Page 3 of Clever Little Thing

“We went to the rocks,” Lulu choked out. “Stella said she had something to show me, and it was a—dead—” She resumed her wailing.

“Oh my god,” said Emmy as Stella finally presented what she held: a mass of bones and quills, some kind of seabird. A piece of it fell to the sand. “Oh my god.” She snatched up her baby and, clutching Lulu’s hand, retreated several yards.

“Get it away!” Lulu whined.

“Don’t worry, Lulu,” Stella called. “It can’t hurt you. It doesn’t even have a head.”

Lulu buried her face in Emmy’s waist. “I don’t want that thing near the baby,” Emmy called, clutching her infant to her chest. “It could have a disease.”

“OK, OK.” I walked over to Stella, leaving Emmy consoling Lulu. I pulled out her earplugs, but she didn’t complain about the noise of the surf anymore. She was too excited. “Why do you have that seagull, sweetie?” I asked.

“It’s not a seagull, it’s a gannet. I want to look at it. Please, Mommy?”

I softened. Stella loved investigating. It never even occurred to her that Lulu might not share her scientific interest.

“You can study it at home,” I said. “But it’s going in the boot. And you’re apologizing to Lulu.” Luckily, I had a spare plastic bag in my tote. I helped Stella stuff the thing in, and marched her back to the blanket, where Emmy was placating Lulu with banana bread. “I’m sorry you felt scared, Lulu,” Stella said, hanging her head. Lulu sniffled and kept on eating. Nobody offered any banana bread to Stella, even though I was the one who made it. I used almond flour because Emmy claimed Lulu was allergic to gluten.

Emmy looked at Stella, her face wary. With a shock, I realized that she was thinking about what Stella had done at her eighth birthday party. My face grew hot.

This skin Stella and I had: you really couldn’t be out in the sun for a minute.

•••

Stella insisted on having the bag on her lap on the way home, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. As I started the drive backto London, my heart ached. She was so different from her peers. She read at an adult level: her bedtime reading wasBirdflight as the Basis of Aviationby Otto Lilienthal. No wonder it was difficult for her to socialize. And the hard part was, she didn’t yet understand the gulf between her and other kids.

Stella was murmuring something under her breath, but the noise of the motorway made it impossible to catch her words. I glanced over my shoulder. Her window was wide open, so wind filled the car, making her hair float as if it were underwater. Whatever she was saying, it was the same phrase, over and over.

Someone swerved into my lane right in front of me, and I hit the brakes. Shaken, I pulled the car onto the hard shoulder, just as my brain made sense of her words: “PoorBlanka.PoorBlanka.PoorBlanka.”

“Why are you saying that, darling?” She’d been well out of earshot when Emmy had told me, so there was no way she knew Blanka was dead. But why was she bringing up Blanka now? She’d gone into freak-out mode when I told her Blanka wasn’t coming back, but then abruptly stopped mentioning her.

Stella gave me a patient look. “I was saying, ‘Poor Mommy,’ because it seemed like you didn’t have a nice time at the beach.”

I’d misheard her, that was all. Of course, she didn’t know that Blanka was dead. And she was so sensitive, there was no way I could let her find out.

•••

Pete worked late at his company, Mycoship, which made packing foam out of mycelium, the root system of mushrooms. He wasn’thome until ten, long after Stella was in bed. I was reading in the bedroom, and I heard him putting his bike in the bike shed and then opening the front door. He would likely go to the freezer to get something to eat. He wasn’t a fan of takeaway, because of the single-use plastic.

I decided I’d let him eat before telling him about Blanka. Suddenly I remembered about the gannet. I leaped out of bed and sprinted to the kitchen, but I was too late.

“Jesus, what is that?”

I explained.

“So you stuck the thing in our freezer—with our food?” was all he managed to say. When I met Pete in California ten years ago, he was thirty-eight, but had looked much younger, with his blue eyes, his swimmer’s shoulders, his head of tight blond curls. Now the overhead light showed up the bags under his eyes. I wished he didn’t have to work so hard.

“I triple bagged it,” I said. “You can still eat your veggie lasagna.” Because my morning sickness made cooking difficult, Pete had stocked up on readymade food from the gourmet place we liked. He stuck the lasagna in the microwave and pulled me into his arms. “How are you feeling, my love?” he asked. I was the one who had pushed for a second baby so Stella could have a brother or sister, but now Pete was as eager as I was. He checked the Pregnant Dad app every day.

“I still feel sick.” I’d tried everything: motion sickness wristbands, B6, promethazine, you name it.

Pete nodded. “But the other times, when we lost the pregnancy, you felt great. So maybe this is a good sign.”

I followed him to the dining table, and we sat down at one end. When we bought this big Edwardian in coveted Muswell Hill—one of the five best places to live in London, according toThe Sunday Times—we’d ripped out most of the walls downstairs so it was one huge, open space. We kept the period detail—the mantelpieces and wall moldings—but we had sleek, modern furniture and huge black-and-white photos of surf pounding the beaches of Northern California, where Pete grew up. The table was reclaimed oak from an old barn, big enough to seat twelve when you pulled out the hidden leaves. We both loved entertaining. A few days after we met, we threw a Dungeness crab party for twelve. We pushed together borrowed tables and covered them with butcher paper. I served Negronis while Pete wrestled the crabs into the pot. Guests cracked claws and dipped the flesh into my champagne-shallot butter. Then we rolled back the rug and danced until dawn.

After Stella was born, we still entertained, but less and less. We stopped eating crab when the crab population declined due to ocean acidification. And now, after her birthday party, it was hard to imagine any guests ever coming over again.

I’d felt awkward about inviting Blanka to that party. I was worried it might feel too much like working without pay, and that Blanka would feel shy about socializing with our friends. So I didn’t ask her. But if I had, would the party have turned out differently? Would Blanka still be alive?

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