Melissa’s baby girl has colic and huge brown eyes with thick lashes. Haley’s baby girl won’t nurse and has chronic ear infections and a full head of dark hair. Lynn’s baby boy has a large birthmark shaped like Alaska, a dog bite from the family’s German Shepherd, a $60 pacifier, and a live-in nanny.
Lynn would have been easy to mock if it weren’t for the fact that her husband openly flirts with the nanny. If it weren’t for the dog bite and the fact that her husband blames the bite on his wife focusing too much on the baby and ignoring the German Shepherd, so he decides the solution is to get a second German Shepherd.
The husbands crave sex. The babies crave feeding. The mothers crave sleep. They discuss these things with the facilitator in the New Mothers Group.
When Melissa returns home from Group, Baby’s face is a wailing open mouth and her husband hands her off and cracks open a third beer, saying she needs to get a sitter next time. When Haley returns home from Group, her husband’s sitting on the quilt playing peek-a-boo with Baby. When Lynn returns home from Group at the regular time— after telling her husband and the nanny that she’ll be late because she’s going out for a drink with friends— she’s prepared to see husband and nanny in bed and to scream, “You’re such a cliché.” But there’s no opportunity because her husband is in the home office at his computer staring at investment figures. Baby and the nanny have vanished. A late-night walk is unlikely. But Lynn tells herself the nanny is obsessed with fresh air and it’s a lovely, warm night and perhaps the baby was crying in his crib and couldn’t be settled and nanny and baby will return any minute. But the nanny’s purse is gone. Her car, too.
Melissa and Haley, who used to text each other about the $60 pacifier, understand the fist of anguish more than Lynn’s close friends, her husband, her parents. Melissa and Haley do not swoop in with sobbing hugs and nightmare what-if scenerios. They do not swoop in with bouquets of hydrangeas and lilies and requests that Lynn eat, sleep, talk, see a therapist, get on meds. They simply are quietly there. In their sweats and t-shirts, with or without their babies who friends and family say should not be allowed. They’re too triggering. What in God’s name are those two women thinking? Lynn cannot explain that even though the babies make her cry, she needs to stroke their petal skin. Smell their baby smell.
Eventually it’s all too sad. Most of Lynn’s family, including her husband and all of her friends—except for Melissa and Haley— slough off like skin from a snake. Vanish.
The years vanish, too. They vanish for Lynn in a labyrinth of private investigators, psychiatrists, meds, gin and tonics with Melissa and Haley, then gin and tonics by herself, then just gin.
They vanish for Melissa in a divorce, a move back home with her parents, a law degree, a job practicing family law, and a special ed middle schooler with straight A’s, nice friends and a passion for chess.
They vanish for Haley when she finds herself at a shelter with her daughters after her husband’s online gambling addiction has cost them their two cars and their house.
Melissa craves time to do nothing. Lynn craves alcohol. Haley cannot crave; she is a pit of guilt and searing questions: How could she have signed all those documents without reading them? How could she have let her husband manage their finances when she knew he gambled? How could she have believed his eyes when he cradled her face, and said, “Babe, thank God for Gamblers Anonymous.” Had another baby with him?
At some point Lynn crawls out of herself, and Haley and her daughters move in with her.
The probability of a certain event happening in life can be calculated by dividing the number of ways that a particular event can occur by the total possibilities. None of the women do the math. However, a boy who has been home schooled all his life registers for public high school. A teacher who meticulously follows headlines about babies gone missing sees the birthmark shaped like Alaska. She calls the police.
Melissa, Haley, and Lynn grow old. They collect the Befores and Afters like pearlescent abalone shells. No. They try to collect the Befores and Afters, but it is like trying to capture rain in their hands. No. They don’t try to collect the Befores and Afters because they’re still alive and life means there is always more.
