A Smaller Heart

By María José Navia 
Translated by Lily Meyer

Why does his family piss him off so badly? No clue. All he knows is that he wants to scream. He nestles each fly into his tackle box. In the kitchen, his wife makes tuna-and-tomato sandwiches, their fish smell pervading the living room. She fills Ziploc bags with carrot sticks, washes a matched pair of apples. Once, he would’ve helped her. Once upon a time in their youth. Now, Caro is eight months pregnant, and José, if he’s being perfectly honest, can’t spend a single hour alone with her. He finds it unbearable. Not that he can tell her that. Lately, he has so much he can’t tell her, he feels the words clogging his throat.

Caro smiles at him from the kitchen. Her feet and face are swollen. This pregnancy, she’s really let herself go. Look at her packing him a healthy snack, when she’s wolfing fries in front of the TV every chance she gets. José leans his rods by the door, sets his fishing hat on a chair. Tomás is reading at the kitchen table. He didn’t want to come. No persuading him. Caro even tried chiming in, but no luck. Tomás wanted to sit here, face hidden, buried in books. Shielded completely. A little bunker inside a family on the brink of collapse.

This is the seventh day of their vacation, everyone tripping over each other in their little cabin. Caro faking sick, Tomás reading nonstop, Sofía roaming the house in search of attention. She appears now in full princess regalia, a little Snow White with snarled hair.

“Can I come?”

He’d like to tell her a hard no. His afternoon’s shot the second she gets bored. José’s mind runs in a furious present tense. He has an urge to jump in the car and drive to Santiago, though the city’s steaming hot and he loves it here. But Caro is looking at him, wide-eyed and hopeful.

“How about it, José? Could you take her?”

Sofi launches into a made-up ballet, pirouetting from one parent to the other. She flutters between Caro and José, doing little jetés, waving her magic wand so it sheds glitter all over the floorboards.

For the rest of their vacation, bright specks of glitter will cling to their shoes, their sandals, the webs of their toes.

***

José is not a bad father. He loves his little girl. But, right this second, he wants to leave her here, watching cartoons with her mom. Now that Tomás has refused to go fishing with him, he’s decided he deserves alone time, too. Time alone with Mario the fishing guide, anyway. Mario, who owns the boat, and who will be here to pick him up any minute.

Caro sets a bag on the table. It holds plenty of sandwiches for two people, even three. (Did she know Sofi would ask this? Did she put her up to it?)

“Can I come, Daddy? Can I?”

Sofi leans on his knees, batting her green eyes. The Snow White dress is a little too big. José can’t help smiling, and Sofi takes the smile to mean yes, yes, you can come, what could be better than fishing with my little daughter? He only realizes what he’s done when it’s too late. All he can do now is ask her to put on different clothes. Princesses don’t like to fish.

Caro smiles, too. José translates her smile as thank you! I love you! Caro only meant please, please take her. A day alone with her oldest child is a whole new world. She can pretend to be invisible. Tomás will read in the living room while Caro takes an endless nap. Caro and her planetary belly. 

A few minutes, which feel to José like an eternity, pass before Sofi returns in her fishing costume: a shirt with a sequined fish (sequins that will end up in the bottom of the boat, catching the sun through smears of fish blood), jean shorts, and Little Mermaid sandals given to her by José’s father-in-law, who bought them on his last trip to Miami (lucky bastard, vacationing at Disney World). Caro handles sunscreen, rubbing viscous lotion on their daughter’s arms and legs. She squirts some on Sofi’s hand, telling her to do her own face. Sofi obeys with disgust. She hates how sunblock feels on her fingers, and she’s scared to get it in her eyes. Tears roll down her cheeks.

This will be a nightmare.

This will be great.

This will be.

Mario pulls up in his pickup, and Caro tugs a dress on and helps carry the tackle box, hats, and lunch bag to the car. As Mario begins driving away, she calls, “Did you bring bug spray?” but José acts like he didn’t hear. He’s in the back seat with Sofi, head tilted to the window, already looking sorry for himself. Their beaming daughter flaps her right hand goodbye. Tomás keeps his nose in his book.

Caro shuts the door.

Finally. She and Tomás are alone.

***

Mario talks to Sofi for the whole drive, though he seems no more pleased than José to have her along. He asks which princesses she likes best (Snow White; Belle; Ariel) and what her favorite foods are (chocolate ice cream; strawberries). He even wants to hear the poems she has to memorize in school. Sofi is thrilled. No one has asked her this many questions, or looked at her this many times, in days. She radiates pure delight.

Mario smiles, too, but his smile conveys a different message: the boat’s going to be cramped, Sofi’s going to shriek if there are horseflies, she’s going to turn lobster-red no matter how much sunscreen she’s got on.

He looks in the rearview. José is silent. It really is a gorgeous day.

***

Caro brings Tomás avocado toast and milky tea. He barely thanks her, which is fine. She’s proved herself to be a good mother who nourishes her son properly, which means she can now shut herself in her room. Tomás won’t miss her. Hundreds of pages of peace. Caro closes the bedroom door, then opens the windows, letting in the deliciously cool morning breeze. She could read, but she’s not in the mood. She’d rather lie on her back and stare at the ceiling.

