“It’s a nice-size group,” Margie says. “Small enough to get to know each other well, big enough to see how common the joys and issues are.”
“Sounds great.”
“Itisgreat. This is the most important time in a woman’s life, don’t you think?”
I think of the Leclerc, waiting at home for me, and don’t respond.
“So you work at GIA?” Margie asks, as though reading my mind.“I have a cousin there, in the Atlanta division. Not sure if you know her? Jamie Giller?”
I shake my head. “I don’t. It’s a pretty big place, when you add in all the satellite labs. What about you?”
“I’m home with the kids.” Margie smiles. “Best job there is.”
I nod, then blush, as though continuing to work outside the home is an embarrassment. Staying home—if possible—is the societal preference.
“Oh, there’s Evelyn! She lives down the street from you. This is her second baby, too.” Margie waves to a woman walking into the room. She’s tall, which helps mask her belly. You can’t even tell she’s pregnant in her white linen shorts and black tank top, wedge espadrilles on her feet. I recognize her from the neighborhood, though we’ve never officially met.
“Come meet Tilly, Eve,” Margie says. “She’s joining us this week.”
Once the group begins, I realize these women already know one another well, and I’m ever more the new kid who doesn’t know where she fits in. I’m wishing I signed up for MotherWise earlier (I can almost hear Wyatt and Kat’s “told you so” in unison).
Turns out all four of the women—including the surrogate, who has three kids of her own—are stay-at-home moms, or planning to be. I’m somewhat surprised the intended mother is at home, with no children in her care yet. This baby will be her first, her necklace only a bare gold chain, and she tells me she left her job as a solicitor to focus on impending motherhood. I long to ask her what her days look like, at home without work or kids, but can’t see how to do it without coming across as judgmental.
I don’t tell anyone about Poppy, and the group assumes this is my second pregnancy.
As we go around the room, sharing personal details, my mind wanders from the women to the painting in my studio.The Motheris as impatient to be uncovered as I am to do the work—I can sense it, the distraction of an open file, the need for resolution.
My tattoo begins to ache, and I touch it with gentle fingers. This time I feel nothing under my fingertips, which is a relief.
“Mine stung for about three days,” Evelyn, seated to my right, whispers. Her eyes stay on Margie, who is at the front of the room talking about how at this stage of development the fetus can suck his or her thumb. “Ice helped.”
“Good to know,” I murmur back. “Thanks.”
—
I try the ice later, which numbs the spot but doesn’t dispel the yawning, persistent ache that stretches down into my palm, pinpoint hot in my thumb.The median palmar nerve.
It’s one of the main nerves in your arm, Ruth-Anne said.Runs from the forearm to the hand and provides sensation to the palm and up the thumb.
Before I know it, I’m heading up the stairs to my studio. Unlocking the door, my mind dreamlike (it’s fatigue, Tilly—you should take a rest). Pulling off the cover, I carefully set a finger against the spot where the tendril was. The slightest depression left behind, waiting to be restored.
I can’t afford to rush this. I take a deep breath and close my eyes briefly, using the quiet moment to think through adhesive options. Distracting my mind so I don’t think aboutwhyI need to secure the surrounding paint, to prevent further damage.
Deciding on a cellulose-based adhesive—gentle, organic, reversible, and the type you might use for something fragile (alive, I think, the word landing like it was planted in my mind)—I mentally work through the next few steps.
First, the adhesive.From the shelf near my desk I pull down the one I want, mixing it with distilled water.Next, the applicationtools.I choose a fine-bristled brush, narrow enough to apply the adhesive to the minuscule indent left behind. My hands tremble slightly. The ache near my tattoo increases. “Focus, Tilly.”
Now apply the adhesive.I gently brush the aqueous substance ontothe edges of the depression. My Luminara glasses are switched on and I perch over the canvas. Slowly, methodically, I stabilize the layer of paint. Then I lean back, checking over my work with a critical eye. It’s seamless.
Only later will I realize that as soon as the depression was restored, the ache in my arm disappeared.
If you’re a mother, you know that the sound of your child screaming—with pure, raw terror—makes you move faster than anything else can.
It’s late afternoon the following day, and the house is full again, everyone home from work and school. Wyatt is on a conference call in the living room with noise-canceling earbuds, Stanley snuggled in his lap. Clementine just went upstairs to change out of her school uniform, and I’m unpacking this week’s NourishBox with Shelby after locking up my studio for the day. It was a productive, if tiresome, session, removing another thick line of soot. But at least nothing strange happened today. Perfectly ordinary, a welcome respite after recent events.
“Oh, this looks lovely,” Shelby says, taking the packaged protein, steak in a chimichurri sauce, out of the NourishBox. “I’ll bet we can—”
But whatever she says next is cut off by Clementine’s scream. “Mommyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
