Because this could not be what mothering is all about. Simply could not be. The female gender would have done itself in long, long ago if this was all there was to child-rearing, this endless need for amusement, attention, and sippy cups. Pru as she knew herself ceased to exist when Annali was there. If she was on the toilet, there was Annali. In bed at night, there was Annali, tossing and turning so that, once again, Pru couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t shower, either, with Annali around, and a whole day could go by that she didn’t run a comb through her hair. No wonder Patsy had looked like a wrung-out sponge for an entire year after Annali was born. It had shocked Pru, at the time. She had known—she had thought—that this would never happen to her.
She scanned the playground, desperate for any kind of adult contact. If one of the homeless people had slowed down to pick a cigarette butt off the street, she would have pounced on him. Finally, after much negotiating, she managed to persuade Annali off the swings and out for breakfast.
They slid into a booth at the Korner and ordered pancakes. Annali looked around, as if to say, You expect me to eat in a place like this? John smiled and waved from behind the counter, where he was organizing the Sunday-morning rush, such as it was. Ludmilla, the new, curvy, silent waitress, brought her a cup of coffee, and Pru felt her shoulders relax back down from her ears. Here were people! Grown-ups! Lovers right out of bed, gay couples meeting for breakfast, a couple of lost-looking tourists. Annali drank from her sippy cup while Pru savored her coffee, both of them watching the scene with hungry interest. She had the urge to run around and ask everyone what they’d done last night. A harmless but odd-looking elderly woman whom Pru recognized as one of the diner’s regulars came over to the table. She wanted to talk to Annali. Her mouth was crooked, with a jutting-out jaw, and she wore a damp, dank wool scarf wrapped around her neck. She stood too close to Annali’s side of the table, overwhelming her with her strange old-lady smell, her loneliness, her need to make Annali smile. Me, after ten more years of being alone, Pru thought. Annali turned away and began to cry. Pru could have done the same thing. She put an arm around Annali and pulled her closer.
Annali wrenched herself away. “I want my mommy!” she cried.
“Mommy will be home soon,” Pru said. “Before lunch!” she added brightly. Annali began to howl.
“Hey,” she said, snapping her fingers, a diversionary tactic that had worked once before. “Hey. I’m going to eat your head!”
The sound of Annali’s wailing filled the café. It seemed to enter Pru physically and burn its way along all the neural pathways in her body. She wondered if she could just walk away, pretend to have nothing to do with this horrible child.
The next thing she knew, John was there with the pancakes. “I wanted waffles,” Annali cried, kicking the table leg and making the cups and saucers rattle.
“I’m sorry,” Pru said to John. “I think we better skip breakfast and go on home.” At this, Annali began to kick her feet rhythmically, in time with her crying.
“How about a pancake on my head?” John said, trying a diversionary tactic of his own. He put one of Annali’s pancakes on his head. “Now, where did that pancake go?” he said, pretending to look around.
Pru laughed, thinking he looked like a Swiss tourist, and so that he wouldn’t feel bad. But Annali’s face crumpled and her legs went rigid. “My pancake!” she wailed.
“I don’t know what to do,” Pru said. Annali was listing to one side now. Pru could see she was heading for the floor, where she could have her tantrum in comfort. People were looking at them. But Pru didn’t want to go home, to her lonely, messy, boring apartment. Please, she pleaded silently. Knock it off.
They watched Annali, still howling, sinking under the table. Pru was beginning to wonder if she had some serious behavioral problems—and worse, how she would get her out from under the table without someone calling child protective services—when John said, “I know. Will you guys go upstairs and feed my fish? I have a Nemo fish.”
Annali stopped crying instantly. She sat up straight and the thumb returned to the mouth. Her eyes were red. She sucked and hiccuped.
“You like Nemo?” John said, clearly pleased with himself. “That’s great. Nemo is probably starving by now. Here, we’ll take your breakfasts. You guys can eat up there.”
He balanced the tray with one hand and led them through the diner.
“What does a two-year-old know about Roman emperors?” Pru whispered.
“That’s Nero,” John said. “This is Disney. It’s a universal language. Like Esperanto for kids.” As they made their way through the kitchen, two men looked up from their work. “This is Juan and Raul. Pru and Annali.” The Hispanic chefs John employed returned Pru’s smile. She noticed them exchanging looks, as the three of them went up the stairs that led to John’s apartment.
“How do you know this?” Pru asked. “The last Disney thing I remember is Fantasia.”
“My sisters have kids. We saw the video fifty-six thousand times, by my count, last Christmas.” He opened a door at the top of the stairs, and in two steps