Eduardo moves, which hurts her ribs. She can barely breathe. She feels completely invaded. She thinks Eduardo sounds too adult, so, secretly, she calls him Ed. Eduardo was his paternal grandfather. José never talked about his dad much, but the moment he saw the pregnancy test’s two bright lines, he asked Caro if this baby could be named Eduardo.

“What if it’s a girl?”

“If it’s a girl,” her husband told her, “you pick.”

Now Ed kicks her constantly. He won’t let her sleep. The kids are getting anxious, knowing he could be here any day.

Caro hauls herself to the bathroom and splashes water on her face, avoiding her reflection. She hasn’t wanted to see herself in months. Water runs down her cheek and neck, splashing her pajama shirt. She doesn’t care. The dampness is refreshing. She peeks into the living room: Tomás’s plate is empty, and steam no longer rises from his mug. She can’t tell if he drank the tea or not.

Without Sofía and José, the cabin is calm. Guiltily, Caro thinks how much she likes it this way. Right now, she means. She’s not in the mood to fuss over lunch, or over José. Cheering him up is exhausting. Smoothing his world out before he loses his temper at the kids. She stops him from badgering Tomás to go for a run or kick a soccer ball with him. Persuades him to let Sofía sing her princess songs for the hundredth out-of-key time. Nobody said he had to like her voice, but couldn’t he fake it? A bit?

In bed at night, Caro reminds José that the kids can sense his mood. When he’s anxious or mad, it affects them. José never says much in response, and Caro can feel Ed reacting to his dad’s silence. Even the unborn baby can see the problem. Even a blind person would.

***

“Sofi, sit down—slowly! From now on, you do exactly what I tell you. Okay?”

Jose tries to muster his best smile. Sofía grins back. She’s not saying okay, Daddy! but, on the bright side, she’s sitting down, Disney-princess backpack beside her. She hauls that backpack everywhere. He has no idea what it holds. Toys? Colored pencils? She never unzips it, but she always has it with her, like Linus and his blanket in Peanuts.

José sits in front of her. Mario takes the oars.

“No touching the water,” José says. “Not unless I say so. Understand?”

Sofi beams. It’s a hot day, sun beating down, but a soft breeze is blowing. José opens his tackle box. Instantly, Sofi reaches for the flies.

“Sofi!” he shouts. “Careful!” His smile is gone. “Watch out. These are sharp.”

She eyes the lures, unsettled. “I have to be careful with the ones with pretty feathers? And the colors? And the sparkly bugs? All of them are sharp?”

José produces a pink fly and shows it to her. Cautiously, she brushes her tiny finger over its feathers. “So soft.”

He brings his smile back. “Yes, very soft. I can make a soft one for you when we get home, if you want. One with no sharp part.”

Mario does not contribute to the conversation. He hasn’t been around kids for a long time. His own are adults now, living in Santiago, and summer people tend not to bring children on his boat, unless you count the odd zitty teen. The river is low, which worries him. He hopes the fishing is good. That should brighten the day. José is the type of client who brings his catch home to eat. Not like the gringo sport fishermen who expect to be sainted for tossing a trout back, as if the poor fish could live a full life with its jaw shredded. As if it were delighted to swallow a hook so a gringo could drag it from the water, take a picture, and throw it back, wounded, for another gringo to catch. José is a good client. Mario just hopes the little girl behaves herself, and manages not to cry if she’s bored.

He rows on.

***

Caro listens to music. Nothing cool. Giggly pop songs; weepy ballads. She started wearing headphones to avoid waking José, and now they make her feel strangely safe, as if the songs formed a protective shield.

Sometimes, in Santiago, she takes herself to the movies. A risky pastime, but she knows the danger she’s assuming. She knows some movies will remind her how easy, relatively speaking, she has it; how many families are more dysfunctional than hers. Others, though, refuse to let her forget how sad her situation has gotten. If Caro’s life, right now, were a movie, it would be one where the characters barely speak. A movie where the viewer knows every character is completely alone. Where not much happens, but, in the long, silent shots of people watching TV, sorrow pools till it’s deep enough to wade in. After watching a movie like that, Caro has to return to fashion magazines for a few days. Magazines never ask tricky questions. Their pages are safe terrain: beautiful women, frivolous things.

Caro takes her headphones off. She goes over to Tomás, whose eyes stay on his book. He still reads with his finger, which Caro finds sweet. “Tomi,” she says. “What do you feel like for lunch?”

She rarely asks, but today she’s in a generous mood. She’d even take him to a restaurant in town. Why not? She has the car, and José and Sofi won’t be back till the afternoon.

Tomás still hasn’t looked at her.

“We could go out. See if that new Argentine place in town is good. What do you think?”

Tomás sets his book on the table. She knows he’s not happy. If she wanted to be honest, she would admit that he hasn’t been happy. Not today; not on this trip.

After a while, he says, “Your call.”

“We could go to the lake. It’s so nice out.”

“Mom. You know I don’t like to swim.”

Caro sits beside her son, and he scoots away. Uncomfortable.

***

José whistles an old song while he waits for a bite. He’s been waiting a long time, testing different size and color flies. So far, Sofi has behaved like a queen. She’s been looking around quietly, all but hypnotized by the river and trees. Maybe the water soothes her. He, too, feels calmest by the ocean, or at the bottom of a pool.

