“Are you okay?” Andrea asks, next to her.
“What is it, babe?” Gloria asks, putting her hand on Lauren’s back.
Lauren stands up straight. “I don’t know. That was more than a kick. It—” She doubles over again and Dalton steps to her side, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“We need to get you to the doctor,” Andrea says.
“I really think I’m fine. Agh!” Lauren says, groaning in pain.
“You’re clearly not fine,” Miriam says.
“I’ll get my car,” Andrea says, running for the front doors.
“I’ll get your bag out of your locker,” Gloria says to Lauren. Lauren groans in pain again, and Miriam helps Dalton get her through the doors and to Andrea’s car. Gloria opens Lauren’s locker and reaches for her bag, hanging inside. She notices something in the top cubby of the locker, but there isn’t time to think about it. It will have to wait until later. She hurries the bag outside and gets into the backseat with Miriam. “We’ll call as soon as we hear something,” she says, waving to Dalton and Heddy.
TWENTY-FOUR
November 1972
Since Thanksgiving, Alice has been living with Joan and John. When Joan has enough strength, she helps Alice in the kitchen; when she is unable, Alice takes food on a tray to her inside the bedroom or in the living room. “We have to make sure Mommy gains weight,” she says to Gigi and Christopher, setting a tray down on Joan’s lap with a plate filled with a chicken salad sandwich and a cup of butternut squash soup.
“You still want her to get fat?” Gigi says, sitting on the sofa next to Joan.
Alice smiles. “The doctor wants her to gain weight.”
“Dear God, please make Mommy fat,” Gigi says into the air as she bounces off the sofa to play with the LEGO bricks that are strewn across the floor with Christopher.
Joan is quiet as she looks at the food. “Mom, I…”
Alice sits down next to her. “Just a few bites? Please?”
“I just don’t think I can right now. I want to, but…”
“You only took one bite of toast this morning.” Alice puts her hand on top of Joan’s. “Can you try? You’re so close, Joan. You can have the surgery and…”
“And then what?” Joan is looking at her mom without tears or fear or any worry. “Another surgery?”
“Maybe,” Alice says, her voice a mixture of understanding and hope. “Maybe, Joan. We don’t know. I know it’s a bad day, but this meal could turn it around,” she says, smiling.
“How many times did you tell us that when we were kids?” Joan says, grinning. “‘Everything will look different once you eat dinner!’ Or, ‘Come eat these cookies. They’ll turn your whole day around!’”
Alice chuckles. “Well, it’s true!”
“According to you, anyone who has a bad day just hasn’t had a good meal.” Joan leans her head onto her mom’s shoulder. “I never thought I’d have a hard time eating what you’ve cooked. You were the best mom.” Alice’s eyes fill at the words. “You still are.”
Alice uses her index finger to dab under each eye. “I didn’t come here to blubber. That’s not helpful at all. My mission is to fill your stomach with good food and put weight on you!”
“That’s my mission, too!” Gigi says from the floor.
Joan chuckles. “So many people on the same mission around here!” She looks at her mom. “Stay with me while I eat?”
Alice lifts Joan’s hand and kisses it. “Of course! I love to watch people eat my food!”
November 2012
“What in the world are Braxton Hicks contractions?” Heddy asks inside Gloria’s office.
“False labor,” Lauren says. She thinks for a moment. “If those were false, what do the real ones feel like?” Gloria, Miriam, Andrea, and Heddy laugh out loud. “Why are you all laughing?”
“You’ll laugh someday,” Heddy says. “Not at the moment of contractions, though.”
“No,” Gloria adds. “At that moment you’ll want to kill Travis.” The women cackle again, making Lauren nervous.
“The doctor, too, for that matter,” Miriam says.
“I wanted to break the TV,” Andrea says. The women all turn to look at her for an explanation. “I was sitting in a wheelchair while I was being admitted and the news was blaring from a TV set behind me. The most annoying newscaster in the history of news! What I would have given for a baseball bat to bust open that TV and shut that guy’s mouth.”
Lauren joins them as they laugh, and Gloria puts her arm around her. “We can’t wait to hear your story, babe. It really is one of the best days of your life.”
As the women leave Gloria’s office to head back into the big room, Lauren stops, looking at her. “Gloria? What do you think the percentage is of kids who eat a meal with their parents or whoever has guardianship of them?”
Gloria raises her eyebrows, looking up to the ceiling. “Hmm. I’ve never thought about that in percentages. Some do. I don’t know how many.”
Lauren leans against the door. “Do you think any of them cook with their parent or guardian?”
Gloria shakes her head. “I don’t know. I imagine that some do. Why?”
“Andrea said something to me a while back and I’ve been thinking about it. Is it possible to have some sort of cooking class here? You know, small things like how
