The Smart One

by JENNIFER CLOSE

  “Well, we can see the baby here,” the doctor said. “And it is just one baby.” The thought of its being more than one baby had never even occurred to Cleo.

  “That’s it right there?” Max asked. He pointed to the screen.

  “It looks like a little doll,” Cleo said. “Or a peanut.”

  The ultrasound technician froze the screen and told them that she’d print out some pictures for them.

  “Can we get an extra copy?” Max asked the technician. “I want to send one to my mom.”

  “Really?” Cleo asked.

  “Yeah, I think she’d like to see it. She’ll probably hang it on the refrigerator or something.” The thought of a picture of the inside of her uterus hanging in the Coffeys’ kitchen made Cleo feel strange. But Max seemed excited, so she let it go.

  They hung the ultrasound on their own refrigerator, and whenever Cleo went into the kitchen, her eyes went first to the picture, and then to the calendar that hung on the wall. And each time she glanced back and forth, between the calendar and the grainy ultrasound picture, she thought about how they were that much closer to that little baby’s actually being a baby and coming into the world. As if she needed reminding.

  CHAPTER 15

  Weezy had a high horse. And she could get on it whenever she wanted. Maureen used to always tease her, when she’d go off on other people’s behavior. “Uh-oh,” she’d say. “Giddyup! Here comes the horse.”

  Even when she was younger, her parents used to act like Weezy thought she was too good for people. “Don’t get too big for your britches,” her father would say.

  It was silly, really. It’s not like Weezy believed herself to be so morally superior to everyone. It was just that sometimes she simply couldn’t believe the way that people acted. (Like Cleo’s mother, for instance.)

  Because what kind of mother would abandon her child at this moment? No matter how disappointed or upset a person was, to sever contact while your only daughter was pregnant? Well, it was disgusting. That’s what it was. There was no other word for it, really. Except maybe despicable. And selfish.

  “You know,” she told Maureen, “I’m not thrilled with this either. I’m not jumping up and down that my son that’s still in college is going to be a father. But I’m helping. I’m still talking to him.”

  “I know,” Maureen said. “But you never know the details of other people’s lives.”

  “I know enough. I know enough to know it’s wrong. I have half a mind to call her up myself and talk to her.” She’d said as much to Max, but he’d begged her not to.

  “Don’t, Mom. Please don’t. They’re figuring it out, and Cleo would kill me if you did that.”

  “Fine,” she’d said with a sniff. “I’ll give it a few more months. But then she’s going to have to be involved.”

  Right after Max told her the news, she’d been floored. This wasn’t what she expected. Not that anyone expects this news, but still. She had to admit that this hadn’t even crossed her mind. She’d thought about what would happen if one of the girls got pregnant, but not this.

  “It’s easier, probably, that it’s your son and not your daughter,” Maureen said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Weezy asked.

  “It just is. I don’t know.”

  Weezy did know what Maureen meant, but she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. At least not without faking some sort of innocence. She had always made a point of being more open-minded than Maureen. When Cathy came out, Maureen admitted (when she was about three bottles of Chardonnay deep) that she was sad about the whole thing.

  “I don’t love her differently, I don’t. I just wish … I just wish it wasn’t the case,” she’d said.

  “Well, there’s no use thinking that now,” Weezy had said. She’d secretly been thrilled that Maureen had admitted such a thing to her.

  “I know that,” Maureen had said. She sounded annoyed. “I just mean, I had a picture in my head of how it was going to be. And now it’s not. It could have been so much simpler.”

  They’d never spoken about it again, or at least not really. Weezy had found an article about how parents need to mourn for their straight children when they find out that they’re gay. She’d been excited to give it to her, since it made so much sense. It said that you needed to mourn and fully understand that your child was going to lead a different life than you had imagined. And once you did that, you could fully accept who they were.

  “Thanks,” Maureen had said. She took it and folded the paper, and put it right in her purse.

  Weezy knew why she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. There was nothing worse than wishing that your children were something other than what they were. She’d had those moments, where she wondered what it would be like if Martha could function on her own, what it would be like if she were able to have normal relationships with people.

  And of course, she wished that things had gone differently for Claire. It’s not that she thought marriage and children were the answer to everything. Certainly not. She just wished that things had worked out between them, that Claire was settled now instead of lost.

  When Max first told her about Cleo, she’d thought his life was ruined. So there it was, all three of her children in a mess, and yes, she wished things were different. She was ashamed at these thoughts, and she would never admit it to anyone. Maureen probably regretted even speaking the words out loud, and so Weezy swore she would never do the same.

  WEEZY HAD BEEN PARALYZED FOR the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. She’d managed to call Max, to tell him that they would be there for him, of course. But then she’d felt like she couldn’t move. Christmas was a struggle. She’d do one thing, like get a box of decorations out of the attic, and then she’d have to lie down. Little by little, everything got done, but not before Weezy was convinced that she was anemic or possibly had some kind of cancer, because it just wasn’t normal to have so little energy.