Mario casts using his own flies. He’s had some bites, but hasn’t landed a fish. When the line jerks, Sofi tenses, stiffening in her seat. José suspects she’s been holding her breath. Her little nails are polished bright pink. Caro’s work, he assumes. He dislikes it. For some reason, he’s never liked painted nails.

José feels a tug underwater and rises. The fish on his hook is ready to fight. Mario offers help, but José says not to worry. He’s got it. He reels patiently, careful not to snap the line. He wants to land this fish for Sofi. Make her proud of her dad. Already, the fish is rising to the surface. A little one, not a keeper. If he pulls much harder, the hook will tear right through its jaw.

Sofi starts shrieking. José thinks she’s excited at first, but soon realizes she’s terrified. “You’re hurting him, Daddy!” she cries, standing to claw at his arm. Pink sequins pop from her shirt, landing at the bottom of the boat. “You’re hurting him!”

“Sofi, sit down,” José snaps. He tugs the line once more, and the little trout lands between them. Carefully, Mario scoops it up.

The fish’s mouth is torn. It flails wildly. Look, Daddy, you hurt him, put him back, let him go. Mario frees the hook, and the fish vaults from his hands, flopping frantically. Sofi shrieks even louder. Christ. Could she shut up?

But she’s out of control. Tears pour down her cheeks. Her face is scarlet with disappointment and rage.

She clings to her seat, terrified of touching the little trout as it turns and thrashes, beating itself against the bag that holds their tuna sandwiches, their carrot sticks, their perfect pair of apples.


María José Navia was born in Santiago, Chile in 1982. She holds an MA in Humanities & Social thought from NYU and a PhD in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies from Georgetown and is now a professor in the Facultad de Letras at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is the author of the novels SANT and Kintsugi, as well as the story collections Instrucciones para ser felizLugar, and Una música futura. She was shortlisted for the 2022 Ribera del Duero Award for her unpublished collection Todo lo que aprendimos en las películas. 

Lily Meyer is a writer, translator, critic and PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati. Her translations include Claudia Ulloa Donoso’s story collections Little Bird and Ice for Martians

Eckleburg No. 21

Eckleburg is a literary and arts journal publishing original works from both emerging and awarded writers, poets, artists and musicians including Roxane Gay, Rick Moody, Cris Mazza, Steve Almond, Stephen Dixon, Moira Egan and David Wagoner. Eckleburg No. 21 curates a beautiful selection of traditional and genre-bending fiction by Gertrude Stein Award winner, Faerl Marie Torres, Agnes Scott Poetry Award winner, Jessica Melilli-Hand, eleventh century Sanskrit translation by Brishti Guha, artwork by Sandra Shugart and more.

Eckleburg No. 21
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ECKLEBURG NO. 21 CONTRIBUTORS

Faerl Marie Torres, Gertrude Stein Award Winner
Julie Jones
Jennifer Buxton
J. Grace
Lindsay Hatton
Cady Vishniac
Kasey Thornton
Miranda Forman
Rosalia Scalia
Trey Sager
Robert P. Kaye
Andrew Joseph Kane
Cover Art and Portfolio by  Sandra Shugart
Jessica Lanay
Jessica Melilli-Hand
Kuzuha Makino
Translation by Toshiya Kamei
Kshemendra
Translation by Brishti Guha
Fumiki Takahashi
Translation by Toshiya Kamei
Amye Archer
Mary Hastings Fox
Walter Cummins
Paul Rousseau
Phillip Hurst
Filiz Turhan
Alexa Cahill
Marion Deal

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New Mother

Julie Marie Wade

You cannot go back. julie marie wade

Leah had sketched the words on every scrap of paper, every grocery list, even the coupons she handed over at the store, the newspapers she bound with string and set out for recycling.  They, too, bore her new mantra beneath the bylines—four words from a soft-tipped pencil she rarely sharpened. 

Leah was a lucky new mother in that her child slept well.  She could lay him down after lunch and not hear him again until close to supper.  These were the hours she had been told to savor—to do something special for herself. “You should take hot baths and read books you never thought you’d have time for,” her mother advised, the faraway voice on the telephone she no longer recognized.  But no sooner had she settled into the tub than she heard the buzzer on the dryer and realized it was time to change loads—transfer the wet ones, fold the warm ones, prepare for another cycle of burp cloths and bibs.  The clothes, it turned out, needed the bath more than she did. 

Sometimes Leah sat a long time at the bottom of the stairs, the soiled garments at her feet, the soft light streaming through the cellar door.  She watched the day stretch ahead of her, then beyond, wide as the winter prairie, bare as the winter prairie, and she feared she would never again glimpse what was buried under that snow.

You cannot go back. julie marie wade

“Hello? Leah?—I tried knocking, but there was no answer.”  She heard the thump of thick heels, and then Zoe appeared on the landing.  Zoe, like no,  one syllable without an umlaut.  Seeing Leah below her, she called out, “Oh my God!  Are you in pain, Lay?  Did you fall?”

“No, nothing like that.”  Leah turned slowly—she had lost her speed, surrendered it all to caution. “I was just sitting here.  I was just—waiting for the laundry to dry.”

“You have chairs for that, don’t you?  A comfortable couch?”

