That evening, after dinner, all ten of the children crouched on the floor and silently watched as Kalina and her daughter, Grace, rolled a red rubber ball back and forth to each other. If the ball slipped away from Grace, one of the other children would frantically rush over, scoop up the ball, and bring it back to the other nine kids, who would wrestle over it until Izzy, who watched the whole thing with teeth-gritted embarrassment, would walk over to them, arms open, and demand the ball. They would begrudgingly hand it over. “You guys can play with Grace, you know,” she told them, but they pretended not to hear. Izzy handed the ball back to Kalina and smiled. “Tough crowd,” Kalina said, though Izzy could see the pain on her face. “It’ll pass,” Izzy said, but she honestly wasn’t sure.
Though everyone had hoped for a seamless transition for the new family in the complex, and even if the parents had for the most part allowed for the change, the children had balked at the presence of a new baby. When Kalina had presented Grace, wrapped in a blanket, radiating pink, so tiny, the children had looked with great trepidation at the child. Izzy had heard Maxwell whisper, shaking his head as he slouched away, “Ugly baby.” Whenever Grace cried at dinner, the children would all dramatically place their hands over their ears and mime irritation. “We’re all one family,” Dr. Grind once told them, as if this would solve anything. The children all nodded, like “duh,” and went back to sullenly eating their food.
One night, Izzy had asked Cap why he was so opposed to Grace’s presence in the complex. He had ignored her, kept coloring at the table, until she took the crayon out of his hand and asked again. He wouldn’t look at her, but he replied, “One is not better than ten. One is not more special than ten.” Izzy then said, “But isn’t eleven better than ten? Isn’t that how you should think of it?” Cap merely shook his head, too aggrieved by this suggestion to even argue with her. “Mom,” he said, exasperated, shaking his head.
While there were fewer moments of outright hostility, and some of the children could be affectionate and kind with Grace when they were alone with her, there seemed to be an impossible resistance to expanding the family. And so, six weeks later, Kalina quietly enrolled Grace in a play group in Murfreesboro; when she finally revealed the shift to the rest of the complex, she said, “I think Grace would be happy to broaden her connections, to have kids her own age.”
“That sounds like a really good idea,” Jackie said, and the other children wholeheartedly agreed. And, with that, the family receded just slightly, but enough to understand the excision that had occurred.
Izzy couldn’t help but feel like they had failed Kalina and Grace, that the entire point of the project was to open themselves up to the possibilities of family, that by increasing their numbers, the love would compound and everyone would benefit. And yet, there was little Izzy could do to stifle the competing feeling that she could not share her family more than she already had, that maybe her heart was finite.
As the parents cleared the table and washed dishes, Link caught Izzy’s attention and gestured toward the edge of the dining hall, so they walked to the empty space. Izzy had always liked Link, his good humor and laid-back, slightly stoned demeanor. Since he was a stay-at-home dad and helped out a lot with the children during the day, she saw him often throughout the week. He pointed to Cap, who was clapping his hands, watching with delight as the ball ricocheted around the circle.
“You’ve got a little prodigy on your hands, I think,” he told Izzy.
“Really?” Izzy asked.
Link had volunteered to teach the music classes and they had moved from drums to piano to stringed instruments.
“He did really well during the month we studied the piano, but he didn’t seem overly interested in it. The drums were the same. But once we started the ukulele, he was super intense about it. He picked it up faster than any other kid. He can do actual songs now.”
“That’s incredible.” Izzy said. “He never really talks about it.”
“Well, you know, I’m working with Eliza on the piano individually because she has a real aptitude for it. And Ally and Gilberto are meeting with me outside classes to work on the drums, but I wondered if you might want me to work with Cap on guitar.”
“I’ll ask him,” Izzy said. “But I think that would be great.”
“These kids,” Link said, shaking his head. “They’re scary good at stuff.”
“Better than us,” Izzy admitted.
“I’m scared of the day they don’t need us,” Link said. After a sudden pause, Link started to tear up, his expression one of complete shock.
“Sorry,” he said, but Izzy embraced him and told him it was okay. She looked back toward the crowd of people and saw Ellen watching her and Link, which made Izzy break the embrace, suddenly self-conscious.