  Max called her at least three times a day. He called to report on doctor’s appointments and to ask her questions and to tell her what was happening. She knew that he was looking for reassurance. He’d been the same way as a little boy, needing to talk about things, needing to hear someone say that things were going to work out.

  She talked to him whenever he called. She was happy to. At least this wouldn’t tear their family apart, right? She felt righteous and good when they talked. She suggested that he and Cleo start taking walks for exercise, because it was never too early to start thinking about keeping in shape for the baby. Yes, she was happy to talk to him. But she did wonder if possibly that was what was taking all of her energy.

  When she woke up in the mornings, her limbs felt heavy. She tried to explain this to Will, who suggested that it was just a reaction to Max’s news. (That’s what he was calling the whole thing. He hadn’t said the words pregnant and baby at all.)

  “I think I should see a doctor,” she told him. She was still lying in bed when she said this.

  Will turned to look at her. “Maybe,” he said. “Or you could just give yourself some time to get used to this.”

  “Maybe there’s a gas leak in the house,” she said. There had to be something, some reason why her body felt like this.

  “If there was a leak, wouldn’t we all feel sick?” Will asked. Weezy had sighed and rolled over on her side. It was the kind of comment that could make you really hate Will.

  Maureen brought soup over after Weezy told her on the phone that she was coming down with something. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad. A virus of some kind.”

  When Maureen arrived, she found Weezy sitting on the couch in her pajamas and robe. She arranged the soup without saying a word, and then the two of them sat and watched some talk shows.

  One morning a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, Weezy walked down the stairs and surveyed the house. She decided that she’d do one thing every day to get ready for Christmas. How hard could it
be to do one thing? She stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked all around. Dozens of little turkeys smiled at her from all around the house, sending her right back upstairs to bed. They all had such creepy gobbles, and she couldn’t face that today. She could start tomorrow.

  One day, she managed to arrange all the Santas that she’d collected over the years on the mantel, and then she’d gone over to the couch and lay there, staring at them. She’d cried a little bit, because her heart was breaking for her Max and she really didn’t know what would happen.

  Will brought the tree up from the basement and put on the lights, and the girls hung the ornaments. (They’d gone to a fake tree a few years ago, when getting a real tree seemed like too much of a hassle. Claire and Max had both protested, saying that it was pointless to put up a piece of plastic. Weezy tried to tell them that the pine-scented candles would make it seem like the real thing without all the needles on the floor that couldn’t be vacuumed up no matter what. Even in April, she’d still be finding them hidden behind furniture and under rugs. This year she was even more grateful that the tree was in their basement, or they might not have had one at all.)

  She didn’t know how she was going to manage to buy presents and she put it off, until it was the week before Christmas and she had no more time to waste. She got in the car and drove to the mall. It was cold, but there was no snow on the ground, so she could be grateful for that.

  For the first time in her life that she could remember, Weezy had no Christmas list with her when she shopped. She walked into department stores and bought generic gifts, scarves and mittens. She shopped in groups. When she found something she liked for one of the girls, she bought three of them. Will and Max got the same sweater in different colors, the same gloves, the same socks.

  She was surprised at how quickly it went, buying piles of books at the bookstore, not caring who got what, just knowing that there’d be something to wrap. She had to buy for Cleo this year, who was coming for Christmas, but that just meant buying more duplicates. All of the shopping was done in one day, with Weezy making a few trips to the car in between.

  When she pulled into the driveway after her shopping trip, she left all the bags in the car, poured herself a glass of wine, and got into her bed in her pajamas. It was five thirty. When Will found her, she was watching TV and had the comforter pulled up to her chin.

  “I’m not feeling well,” she said. Will looked at the glass of wine and nodded, then let her rest for the night.

  Weezy spent her time in bed on the laptop, looking up information on weddings where the bride was pregnant. There were many tips. Ruching seemed to be a popular way to hide the stomach, although it didn’t really look like it worked that well. There were some brides that decided to wait until after the baby was born, some that waited years and then had the child as a ring bearer or flower girl. (Which just seemed downright trashy.) She wondered what it would take to convince Max and Cleo that they should get married. She scoured the sites for tips and tricks, and thought at least they weren’t the first couple to get themselves into this mess.

  SHE HAD NO IDEA HOW she was going to manage to have everyone home for three days. That was all it was going to be, but it seemed impossible. She could fake sick, she thought, if things got really bad. It would be like the year that she had gotten the stomach flu and could barely make it downstairs for twenty minutes to watch the kids open their presents. They’d all eaten breakfast without her, gone to mass without her, and she’d stayed upstairs in bed, watching old movies.

  Weezy felt safer that she had a backup plan. No one could argue with a sick person, and it wouldn’t even be like she was lying. She was sick. She just didn’t know what she had.

  Somehow she managed to make it through. Will and the girls had helped with the cooking and while she had imagined that this year, the days would go on forever, it was like any other year and Christmas seemed to be over in a flash.

  Now she could rest. She imagined sleeping all day, not having to shop or decorate. This is what her life would be like from now on. It was like she’d aged twenty years in the past month.