“I know it sounds silly,” she said, pushing herself up with her hands, “but sometimes I think I just get up there and I have to come straight back down here again. I know I shouldn’t be—I sleep a lot now—but I still can’t seem to shake this tired.”

“Can I help you?” Zoe offered, her hands outstretched.

“Really, no, I’m fine.  Embarrassed actually.  It’s one o’clock, and I’m still in my bathrobe and slippers.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Zoe smiled, wrapping an arm around her friend and leading her through the pantry to the hall.  “I’ll make some coffee, and—I brought a Bajan sweet bread.”

“You didn’t.” julie marie wade

“I did. They’re back by popular demand at the bakery, and you know I can’t sell them without taking some home.  That would be a far too efficient business model.”

Leah leaned against a cushioned bar stool and watched Zoe work her way around the kitchen: every gesture smooth and precise, the way she had of making slicing and serving a dance.  Zoe stood tall in high boots and tight-fitting jeans—dark denim with slim, pointed pockets in back—and a lavender fleece vest, the perfect complement to her spume of red hair.

“I shouldn’t be eating any of this,” Leah sighed.  “At the rate I’m going, I’ll never get my figure back—such as it was.”

Zoe ground the beans, scooped them generously into the waiting filter.  When she looked at Leah, her brows were knit in problem-solver fashion.  “You need to start being nicer to yourself,” she said. 

“Nicer doesn’t take the weight off—and neither does your devil bread.  But it is delicious.”

***

Leah spread a white linen cloth over the polished mahogany table.  The woman Michael had hired—the one who came once a week, avoided Leah’s eyes, and didn’t do laundry (it was in their agreement that she wouldn’t “operate machinery,” which included the vacuum cleaner, too)—seemed to have a particular passion for what could be done with an old rag and a bottle of furniture polish.  She liked to make all the surfaces shine.

“The house is still filthy when she leaves, Michael,” Leah had complained.  “The only difference is that it looks clean.”

“I’ll have a talk with her,” he said.  “Where she comes from, women don’t do the negotiating.  Instructions come from the man.”

Leah didn’t know where she came from and didn’t care to.  In fact, she fantasized the next time the woman arrived she would play a tape-recorded Donald Trump shouting “You’re fired!” and see if that voice was manly enough to convey her message.

“Lost in thought, are you?”  Leah refocused her eyes, and there was Zoe, still smiling, holding out a slice of warm bread propped on the saucer of a piping hot coffee cup.

“You do everything so fast,” she remarked.  “Since I had Liam, it takes me forever to get anything done. Mostly, I don’t.”

“Isn’t that typical, though?  I bet a lot of new mothers feel that way.”

There was that phrase again—new mother.  Leah had heard it so often in the last four months she feared it would replace her name.  Before long, she wouldn’t be a “new mother,” yet she would always be a “mother,” and in time, an “old mother,” someone even Liam didn’t want around.  The thought of it—this word competing with her own name, competing even with her general name of “woman”—threatening to replace them both as the truth of who she was—caused Leah to brace her hands on the chair and stand bent over, gasping for air.  This happened from time to time and had been happening more since the birth of her child. Michael called it a “momentary lapse” and told her she should drink more tea, get more rest, stop pushing herself so hard.  She scowled at him: As if there was any choice.  By the time Zoe returned from the kitchen, Leah had taken control of her breath and posed herself on the chair, not wanting her friend to see her that way, not wanting to appear any more pathetic than she already felt herself to be.   

“Do me a favor,” Leah said.

“Sure. Anything.” julie marie wade

“I don’t want to talk about myself today—or the baby.  I want to talk about you—maybe do a little vicarious living.  Do you mind?”

“No,” Zoe replied, “I don’t mind.  I’m just afraid I’m going to disappoint you.  I have nothing sensational to report.”  With that, she tore a small piece of bread dusted with powdered sugar and dipped it into her coffee.  “Hmmm…manna from heaven,” she sighed, and closed her eyes with the impossibly long lashes.

“Then make something up.  I don’t care what it is, so long as it takes me far away from here…Are you seeing anyone?”

“No one of interest.” julie marie wade

“Trust me—I’m interested.  I watched a two-hour special on dung beetles yesterday.”

Zoe laughed and sliced more bread.  “Well, when I say no one of interest, I mean no one of interest even to me.  I’m beginning to think all the nice girls are straight, and all the straight girls are married.”  She handed Leah another slice, which she declined at first, then reluctantly accepted.

“Michael says it’s important not to eat your pain.  That’s why he bought me the exercise bike—so I can ride it when I’m feeling hopeless and out of control.”

“Is it really hopelessness?” Zoe asked.  “I mean, I know it’s hard, and Michael has to travel so much, but Liam’s getting bigger now and sleeping through the night.”  She hesitated, picking small dried cherries from the bread.  “I thought this is what you wanted.”

Leah sipped her coffee to keep her lips from trembling.  “Let’s talk about you,” she said. 

