She heard the children shriek, and there was no such simplicity. Your own family was the death of it.
“Come on,” he said. “Throw something on. Wash your face.”
She looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She did not want to injure his perception of himself as a good person. But she knew that now, at night, he clutched his pillow as though he were drowning.
Her family stumbled around the barren garden, hair lit up by the late-afternoon sun. He was clutching his camera, eager to record the physical growth of his children. “Look,” she said to him, wanting him to see everything.
THE CHILDREN WERE IN BED, SLEEPING. SHE BROUGHT BLANKETS TO their chins, watched their breath move in and out. Their eyelids twitched with fervent dreams. The sight of her children sleeping always brought up in her a love that was vast and irreproachable. No one could question this love. She remembered the first time she and her husband hired a babysitter and went to dinner, two months after their boy was born. They had walked the streets, ten minutes from their home. They had hoped that when they sat down in a restaurant, they would enjoy the same easy joy of self-absorption. But they realized, slowly, that they would never in their lives forget about him. The rest of the date they spent in a stunned silence understanding, for the first time, how this love would both nourish and entrap them for the rest of their lives.
She sat beside her husband in bed. She was still cramping; she went to the bathroom to urinate, and there was still blood. She was relieved as she felt the blood leave her, pretending that it was just another period, but she did not want to look too closely at the material that came with it. The names they might have used came to her: Charles, Wendy, Diane. But they were names for nothing now, air. There was no kindness she could offer it now, and that made her feel dry, stunted. She went to the children’s rooms and kissed them again.
She could not sleep. She was sitting in the darkness when she noticed a light go on in her neighbors’ house. Their houses were side by side, about ten feet apart, and the neighbors’ blinds were usually closed. Tonight she saw that they were open as though they were trying to enjoy the new warmth. The mother had put up curtains, but they were sheer, and Jane could see right into their room.
She saw Mary Grace’s mother sitting on her bed. Their bedroom had been decorated with the lukewarm blandness of a hotel room and was so clean as to deny any human interaction inside it. The mother wore a frilly aqua nightie that made her resemble a large, clumsy girl. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and suddenly pulled the nightie over her head. She was watching the husband, who wore bright boxer shorts and no shirt. The curtain lifted in the warm wind. The husband walked over to the wife, and she lifted her face for a kiss; the husband pulled her breast as though he were milking a cow. The wife’s face was blank.
“I know what you forgot! The detergent!” she exclaimed, in a clear voice. The husband drew back. His shoulders slumped as though he were begging. There was quiet, and Jane waited for his answer.
“Sorry,” he said. There was a plaintive quality to this word, his inability to come up with any sort of excuse; it seemed to designate everything about their future. The lights went off.
Jane got out of bed and went downstairs. She told herself she needed to take out the garbage, but she just needed to get outside. Opening the door, the night was thick and black and the air was fresh. She threw the bag of trash into the can and stood in front of her house. The cicadas sounded like an enormous machine. The sky was a riot of stars. She glanced around the empty street and began to run.
The neighborhood was beautiful at this hour, flowers and bushes randomly lit by small spotlights, as though each family wanted to illuminate some glorious part of itself. It was ten thirty, and the only discernible human sound was the canned television laughter floating out of windows. The houses looked anchored to these neat green plots of land. How much longer would her neighbors wake up, shower, eat their cereal, argue, dress their children, weep, prepare dinner, sit by the television, make love, sleep? She ran quietly, the sidewalk damp under her naked feet; she smelled the flowers, the jasmine, honeysuckle, magnolia, sweet and ferocious and dark.
She ran one block like this and stopped, breathing hard. Her forehead was sweating. She was a middle-aged woman in her pajamas, running from her house at ten thirty at night. Looking at her house, she saw the small night-light in her son’s room cast a lovely blue glow through the window. From here, the room looked enchanted, as if inhabited by fairies. Her breathing slowed, and the night air felt cool in her lungs. When she glanced up at the neighbors’ bedroom window, she noticed that their blinds were now shut.
MARY GRACE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AT THREE THIRTY THE NEXT day. Jane thought she was dressed up early for Halloween, with a short blue accordion-skirt and a T-shirt decorated with a halo made of rhinestones, but it was actually a cheerleader outfit. She was going to a practice for Halo Hoops, the church basketball team. “I have to go to our basketball game at church,” she said. “I have ten minutes. That is all.” Jane held open the door, and Mary Grace jumped inside and did a twirl.
“Can I marry you, Mary Grace?” her son asked.
“No,” said Mary Grace. “I’m older than you.” She looked at Jane. “I’m going to be a superstar singer. I’m going to be in the top five. Wanna hear—” She belted out a few words of a pop song. She was stocky, tuneless, and loud. Jane’s son was enchanted and requested more. He grabbed Mary Grace’s hand, and Jane’s heart flinched.
“Can we make cookies?” Mary Grace asked. “Quick?”
They bustled into the kitchen and proceeded to bake. No one came to take the girl to Halo Hoops. The kitchen suddenly smelled like a bakery. Mary Grace stood too close to her. “Do you like my singing?” she pleaded.
“Sure,” said Jane.
“Me, too,” said the girl. Jane felt Mary Grace’s breath on her arm. The girl’s breath had the warmth of a dragon or another unnatural beast. The girl’s belief in Jane’s worth was awful. “You have pretty hair,” said Mary Grace, reaching up to Jane and touching a strand. The girl had a startlingly gentle touch. Her hand smelled of sweet dough and chocolate.
“Thanks,” said Jane. The boy and the baby stared at Mary Grace. The baby, hanging on Jane’s hip, reached out and swatted Mary Grace away. Mary Grace’s face tightened, aggrieved.
“Do I have pretty hair?” asked Mary Grace.
The baby yanked Jane’s hair. “Ow!” said Jane, grabbing the tiny hand.
“Do I?” asked Mary Grace; it was almost a shout.
Before Jane could answer, her son stepped forward and grabbed Mary Grace’s arm. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” he asked.
Mary Grace recoiled from his touch. Jane saw all of the girl’s self-hatred light up her eyes: that she had no other friends besides this five-year-old, that her parents did not want her at their table. “No,” she snapped, “Ick. Why do you keep asking me!”
Her son dropped his head, wounded. Jane slapped her hand on the table. It made a clear, sharp sound. “Then just go home!” she yelled at Mary Grace.
The children were suddenly alert. Jane was frozen, ashamed. The girl slowly picked up her jacket and, shoulders slumped, eyes cast downward, trudged to the door, a position already so well-worn it had carved itself into her posture. Her son screamed, “Stay!” and skidded toward her, arms open, but Mary Grace moved to the door and was gone.
THAT NIGHT JANE SAT BESIDE HER HUSBAND AND REALIZED THAT they had known each other for fifteen years. She wanted to tell her husband something new about herself, something she had never told anyone before. She wanted to tell him a secret that would bring them to a new level of closeness. What else could she tell him? Would he be more grateful for a humiliating moment in her life or a transforming one? Did people love others based on the ways they had similarly debased themselves or the proud ways they had lifted themselves up?