The Smart One

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.

One afternoon, Weezy decided she needed to come clean. They were both in the kitchen and Will was eating toast when she said, “Do you remember how Claire accused me of lying to the florist?” Will nodded. “Well, it was a little bit true. I just got so enamored with the wedding planning that after Claire called it off, I just kept doing research. It was silly, I know.”

It sounded much better when she called it research. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She looked at Will to see how he’d react, and her stomach fell. He was looking for something to say, but his face told her that he’d already known.

“Well,” he finally said, “I can see how that could happen.”

She’d nodded and begun loading the dishwasher. In the other room, Nina began to cry and Weezy had never been so happy for that little baby’s ability to distract them from everything else.

MAUREEN WAS OFFICIALLY RETIRED, which meant that she stopped by more often than ever. She loved seeing Nina, and spent many afternoons just holding her, walking around the house with her. Also, she used this time to pitch business ideas to Weezy. Maureen suggested starting a nanny company, buying a gym franchise, and once—in one of her strangest moments—starting a purse design company.

Weezy just listened to her talk, nodded when she’d say, “Okay, I know you’re going to think this one is crazy.” She was like a wind-up toy, and Weezy figured she just needed to wear herself out.

Then one day Maureen brought over a catalog with continuing education classes. “I’m signing up for something,” she said. “And you’re doing it with me.”

A cooking class sounded a lot more pleasant than watching Maureen try to design purses, and so Weezy sat down and looked at the catalog with her. Paging through, she found a class on flower arrangement. “What about this one?” she said. “I bet it would be fun. I loved the florist we worked with for the wedding. He was amazing. If I could do what he could do …”

“We should open a flower shop,” Maureen said.

“I don’t think we’re really qualified,” Weezy said. “But I will take the class with you.”

“Okay, great. Let’s do it. And you never know. Maybe we’ll be great at it. Maybe we’ll start working for a florist, and then we’ll decide that we should open our own shop.” Maureen was off again, and Weezy let her go.

“I doubt that working for a florist would pay very much,” Weezy pointed out. “And they would probably never even hire someone our age. Plus, who knows what this course will be like? We don’t even know if it will be worth it.”

“No one ever does,” Maureen said.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME, Weezy began to wish for her house to be just hers and Will’s again. No babies crying, no worrying about making dinner for more than just the two of them. And while it probably wouldn’t happen for a while (they weren’t going to throw Max and Cleo out on their ears!), it seemed like it was actually a possibility, that in a year or two they might be able to watch TV alone, just the two of them.

As much as she knew she’d miss the kids when they were gone, she also knew that she’d be happy to reclaim her house, to maybe just have a quiet dinner with Will one night on the back patio, with wine, no interruptions, no one handing the baby around to give everyone a chance to scarf down their food. Yes, she was looking forward to that.

WEEZY WAS CHANGING NINA’S DIAPER ONE DAY, and the little buster was crying so hard her face was bright red. Nothing Weezy said or did seemed to do anything to begin to quiet her. “Okay, sweetie pie,” she said. “Let’s just get through this. We’re in it together. A dry diaper will make you feel better, I promise.”

Nina continued to scream and then Max came back to the house. “Hey,” he called out. “Who’s that crying?”

Nina stopped and her eyes opened, looking around to find the voice that she recognized from all that time she was in the womb. Weezy stopped and stared at her, feeling tears start to form in her eyes. She blinked them back before Max came into the room, so he wouldn’t accuse her of being just a sentimental old lady. She finished fastening the diaper and picked up Nina in time to hand her to Max, and he took her easily, put his face against hers.

“There you go,” he said. “There you go.”

Anytime Weezy felt she was losing her patience with Cleo and Max, anytime she wanted to scream at them for being so irresponsible, for letting themselves get to this place, she would take a breath and observe them with Nina—the way they watched her, the way they rushed to her bassinet to make sure she was still alive. More than once, she watched Cleo place a hand on the baby’s back while she slept, waiting to feel the little body rising and falling so she could make sure she was still breathing.

She wanted to tell them that it would never go away, that feeling, that worry that your child was going to be okay, but she was pretty sure that they were figuring that out already. They’d have to watch Nina start walking, watch her walk up the stairs, sure that she was going to tumble down. They’d have to take her to school, pray that she made friends, hope that no other little kids were mean to her. They’d watch her get in fights, get left out, get cut from a sports team, not get into the college that she wanted. They had so much heartbreak ahead of them.

And so, after she had watched them for a minute or two, she found that she wasn’t angry anymore. Not much, anyway. At least, she didn’t feel like yelling at them. What else could she have said anyway? What could she have said to make them feel worse, to make this bigger? They had Nina to take care of and worry about for the rest of their lives.

They were in it now.