Walking home, she realized she’d neglected to ask the baby’s name.
Since they moved in, the neighbors’ front yard has become increasingly shaggy, the weeds in the grass growing hardy enough to flower, autumn leaves left to mulch beneath snowfall. Such neglect stands out in a neighborhood like this, and Suzanne chafes whenever she looks at the property. She has fleetingly considered leaving an anonymous note. Perhaps these are the distracted, dreamy kind of people who simply don’t know, don’t see; who just need a gentle nudge. It’s true that she has sensed something different about Madeleine, something faltering and apologetic. There is something almost cowering about her, like a pursued animal.
Really, Suzanne would have preferred living somewhere with fewer neighbors, larger properties, more privacy. When she and Brian had first discussed moving to the country, she’d envisioned horse pastures, old farmhouses with original beams and barns. But the cost of rural living—the elegant kind—had proven higher than they’d guessed. For the price of their Chelsea apartment, they could afford only a midsized four-bedroom on a half acre. This did not seem to bother Brian, who was happy just to be near the water. Without asking, he’d taken a chunk of their remaining savings and bought the boat.
After Elliot’s birth, Suzanne had not experienced the hormonal lift of new motherhood. Instead, she’d been pummeled by fatigue, bedeviled by a nagging melancholy. Brian had insisted that they hire help and had found Carlota himself. He’d encouraged Suzanne to use her maternity leave to get outside, meet the neighbors, find a network of like-minded women. Join a book group, he’d said. She’d resisted this idea—she was never much of a reader and feared sounding stupid in front of others—but had, finally, found a group and joined it. To her relief, the same few women dominated the discussions. Most of the women were fashionable in a subdued suburban way, with just a handful of unkempt, over-smiling types. Her husband had been right; it felt good to see these people in the supermarket, to greet them by name. There was a sense of potential, at least, for dinner parties and deepening friendship. A more cautious and formulaic sort of friendship, perhaps, but a version of friendship still. The seed of all this, of course, lay in their children who would attend the same schools, bring their mothers together through teachers and sports teams.
But now she doesn’t know. Will Elliot attend a different kind of school? Perhaps the conversations she will have for the rest of her life will be unpleasant, taut with the discomfort and pity of others. Perhaps they will not be things to enjoy, but to be gotten through.
The night of Elliot’s diagnosis, she and Brian had lain in bed in their separate whirlpools of thought, without speaking. What, Suzanne wondered privately, had gone wrong in this genetic experiment so clearly weighted toward success? She and Brian were both healthy, strong-boned, intelligent. Which of them had contributed the guilty gene? Which, hiding the dormant flaw of some great-grandparent, had dropped their end of the bargain? She had, after all, been careful in choosing her mate. She and Brian had met respectably, through a college friend. They had gone on proper dates, asked the right questions, discovered parallel values and preferences, complementary personality traits. They’d posed for a wedding announcement in the Times, their faces properly aligned.
She had never really felt the maternal craving that other women claimed to feel, but she knew her time was limited. If they didn’t have a baby soon, they might end up a childless couple—that curiosity—to whom others give questioning, pitying looks. Is it possible, she wonders now, that she’d failed to transfer some vital maternal message to her son in utero? Is the fact that he does not meet her eyes, does not return her smile, evidence of some basic failure on her part? Babies sense truths about their parents, she believes. Her son has floated in her waters, absorbed them, known their makeup. There can be no greater, more frightening intimacy.