38
A month after Nora had left, MC and Conrad stood in the doorway of MC’s old room.
Where the guest bed had been, there was now a crib, puffy clouds on the sheets.
A mobile with baby stuffed animals hung over it.
The dresser had been replaced with a changing table, its drawers stuffed with several sizes of diapers.
Baby lotion, a pack of wet wipes, and a neat stack of burp cloths waited patiently on top.
The rug had been changed out, too, the beaten-down navy shag that’d been there since MC’s adolescence rolled up and chucked in the basement.
Now the floor looked bright and cheerful with a patterned, all-wool spread that Conrad had spent a small fortune on.
He’d gotten the matching curtains, too, which had been a lot harder to hang than MC had anticipated.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” he said, nibbling his lower lip.
“Definitely.”
“It’s not too basic?”
“It’s... for a baby.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I think it looks happy.”
“Does Gabby want happy?”
“I feel like every parent wants happy for their kid.”
He gritted his teeth. “We still need to do the rocking chair.”
The box was out in the garage. When Conrad turned on the overhead light, MC was amazed by the size of it. It was like he’d ordered a new fridge. “That better not be as heavy as it looks,” she said.
“It’s not.”
It was. They had to cut the box on the spot and lug the chair to the room in pieces—base, arms, backrest. This was no ordinary rocking chair, but an electric recliner swivel-glider.
“You went all out,” MC huffed, trying to help Conrad get the base in just the right spot.
Apparently, placing it in the corner would’ve been too straightforward.
Conrad claimed they had to factor in the degree of recline vis-à-vis the proximity of the walls, as well as how to keep the stupid thing level on account of it resting partly on the high-pile carpet and partly on the wood floor.
“Gabby’s doing the hard part,” he said. “I’m just trying to help with a few details.”
“I think she would’ve been fine with, like, a beanbag chair.”
“A beanbag chair?” His face darkened. “We have no idea what condition she’ll be in after she gives birth. C-sections take six weeks or longer to recover from. Even if it’s a vaginal delivery, she’ll almost certainly have hemorrhoids.”
“Okay, thank you, I get it.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Bringing a child into this world is intense, MC.”
“Fine, but bringing a child into this baby paradise shouldn’t be.”
“It’s not paradise,” he grumbled, plopping down on the half-finished chair and almost tipping himself out of it. The swivel had a much greater range of motion than MC would’ve guessed.
She tried to soften her voice. “Of course it is.”
The due date was only a few weeks away, but the stress of Gabby’s insistence on staying with her parents had turned Conrad moody.
MC wasn’t in the best place herself. The brave rush she’d felt in sending Nora off to LA had fizzled within the span of a few hours, leaving her tearful in the car when she’d gotten back home, and sleepless in the nights that followed.
To top it all off, the anniversary of their dad’s death had been the day before, giving the house an air of solemnity that bordered on haunting.
Now Conrad was throwing himself into the nursery, like MC had been throwing herself into Explorations , and communication had gone by the wayside. As usual.
“I know what I did was bad,” he said. “But I don’t understand how she’s still so pissed at me.”
“It’s probably going to take years for her to really move on.”
He scratched his stubble. “So, we’ll screw this baby up with our problems the second they’re out of the womb.”
“Isn’t that what everyone does?” He shot her a look. “This kid is going to be able to survive your BS, I promise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because as BS goes, it’s not that bad.”
“You just said it’ll take years for Gabby to move on.”
“But the baby’s not going to know about any of it.”
“What about when they get older? Will we tell them about it then? Or never say anything?” He got up. “What if somehow they figure it out?” He spun the mobile. “They just... hate me forever?”
“You don’t owe them every detail of your relationship.”
“This is kind of a big one.”
“It is right now. But hopefully in the long run it won’t be.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t how I wanted to do things.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean my life. This isn’t how I wanted to do it.”
MC nodded. “I’m sure most people feel that way at a certain point.”
“That’s basically what Mom said to me.”
“Really?”
“She said everyone makes mistakes, and those mistakes have real consequences for other people, and that’s why I’m right to feel freaked out about becoming a parent.”
MC laughed. “She’s so intense.”
“She’s right, though.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the only thing she said to you.”
“She said I have to accept it. That everything I do won’t always be good, and it won’t always be enough, but I have to go on. I have to keep trying.”
MC paused, thinking about Nora. Their calls had dwindled over the weeks since she’d left.
Even their texts had turned superficial—a joke about the writers’ room, a picture of the crappy, rock-strewn beach along the Green Hills rail trail.
Suddenly their lives had nothing in common, and MC was starting to wonder if it was worth continuing to hold out, to buy tickets to visit in some last-ditch effort, or if it was better to just leave well enough alone.
Conrad, of course, had already been through the existential questions with her a hundred times.
“I think,” she said finally, “you’re going to do better than you expect.”
He smirked. “What makes you say that?”
“Instinct.”
“But haven’t you gone through life being annoyed at me, like, the whole time?”
“Yeah. But being annoyed by someone doesn’t mean you don’t think they’re great. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them.”
Conrad stared at her. “Fair enough.”
“And I’m sure Mom knows what she’s talking about and all.
But she’s leaving out the good stuff. The normal, nondramatic stuff—the stuff where sometimes you do a great job and that also has real consequences.
Like how you were mad at me about lying to you, but still let me move back in with you, for months, and never complained.
Even though I blocked you out for a long time before that. ”
“This is your house too. It’s been good for me, having you around. Especially since you don’t think I was a hundred percent evil for what I did to Gabby.”
“It was pretty rough, but you’re making up for it. Plus, you ended up writing most of my grad school applications for me, so thanks for that.”
He smiled. “Have you told Nora about St. John’s?”
MC had been accepted into a teaching program in Queens.
She had, in fact, texted Nora about it, and Nora had replied to the news with congratulatory emojis and a string of hearts.
But that was it. MC was reasonably confident she was happy for her, just like she was probably happy for herself, going their separate ways toward self-actualization, or whatever they were supposed to be striving for. It still hurt.
“I told her,” MC said.
“And?”
“That’s it. I don’t know.” She collapsed in the electric swivel rocker-glider thing and almost went flying. “I’m starting to think whatever we had was temporary.”
“Didn’t seem temporary when it was happening.”
“And then it ended anyway.” She got up and wandered over to her window, which looked out on the driveway.
She stared at the rucked-up gravel, spring weeds running rampant, and thought about the way growing things broke apart solid things all the time.
“Yesterday I was thinking about how Dad was just, like, building some cabinets when he died. The same boring old job he had to do all the time. He was probably thinking about nothing, or what he wanted for lunch. And meanwhile there were all these loose ends, all this stuff that, deep down, he wanted to fix, or change, or whatever—and all of a sudden, it was just... over.” She sniffed.
“It just feels like there’s so much in life you don’t get to choose. ”
Conrad came over to stand next to her. Looked out the window too.
Then he threw his arm across her shoulders in a sporty way, like he was back on the basketball team, and she was somehow also on it.
“Dad dying,” he said, “has nothing to do with you and Nor Dog getting back together.” He shook her a little. “But nice try.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It sounded so good, though.”
“You’re better with words than you give yourself credit for. But as your big bro, I’m not easily fooled.”
“I just really miss her.” MC was appalled to feel tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
“I know.”
“Do you think she’s done with me?”
“No idea.” He rubbed her shoulder. “But if she is, she’ll be missing out.”