Max let go of her fingers and ventured on his own toward the cabinets. Gwen stood and stretched, then started unloading the dishwasher. Max moved along the cabinet faces until he reached the dishwasher too; he rattled the plastic silverware holders. “Are you helping? Thank you!” Gwen said. She handed him a spoon.
To Louise, she said, “I don’t mean to complain. Sometimes I complain and then I fear something bad will happen to Max to make me pay for being ungrateful. I realize how lucky I am. I have friends my age who’ve had so much trouble conceiving, and Dan and I decide to try for a baby and just like that — here he is. Perfect. Well, except for the whole napping thing, but otherwise, what more could I ask for? I have no right to ever wish for anything else.”
“Nonsense,” Louise said. “You can wish for whatever you want. No harm can come from wishing.”
Gwen looked at the clock and saw it was already four — how had two hours passed? — and then she looked out the window above the sink at the snow, which was coming down at an angle now, in sleety flakes. The morning’s weather hadn’t predicted this — possible afternoon showers, the weatherman had said — but here was an ice storm with no sign of stopping. The sight of it made Gwen shiver. She looked back at Louise, who seemed perfectly at ease at the kitchen table, and in her own age-spotted skin. Her long grey hair was gathered loosely at her neck in a faux tortoiseshell barrette. She wore an oversized, shaggy brown sweater that engulfed her solid frame and looked like something one might wrap up in to go to sleep. Gwen had this thought about Louise’s sweater and then immediately realized she was exhausted. It hit her with a swoop, as if she’d opened a door and let months and months of sleeplessness in.
“Oh,” said Louise, pointing. She started to rise from her seat. “Maybe you don’t want him to play with that.”
Gwen looked down to see that Max had traded his spoon for a knife and was about to put the pointy end in his mouth.
“Oh shit!” Gwen said, grabbing the knife away and causing Max to cry. “What’s wrong with me?”
Then she too erupted in tears. She picked Max up and he looked at her wet face, startled. He stopped his own crying and furrowed his little baby brow.
“Silly Mommy!” Gwen said, wiping her face. “Silly sleepy me!”
Louise appeared at their side. She shut the dishwasher, and then she reached for Max, who had reached out his arms to her. Gwen had never seen him do this with anyone who wasn’t family. It was his level of comfort with Louise — first in the grocery store and again when she’d approached them in the driveway — that had caused Gwen to invite the old woman in for tea, despite the voice in her head that knew what her husband would say. Now Max snuggled into Louise’s fuzzy sweater, which was exactly what Gwen had felt an urge to do just minutes earlier.
“Go nap,” Louise said to Gwen. “You need rest.”
Gwen considered the offer. Her husband was due home at six, but the weather might hold him up, or he might end up having to stay late at the office, which would leave Gwen by herself to simultaneously fix dinner and deal with Max during his crankiest hours. Would it be insane to leave Max with Louise while she lay down for a short nap so she could revive herself? What could happen? She didn’t bother (though later she would) to think through possible outcomes as she did with all the endings she wrote, because her mind landed on what she thought was the inevitable one: She’d take a short nap, then wake in plenty of time to usher Louise out of the house before Dan came home.
2.
She awoke with a start!
Years ago, when Gwen was in school for creative writing, she’d been told never to have a character awake with a start — apparently it had become cliché — yet here she was awaking with one. She wasn’t sure what had caused her panic. It was dark in the room and out the bedroom window she could see snow falling steadily in the bullhorn of light from the streetlamp. Six o’clock. The house was perfectly quiet. Wrongly quiet. Max blossomed in her mind, the way he did whenever she surfaced from sleep. His plump face, his drool-drenched chin and mischievous open-mouthed smile. To Gwen, the smile suggested they shared a joke — a joke they only half got and would both soon forget. Her perfect child. Why would she ever wish for anything else? She’d fallen asleep wishing for just one more story idea, and the thread of something had flitted through her mind — an old woman, green-gray eyes, an avocado dropping to the floor and disappearing into a dark, cobwebbed corner — but then the images dispersed, falling away from the flimsy thread that held them together — whose green eyes? what neglected corner? — and she’d drifted into what felt like a drugged sleep, and now two hours later—
Wrongly quiet.
Her heart pitter-pattered in her chest like tiny feet taking flight.
Her perfect child — where was he?
3.
She found them in the playroom in the basement curled kidney-like in a bean-bag chair, asleep. “Oh!” Gwen shouted, and relief washed over her, a wave of gratitude like the time she remembered she’d left the bedroom door open and ran into the hallway just as Max reached the top of the staircase. A few more seconds and he would have tumbled down. Thank goodness she’d been spared that mishap. She would be a better mom, she’d sworn that afternoon, and she swore it again now. A more attentive mom.
Louise stirred, then opened her eyes and gave Gwen a sleepy smile. “I must have drifted off too,” she said.
Gwen held her arms out for Max and the baby woke during the transfer. He smiled groggily at Gwen and reached to pinch her nose. “How long has he been asleep?” Gwen asked.
“Oh, close to two hours, I think.” Louise pushed herself up from the beanbag. “He’s a good sleeper.”
This was ridiculously far from the truth. Had he ever taken a two-hour nap? Maybe during those drowsy first few days of life, but since then it had been half-hour to forty-minute naps at most. Gwen put a hand to Max’s forehead to see if he felt hot, but he didn’t. “His bedtime’s in an hour,” she said, aware of the accusing edge to her voice. “He’ll never fall asleep now.”
“He will,” Louise assured her. “When it comes to babies, sleep begets sleep. Tell me, does he usually wake from his naps in a good mood or a sour one?”
“Sour,” Gwen admitted. She pictured Max’s face all scrunched and puckered, as if in reaction to a lemon sucker.
“Well, he’s not sleeping enough, then. Babies should always wake happy.”
Max seemed happy now, if a little sleep drunk. Gwen knew she should be grateful — Louise clearly had some magic touch when it came to babies — yet she felt irritated, as if Louise had stolen some intangible thing from her, and she also feared her husband would arrive home at any moment. How would she explain Louise?
Louise must have sensed what was worrying her because she gathered her things — her worn overcoat and a knitted handbag — and said in a breezy voice that she should be going, that it was likely time for Gwen to fix dinner and she didn’t want to be in the way. Gwen and Max walked her to the front door. They stood for a moment looking out at the snow as it pelted the front stoop. Several inches had already piled up on Louise’s bus. Gwen felt suddenly sheepish. This woman had done her a kindness and she was sending her out into harrowing weather without offering her dinner or suggesting she stay until the storm let up. She was torn between making this kind of offer and her urgent desire to get Louise out the door. She wanted her gone, and not just because her husband was due home. It had to do with the near-miss feeling she’d experienced when she found Louise and Max sleeping in the basement. She wanted to forget the afternoon and her lapse in judgment; she wanted Louise far away.