Neighborly(14)

I drop the cardboard and kick it under the car, hoping she won’t see, hoping she won’t ask.

“Did you have fun at the party?” she asks.

“Definitely.” I try to convey the enthusiasm I felt before I saw that welcome mat. “It was so great of all of you to do that for us.”

“Honestly, we were going to have a block party anyway. It’s just great to have an excuse. And we are extremely psyched to have the three of you here.” Her hair is loose around her shoulders today, and she shakes it back from her face, smiling brilliantly. “Don’t you just love when everything comes together like that? That’s what life’s all about, synchronicity.”

I try to agree heartily. I worry that I’m undoing all the good work I did at the party, that I seem awkward and strange, and my awareness of that only enhances it. Best to remove myself from this conversation as quickly as possible. “Sadie’s in the car already,” I say. “I should probably run.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll talk fast. There’s a girls’ night out on Thursday, and we want you to come.” She must see the question in my eyes because she begins to enumerate on her fingers: “Gina, Raquel, June, Yolanda. And Andie. We invited Andie for you.”

Whoever wrote the note is wrong. They do actually like me.

“Sorry about the short notice,” Tennyson says. “We all thought someone else had already mentioned it to you at the block party and just realized no one had. It’s like Kitty Genovese. You know who I mean, right? That woman who got stabbed in her courtyard with, like, thirty people watching from their apartments and no one called the police? The more witnesses, the less likely anyone is to call the police.” She must see the WTF in my eyes because she adds, “Bad example. Anyway, once a month or so, we ditch the husbands and the kids. We just get to be women, you know?”

“Sounds fun,” I say. “Let me check with Doug.”

“Check with him? Just tell him.” She touches my arm gently. “We really want you there. Make it happen, OK?”

I smile. “OK.”

As she starts to cross back to her side of the street, she calls over her shoulder, “Don’t forget the rule, though: no talk about kids!”

It’s a rule that instantly scares the crap out of me. I’m not sure what else I have to fall back on at the moment. But I’m almost certainly going to find out. If I turn down this invitation, I might never get another.

When she’s out of sight, I squat down and retrieve the cardboard. I toss it facedown on the passenger seat and turn the ignition with my shaking hands. This is an opportunity, I tell myself. Tomorrow, it’s Andie and Nolan, and Thursday, a bunch of potential new friends. This is why we moved here.

“It’s going to be OK,” I tell Sadie, using that lilting tone that she likes. But I can’t hear any sounds in reply.

I wish car seats weren’t rear facing so I could see her right now. She was asleep when I carried her out. It never ceases to amaze me what she can sleep through or what will wake her up. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

I can’t stop myself. I reach over the seat and push back the fabric canopy that veils her. Spot-checks make it more likely that she’ll wake up prematurely and be fussy when we get to our destination, kind of how every time you change lanes, you increase the odds of an accident. But in my present state of mind, I can’t resist. I’m solely responsible for the welfare of this helpless, delightful, occasionally infuriating person. OK, not solely responsible, but primarily. Doug leaves the house at seven thirty and doesn’t get home until seven o’clock most nights.

The college generously allowed six full months of maternity leave (and Doug’s parents have subsidized it financially, with strings attached, as per usual), but I’m down to the last two, the home stretch. I need to start visiting day cares, figuring out where Sadie will be safe, where she’ll be loved, in my stead. It’s a painful thought, and maybe that’s why I’ve been dragging my feet, despite the fact that procrastination goes against my nature.

Many times, I’ve questioned whether I’m equal to the challenge of motherhood. Her continued existence depends on me. How could anyone not be daunted by that, at least a little?

Sadie had been sleeping, but with the sudden increase in light, she startles and cocks her head back to look at me. A spiderweb of drool spins toward her onesie. Then she starts to howl.

“It’s OK, sweet girl,” I tell her. I move to stroke her hair and her face, but she’s having none of it. It’s like she knows that this awakening was completely unnecessary, and at my hands. She doesn’t want my ministrations.

So, after a few minutes of trying, ineffectually, to soothe her, I reach into the diaper bag, remove the pacifier, and thrust it in her mouth. She sucks as loudly and contentedly as that baby on The Simpsons. I just hope she doesn’t suck for as long. That show must be pushing thirty seasons by now.

I used to fear that Sadie would become a pacifier addict, wearing one on a chain around her neck at college like she’s at a perpetual rave. At first, I said I wouldn’t use them at all, then I said that it was just for when she needed to sleep. Now, all bets are off. It seems like I reverse myself all the time since she was born. When I used to say, “I’ll always do this” or “I’ll never do that,” it was because I didn’t yet know how intolerable her distress would be for me, that it would shape my every action and reaction. I had no idea she’d be able to control me with her pleasure and—maybe even more so—her displeasure. The threat of her unhappiness hangs over me all the time, my own sword of Damocles.