Nick said, “Ilikenot knowing what I’m in for, actually. Most of the time. Life turns out to be a grand surprise.”
Clara got up and sat beside her husband on the couch, the baby in her arms, wide-eyed and calm. She felt as if the couch was a raft, the weather was good, and everything theyneeded was here. There would be no land in sight for days, but who cared? “I like being a family with you.”
He said, “Me too.” He leaned over and sniffed her hair, which she’d washed that morning on the occasion of going out into the world. He kissed her neck, her ear. She batted him away.
“This is the kind of thing that got us in trouble in the first place.”
“Trouble’s not all bad, then.”
“The baby needs changing.”
“I did it last time,” Nick said. This was usually Clara’s line. But if they waited any longer, Lucinda would do it again, and shit would come seeping out of her onesie, down her legs and up her back. “Just go,” said Nick.
She went to their bedroom. The room had been crowded before the baby. Now, piles of laundry towered on every surface, and racks hung with drying diapers covered the floor. She changed Lucinda on the bed, which was made, at least, because Nick had been home this morning. It was the one clear space in all the mess. Nick stood in the doorway and watched as she took off Lucinda’s clothes, cleaned her up, replaced the dirty diaper with a clean one from yet another pile of stuff.
“I think we’re going to run out of room here,” Nick said, and he was only kind of kidding.
“There’s room,” Clara assured him. And there was. There was another bedroom in the front that was going to be Lucinda’s room when she got bigger, and there was the basement too, a dingy space, but they could make it work. “Part of it, too,” she said, “is a question of getting organized. Actually putting some of this stuff away.” She gestured towards the dirty laundry and realized that this was all on her. Everything was. She could do it.
“Hey, I need you to help me, though,” Nick said. Clara could tell that he didn’t want to have to say this. She could see it in the way he held his head, the tension in his shoulders, how he hesitated. “You need to keep me in the loop,” he said. “You can’t go away like you did.”
“I was here,” she protested.
“But you weren’t,” he said. “Maybe I lost you in the piles of laundry, I don’t know. But I feel like it’s been ages since I saw you, and then you came home and told me we’re having twins. I need you to behere, with me.”
“I’m here,” she said, standing before him and handing him the baby dressed in a fresh sleeper.
He said, “I want to take care of you. To give you what you need. But you have to tell me things. We have to stay connected.”
“We’ll have date nights?” she offered.
He gave her a pointed look. “I mean more than that. It’s you I love, Clare,” he said. “It’s you. The point of origin, of everything.”
“I love you too,” she said. “I love you too.” She repeated it like a mantra.
They were going to be all right.
—
In the tomb, Lucinda squawked, attracting the attention of a passing security guard with a walkie-talkie. Stooping over to see inside, he backstepped when he realized it was a woman unbuttoning her shirt and averted his eyes. Clara tried to ignore him.
He said, “There’s a nursing mothers’ centre on the second floor.”
“Yep,” said Clara, securing Lucinda’s latch, “But I’m good here.”
“You might be more comfortable,” said the guard.
She said, “I’m comfortable.” She knew her rights: she could breastfeed anywhere. Even in an Egyptian tomb, or at least a replica. They might have a case against an actual historical artifact, but she’d be willing to argue it. With her background in lactating and archeology, she’d be uniquely qualified for such a position. It might be the one thing in the world Clara was really meant to do. Apart from this, of course: feeding her baby now, feeling grateful for the wall that kept her posture straight. She needed some structure, it was true. She was all slump these days. She had this vision of herself as a worn-out sofa, barely held together, mostly stuffing but comfortable. She was comfortable, and what was wrong with that?
The security guard had left her to her business and Clara closed her eyes and listened to Lucinda’s snuffling. They were going to be all right, she’d convinced herself—but then Nick had called Jess. It was a sign of desperation. Had things gotten that bad?
There was a gauge in Clara’s mind these days that flicked between excitement and terror. She was supposed to have been content with one baby because she had nearly not had any, but she always knew it wouldn’t be enough; she knew that, for the rest of her life, she’d feel the dull ache of longing for another, and that there would be a hole in their family. She would’ve had to live with that, and so too would she find a way to live with what fate was delivering now, which was more than she or anybody needed, but she would find space in her arms to hold it all.
And here the dial moved. She was already so stretched—what was going to happen to Lucinda? What would Clara lose in nurturing a pair of newborn siblings just as Lucindawas beginning to discover the world? Clara thought about attachment parenting, and all the ideals she’d inhaled, things that were so instinctive—co-sleeping and babywearing and breastfeeding and responding to a child’s needs. How did you do that with two, with three? Could she be the kind of parent she wanted to be?
But somewhere between the two extremes there was a middle ground, a place where Clara could breathe, and think,Yes, this is how life happens. This was her good fortune, her extravagant blessing, and she would take each moment as it came, and she would be challenged, exasperated, exuberant, and exhausted, but it would be okay. One step at a time was the way forward, and she could do that. But only if she knew for certain that Nick was walking alongside her.
Lucinda burped and Clara looked down at her, tucked against her. Right here with the baby on her chest, the other two growing inside her, was as close together as they would ever be. It was possible that Clara’s arms would never be so free again, able to hold all her children at once, so she wrapped those arms around them now, around her baby, and her belly, and herself. Her self.
