“I can ask Dr. Rice to call you, Tilly, but I’ll let you in on a teensy secret.” Mack Jenkins lowers his voice. “It won’t make a lick of difference. The MotherWise guidelines are there for a reason, and I’ve rarely seen exceptions made.”
His intonation changes on the word “guidelines.” “Rules” would be a more accurate term. Mack Jenkins has likely been trained on using “sensitive” language, for everyone’s comfort.
“All we want is to take the best care of you and the baby. That’s MotherWise’s only goal. I’m sure you want the same thing, Tilly.”
What can I say to that? Mack Jenkins has my medical file in front of him. He knows about Poppy, or if he doesn’t, this Dr. Rice does. I’m infuriated by the restrictions, but I do understand what I signed up for. If I want to participate and reap the benefits, I have to comply. After passing out on Friday, and the hallucination Saturday, it’s hard toargue the extra layer of medical care isn’t reassuring. This fills me with shame. What sort of mother doesn’t put the health of her unborn child first?
But then I think of the painting, in Room D, waiting for me. I can’t let anyone else work on the Leclerc. It’s not an option. One, the money—we can get by without it, but it’s a nice cushion. Two, this is the final Leclerc—there will never be another opportunity like it. Three…the painting needs me. This sudden knowing is like when Clementine calls out in the dark, after a bad dream. My presence and whispers of “there, there, sweet girl” the only way to lull her back to sleep. In those moments I’m the one she needs—“Momma magic,” Wyatt calls it.
“I’d like to speak to someone either way, Mr. Jenkins. Perhaps your supervisor?” I don’t care what he’s typing into my file. Call me “difficult” or “demanding”—have at it, Mack Jenkins. The painting needsme. “Like I said, I have a project I can’t leave right now.”
—
It takes another four phone calls and half my morning, but things are set. I’m partially victorious, even though the home rest requirement remains in place.
The Leclerc will be moved to my studio at home. Dr. Rice (who is quite lovely and understanding) said that while I’m on “home rest,” I’m not on “bed rest.” As long as I do what’s required to keep my stress low and have no further episodes, he gladly signs off on me working from home.
“My wife also works out of the home,” Dr. Rice tells me during that phone call. “She’s a teacher. Passionate about her job. Just try to keep her from her classroom, her students, I always say!”
GIA is fine with the change, once I assure Raoul my studio is set up and ready for the conservation. Thankfully, Wyatt installed climate controls for humidity and temperature when we renovated the house. Cecil only wants me to take good care of myself but agrees the workcan be done from home. Wyatt…well, Wyatt is a tougher nut to crack.
He thinks rest should look like rest and knows how involved my work can be. He finally admits he was the one who contacted MotherWise, but again doesn’t apologize for not talking to me about it first. Wyatt wasn’t like this with Clementine, nor with Poppy, which is partly why I’m confounded. I can’t leave it alone.
I want to understand; I want him to understand.
“It wasn’t your call to make, Wyatt. Not without talking to me first.” He holds eye contact, the set of his jaw defiant. “This is our child, yes, but it’s my pregnancy—my body. I need to know you understand this. Let me do what’s best for me, please.”
“I shouldn’t have had to make the call, Tilly.” Wyatt sighs, his frustration coming through. Running hands through his hair. “The salient question, if you ask me, is, why didn’t you?”
We argue. I don’t remember arguing this much, ever, in our ten-year marriage, but it’s circular and soon there’s no energy on either side to keep it going.
I remind him—pointedly—that Dr. Rice (“he’s the expert here, right?”) signed off on me working at home. But it isn’t until I agree to get a MotherWise pregnancy tracker tattoo that he gives in. I wonder, as I toss and turn in bed that night, which one of us won the argument and if it even matters.
It’s after school and Clementine sits on a pillow on the floor of my studio, my childhood copy ofNancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase—before books were printed using water-resistant sustainable “paper”—held carefully in her lap. She has unlimited access to my entire collection, and I have encouraged her to read the books free of worry.
She’s read this particular Nancy Drew dozens of times, as it’s her favorite of the lot. I said that as long as she could occupy herself, she was welcome to spend time with me while I worked. Not on the actual painting, which is secured under its cover, but while I’m scanning notes or doing other related tasks.
Wyatt and Shelby are out walking Stanley before dinner, the weather most agreeable today. I long to open the window and let a breeze in, but it’s not good for the Leclerc, even covered, to be exposed to climate shifts. The studio’s relative humidity remains constant at fifty-three percent, the temperature sixty-five degrees, which is ideal for the art. It should also be ideal for my bioluminescent fig plant, buttoday I noticed a mottling of yellow-brown on its leaves. I need to run an AI plant scan on it after I finish up here.
“Mommy, what happened to her?”
“What happened to who?” I’m focused on my tablet’s screen, rereading my last notes.
“The lady who painted the picture,” Clementine says.
Setting my glasses atop my head, I turn quickly toward her. “Did you look at it? The painting?” Fear thrums through me. Then hot anger.
“No, I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t.” Clementine pouts. She may only be seven, but she considers herself quite mature and doesn’t take kindly to being questioned about following rules or breaking promises. Besides, how would she even get in here, past the coded lock, without me? “But you told me it was a lady artist who wasn’t alive anymore.”
Right.I did tell her that, seeing no harm in giving those few details when she asked what was on the delivery drone in our living room, awed by the robot’s stair-climbing abilities. It’s not like Clementine will tell her classmates about the fourth Charlotte Leclerc her mom has tucked away at home. She doesn’t even know who Charlotte Leclerc is.
“I’m sorry, Clem. I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”
She shrugs. “It’s okay, Momma. I know you have important things on your mind.”
“I do, but so do you.” I sit cross-legged in front of my daughter on the floor. The covered Leclerc is on the workbench on the other side of the room. I watch Clem’s eyes go to it.
“So, what specifically do you want to know? About the artist?”
