The Smart One (46 page)

“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 would both open their eyes every so often to check on Nina, and sometimes they opened them at the same time, looked at each other across Nina’s full round tummy, and smiled.

When that happened, Cleo let herself feel happy, let herself believe that there really was a chance—no matter how small—that things just might turn out okay for all of them.

Lying in between them in bed, Nina would often wake up with a start, jerking her arms and legs, looking around like she was surprised to find Max and Cleo there. Then she’d settle down, ready to fall back asleep almost immediately. And with her little chin shaking, her eyes would close and she’d sigh like she was saying,
Okay then, everyone’s here. Let’s get some rest
.

CHAPTER
23

When the baby cried in the middle of the night, Weezy’s first instinct was to get up and go downstairs to help. She’d wake up groggy and think, “Oh no, the baby’s up again,” and it would take a minute for her mind to catch up, to remind her that it wasn’t her baby, that there were two parents down there to take care of it. So she’d stay right where she was in her own bed, listening as they paced the floor with Nina, sometimes singing or talking quietly, and sometimes pleading for her to stop crying.

Well, Weezy stayed in bed most of the time. Sometimes, if Nina was crying for an especially long time, she’d go down and offer her help. Even if it was only to hold the baby for a minute or two, while Cleo or Max went to the bathroom or drank a glass of water, or just got themselves together for a moment. She remembered how it was, the way it could drive you crazy sometimes, the endless crying for what seemed like no reason.

Once, when Martha was a baby, she’d been screaming all night and Weezy, who was already pregnant again at the time, was pacing back and forth and finally held the baby up, looked in her face, and said loudly, “What? What do you want?” Martha had been so surprised, had started the way babies do at loud noises, and then after a few seconds of silence began screaming again. Weezy had felt like the worst mother in the world, had brought her into the bedroom and woken Will up, told him that he had to take her. Then she’d gotten back into bed and cried herself, feeling like the cruddiest person ever.

So yes, she remembered the exhaustion and she was there to help if they needed it.

It was a strange thing to have a baby in the house again. As much as Cleo and Max tried to pick up after Nina (which truthfully wasn’t that much), there was stuff everywhere. Cloth diapers for burping, almost-empty bottles sitting on the coffee table, clean bottles drying in the kitchen, pacifiers on the floor, blankets and baby socks and onesies with spit-up strewn all over the couch and the floor.

Had it been like this with her own children? Weezy didn’t remember it that way, but it must have been. Maybe you just got used to it, got used to the milk and dirty-diaper smells that seem to be on everything. But now, in her house that used to be orderly, every time she stepped on a pacifier, she got a little annoyed.

She worried about Cleo and Max. The two of them often sat on the couch in their pajamas, looking exhausted and sort of dirty, wordlessly passing the baby back and forth, staring straight ahead at the TV. Sometimes Weezy would take Nina, suggest a shower or a change of clothes, and they’d get up like zombies and go do what she said. Was this normal? Maybe. She couldn’t remember. She tried not to judge. After all, she hadn’t had an audience when her children were babies. And she did remember one day when Will came home from work and stepped on an open dirty diaper that was on the floor. So yes, she would try not to judge.

Cleo had tried to breast-feed, but the poor thing never really got the hang of it. Weezy tried to give her tips, told her to stick it out. Weezy had never had any trouble, of course, but she knew some women that had. But after a few weeks, Cleo gave up. Weezy was disappointed, but there wasn’t too much more she could say. Max, in fact, got a little snippy with her one morning when she was just saying that she felt bad for them about it. So she kept her mouth shut after that.

And she did have to admit, that once Nina was only on bottles, things ran a little more smoothly. For one thing, Cleo wasn’t crying most of the day because it wasn’t working. Also, she got more sleep, was able to go for walks with the baby, seemed to get it together a little bit more. Nina started sleeping like a champ, since she was always full now. And the other good part was that once Cleo stopped nursing, her breasts went back to their normal size. Right after she came back from
the hospital, Cleo had looked a little bit like a porn star with her huge chest, and it didn’t help that she seemed not to notice, that she wore little tank tops without bras all around the house. So yes, she looked a little more decent now.

Of course, some nights Weezy would look down at Nina, snoozing away with her belly full, and hope that she wouldn’t end up an obese child because of the formula. You never knew. You really never knew.

There were so many days when the only thing any of them ever talked about was Nina. Had she eaten? Was she fussy? How much had she spit up? Did she smile? It consumed their days and nights, and sometimes Weezy would be in bed before she realized that not only had she not called her other children, she had barely thought about them.

It was almost hard to notice that the girls were gone, since tiny little Nina took up so much of the space. But both of her girls were out on their own, and it was strange to remember that they had been there not too long ago.

She decided to make them both blankets, as housewarming presents. (She had shown the patterns to Cleo, who barely looked up at them. She hadn’t had the time or energy to get back to her knitting.) Weezy’s first instinct was to start with Martha’s blanket, since Martha would surely see the one she was working on for Claire and wonder where hers was. But Weezy thought that maybe she would do it differently for once, and start Claire’s first so that she could take it with her when she went to New York. She would try not to worry about Martha’s reaction, try to treat her like an adult, which she was. It didn’t mean anything to make Claire’s blanket first. And also, she thought, as she cast on the stitches, she could just hide it whenever Martha came over.

