Baby proof

faux pas so personally. What's it to her? I always think.

'Is Dwight with her?' I ask.

'No. He had an early golf game,' my dad says, flicking on his turn signal. 'I'm sure he'll make a grand entrance later, though.'

'They have that in common,' I say.

'Yeah. She's been prancing around all morning,' he says. I picture my mother, head thrown back, perky nose in the air, just like a proud circus pony.

'Yeah. Everything is about her,' I say.

My mother aims to be conspicuous at all times. She is sure to be overdressed, will likely give Zoe the largest and most expensive present, and will have a crowd of admirers around her at all times. That is one thing that has not changed since my sisters and I were young-our friends adore our mother. They call her things like 'zany' and 'a hoot' and 'one of the girls.' But deep down, I think they are all glad that she's somebody else's mother.

'Don't let her get to you, Dad,' I say.

My dad smiles as if mentally shifting gears. Then he says, 'So where's Ben?'

I knew the question was coming, but I still feel a sharp pain in my side hearing his name. I take a deep breath and muster a breezy tone. 'He had to work.'

'Not like Ben to miss a family party.'

'Yeah. He's quite the family man,' I say. I am being sarcastic, but it occurs to me that this much is actually true-he is quite the family man.

A minute later we pull into my sister's horseshoe-shaped driveway as I survey her four-million-dollar mansion (Maura insists that her house is not a mansion, but I consider any home with more than six bedrooms a mansion, and her house has seven) with my usual mix of admiration and disdain. I'm disapproving not because of the sheer magnitude of their riches-because that is all relative. Rather, I dislike how Scott earned his money-not from hard work or brains, but by being at the right place at the right time. He was working as the CFO of a small software start-up that was purchased for a ridiculous amount of money during the technology bubble. He has so much money, in fact, that I've heard him refer to guys with smaller fortunes as 'nickel millionaires.'

If he were good to my sister, all of this would be great, and I would applaud his good luck. But Scott is a cad (to use one of my father's expressions) and their home is a constant reminder to me of the daily trade-off Maura makes: nice things, philandering husband. I often wonder whether my sister would leave if she didn't have children with Scott. She says she would. I'm not so sure she shouldn't anyway.

My dad parks behind a large white van marked endive catering. Maura spares no expense for her parties; even the ones for her children are extravagant affairs, so I'm not surprised as I walk through the front door and witness the sort of bustling last-minute preparations that would suggest a wedding reception, rather than a child's birthday party.

'Hello! Hello!' Maura says, giving me a quick, distracted hug before returning her attention to a gigantic vase of exotic flowers surrounded by elaborate party-favor bags. I can tell she is nervous, the way she always gets before any social function. A typical firstborn, Maura is a perfectionist in all that she does, and I always find myself thinking how exhausting it must be to be her. I can be anal, too-when it comes to my work-but Maura is that way about everything. Her house, her yard, her kids, her appearance. It is actually a good thing she quit her high-powered HR job when she had kids, because I can't imagine how burdened she'd be if she had to include a career in her quest for perfection.

She frowns, tilts her head to the side, and says, 'Do these flowers look okay here? Is the scale… off?'

I tell her they are beautiful. Maura's home is beautiful, although there is nothing relaxed or comfortable about it. Instead it is a bit contrived in its eclectic perfection, bearing the heavy mark of an upscale designer who has painstakingly achieved a predictably sophisticated blend of old and new, modern and traditional. Maura's predominant color scheme is warm-yellow walls, cherry upholstery, tangerine abstract art-and yet something about her house still reminds me of a showroom. You would never guess that three children, six and under, reside there, despite the oil paintings in their likeness and photographs covering her baby grand piano. My sister is proud of her home's sophisticated, sleek feel. In fact, she points it out often, as if to say to me, You don't have to be swallowed up by clutter and crumbs just because you have children.

She has a valid point, but as Ben used to say, one can accomplish pretty much anything with her fleet of employees, including a nanny, a gardener, a pool guy, a personal assistant, and a live-in housekeeper. I've watched her delegating tasks to her staff, in her designer sarongs and Juicy Couture sweats, Venti Starbucks in hand, and thought to myself that although she quit her job, she is still running a small corporation of sorts-and she does a seamless job of it.

But despite the fact that Maura's life might seem shallow and indulgent upon first blush, she has a lot of underlying substance. She is an excellent mother. She subscribes to the Jackie O school of mothering, often quoting her idol: 'If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.' As a result, Maura's children are sweet, well mannered, and against all odds, relatively unspoiled.

'Where are the kids?' I ask Maura now, just as Zoe, William, and Patrick come tearing around the corner, hyper and wide-eyed, as if they've already consumed too much sugar. With light hair and fair skin, Zoe looks more like me than her own olive-skinned, brown-eyed parents, which I find to be a fascinating case study in genetics. Maura phoned one day recently to tell me that Zoe took a snapshot of me to the hair salon and told the stylist that she wanted her hair in a wavy bob so that she'd look like her aunt Claudia. I can't help feeling gratified by the fact that my niece resembles me, and recognize it as the narcissistic urge that compels many to have children in the first place.

'Happy birthday, Zoe!' I say, bending down to give her a big hug. She is dressed in full ballet regalia as 'blushing ballerinas' is the theme of her party. Her pale pink leotard and lime-green tutu and ballet slippers coordinate, hue for hue, with the pink and green balloons tied to the banister and the three-tiered cake surrounded by yards of tulle. 'I can't believe you're six!'

I think about the fact that Ben and I went on our first date the week after Zoe turned two. I wonder how long I will measure time in terms of Ben.

'Thank you, Aunt Claudia!' Zoe says in her low, throaty voice that seems so funny on a little girl. She slides her feet from second position into third. 'The gift table is in the family room! In case you remembered to bring one?'

'I just might have,' I say, opening my tote bag and giving her a glimpse of her wrapped present.

William and Patrick, ages three and two, both thrust matching gadgets into the air. 'Look what we got!'

'Cool!' I say, although I haven't a clue what they've just shown me.

Zoe informs me that her dad bought them the new robots so they wouldn't be jealous of all her presents. Scott is a good father, although he's a little too much about bribery and threats. My favorite of his threats was 'No Christmas if you don't stop the whining.' When Ben heard that one, he laughed and asked how exactly Scott planned on going from December twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth.

Zoe grins and leads me by the hand into the family room where Daphne and my mother sit knee to knee on the couch, sipping Kir Royales.

'Where's Benny?' my mother demands before even saying hello to me. It has always set my teeth on edge when she calls him Benny. I hate it even more now that we're not together.

I can feel myself stiffen as I sit on an armchair across from them and say, 'He can't make it today.'

'Why not?' my mother asks.

'He had to work.' I smile brightly. 'Business is booming.'

This statement should be a dead giveaway. I don't use expressions like business is booming.

'But Benny never works on Saturdays,' my mother says, as if she knows him better than I do. 'Is there trouble in paradise?'

I marvel at my mother's ability to sniff out any controversy. Her favorite expression is 'Where there's smoke there's fire.'

(which, incidentally, is her stated rationale for believing the tabloid press, no matter how outrageous the story).