A few days later, Izzy held Gilberto and Jackie in her lap, the two children squirming to get comfortable, talking about the meal they had just eaten, which Izzy had prepared, things returning to normal after her dalliance with David, when Izzy opened to the first page of Go, Dog, Go. Once she began reading, the children instantly quieted, listening to Izzy describe the various dogs in various circumstances. Gilberto placed his finger on the picture of a blue tree and then traced a line to the word tree on the page. Izzy smiled and nodded. Jackie pointed to the word yellow and sounded it out slowly, not unsure but careful. “Good job, sweeties, but let me read the story one time and then we’ll go back and you two can read it,” she said, turning to the next page, as the pages would fill with more and more unique dogs. After a few more pages, she turned to look at Paul, who was holding his own daughter, Lulu, and reading Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile to her. Her own son, Cap, was supposed to be reading the book with Lulu, but he had apparently lost interest and was about to destroy a tower of blocks that he had just built. As she lingered over the image, feeling the slightest irritation that Paul was not giving his attention to Cap, Jackie patted her knee and pointed to the next page, saying, “Party!” over and over, which got Gilberto worked up as well. “Yes,” Izzy said, finally returning to the two of them, “a big dog party.”
Of course, it was very rare for children this young to be reading words off the page. Still, Izzy wished that Cap was one of the five children who could already read. While he loved to listen as someone read a book, and he also understood, as Jill Patterson kept assuring her, that the printed words on the page were creating the story that he was hearing, he didn’t seem interested in translating those symbols into words. He knew the alphabet, but preferred to keep the letters separate, single letters that he could spit out one by one and then forget. Benjamin, whose own daughter, Ally, could also not yet read, once confided to Izzy and a few other parents, “I see these kids doing these incredible things and I worry that I’m doing something wrong. And then, fuck, I realize that Ally is not our kid, or not just our kid. She’s everybody’s. It’s not anything that I did. It’s all of us. And then I don’t know if that makes me happy or sad.”
Dr. Grind reiterated over and over, “The goal of the Infinite Family is not to create tiny superheroes, an army of baby geniuses. Of course, we’re doing everything we can to help these children develop and feel confident in their abilities. But that ultimately doesn’t matter as much as if they’re happy. We’re providing them with love and support. If they start walking at seven months instead of twelve months, it doesn’t matter in the least bit to us. We just want them to feel safe and secure and happy. Everything else will follow.” Izzy could not help but notice, especially now that she spent most of her evenings carving out letters for a story that spoke in the first person plural, that Dr. Grind said, we instead of I.
Things were easier at night now that the children weren’t breast-feeding. The evenings felt less regimented; while there was still a chart of who was on duty for those sleeping hours, it was easier to hang around the children, to help out wherever you could fit yourself into the action. And even though Izzy was elated when she was paired up with Cap, she admitted there was a certain happiness in finding how easily she could adapt to any permutation of the family. One night, she would scoop up Irene and Marnie, and Asean would fall into step with her as they helped dress each child in their pajamas. Though she hadn’t seen Asean all day, perhaps hadn’t spent a single minute that week alone in his presence, it was reassuring to see how easily they understood each other in that moment, the way they each tugged gently on Marnie’s shirt until her head pushed through the opening. But then, all the children asleep, Asean would hug Izzy and say good night and then drape his arm around Nikisha and they would retire together to their house. And Izzy would walk to the studio to make a story that had already, long ago, been written.