“The kids settled?” asks Natalie. “All of them?”
“To a man. They did play a little bit of musical beds. Evangeline wanted to sleep with Leo, so she’s in Mae’s bed. Mae, I took him out for the bathroom and put him in his crate. Evangeline came with me and held Cinnamon’s leash. Scarlett and Caspian are in Natalie’s room. Kara changed Caspian’s diaper. Everybody did great.”
“Wow,” says Natalie. “Thank you, Dad.”
When Mae goes to her room, she finds that Evangeline is really spread out in Mae’s bed. How can someone so small take up so much room? Mae tries to move Evangeline but she’s dead weight.
“I’ll sleep with you, Jordan,” says Mae, appearing at Jordan’s door like a hallucination.
“I don’t think so,” says Jordan. “I’m still pissed. Also, you had all that coffee. You’ll never sleep again.”
Mae climbs into Jordan’s bed anyway and says, “I’m asleep already.” And somehow, against all odds, she is.
Natalie can’t sleep. Scarlett has pushed her all the way to the edge of the bed, and her drinks and her thoughts and her worries are roiling around in her stomach and in her head. She’s thinkingabout Mae telling her and Jordan they’ve been too hard on Calvin, and she’s wondering if Mae might be right. She’s picturing her father’s face lighting up when they all came in together. She’s wondering what Austin is doing right now. But she knows what Austin is doing. She knows he’s sleeping because he has to be up in just a few hours, and if he’s not sleeping then he’s worrying about the cow with mastitis, and running through his endless to-do list in his mind. The to-do list on a farm is constantly growing. There is always something to repair or call about or buy or put on the list for next year.
Scarlett makes a little grumbling sound and pulls the covers off Natalie. That’s it. She’s not going to sleep. Natalie swings herself out of bed and peeks at Caspian, asleep in the portable crib. He’s so big for that thing. This is probably the last week he’ll be able to use it. She tiptoes down the stairs. In the kitchen she pours a glass of milk. It’s such a cliché, the farm wife with the glass of milk, but so what. She likes milk; she believes in the nutrients it provides. She believes in the dairy industry at large. She thinks milk is a very natural way for humans to nourish themselves. (It also helps absorb alcohol, if you believe some people on the internet.)
If Natalie is up in the night at the farm she likes thinking about the cows slumbering in the fields in the warm weather or the barn in the winter, unbothered by all the worries with which humans consume themselves. Most of what we worry about, thinks Natalie, is so futile, unworthy of the brainpower we grant it, and yet, here we are. When she’s up in the night in Rye, it’s the presence of the ocean that comforts her, almost within arm’s reach, waves coming in and receding, constant, ominous, reassuring.
She hears a tread on the stairs, and now here’s Jordan, in a set of expensive pajamas, black, edged with white piping. She startles whenshe sees Natalie and says, “I didn’t know anyone was up. Mae snores like a truck driver.”
“Night milk?” Natalie holds out her glass. “Or I could pour you your own. I could even make yours chocolate and warm it up!” Natalie had been so angry with Jordan at the bar, she’s been angry at her since they cleaned out the storeroom, but then Mae dropped her own bombshell and Natalie isn’t sure who to be mad at. Everybody? Nobody?
Jordan winces and shakes her head. “No, thank you.”
“Oh, that’s right, you don’t drink milk.”
“Well, that, and I can’t have chocolate at night. Do we have bourbon?”
“You wantmorebourbon?”
“Just a tiny bit.”
“Good man.” Natalie locates the bottle and finds a rocks glass for Jordan. She pours, considers, pours herself a tiny bit too, like an eighth of a finger, and puts the glass of milk in the refrigerator. She’ll give it to one of the kids in the morning; that milk is far too hard-won to waste. They each take a seat at the island.
“What’s keeping you up?” Natalie asks. “Besides the snoring.”
A look passes over Jordan’s face and then disappears. “Generalized dark night of the soul,” she says. “Some work stuff. And, my god, Mae was at the wedding? And nobody told us?”
“I know,” says Natalie. “I’m flabbergasted. I don’t understand. How could she not tell us? How could she”—she lowers her voice—“how could shelikeKara, and keep it a secret? It’s like she’s been having an affair with Kara behind our backs!”
Jordan sips her bourbon, then stares into her glass, letting a puff of air out of her pursed lips. “I mean, she wouldn’t be wrong to think that we wouldn’t be receptive to it.”
“Preach.” Natalie rattles the ice in her glass. “I’d say that’s an understatement.”
“Is that what’s keeping you up too?”
Natalie sighs. “That, and... I don’t know.”
“The internet trolls?”
Natalie nods; suddenly her eyes are full and she doesn’t trust herself to speak. When she’s gained a shred of composure she whispers, “I wish I didn’t care so much. Why am I letting a bunch of strangers crawl under my skin and stay there?”
Jordan is silent for a moment, like she’s really thinking about it. “I think what may have happened,” she says, “is that the world held a mirror up to you, and you didn’t like what you saw.”
“But that’s not fair,” says Natalie.
“Not fair of me to say, or them to do?”
