“They’re so cute, aren’t they?” Megan says, smiling down at the boys with pleased fondness. Ben at that moment lifts a car high in the air, as if it’s flying backward from a collision, and utters a long low-pitched scream.
Jennifer almost makes a joke about the juxtaposition of Megan’s comment and Ben’s pantomime of violence, but instead she just agrees. She’s leery of accidentally invoking the face-stabbing incident, which has, thankfully, been forgotten, or at least receded far enough into the background that they can all pretend not to see it there.
Jennifer yawns, covers her mouth, says excuse me. Megan laughs at her. “You yawn like a cat,” she says.
“How does a cat yawn?”
“Hugely. Like, with its whole face. Its eyes squinched up. You’ve never seen a cat yawn?”
“I guess I have. I must have.”
“Surely everyone on earth has seen a cat yawn.”
Milo says, “I haven’t,” proving once again that children are most likely to be listening to adults when they don’t appear to be.
“I haven’t, either,” Ben says in proud agreement.
“You’ve seen a cat yawn, Benjy,” Megan says. “Think about the lions at the zoo.”
“They show their teeth,” Ben says.
“That’s right.”
“They have huuuuuge mouths,” Milo adds.
“Do I have a huge mouth?” Jennifer asks, feeling an absurd spasm of adolescent self-consciousness.
“Mommy has a huge mouth!” Milo says.
“No, it’s not huge,” Megan says in mock-scolding. “It’s totally normal sized.” She takes a sip of her tea and shoots a teasing sidelong grin at Jennifer. “For a giant.”
Jennifer is about to retort, but then she hears a sound that surprises her: tires on her gravel drive. What she was about to say she’ll never afterward be able to remember. Megan raises her eyebrows, listening. “Who could that be?” Jennifer says.
“You’re not expecting anyone?” Megan says.
She shakes her head.
“Maybe it’s a package,” Megan says. “Maybe you need to sign.”
“I didn’t order anything.”
The boys are at the front window. “It’s a car,” Milo reports. From outside comes the sound of doors shutting. Jennifer could get up to go look, but she doesn’t want to. She has a bad feeling about this, which she struggles to ignore. In an ordinary life, people sometimes drop by. Except they don’t anymore, not since cell phones. “It’s a girl,” Milo says.
“What girl?” Jennifer asks.
Milo shrugs, turning away from the window. “I don’t know,” he says. “Some girl.”
“What girl?” Jennifer pushes up from the table.
“I don’t know, Mommy,” Milo says, in a cheerful singsong, losing interest now that Jennifer’s is engaged.
There’s a knock on the door. A loud, insistent knock, one two three. Jennifer and Megan look at each other like the police have arrived. “Why am I freaked out?” Megan asks.
Jennifer moves toward the door, but Milo is right there, and quicker, and he opens it. “Who are you?” he says.
And Zoe says, “I’m Zoe, silly,” and then she drops to her knees and pulls Milo into a hug.
Milo yanks out of the hug, looks at Jennifer for help. “Mommy,” he says.
Zoe crouches there, looking at him entreatingly, empty armed. “Milo,” she says, “don’t you know who I am?”
Zoe. Her beautiful daughter, her angry girl. She rises now and looks at Jennifer. Jennifer flinches, then tries to disguise the flinch by holding her whole self absolutely still. Her daughter’s gaze is a spotlight, blinding and insistent. Accusatory. It has always hurt to look at her, and now it aches. She looks past her daughter, expecting to see her mother-in-law waving custody papers, a lawyer, the police. But Zoe is the only one here. Does that mean she’s the only one coming? Or is she the advance guard?
“Who are you?” Milo asks.
Behind Jennifer, Megan has risen, clearly aware that something strange and fraught is happening. “Ben,” she says quietly, “come here,” and Ben just does it, no demand she justify her order, not a word of protest.
“He doesn’t know who I am?” Zoe looks at Jennifer in puzzlement.
“Mommy!” Milo demands. “Who is she?” He steps closer to Jennifer, tugging on her hand.
“I’m your sister,” Zoe says. “You’re my brother.”
“I don’t have a brother,” Milo says.
“No, you don’t. You have a sister.”
“I don’t have a sister.”
“Of course you do, silly,” Zoe says. “I brought you this.” She holds out a little stuffed tiger.
But Milo won’t take it, pressing his body into his mother’s side, his brow intensely furrowed, his lower jaw stuck out. “Mommy!” he says.