“We can talk about this later,” says Natalie in an unnaturally tight voice.
“Oh, I don’t mind!” says Nikoletta.Blithewould be a good, solid word to describe her tone. “I raised two children myself! Every moment deserves to be a teachable moment.”
Natalie says, “Maybe not every—” But here goes Nikoletta, full steam ahead, sliding onto the couch so that she’s closer to the girls’ level: “Exploitingmeans using something or someone else for our own good.”
“Girls, why don’t you come help me in the kitchen.” Mae hears the way the stridency in Natalie’s voice shoots right to the core of Leo’s anxiety. She watches his body tense.
Nikoletta holds up one finger to indicate she’s almost done. “So a lot of vegans, myself included, don’t think it’s right to nourish our own bodies with something another mammal produces to feed her own offspring.” The blank look from the girls again, then, “Her own babies.”
Natalie cries, “Thank you! Girls, come on now!” The girls don’t move.
Leo is over his threshold now. He grabs the closest thing he can find. Mae will congratulate him later, in private, because he self-regulates by focusing on an inanimate object in his environment rather than on a human or an animal. If this had been a stuffed toy, it would have been a perfect reaction. But as it is, he finds Calvin’s glasses, which he bites swiftly and cleanly. They all hear the crunch.
“Resource guarding is common among dogs who missed the window for proper socialization as puppies,” Mae is saying when Jordan comes into the very crowded sunroom. Natalie, all three kids, Mae, Leo, Calvin, and a woman Jordan has never seen before wearing ballet flats and a nervous smile. “Trade, Leo,” Mae says optimistically, holding out a treat. Leo turns his head away and growls. To the room she says, “He’s just learning this one. He’s supposed to drop whatever he has with the understanding that what I have is better.”
“I don’t care about his socialization as much as I care about my glasses,” says Calvin.
“Your glasses?” says Jordan.
“Leo took them,” explains Natalie.
“Right off of Dad’sface?”
“No,” says Calvin, exasperated. “They were on the table.”
“Got ’em!” says Mae triumphantly. She holds up the glasses. “Do you think you can wear these, Dad?” The left lens is cracked and one arm is hanging off at a rakish angle. The other arm has been amputated.
The unfamiliar woman turns to Jordan and says, “I’m Nikoletta, the Realtor in charge of the home sale.” She offers her hand and Jordan takes it, but she can feel Natalie watching her, gauging her level of friendliness.
“Dad, I’m so sorry,” says Mae. “Where’s your backup pair?”
“They must be in Lenox.”
“I could call Kara and ask,” Mae suggests. “If there’s a backup pair, she can bring them.”
“But she’s not coming from Lenox—remember? She’s coming from Cincinnati,” says Calvin.
For a moment they are stymied by this fact, and Mae looks at Natalie, and then Natalie looks at Jordan, and then Jordan looks back at Mae then down at her watch. “I’ll call your home optician and see if they can email me the prescription before they close or first thing tomorrow. I’m sure there’s a place in Portsmouth that can make a pair in a day. You might not have your choice of frames, and you might have to muddle through tomorrow. But you’ve muddled before. You can muddle again.”
“I have muddled before,” Calvin agrees. “Thank you, Jordan.”
Mae realizes it first. “But if you don’t have your glasses—”
“What?”
“Then you can’t drive. And if you can’t drive, you can’t pick up Kara at Logan.”
“Not it,” says Natalie so softly that only her sisters hear, and Jordan echoes her, equally softly, “Not it.” It’s an old game of theirs: not it for the middle seat, not it for unloading the always-needing-to-be-unloaded dishwasher, not it for cleaning up the dog waste from the yard, back when they had a family dog. Mae, so much younger, always trying to play catch-up, never quick enough, got stuck with whatever “it” was more often than not.
“I’ll do it,” says Mae.
“You will?”
“Of course. It will be good for Leo to come along. I’m supposedto be exposing him to as many different environments as I can. I can walk him back and forth outside the arrivals area.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
