The day is cool, but the garden is so crowded that even the outside air feels warm. Food appears, and drinks. Dan and Sarah disappear to have their photograph taken on the front steps. Huck and Lulu disappear, too, then reappear. Huck tells stories in his booming voice, drowning out even the string quintet.
The musicians pack it in and leave. The DJ arrives. There are more appetizers, then more drinks, and finally the servers come through, collecting empty glasses and encouraging everyone to go inside, upstairs, to dinner, a buffet laid in the living room.
Lauren takes a plate—salmon, red potatoes, asparagus—and she and Rob sit on the steps, eating, watching the sky grow darker. It is night. They take their plates inside, deposit them back near the buffet. A girl in a black polo shirt whisks them away.
There are speeches and toasts, back in the garden. The chairs are gone, the lanterns are lit. The photographer moves through the crowd. He pauses before them, and Rob drapes an arm around her shoulder, pulls her nearer, and they smile. Huck makes a speech about the first time he held Sarah, and how a parent never stops holding his child. It’s a good speech, but that’s what he does for a living.
There are cupcakes filled with strawberry jam. They drink more whiskey. Lulu sings a song, then another, and there is applause, raucous, excited. She beams. The DJ begins to play music. The kids dance. Some of the older guests dance. Most of them go inside, to drink, tell stories, listen to Huck. She and Rob dance, then sit, and watch the dancing, watch the faces, and then, a couple of hours later, it is over.
Chapter 17
Sarah’s hunch is wrong. It’s a boy. Called Henry, for her dad, and then Andrew, for Dan’s. He’s small, a surprise given how big she got. The labor, which she’s been privately terrified of for weeks, is simple. There is pain, yes, and it’s a pain that is beyond any definition of pain she’s previously accepted or understood, but it’s brief, and in the end, there’s the baby, and the pain diffuses, floats away like a cloud, and there’s a dull, general atmosphere of fatigue, a warmth at the hips, an ache in the back, but there’s also him, furious mouth pulling at her nipple, leaving her a little bit ecstatic, and even more spent. It’s so animal it’s almost like incest. She sleeps, and the baby is taken away, and then he is returned to her, and Dan is there, and she pulls on a gown, ties it up, her nipples sore and leaky against the thin cotton. When she is decent, Lulu comes, fragrant with perfume, then Huck, then Andrew and Ruth. Everyone wants to hold and kiss Henry, so they do, in turn, then they leave, and she sleeps and nurses and drinks cup after cup of iced water. A day later, Dan pushes her and Henry in the state-mandated wheelchair to the curb, and they wrangle with the six-point harness on the as-yet-unfamiliar car seat, then drive home, very slowly.
She had steadfastly declined, those months, the opportunity to be showered with gifts, as is the custom. Lulu was horrified.
“This is just what people do,” she’d said.
“I just made everyone come and watch me get married. I’m not going to make them celebrate me again so soon.”
And here’s the thing: Pregnancy gives you authority. No one wants to anger you, and if they do, you can display that anger without fear of seeming irrational. Pregnancy makes every emotion into a force of nature, something to be respected, honored, even. There was no shower: no white cotton onesies, strung on a line, no party games, no baby bottles filled with prosecco.
So, détente: an afternoon meet and greet, at her own apartment, not her parents’ house, so Hank can nap in his own bed, or anyway, the little upholstered box in which he sleeps. Just a few snacks, most ordered in from the same service that brings the groceries: a plate of baby carrots and celery sticks with a bowl of garlicky hummus at its center, an arrangement of suspiciously perfect-looking strawberries and orange arcs of cantaloupe. She’s put on a pot of coffee.
Meredith is first to arrive. A baby blue gift bag in hand, visage of a stuffed, soft monkey just visible between the twine handles. Meredith kisses her on one cheek, then the other, barely brushing up against her body like she’s afraid of hurting her. I just pushed seven pounds of arms and legs out of my vagina, Sarah feels like telling her. I can take anything.
“You look beautiful,” Meredith says.
“So glad you came,” Sarah says.
“I can’t wait to meet the little man!” She grins. “Should I take my shoes off?”
Sarah shakes her head, guides Meredith into the apartment. The baby is snoozing happily, noisily, in the seat. His snore is surprisingly loud.
Meredith considers the baby. He’s so small, but so much bigger than he’d been only weeks ago. She pantomimes her excitement, lest she wake him, clasped hands, open mouth, a gasp. Mouths: He’s gorgeous! The exclamation mark is implicit. She perches on the edge of the sofa, looks up at Sarah. “Tell me everything,” she says.
“Everything is good.” Sarah sits. The air-conditioning whirs to life. “I mean, you know.”