“What do you want?” julie marie wade

“Some version of what you have, I suppose—someday, not now.  A person who holds my interest, a house with window treatments, maybe a big, drooly dog of some kind.  I’m not sure about motherhood, though I’d consider it,” she sighed—“but if we have a child, I’ll make her carry it, whoever she is.  Giving birth is not on my life’s to do list.” Then, Zoe laid a thin, freckled hand on Leah’s, which was dark and plump by comparison.  “Nothing against you, of course, or of all the women who do it every day.  I’m just a big chicken when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“I am too, apparently,” Leah murmured, thinking of her sliced stomach muscles, the scar that stretched like streetcar tracks across her abdomen. 

You cannot go back.

***

“I ran into Missy Compton the other day,” Zoe remarked.  “I guess it’s Missy Jordan now.  At any rate, she was all atwitter about the reunion, and she asked if I was going, and I couldn’t bring myself to say yes.  I mean, I’m not going, but if anyone could convince me otherwise, it would be you.”

“Do you think I want to see those people?” 

“Well, you’ve got something to show off,” Zoe teased.  “C’mon, that rock alone could make some heads roll.” 

Leah looked down at her diamond-studded with sapphires, the coveted Marquis cut that twice she had let slip down the drain and had to retrieve with the rusty head of a hanger.  “Fifteen years.  That’s something.  Is the future what you thought it would be?”

Zoe walked over to the window and slid open the interior shutters so they could see the street in the distance and the flower boxes brimming with snow.  “Just about,” she said.  “I wanted a bakery, you wanted a family—we did our thing, and for the most part, it seems to be working out.”

You cannot go back. 

Leah wanted to say it aloud.  She wanted to clutch Zoe’s wrist bone in her rising panic and shout at the top of her lungs: You cannot go back!  Instead: “How are you not terrified?” she asked, her voice tiny and solemn, her face but a shadow in the frugal January light.

“Everything always works out,” Zoe promised, pulling her chair close and leaning her body closer.  “Part of it’s just the winter.  You always feel a little sad in winter, a little scared—everyone does—but it passes. You’ll see.  Six months from now, you won’t even remember the way this feels.”

What Leah remembered was the way Zoe used to look at her in high school.  She was famous for her impish grins, her Anne of Green Gables earnestness, the way she would lie to the math teacher right to his face and never flush, walk away breezily with a homework extension or a higher grade.  But Leah had intercepted glances, had caught Zoe smiling shyly in her direction, with nothing of her signature moxie.  She found herself wishing that her boyfriend John—and later even Michael, her husband—gazed at her with such attentive eyes. 

Zoe snapped her fingers.  “Lay? Post-hypnotic suggestion?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. 

“You’re tired,” Zoe said, patting her hand and standing up to collect their cups. “Shall I get you more coffee, or would you like to lie down for a while?”

“I was just thinking how I’ll never go parasailing.”

“What?”

Parasailing.  I always wanted to do that.”

“So you’ll do it,” Zoe replied.  “You’ve still got a few good years left” and grinned at her friend.  “Sometimes I think I’ll never have sex again, but it always turns around.”

“You don’t understand.”  Leah’s desperation was mounting, but Zoe seemed impervious, refused to permit it. “There are things I won’t do now, not because I can’t do them or because I’m too old to do them, but because it wouldn’t be responsible.  I could get hurt, and then where would my son be?  Michael says we can’t think about ourselves so much anymore—we have to think about the future with Liam in the foreground.”

“Well, he gets on a plane every week, doesn’t he?  That’s dangerous.  Driving is dangerous.  Hell, people fall getting in and out of the bathtub, and you’re not going to stop bathing, are you?”  Zoe came and stood behind her, stroking her hair.

“It’s greasy. I’m sorry,” Leah winced.

“Don’t apologize to me—for anything.  We’ve been friends too long for that kind of formality.”  Leah closed her eyes and let her shoulders settle again, her hands unclench from the seat of the chair.  “Why don’t you let me draw you a bath?” Zoe offered.  “It’ll feel good—and I promise it won’t kill you,” she whispered in Leah’s ear.

“I have laundry—”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I have to spot-treat some of the shirts for the next load, and—”

“Lay, I know how to do laundry.  I may live in Single Land, but we still have washing machines there.  Next week they’re even sending us samples of Clorox color-safe bleach.”

“I’m sorry—”

Zoe slid her long, pale hand across Leah’s mouth.  “No more apologies.  No more protests aimed at people who are trying to help you.  All right?”

Leah nodded. She brought her own hand to her face, stretched it over Zoe’s, kissed the deep crease in her palm.

“You’re sweet,” Zoe said, and kissed the crown of Leah’s head, there where the first silver hairs mingled with the brown.  “Let me start the bath.”

***

When she heard the tap at the bathroom door, Leah startled.  Had she fallen asleep?  Had she been dreaming?  The water was cold now, her toes badly pruned.

“Look who’s here,” Michael smiled, stepping in from the hall with Liam in his arms.

“You’re home.” Her voice was flat, though she had meant for it to rise.

“I got an earlier flight,” he said.  “I thought maybe we’d get dinner out.”

As Michael approached the tub, Leah felt herself shrinking, had to fight the urge to cover up. “That would be nice.  Just give me a few minutes to dress.”

Michael sat down on the toilet seat and gazed at Liam.  “Look at how perfect he is.  I’m so jealous that you get to see him every day.”

“I’ll need to nurse before we go,” she said, her voice so low it seemed like growling.  Michael didn’t notice. 

