Grandma sighed. “Your generation is far more prudish than mine. You get naked online, you send topless self-chats, or whatever you call them, but when it comes to having a private conversation about basic biology you get all squeamish.”
“Kids these days,” said Ava. Her mother’s voice floated up from downstairs. Dinner was ready. “I’ve got to go, Grandma, dinner. We’ll talk soon, yeah?”
“Of course. Give your mom a hug and kiss from me. And your brother and sister, please. When are they going to get on this thing?”
Ava got up, carrying the laptop over to her desk. “I don’t know. Milo has a laptop. I’ll help him put it on. Lally doesn’t have anything, but she could use mine, I guess.”
“That would be nice. Go eat your dinner, baby.”
After Ava had folded the screen down she stood there for a moment, her hand resting on her computer, a smile still in her eyes.
• • •
Wyatt and his mom were having dinner alone that night. Sara was shooting a commercial and was running late, as usual.
“Will Mommy be home in time for bed?” Wyatt was talking with his mouth full, but Iris didn’t care. Mommy was Sara. Iris was Mom.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. She wants to be, but sometimes these things take longer than you’d like.”
Wyatt nodded wisely. “Directors.”
Iris smiled. “Exactly.”
He turned up his hands, one of which was holding a carrot. “And don’t get me started on the studio.”
His mom laughed out loud and he joined her, thrilled to have pulled off a comedy bit. It was a relatively new skill, and he was crushing it. Iris leaned across the table and stroked his cheek where it grinned, a petal-soft swelling of happiness. She was blown away by him, then as ever. When he was small he’d basically gotten his words from Iris and Sara, so although she would sometimes hear her wife in what he said, she rarely heard anything surprising. Then he started watching TV and things from shows cropped up, little references from Dora or songs from Sesame Street, tiny nuggets of cultural exchange. But once he’d started school, and started listening more carefully to the conversations of adults, suddenly a whole new lexicon opened up and for the first time he brought fresh material to the table and, more thrilling still, ideas of his own.
It reminded her of his first smile at six weeks, that moment when the beauty of nature revealed itself by producing a smile at exactly the right moment to prevent parents from taking their irritating little blob and exposing it on a hillside. Hello, parents, said the smile, look, I am an actual human being, I will make all this exhausting trouble worth it. And your heart pulled a total Grinch and expanded three sizes. Now, looking at her son doing comedy bits he’d learned from his other mother, the woman she loved so much, she thought there might come a time her ribs wouldn’t be able to hold it all.
• • •
Anne was sitting with Kate, later that same evening, reading to her. They were lying next to each other on Kate’s bed, Anne on her tummy, propping the book in front of her. Kate was curled up, holding a knitted bunny, lifting her head whenever Anne said there was a picture.
“She’s naughty, isn’t she?” asked Kate. They were reading Junie B. Jones.
Anne smiled. “She’s just a kid. She’s not really naughty, she’s just full of beans.”
“Would you be mad at me if I cut the dog’s hair?”
“Well, we don’t have a dog, so I would be confused rather than mad. You’d have to go get a dog and then cut its hair.”
Kate giggled. “It’s a lot of trouble.”
“Right.” Anne leaned on one elbow to free her other hand to stroke Kate’s hair. Kate gazed at her, still amused by the idea of the dog. Anne could see Charlie in Kate’s bone structure, but saw herself in her daughter’s eyes. Each child was such a blend of history, of influences forgotten generations ago, but saved in DNA to confer height or a sense of humor or green eyes. Anne suddenly thought back to the aborted conversation she’d tried to have with Richard that day. She’d called him several times, but he’d never answered, and only texted back at the very end of the day that he’d been monitoring exams and hadn’t had his phone. Did she want to meet up? Was Charlie away? He wanted her.
No, she’d texted back, we’ll talk tomorrow.
I love you, he’d said, and she’d deleted the conversation.
“I love you, Mom,” said Kate, snuggling into her shoulder. “Keep reading.”
So, Anne turned back to Junie and the unfortunate Tickle, and tried to pretend her biggest failure as a parent was not getting her kids a dog whose hair they could cut.
Fifteen.
The next morning Lucas had a fever, so Bill texted Frances not to pick him up. Thank God for cell phones. Frances frequently listened to Ava bitch about not having one, watched her classmates all sitting with their heads bowed over their devices like penguins with their eggs, and wondered if they were destroying an entire generation’s ability to have a regular conversation. But then something would happen—she’d be able to coordinate an entire carpool, or arrange last-minute babysitting, or order something from Amazon—and she would sigh at her own reliance on her shiny little oblong. She wondered if parents watching their kids picking up books back in the eighteenth century had worried that they were going to rot their minds. And then she wondered if she was too fat, and should she download a tracking app of some kind.
“I’m sorry, Anne, did you say something?” She was suddenly aware she’d been gazing at Anne as her kids clambered into the back of the car and that it was possible the other woman had said something to her.
Anne smiled, although she looked anxious and
