Perfect Little World

“Can I ask you something?” Susan suddenly asked. “Something personal?” It was a rare night when beer was served with dinner, and Susan, an admitted lightweight, had two bottles, enough that it made Izzy grow tense with worry about what she would say. Had David told her about last night? Still, she and Carmen both nodded, the instinctual desire to give another member of the complex what they wanted.

“Do you ever feel like you might love one of the other children more than your own?” Susan asked, her eyes already welling up with tears, her expression like a ruined surprise birthday party.

“Sweetie,” Carmen said, immediately moving to Susan while Izzy remained frozen in place, as if Susan’s admission had directly entered into her nervous system. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, but you’re thinking about it all wrong. We’re with the kids all day, every day. And kids, especially toddlers, have good and bad days. So it’s easy to have favorites from day to day. It’s not the same thing as loving one more than another.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Susan said, shaking her head vigorously. “I mean, what if I told you that I love a few of the other kids more than I love Irene. I just have such a hard time connecting with her most of the time. She’s not very affectionate, which is fine, but then there are kids like Eliza, who is so cuddly and sweet. Or, shit, even Maxwell, who I just love being around, the way he gives me high-fives with the back of his hand every time he sees me, like it’s our special thing.”

Carmen visibly stiffened, at least by Izzy’s estimation, at this admission, but she continued to rest her hand on Susan’s.

“It’s normal,” Izzy finally said, as if the words had been pushed through layers and layers of cobwebs. “It really is, Susan.”

“None of this is really normal, though, is it?” Susan said, and Izzy knew these things had simmered in her brain for at least a few months, had sat unchallenged until they became fact.

“It’s normal enough,” Carmen said. “It’s working. Most of the time, it is definitely working, and I know you believe this, too. I know Izzy believes this.”

“I just wonder if we went into this in order to avoid all the problems that were waiting for us,” Susan continued, unable to stop, “and we ended up just creating other problems, problems that no other parent outside the complex could even understand.”

Izzy immediately turned to Carmen, as if Susan was starting to make sense and she needed her friend to set both of them straight now. Carmen seemed to sense this, Izzy felt, because she took a deep breath, smiled, and then talked very calmly and slowly, looking back and forth between Izzy and Susan.

“Let’s not pretend that we weren’t, in a lot of ways, kind of fucked when we found out we were pregnant. I know I was. My first, second, third, fourth, and fifth thought about it after I took the pregnancy test was that I was going to get an abortion. I just couldn’t fathom any way that this was going to work. But Kenny really wanted it to work, and then, the longer it took me to decide, the more I wanted it to work. But that didn’t mean that we could have made it happen on our own. We needed this family. We needed Dr. Grind to choose us. And it is working. Kenny and I are so happy and we’re going to be ready for the world when this thing ends. And it won’t really end, you know. We’ll stay in touch, so it’ll just keep going, but in a different way. And, Susan, if your problem that other parents don’t have to deal with is that you love other kids as much if not more than your own, isn’t that kind of amazing? Isn’t it awesome that you’re such a part of Maxwell’s life that he loves you like you’re his mom?”

“Isn’t that bizarre as shit to you?” Susan asked.

“It is one million times better than the alternative,” Carmen admitted. She gestured for Izzy to move, to get close to them, damn it, and so Izzy crouched down beside Carmen and took hold of Susan’s other hand. If any of the other members of the family had walked in on this, Izzy was certain they would assume something sexual was about to happen.

“This is good,” Carmen said, and, finally, as if this was the final piece of coding that made the program function correctly, Susan nodded her assent. “It is,” Susan said.

Carmen looked over at Izzy and nodded toward Susan, her eyes opening wide. Izzy, as much as Carmen made sense, could not help but agree with Susan. She had worked so hard in that first year to simply not lose her mind, and now she felt an irritation with Susan that she was just now figuring out the strange aspects of the complex. Izzy felt herself being pulled into that doubt once again. She wanted to be strong and certain like Carmen, but, especially with the reporter and all of his questions, it was harder and harder to feel certain about anything. Carmen, however, kept staring at her.

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