“Where are we going?

She glared at him, but he was busy adoring their child.  “To dinner—where do you think?”

“Oh, I thought we’d stay in,” he said.  “I can pick up some take-out, or we can have something delivered.  I’m up for anything.  You choose.”

You cannot go back.  The words flashed, marquee-style, on the tile walls.

“I’d rather go out,” she said.  “I haven’t left this house for three days.”

“Don’t you think it’d be easier—and then if he starts crying and we’re in the restaurant—it’s too late to ask anyone to babysit.”

“Maybe Zoe would.”

“I ran into her,” Michael smiled.  “She was just leaving when I arrived.  She left us some bread from the bakery and folded all the clothes.”  Leah watched the tassels on his shoes twitter as he tapped his feet on the checkered floor.  “I always liked her.”

“Everyone likes Zoe,” Leah sighed.  “Don’t you know—she was voted Best Personality Girl of the Class of 1995. And Best Legs.  And Most Likely to Get into a Bar Brawl.”

Michael rocked the baby without looking up.  “It’s still so funny to me that she’s gay.”

“Why is that funny?”

“Well, not funny ha-ha, but amusing, I mean.  Do you know how many men in this town—”

“What does their desire have to do with hers?” Leah intercepted him.  She pulled the curtain closed before she rose to her feet, using the towel bar to steady herself.

“Do you need some help?” Michael asked.

“You have your hands full,” she replied, “and I’m fine.”

“It’s nothing against Zoe,” he continued.  “I’m not trying to say she shouldn’t be who she is.”

“Then, what are you trying to say?”  Leah poked her head out from behind the curtain and studied him as he stared enraptured at their child.

“Nothing,” Michael replied.  “I don’t want to start anything—”

“Could you leave then?  I’d like some privacy.”

***

An hour later, they sat together at the dining table, Chinese food cartons bulging before them, Leah in her bathrobe again with a fresh towel wrapped around her head. 

“Shall I fix you a plate?” Michael offered.

“That’s fine.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Does it matter?”

He stopped, laid down the spoon, let his eyes roam the length of the table until they came to rest on Leah’s vacant face.  “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” Michael asked, loosening his tie and letting his collar fall open like a torn sail.

“How is it for you?” she replied.  “Do tell me. I’m dying to know.”

This,” he said, gesturing toward her with a wide, emphatic palm.  “It’s either sarcasm or silent treatment.  It has been the last few times I’ve been home.”

“Interesting.” Leah folded her arms and leaned back in the chair.  “I’m curious. Why do you think it’s been like this—” mimicking his gesture, then resuming her pose.

“I don’t know. Dan says it could be hormones, that Shelley had a hard time adjusting after—”

“So you talk to Dan about me?”  Michael scratched his light stubble and looked down, guilty.  “What do I have to do to get on that list?”

“What do you mean?”

“The list of people you talk to about me.”

Michael was pretty, Leah thought, observing her husband like a specimen, something apart from herself and bound by her purview.  Too pretty to be faithful? she mused.  His slender face and hazel eyes.  His softly cleft chin.  Leah wondered what Michael had been voted in high school.

“I can’t play these games all the time,” he said, rolling up his sleeves now, becoming determined.  “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.” 

“I did tell you what I want.  I said I wanted to go out to dinner.”

“Lay!”

“You explained why it wasn’t practical.  I understand. I am familiar with the strength of your veto.”

“Do you want some of this or not?” Michael demanded, his cheeks flaming beneath the gold shadow of a new beard.  When Leah said nothing, he served himself and ate hungrily, angrily, in silence.  She wrote You cannot go back in junior high school cursive with her finger on the dustless table.  

Then, Michael softened.  His mood changed.  “Maybe we could go away next weekend,” he said.  “Someplace warm?  Miami maybe.”

“Sounds impractical.  Who’ll take the baby?”

Michael cocked his head.  “We will.”

“I don’t see how that’s much different from staying here,” she said.

“Bright sun? Palm trees?  Strolls on the beach?”  His lips turned up gently.  “Room service?”

“It’s a long way to fly with a baby,” Leah replied.

“It’d be worth it.  It’d be—” he groped for the word, that helpless, pretty specimen of hers—“romantic.

“Since when are you interested in romance?”

“Leah, for Chrissake, just say what you mean!  I’m sick of all your little codes and rhetorical questions.”

“All right. Eight months.  No sex.  What now?”

He looked down again, cracked the fortune cookie in his hand—not the usual way, but single-fisted, so it shattered, a confetti of hard flour on his plate.  “It’s not for lack of trying,” he muttered at last.

“You never had any trouble trying before.  You were always so persuasive in that department.”  Leah was strangely enjoying herself now.  Everything out on the table, Michael squirming under her gaze.

“You never had a baby before!  I don’t know the wait time…I figured you would let me know when you were ready.”

“I did, Michael. Two months ago.  But you were so tired from the red-eye, and then six weeks ago, but the baby was crying, and then a month ago—”

“Stop.”  He held up his hand like a pretty, helpless crossing guard caught in the intersection without his vest or flag.  “This isn’t about blame.  This is just an observation.”  She watched his chest rise and fall under his wrinkled shirt. “You’ve been distant.  Everything seems to mean the opposite of what it used to mean.  I didn’t want to force anything on you—”

“I appreciate your concern,” Leah said, rising slowly and walking around the table to where Michael sat with his sleeves rolled up, his collar gaping.  “I just wish I believed it was really concern for me.”

