolute ruler—I’d encountered it before at customs, the DMV, and the social security office.
“She’s my aunt!” Quinn yelled. I couldn’t tell if he was coming to my defense or excusing himself from any responsibility in my misdemeanor. She nodded with I’ve heard it all before knowingness.
“You need to go up to the top of the ramp and take him down that way.”
“I’m so sorry, it’s my first day. I didn’t realize,” I said meekly, nudging Quinn toward the opening hoping he would take the encouragement and run through. No chance.
“I told you, Auntie Glynnis.”
“That’s no problem.” The crossing guard used the exact same tone of no chance I had employed ten times already that day. “Just walk him up to the top. The kindergartners come down the ramp.”
I was going to have to go up to the top of the ramp.
“See how fast you can run to the top of the ramp.”
My nephew took off. I watched him reach the entry and come racing back down.
“So fast! Okay, have a good day. I love you.” I gave him a kiss on the forehead over the railing and took off for the car. Through the windows the car looked empty. Where was Zoe? My heart dropped into my foot. My life screeched to a halt. Every terrible story I’d grown up with about kidnapped girls exploded into my head, horrific details I hadn’t thought about in years emerged from dark storage spaces. I flew across the lot and into the car.
“Auntie Glynnis, what is the password?” She was on the floor with the iPad. My ears vibrated with the sound of my pounding heart.
“The password for what?”
“For the iPad.”
“I don’t know it, sweetheart.”
“But I need the password.”
“I’m sorry, babe, I don’t know it. Get into your seat.”
“But I need the password.”
I looked at the clock. My recent terror was quickly replaced by the need to be back on the road. “Into your seat now.”
I pulled out of the parking lot as she was buckling up, waited till I heard the click of her belt, and hit the gas. It was a half-hour drive—we had twenty-five minutes. I was alive with purpose.
“BUT I NEED THE PASSWORD.”
I didn’t respond. I knew what was coming. The wails started. I just let them roll. I let them roll for a full five minutes, until they became a sort of white noise in the car. Toddler tantrums are different than baby fits, which I’ve often suspected we are genetically wired not to be able to tolerate. Finally she paused long enough to make words: “But I neeeed the password.”
My stern voice took over again. “I don’t have the password, and I won’t have it for the rest of this ride. We can either sing or you can stare
out the window.”
“No.”
“Fine, I’ll just sing. We’re going on a lion hunt . . .”
“I don’t want to sing!”
It was now 8:57. If the next three lights stayed with me, I might make it. I stopped singing.
“We’re going to play a game called the school bell Olympics, okay?” This worked.
“Yes! What is it?”
“It means as soon as I pull into the parking lot you undo your seat belt, and get your jacket and boots on, and then when I open the door you jump on my back and we see how fast we can run.”
“Like you’re the horsy and I’m riding you?” Zoe sounded very pleased with herself that she knew the game.
“Sure.”
I thought about how much I’d loved my father’s manic moods growing up and how much sense they had made. It was like being with an eight-year-old who’d been granted the powers of adulthood. In the morning, he would sometimes come barreling down the stairs, wildly chasing the dog until she, and sometimes we, ran hysterical circles around the house, much to my mother’s dismay. If he was in a good mood on our way back from visiting my grandmother on the other side of town, my sister and I were often able to convince him to bypass our driveway and continue on to the cul-de-sac at the end of our street, where he would whip the car around the grassy knoll as fast as he could while we screamed with joy and counted off the rotations: one! two! five! Here was our very own amusement park ride! Sometimes we got as high as ten or twelve before he finally adhered to my mother’s anxious calls for him to stop, and he slowed down and returned us home.
“But you have to be ready,” I said in a serious tone, “so that means you have to put your coat and boots on now.”
“But I can’t reach my boots.”
“You can undo your seat belt and get them as soon as I pull into the parking lot.” I paused. “But not before I pull into the parking lot.”
I blazed through the next three lights, just making the left into the school as the last signal went red.
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