Martha was still getting settled in her new place, and she stayed with Weezy and Will at least one night a week, but usually more like two or three nights. Weezy tried not to worry about this. After all, it just took Martha longer to adjust to new things. And it was a big step. She came over with paint samples or catalogs so that she could show Weezy things she thought she might want to buy for the new place.
She was even thinking about renting out the second bedroom, and was working on an ad. Weezy hoped that maybe she’d find a nice roommate that would become a friend, that she’d find a group of people that could be hers.

When Martha held Nina, Weezy felt her heart tear a little bit. She worried that it would never happen for Martha. She was already thirty-one, with no prospect of any sort of relationship in sight. And while she knew Maureen would make fun of her for wanting her babies to have babies, she couldn’t help it. She wanted Martha to experience that, and at this point she had to admit to herself that it didn’t seem probable. Martha had never had a boyfriend or, to be truthful, even a best friend. It was hard to imagine that she would just go through life like that, but with each year that passed it became more likely. Still, Weezy could hope. So she did. She hoped.

She remembered the way that no matter what, Maureen always cheered for the sports team that was supposed to lose. “You have to go for the underdog,” she always said. And Weezy supposed that was true.

Claire was doing well. She and Will both agreed that she seemed happier than she had in a long time. And Weezy tried not to let it hurt her feelings that part of that had to be due to being away from them. She tried to remind herself that it was the natural thing to be on your own. But sometimes she thought back to the time when Claire was at home, and wished they could all do it over again, do it differently.

“What does it matter as long as she’s happy?” Will asked one day as she was thinking out loud. And she said that he was probably right.

ONE NIGHT SHE TIPTOED DOWN
the stairs to find Cleo leaning back on the couch, watching an old movie. It was a little after three in the morning, and Nina was snuffling in her arms, sort of sleeping, but she was fighting it. Any time she started to drift off, she’d wave her arms, like she was waking herself up.

“How’s she doing?” Weezy asked.

“She’s okay.” Cleo looked down at her face. “She won’t go to sleep. She’s refusing. She is so stubborn.”

“Claire was the same way as a baby.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. She seemed to know what I wanted her to do and then she did the opposite.”

Cleo laughed. “What about Max?”

“Max? Oh, he was so easy. He was the kind of baby that makes you want a few more. He was so sweet, no matter what. I could put him in his seat for the whole day, and he just sat, content.”

“I can imagine that,” Cleo said.

“Do you want me to take her?” Weezy was tired, but she loved holding Nina while she was sleeping.

“I’m okay,” Cleo said. Weezy sat down anyway.

“I love this movie,” she said. It was the original
Parent Trap
. “Martha and Claire loved it when they were little. They used to beg to watch it almost every day.”

“Really? I’ve never seen it.”

“What? Oh, it’s a riot. Just a riot.”

The two of them stayed up to watch the whole movie, well after Nina was asleep. It was the moments like these with Cleo that made Weezy feel especially protective of her. When she was just in pajamas with no makeup on, holding Nina, and looking very young herself, Weezy wanted to take her in her arms and tell her it would be okay.

Cleo and her mother had been on better terms since Nina was born. Elizabeth came down a few times, and Cleo had been up there with the baby to spend a week or so, which made Weezy feel empty and almost panicked, like she was just going to take Nina away and never come back. Weezy imagined never seeing Nina again, pictured going to court to try to get visiting rights. But then they returned.

Cleo and Elizabeth were maybe on better terms, but they didn’t have an easy relationship. There was one time when Elizabeth was visiting and made a remark about all the jobs that Cleo had missed out on this year. “It will be a hard thing to explain this empty year on your résumé,” she said to Cleo, who left the room in tears. Weezy thought she sounded a little harsh, but then again, who was she to say? Mothers and daughters had their own language.

Cleo and Max fought fairly often, which was to be expected. They
were in a small space in someone else’s house, with a new baby and no sleep. But still. Whenever Weezy heard them arguing, she wanted to hold her breath. What if they split up? What if Cleo took Nina and never let them see her? Sometimes she would interrupt to take the baby, just to try to help so that the two of them could calm down and talk in peace; this was sometimes welcome, and sometimes Cleo and Max looked at her like she was out of her ever-loving mind.

It was a hard thing, to try to stay out of it. All she wanted to do was to get in the middle of their fights, sit them down, mediate, point out who was in the wrong. But she didn’t. She stayed above it, and afterward always felt very saintly.

She kept suggesting that they start thinking about getting Nina baptized, that they should do it soon. But every time she talked about it, they just looked at her like she had suggested they take Nina to get a tattoo on her back. She complained about this to Maureen, who listened and then said, “Well, in the end it’s their decision, isn’t it?” Weezy hadn’t really seen it that way, and wasn’t sure she really agreed. But she dropped the subject for the time being. She’d bring it up again later, when they were a little more settled.

WILL WAS UP IN HIS OFFICE
more than ever. He was in love with that little bundle of a baby, but he preferred to hold her while she was sleeping, or to feed her every once in a while. Anything else, and he was ready to hand her off. He complained more about the crying in the middle of the night. Even if they weren’t the ones getting up with her, it woke them and it was hard to get back to sleep at their age. Many mornings, Will was grumpy, but what could you do? He knew what they had signed on for.

After the wedding, Weezy kept thinking she should tell Will about the wedding planning, but she couldn’t quite find the words. She took all of her wedding stuff, her binders and folders, and went to throw it out. Then she thought better of it and put it all in a large Tupperware storage container in the back of her closet. It was a lot of information and it seemed a waste to throw it out. Who knew? She might need it one day.