  But then, after Christmas, things changed. She woke up one morning with her heart pounding, thinking of all the things that had to be done. And instead of feeling tired, she felt full of energy. She drank a pot of coffee each morning, and darted around the house, cleaning and organizing.

  Claire told her that she had to slow down. Actually what she said was, “Mom, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.” But Weezy couldn’t stop. She sent out an e-mail to all of her friends, telling them that Max’s girlfriend was pregnant and that she hoped they could all be happy for the family, even if things were happening a little out of order.

  Weezy knew that they were all giving each other looks behind her back, but she didn’t have time to deal with them. There was too much to do, too much to figure out.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Maureen said. She raised her eyebrows and waited for Weezy to say something.

  “Thanks. Me too,” she said.

  Will continued on through his days like nothing had happened. “What do you want me to do?” he asked Weezy. “It’s happened and we’re dealing with it.”

  But they weren’t dealing with anything—Weezy was dealing with all of it. She made the plans and ran them by Max, who ran them by Cleo, and then she told Will what was going to happen.

  “They’ll be moving back here at the end of the school year,” she told Will. It had taken weeks to convince Max that this was the right thing to do, but she’d done it.

  “That’s a good idea,” Will said. And that was all.

  Will spent almost all of his time in his office, typing away. He took all his meals straight up there, probably to avoid Weezy and talking about Max. Whenever she brought it up, when she talked about how worried she was about Max, Will just nodded.

  “Don’t you care?” Weezy asked.

  “Of course I care,” Will said. “I just don’t think we need to pretend like Max isn’t responsible, like this is something that happened to him and not something that he did.”

  But Will’s inaction just made Weezy move faster. She began to redo the basement, since she figured that Max and Cleo would be staying down there when they returned. It would be more comfortable for them, and easier on the whole family, if they had their own space.

  The challenge of course was to make a basement look like a place where you wanted to spend time. There was something damp and chilly about the room down there, and Weezy had never liked it. But now, she would get it done. She felt like she was on one of those home-decorating challenge shows, where they find an unused space and make it into something amazing.

  She got the floors redone, and bought new throw rugs to cover the tile. (They couldn’t put wall-to-wall carpeting down there, because there was always a chance it would flood. But she made it look cozy.) She bought new furniture, a new dresser and two bedside tables with matching blue ceramic lamps. She had the walls repainted a soft yellow, which seemed welcoming and calming, and she bought new bedding that looked inviting and soft.

  The bathroom in the basement was old and rusty and the floor was always freezing, no matter what time of year it was. She had some people come in to look at it and two days later it was all ripped up. “We’ve been meaning to do this for years,” Weezy said when Will acted surprised. “Now this just gives us a reason to get it done.”

  She bought a bassinet for the baby and put it right next to the bed. That would do for the time being. They’d have to figure out a crib at some point, but for now this would be enough. Although she did go out and buy a couple of extra soft baby blankets, and just a few little stuffed animals to put in the bassinet so it didn’t look so empty.

  When she showed Claire and Martha the finished room, she was extremely proud of herself. They were shocked, she could tell. “Well?” she asked them. “What do you think?”

  “Whoa,” Martha said. She kept turning in ci
rcles looking at the walls.

  “It looks great,” Claire said. “It doesn’t even look like the same place.”

  “Oh, it was just a few things here and there,” Weezy said.

  “I don’t know how you did this all so quickly,” Claire said. “Now you’re all set.”

  But she wasn’t all set. The room was just the beginning. There was so much more to do. Maureen told her to slow down. “You’re running yourself ragged,” she said. But no one understood. No one understood that Weezy had to keep moving, had to keep doing things, or everyone around her would fall apart.

  The rest of her family seemed to go on just as usual. Claire was spending a lot of time with that boy Fran, which worried Weezy, although in the grand scheme of things she couldn’t worry too much about it now. Unless Claire got pregnant as well, there just wasn’t time. And of course once she had that thought, it was stuck in her brain. Imagine if that happened—if Claire and Cleo were both pregnant and living under her roof. See? Weezy thought. Things could be worse.

  WEEZY GOT THE FEELING THAT her family was talking about her behind her back. Whenever she came into a room, it seemed that Will and Martha and Claire had just been whispering about her, just been sharing some information. “Just humor her,” Will probably told them. “Just be helpful.”

  It reminded her of when the kids were young, when every once in a while she’d lose her temper and stomp off to her room, and when she’d come back down, she’d find Will playing with them or making them lunch and they’d all look up at her and say hello, cheerfully, as though nothing had happened. Will would be spinning the wheel for Candyland or making bologna sandwiches, and she just knew that they’d talked about her while she was upstairs. “Mom’s upset,” Will would have said, “so we need to be on our best behavior.”

  It should have made her feel better during those moments, that Will would step in and run interference, that her kids were so willing to put on a smile to appease her. But whenever she came downstairs, it just made her feel left out, like she was the moody member of the team, that needed special treatment, and they had all kept going without her. Will always looked so satisfied, like he thought that he could take over with the kids. He was so pleased that he could handle them for all of thirty minutes, and it didn’t make her feel better—it made her angry, made her feel like she wasn’t even a part of this family that she was running.