What's Mine and Yours(101)

She handed the baby to Ruth and gave him her hand. On the dance floor, she curled into his body, her hands on his shoulders, as if they were old friends, as if it meant nothing to stand this close.

“How’s your mother?”

“Remission,” Noelle said. “She refuses to die.”

They laughed.

“She says she wants to live long enough to see all her grandchildren born. I don’t think Agnes will be enough for her. She’s started dropping hints to Diane and Alma, asking Margarita if she’s seeing anyone in L.A.”

“Lacey May on a mission…God help you all.”

“Even after everything, she still says the best thing she ever did was have kids and get married. I don’t bother asking whether she means the first or second time.”

“I don’t remember her being such a big advocate for marriage when it was our turn.”

“Me neither,” Noelle said, and Nelson felt a relief they could still speak the truth to one another, that what they had lived together hadn’t been erased.

“Your daughter came out light. Red hair?”

“I know. I spend my whole life frustrated by all the white people around me, and then I wind up with this red-haired baby. It’s strange. Sometimes people don’t even think I’m her mother.”

“And you haven’t told anyone about the father? Not even your sisters?”

“You and I aren’t going to talk about it for sure.”

“I always knew that if you left me, it would be for some well-adjusted white boy.”

“And I always knew I was never going to leave you. Here we are.”

The music slowed, and they swayed in place. Nelson looked over Noelle’s shoulder at the table where Agnes was with Bailey now, the baby pulling at his ear.

“She’s beautiful,” he said, and Noelle seemed to forgive him. They revolved around the room. The music was soft and soulful, and they held each other under the dimming lights. She asked him about Vienna, and he didn’t want to pretend with her, to give a spiel about cafés and sprawling parks, immaculate trains and world-class museums.

“I’ve met a lot of former Nazis in bars. A woman spat at me on the street once. But, mostly, it’s fine. I’ve got a flat overlooking the Danube.”

“Are you still with that publicist? Jemima?”

There would be no good in telling Noelle about the women he picked up and left, or who picked up and left him. They meant little to him. He liked making coffee for someone in the morning, the scent of a woman on his sheets. Sex and companionship could be simple, amiable things. Jemima visited sometimes, and they both understood it would be their habit until it wasn’t anymore.

“There’s no one like you,” Nelson said.

“How unfortunate you couldn’t remember that when you decided to fuck her.”

He said nothing. He deserved it. He felt her stiffen as if she might move away, leave him on the dance floor, but she stayed where she was. Underneath her makeup, she looked tired. He wanted to kiss the dark circles under her eyes.

“Is it what you thought it would be? Being a mother?”

“It’s worse. I couldn’t breastfeed. During the delivery, I tore right open. I still can’t ride my bicycle. And community theater directors don’t get maternity leave. I pay a babysitter a few days a week. I am so broke. But she’s objectively perfect. Do you see her?”

Nelson nodded but didn’t look toward the child. He had a vision of Noelle, the day they had started trying. He had been reading on the bed when she surged into the bedroom, already naked, brandishing a tiny blue-and-white strip. She was ovulating, she said. She was ready, she said. Nelson was the one who had been unsure; he didn’t want anything to disrupt the equilibrium they had. But then he saw her climb onto the mattress on her knees, teetering toward him, her arms wide open, and there had been no question he would oblige.

He rested his face against hers. He wanted to kiss her.

“You know what I kept thinking about during the ceremony?” she said.

“Our wedding?”

“The play.”

“Which one?”

“Measure for Measure.”

“Oh God,” he said. “My debut and my denouement.”

They both laughed.

“Something about the pageantry of it all—the marching down the aisle, the people clapping. It reminded me of opening night.”

The first performance of the play had gone as smoothly as anyone could have imagined. The audience was smaller than Mr. Riley had hoped: just the cast members’ parents and siblings, a few of the girls from Concerned Students for Justice. Even with the modest crowd, they were all nervous. Alex, who had been recast as the duke, threw up backstage. Adira, radiant in her nun’s costume, had led them in prayer before the curtain went up. And Nelson, somehow, had felt surprisingly calm. He knew the play wasn’t resting on his shoulders; it wasn’t about him. He needed only to be a part of the organism, and together, they’d create the play, just as they had in the dress rehearsals. The feeling was magic.

Miraculously, everyone remembered their lines. Noelle made sure the curtains closed and opened when they were supposed to; she positioned them backstage, brushed lint off their costumes. And Nelson had projected his voice better than he had known he could, aided by the brightness of the lights, how little of the audience he could see.