Page 69 of Clever Little Thing

When I go to the front desk of the NICU, the receptionist is new. She frowns when I try to sign in. “And you are?”

“Luna’s mother,” I tell her.

She raises her eyebrows. “That’s odd. It says here that Luna’s mother has checked in.” She scans her computer screen, but I rush to the viewing window of the NICU. Another woman sits in the glider next to Luna’s incubator, gently rocking. Her grey-blond hair hangs loose over her toned shoulders, and because they keep the room warm, she wears a sleeveless yoga top with elaborately crisscrossing straps. Out of context, it takes me a second to recognize Kia. She’s got Luna in the snuggle hold. Adrenaline floods my veins. She took my husband. How dare she touch my child, the child I’ve barely held myself?

She doesn’t look like she’s worried about a child’s ecological impact now. Then it hits me: she isn’t responsible for this child’s carbon emissions. She didn’t bring Luna into the world. With Luna, Kia can have a child without the guilt of creating one.

I ignore the receptionist’s protests, push past a nurse, and rush into the NICU. “Give me my baby.”

“Charlotte?” Kia’s voice is uncertain. Should she continue with her California niceness, or should she treat me with caution? She adjusts Luna’s position on her shoulder as if contemplating using her as a shield.

I see the nurse with the reindeer-antler headband: “Hey! This woman should not be in here. I’m the mother. She’s got my baby!”

The nurse looks shocked. “Give me the baby,” she tells Kia. “You shouldn’t be in here.” She takes Luna, but instead of giving her to me, she puts her back in the incubator. Does she think I would hurt my own baby?

Two other nurses appear by my side, and they escort me out of the NICU, one with a hand on the small of my back, the other with a hand on my shoulder. “Why are you treating me like the crazy person?” I snap. “She’s the one who lied to you. She’s not Luna’s mother.”

Outside, Pete strides towards us, and when I turn, Kia is right behind me. With the two nurses flanking me, I am surrounded.

“Let’s all take a breath now,” Kia says. “Let’s calm down.”

I once made a “calm-down jar” for Stella, which some mommy blogger recommended as a surefire cure for tantrums: ultrafine glitter in a glue-and-water solution. All my life I’ve kept calm, but now I think Stella had the right idea when she smashed that jar against the wall. I break free of the nurses and lunge towards Kia. “Stay away from my baby, you fucking bitch.”

Kia gasps and steps backwards, and then a woman in a grey trouser suit and hospital lanyard appears. “I want to apologize for the misunderstanding about who is allowed in the NICU,” she says.

“It’s my fault,” says Pete. “I may have given the receptionist the wrong impression. I apologize.”

I take a deep breath. The hospital isn’t the enemy here. “It’s fine,” I tell the trouser-suited woman. “Just a misunderstanding. We’ll go to the machine down the hall, have a cup of tea, and get it sorted out.” I have no intention of following through on this, but the woman is satisfied, and she retreats, along with the other hospital staff. I turn to Kia. “I know about you two.” I stab a finger towards Pete’s chest. “I also know about you and Emmy.”

Kia gives a little laugh of disbelief. “Who’s Emmy?”

Pete scratches his beard. “Charlotte, you need to take a breath. You’ve had a hard time. You’re not well.”

“Are you going to try to have me committed again? I’ll be happy to tell them how you stuck me in a loony bin so you could shack up with your mistress.”

“Who’s Emmy?” Kia repeats.

Pete takes Kia’s shoulder, and I can still read the language of his eyes: “Ignore her, she’s paranoid.” He turns back to me, and gestures at a row of chairs against the wall of the corridor. “Let’s sit down, the two of us, and talk. It was a good idea of yours to get a tea or something. Kia, will you?”

“I’m not going to sit down,” I tell him after Kia has headed to the drinks machine.

“I’m sorry—” Pete begins, but I interrupt.

“Save it. It’s not just one mistake, Pete, or two. I know about that woman in Humboldt when I was pregnant with Stella. You’ve been cheating on me all along.”

Pete shakes his head. “I loved you, Charlotte. I never even looked at anyone else until you got pregnant. Then you became so anxiousabout the pregnancy. And when she was born, that was it: you shut me out.”

“Sorry you had to share my attention,” I spit.

“I thought things would get better as she got older. I thought you’d get back to your old self. But no. You used to be the one who got everyone to come over and party. You became this person who stays up late online shopping for the perfect kiddie pajamas.”

“I becamea mother.”

“You expected me to carry you,” Pete says. “It was you looking after Stella, and me looking after you. I needed an outlet.”

“That’s one hell of a rationalization,” I say.

He turns towards me, hands open on his knees. “I was always careful not to let you find out.”

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