Michael’s brow creased, and he looked up at her, puzzled.  Leah lifted his fortune from the plate.  You like Chinese food.  “Who else would it be for?”

Leah patted his cheek before turning around.  “My mother always warned me—don’t marry a man who’s prettier than you are.  Nothing good will come of it.” 

They did not go to Florida.  Michael fired the housekeeper, and Leah kept the exercise bike as a makeshift garment rack. When he left for the airport, they kissed tersely in the dark, and he promised to call.  Leah invited Zoe to come for lunch the following day.

“What’s with the formal invitation?” Zoe asked.  “You usually just text something like get over here.”

“It’s not that kind of lunch,” Leah said, a lilt in her voice.  “I’m serving white wine and tuna niçoise—made from scratch, mind you—and it’s going to be…lovely.  Restaurant quality, but without the noise.”

“You know, we could go to a restaurant.  Save you the trouble.  Let someone wait on us for a change.”

“No,” Leah replied.  “I want you to come here.  Consider this a thank you for all the help you’ve given me these last few months.”

“I won’t come if it’s some kind of payback,” Zoe said.  “But if it’s just a lunch between friends—no gratitude involved—then I’ll be there.  What can I bring?”

“More wine. I only have one bottle.”

“Aren’t you nursing?  I mean—is that allowed?”

“Bread, then,” Leah said, and hung up the phone.

***

When Zoe arrived, the note on the kitchen door read Come In!  Zoe rubbed her heels on the old straw mat, brushed off the snow, and when she came inside, she left her ear muffs dangling over the door knob so she would remember them when it was time to go.

“Leah?”  She set a Tuscan boule to warm in the oven, then wandered into the dining room where the table was set, the white tapers already burning.

“Zoe.” Leah whispered her name so softly Zoe didn’t hear her at first.  When at last she turned, there was Leah holding a vase of tiger lilies, effusive and orange, her long hair pulled back from her face in an elegant twist, her lips set to smiling.

“You didn’t tell me this was a formal affair,” Zoe smiled.  “Look at you—you look beautiful.”

“Not beautiful,” Leah said, “but better,” setting the vase on the table and touching Zoe’s shoulder as she passed. “Take off your coat.  Stay awhile.”

“Is there something I can do to help?” Zoe asked, watching Leah glide about the kitchen in her handkerchief skirt and stockings, a little cloud of perfume trailing behind her.

“Not a thing. Sit down.  Make yourself comfortable.  I’ll serve the wine.”

“All right,” Zoe replied, unzipping her boots and folding one leg under her body as she perched on the chair.  “You get three guesses who came into the bakery today—ordered a cake for his three-year-old’s birthday party.”

Leah stood close to her, pouring the wine into both their glasses.  “No idea.”

“Peter—” When Leah’s expression didn’t change, Zoe clarified—“Peter Schoenlaub.”

“Oh.  So I take it he’s married then?”

“To Jeanette Farrow, no less.  That threw me for a loop.  Lay—” Zoe intercepted her with one finger to the wrist—“aren’t you going to ask me how he looked?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, peering down at Zoe with her wide gray eyes.  “I don’t need to know about Peter Schoenlaub.  It was prom, it was sex, it was over.  I doubt he even remembers me.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint you,” Zoe replied, toying with her silverware—“this is nice, by the way—”

“Wedding gift. We hardly ever use it.”

“He asked about you.  He remembered we were always friends in high school, and then he offered to set me up with one of his single friends.”  She rolled her eyes and slipped the napkin onto her lap. “Just when you think you’ve gotten the word out, another well-intentioned man with a friend comes around.”

“Maybe he meant a woman,” Leah offered, and hurried to the kitchen for the rest of the meal.

“No—an army buddy named Carl.”

“So you told him, I presume.”

“I did, and it was awkward—but you know I kind of like that part.”  Zoe winked at her in a way that made Leah feel vaguely like a math teacher.  “Then, he back-pedaled and stopped just short of the some-of-my-best-friends speech. That’s when he asked about you, actually—if we still kept in touch.”

Leah almost did it then, almost reached out and touched Zoe on her cheek.  When she couldn’t, she sat down beside her and began to serve the food.

“There’s bread in the oven.”

“Yes, thank you,” she whispered, her breath caught somewhere deep in her chest.

When they had been eating and drinking awhile, Zoe with her easy way of keeping the conversation alive, Leah felt a new urgency rising up from her toes, the way she couldn’t sit still without her ankles twisting, her knees bending out and in like butterfly wings.  “I’ll be right back,” she promised, excusing herself, but instead of the first-floor powder room, she climbed the stairs to the master bathroom. 

***

You cannot go back

She watched the words materialize, one by one, in lipstick on the mirror.  For a moment, she almost believed she had written them, until she blinked and they slowly disappeared.  Leah splashed water on her face, added color to her lips, then removed it quickly.  What did Zoe like?  She didn’t know.  Michael thought her lips were thin and liked when she traced them with pencil, then colored between the lines—something glossy and pink.  Would Zoe like that? 

