“Hmm?”
“She’s keeping her baby.”
I felt dust in my throat and coughed.
“I think you knew that already.” Natalie made eye contact with me. The yellow flecks in her eyes danced. I saw acuity in her gaze.
“I wasn’t sure.” I was very aware of the muscles in my face.
“Her boyfriend came back. He decided to be the dad.” She studied me, as if anticipating a reaction.
I tried to maintain a semi-neutral expression of detached concern.
She swiveled her stool 360 degrees and then back the other way. “Mom’s dying for a baby. It’s pathetic.” Again, she swiveled and reversed.
Itzhak circled in order to find a comfortable spot near Natalie.
“They don’t need a baby,” she said. “They have me.”
“You’re not a baby.” I envisioned the chaos of any baby compromising Amelia’s desire for order and infringing on her circumscribed life.
“I’m their real daughter,” Natalie said. “Why bring some other gene pool into the house?”
I looked at her face to determine if she was making a joke, but saw no trace of humor.
“I want to say to them: You’re too old for another baby.” She swiveled, then caught herself mid-revolution each time, and pushed off in the opposite direction.
I held her stool in place to keep her from swiveling.
“Your parents adore you,” I said.
“They don’t adore spending time with me.”
I heard a car pulling into the Straubs’ driveway. Itzhak’s ears perked up. He stood, as if he were considering running to the front door out of duty, but then an expression of defeat fell across his face and he lay back down.
I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of forceful wind, along with boots stomping on the doormat. The door clicked shut. Then footsteps in the hall. I recognized the footsteps as belonging to Fritz.
In a baseball cap and jeans, he appeared brooding and intensely handsome. He flicked a switch and every light in the back half of the house was illuminated. He rubbed his hands together. The cold air from the front door had traveled down the hall, toward the back of the house, and even the kitchen felt chilly. It was the last day of March, but the temperature was still below freezing.
“Hi, Delta,” he said. “Hi, Toots.” Fritz kissed Natalie on her forehead. I noticed that his beard had grown in.
“Rough day?” I asked.
“It’s three grand to replace the car’s fucking transmission.” He opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator and then turned away from the open door, distracted, as if he forgot what he was looking for. He removed his baseball cap and threw it across the room, where it landed on the sofa.
“Sorry to hear that.”
The refrigerator beeped to indicate it was still open.
He turned back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of IPA. “Lucia decided to keep her baby. Did you know?”
I tried to read him. Was he thinking of our conversation from a few weeks earlier? I held my face still and expressionless. “A temporary change of heart, perhaps?”
He widened his eyes. “Amelia’s a disaster.”
“Dad,” Natalie said. “Mom needs to get a grip.”
“I know.” He studied his bottle of beer, as if deciding how to open it.
“Maybe she needs to talk to our rabbi,” Natalie said.
Fritz reached into a drawer and pulled out a ninety-nine-cent bottle opener, one of the only mundane items I’d noticed in the Straub household, not in the same league as my brass-and-marble bottle opener. The bottle cap fell to the floor. He left it there.
“Piper says Mom needs spiritual guidance.”
“Your mom doesn’t want spiritual guidance.” Fritz looked out toward the backyard. His attention seemed to be caught by something he heard. I observed his rounded shoulders. The endless exchanges with Amelia had taken a toll on his body. Though an exceedingly attractive man, his hair was thinning, his hairline receding.
“She doesn’t know what she wants.” Natalie seemed irritated at her father’s distraction.
Fritz continued to gaze absentmindedly at the cherry tree, the dead brown grass, the lavender sky.
“Mom’s damaged,” Natalie said, raising her voice to get his attention. She sounded strident.
He pressed his eyes closed tightly.
“Spiritual guidance could be helpful,” I said. Still seated at the kitchen island, with Natalie next to me, I gently placed my hand on hers, and, as I did, I noticed that it was almost as large as mine. The skin on her knuckles felt rough from the harsh winter air. “Amelia’s experienced a loss because she was counting on Lucia’s baby. There are people who can help her with that.”
Fritz laughed thinly. He cast his eyes in my direction.
“I grew up Catholic,” I said. “I used to talk to the priest at our church when I was having difficulty.” I’d barely known the priest, and only spoken to him once, when he took me aside to ask me about my parents’ divorce. I was wearing a white blouse with bell sleeves that day. I remember wishing for a pair of scissors so that I could cut off my sleeves and cover his mouth with them, to mask the nauseating smell of his breath. “In fact, even recently, I called the priest from my church for counsel on my custody situation.”
Fritz cleared his throat, as if he expected me to say more, but I didn’t.
It wasn’t in my best interest to be spiritual. Maybe one day, when I had what Amelia already had—money, family, love, success—on that day, I could afford to look for God. But right now it wasn’t the best use of my time.
Amelia, however, was a different story. Natalie was right that she needed guidance of some kind. Opening her heart up to God, her pain might disappear entirely. It worked for some people. She might look around and say, Wow. I’m fortunate. Thank you, God.
But first she’d have to acknowledge her blessings. She’d have to notice, for example, that I was standing in front of her, eager to help.
“Fritz, if you don’t mind my saying so, you and Amelia should try to communicate with Natalie during the whole process so that
