Perfect Little World(55)
But there was the kiss, Asean’s hand on the small of her back, holding her close. There was something pleasurable in that. But, no, it wasn’t pleasure. It was just an experiment. No emotion behind it. An experiment that had failed, she hoped.
“Eventually you’ll get tired of us,” Susan said, “and you’ll want someone in bed at night to talk shit about us.”
“Is that what you and David do at night?” Carmen asked.
“Not yet,” Susan admitted.
“I’ll have time for guys and relationships later,” Izzy said, for what felt like the thousandth time. “When we all leave the complex and set out on our own. Then I’ll look for someone.”
“That’s a pretty damn long time, Izzy,” Carmen said.
“It’ll happen faster than you think,” Izzy said, hoping that this wasn’t true.
“I still can’t believe we’ll have the kids with us in the house in a few more years,” Carmen said, and Izzy felt the atmosphere around the three of them grow dense and staticky. They all knew it was coming, when the children would move out of the sleep room and live full-time with their birth parents, but it seemed so unnatural, strangely enough, that they tried not to think about it. Or, rather, they tried not to think about it until they let their guard down and admitted that they thought about it all the time. Izzy couldn’t wait for the chance to have Cap in her own house at night, to know that it was just the two of them sharing the air in that space. And then, in her fearful moments, she thought of the possibility that she could not handle it on her own. This whole experience, she reminded herself, was to prepare her for that day, to take care of her son as if she knew exactly what she was doing.
“Can I ask you something?” Susan suddenly asked. “Something personal?” It was a rare night when beer was served with dinner, and Susan, an admitted lightweight, had two bottles, enough that it made Izzy grow tense with worry about what she would say. Had David told her about last night? Still, she and Carmen both nodded, the instinctual desire to give another member of the complex what they wanted.
“Do you ever feel like you might love one of the other children more than your own?” Susan asked, her eyes already welling up with tears, her expression like a ruined surprise birthday party.
“Sweetie,” Carmen said, immediately moving to Susan while Izzy remained frozen in place, as if Susan’s admission had directly entered into her nervous system. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, but you’re thinking about it all wrong. We’re with the kids all day, every day. And kids, especially toddlers, have good and bad days. So it’s easy to have favorites from day to day. It’s not the same thing as loving one more than another.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Susan said, shaking her head vigorously. “I mean, what if I told you that I love a few of the other kids more than I love Irene. I just have such a hard time connecting with her most of the time. She’s not very affectionate, which is fine, but then there are kids like Eliza, who is so cuddly and sweet. Or, shit, even Maxwell, who I just love being around, the way he gives me high-fives with the back of his hand every time he sees me, like it’s our special thing.”
Carmen visibly stiffened, at least by Izzy’s estimation, at this admission, but she continued to rest her hand on Susan’s.
“It’s normal,” Izzy finally said, as if the words had been pushed through layers and layers of cobwebs. “It really is, Susan.”
“None of this is really normal, though, is it?” Susan said, and Izzy knew these things had simmered in her brain for at least a few months, had sat unchallenged until they became fact.
“It’s normal enough,” Carmen said. “It’s working. Most of the time, it is definitely working, and I know you believe this, too. I know Izzy believes this.”
“I just wonder if we went into this in order to avoid all the problems that were waiting for us,” Susan continued, unable to stop, “and we ended up just creating other problems, problems that no other parent outside the complex could even understand.”
Izzy immediately turned to Carmen, as if Susan was starting to make sense and she needed her friend to set both of them straight now. Carmen seemed to sense this, Izzy felt, because she took a deep breath, smiled, and then talked very calmly and slowly, looking back and forth between Izzy and Susan.
“Let’s not pretend that we weren’t, in a lot of ways, kind of fucked when we found out we were pregnant. I know I was. My first, second, third, fourth, and fifth thought about it after I took the pregnancy test was that I was going to get an abortion. I just couldn’t fathom any way that this was going to work. But Kenny really wanted it to work, and then, the longer it took me to decide, the more I wanted it to work. But that didn’t mean that we could have made it happen on our own. We needed this family. We needed Dr. Grind to choose us. And it is working. Kenny and I are so happy and we’re going to be ready for the world when this thing ends. And it won’t really end, you know. We’ll stay in touch, so it’ll just keep going, but in a different way. And, Susan, if your problem that other parents don’t have to deal with is that you love other kids as much if not more than your own, isn’t that kind of amazing? Isn’t it awesome that you’re such a part of Maxwell’s life that he loves you like you’re his mom?”