Leah lowered her hand to her chest, just below the gold necklace Michael had given her. “It looks like a cutlass,” she had told him, surprised.

“Happy birthday, warrior woman,” he said, kissing her eyelids.

The hard clavicle bones were harder to find now.  She missed the way a crevice used to form when she bent forward—large enough to rest a finger in.  One button at a time, Leah opened her blouse until the lace camisole was showing.  Was it sexy? Was it trying too hard?  Why could she never call to mind the faces, the bodies, of any woman Zoe had ever brought home?

“Knock, knock.” Zoe peeked her head in.  “The door was ajar, and the bread was getting cold, and I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

Now Leah’s whole body flickered like a pilot light.  “I’m fine—I”

“You look flushed.  Are you running a fever?”

It was not what Leah wanted—not sympathy, not mothering, not the concerned hand to the flaming forehead.  She leaned against the counter as Zoe approached her.  She said, “Everything’s fine,” but Zoe wouldn’t take no for an answer.  This was the wrong way.  This was not how Leah had envisioned it.  When the hand stretched toward her, she intercepted it. When the face bent toward her, brows knit with concern, she brushed her lips against Zoe’s curious mouth, set always in the shape of an “o.”

“Oh,” Zoe murmured, stepping back.  “I’m sorry. I—didn’t expect that.”

Now the balance shifted.  Leah was the one standing tall, leaning forward.  She kissed her again, surprised by how small her mouth seemed compared to her own.  Or were they both small?  She had never kissed a woman before.

“Leah?” Zoe receded again, hands pressing lightly on her shoulders.  “What’s going on?”

Zoe like “no,” without an umlaut.

“Do we have to say anything?”

“I think we might.”

“Why?”

“Because—” Zoe looked helpless, startled—“you’re a married woman, and my friend, and—because—”

“Don’t you dare say new mother!”

“I wasn’t. It isn’t about Liam, or even Michael exactly.  I think it’s about you, Lay—I think you’re a little mixed up right now.”

“I don’t understand.”  Leah’s temples pulsed, and she felt the tears prickling behind her eyelids.  She wouldn’t let them out—she wouldn’t.  “I thought this is what you wanted.”

Zoe leaned against the bathroom wall, tucked her hands deep in her fleecy pockets.  “I don’t see how this has anything to do with me.”

“Oh, come on!” Suddenly, instead of tears, it was rage. “Stop pretending, Zoe.  I know how you feel about me.  You make a good show with all the girlfriends, but you’re never serious.  You never want to settle down.  And now when I’m finally interested in reciprocating, you decide to play like it never crossed your mind before!”

Zoe raised her hands, like a helpless, pretty crossing guard caught without a flag. “You’re my friend, and I love you—I really do—but not that way.”  She bit her lip.  “And not this way either.  This isn’t the Leah I know.”

“There are things I’m never going to do now!” Leah exclaimed, almost like an accusation.

Zoe’s face began to turn to match her hair.  “By things, I hope you don’t mean that grand, elusive lesbian experience that earns you a merit badge in some sorority circles.”

Leah wasn’t listening.  “I admit it. I should have slept with you in high school.”  The tears came anyway, even against her will.

“Who says I would have slept with you?! I was in love with Tracey Carmichael, and you were my best friend!  This is absurd!”

Stunned, Leah took a step back.  “What about the way you used to look at me?”

“What way?  Leah! I’m a forthright person.  I’m an honest person.  Do you think I’m going to carry a torch for—for almost twenty years—and never let on?  You’re like a sister to me.  Jesus!

“But—this doesn’t make any sense.  You always come here and touch me and—you’re always so warm.”

“That’s just how I am, Lay!  That’s how I am with everyone.”  Her brows knit in disappointment now then rose again in indignation.  “Did you honestly think I was flirting with you all these years?!  Did you think I was just waiting for you to give the go-ahead so I could what—what did you think I was going to say?”

“I thought you—” Leah’s breath was fading again, the tears falling faster than she could wipe them away—“I thought at least you would—” gasping again.  “Oh, Zoe, are you sure?”

Zoe, like no, without an umlaut.  She stood with her legs spread, the door between them.  “I’m not what you need,” she said, softly now. “I’m not even sure I’m what you want, but I can tell you this—I’m not what you need.”

“I think you could be,” Leah murmured mournfully.

“I’m your friend,” Zoe said, firming her lips, the color draining out of her face.  “I’m not your parasail.”

“That’s not—”

Leah’s protest was interrupted by Liam’s cry.  She had just laid him down an hour ago.  “He never cries,” she said, incredulous.  “Not at this time.  Can you wait?”  Zoe stepped aside to let her pass.  “Can you wait for me?  Please?”

Zoe kept her head down, refused to meet her eyes.  “Just wait for me, Zoe.  I can explain everything.”

Leah walked into Liam’s room and lifted his squalling body from the crib.  He was screaming now, and she tried to console him, even as she listened for Zoe’s footsteps in the hall.  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” she promised, sinking down into the rocking chair.  “You cannot go back,” she said.  “Remember that, baby.  You cannot go back.”

When he stopped shaking and began to coo at last, Leah heard it—the kitchen door snapping shut, and one flight below, the dryer buzzing to announce another load was done.