Page 8 of Clever Little Thing

I nervously began to say thank you, but Irina interrupted.

“She drown,” she hissed.

The room turned murky. I couldn’t see for a moment. “Stella?” I whispered, but Irina had hung up. Then I heard Stella crying.

“Daddy! No! No! Please, Daddy, no!”

I rushed upstairs to Stella’s bathroom. Pete was holding her, naked, over the bath, her feet pedaling over the water. “Mommy! Help!”

“What are you doing to her?” I burst out.

Pete had his arms locked around Stella. She had a look of panic, like a horse in a burning barn. “What am Idoingto her?” Pete placed Stella back on the floor. “Seriously?”

“She doesn’t like it when you hold her like that,” I said, heart banging in my chest. Pete had never actually experienced freak-out mode. So far, it had only happened when I was alone with her, which was most of the time because I did the bulk of the childcare. He thought freak-out mode was essentially a tantrum. But it was so much more than that. She was deathly pale: a warning sign.

“Stella, you can skip the bath,” I said.

Pete rolled his eyes. “She needs discipline. We can’t just give her whatever she wants. We need to stand firm—”

“Here, baby.” I wrapped Stella in a towel.

“You interrupted me,” Pete said.

“Because you weren’t listening to me,” I murmured, keeping my tone gentle in Stella’s presence. “She doesn’t want a bath.”

I knew it was irrational, but Irina’s words were still ringing in my ears. Pete sighed and left us to it. I heard the thud of the front door. He was heading out for a bike ride, which he sometimes did at night to unwind. Stella agreed to stand on the bathmat and submit to a soapy washcloth. I dimmed the bathroom light, and that seemed to help. I touched her as gently as I could. Her skin was as delicate as the membrane inside an eggshell, as if she lacked an essential protective layer.

“Are you angry with me?” she said.

“Never,” I said. “Never, my darling.”

I was proud of the fact that I’d never once lost my temper with Stella, even during freak-out mode. I never wanted Stella to feel afraid of me, as I’d been afraid of my mother, whose rages came out of nowhere. When I was seven, I complained about dinner—fish fingers with margarine—and Edith threw a bag of flour at my head. The bag burst, and my eyes were irritated for days. When I was nine and said I was too tired to wipe the counters, Edith pushed me outside and locked the door. I stood in the snow for twenty minutes without shoes.

Childcare and housework seemed to be what made Edith angry. My existence, basically. My father, who had been her Victorianliterature professor, pushed for a child, then died of a heart attack before Edith even gave birth. All she had wanted was to finish her PhD thesis and get on the professor track, but now she had to deal with a newborn alone.

Sometimes after she lost her temper, she went to an academic conference or to teach a course for a couple of weeks, and Maureen, our weekly cleaner, watchedNeighbourswith me after school and slept over. She was a doughy woman with dyed blond hair. She lived in a run-down neighborhood and had brought up her three kids alone. But she seemed to pity me, mixing my Ribena extra sweet and calling me “duck.” When I thanked Maureen for making my supper or ironing my school uniform, she said, “You’re welcome, duck.” Edith didn’t believe in saying, “You’re welcome,” in response to being thanked. She said it was unnecessary. Edith also never apologized: I assumed she believed that was unnecessary too.

From the minute Stella was born, I knew that I would be nothing like Edith as a mother. When I brought her home from the hospital, I lay in bed with her and inhaled her glorious smell. I tallied the sacrifices I’d make: a limb, my eyes, my whole body. I imagined how, to save her life, I’d gladly fling myself in front of a train. I made a promise to myself that night: I would sacrifice anything for her.

Now I wrapped Stella in a thick, warm towel and then got her into her soft flannel pajamas. I tucked her into bed with a book about the history of fortification. When it was time to turn out the light, we did our special stare. This time, she didn’t look away too soon. Other parents kissed their children good night or even cuddledthem until they fell asleep. I told myself this solemn gaze was more intimate.

I took my laptop, intending to do something useful, but I was so tired I slumped on the sofa. “She drown.” Irina’s warning filled me with dread. Stella had a swimming lesson in a few days—I’d had to fork out for private classes because the noise of the group class had been too much—should I cancel it? No, that was absurd. Irina didn’t have the power to hurt Stella.

But why hadn’t Stella told me that she’d visited Blanka’s house? Did she know why Irina seemed to have such animosity for me? Surely, she was simply deranged by grief, and who wouldn’t be? The problem with that theory was that Irina didn’t seem deranged. She seemed calm and matter-of-fact. Maybe she was simply in shock—or maybe she had a good reason for hating me after all. Blanka could have said I didn’t pay her enough. I’d paid her the going rate for babysitters in North London. It was true that I didn’t pay her what the professional babysitters charged, the ones advertising on childcare apps. But they wouldn’t have put Stella to bed in her day clothes with chocolate from my secret stash smeared all over her face. And I didn’t fire Blanka even for that. She was the one who left.

“I cannot come anymore.”

I texted her and called her a few times after that, but because she didn’t reply, it was obvious she had made up her mind. I decided I would give up my job instead. We didn’t need the money, and part of me thought that if I’d lost three pregnancies while working, maybe not working would do the trick. Edith had mocked Victorian medical thinking that if women exerted themselves intellectually, it divertedthe blood supply from their reproductive organs to the brain. It amused me to think that in giving up work to focus on my pregnancy, I was subscribing to the doctrine she had criticized.

The previous week had been busy, as I tied up loose ends at work and dashed off a farewell “Charlotte Says.” Still, I should have gone round to see Blanka. I shouldn’t have let her end our relationship with her cryptic text. I should have pushed until she revealed the reason she quit so abruptly.

Now I wondered if she had wanted to discuss it with me at our final parting. As always, she refused my offer of a snack or drink, but took her time putting on her large grey hoodie and locating her bag. I didn’t bother making chitchat, because I’d tried in the past, and she barely replied.

I walked her to the door and told her to have a good weekend. Then she just stood there. This wasn’t the first time I’d endured this awkward pause. It was almost like she expected something from me, but I had no idea what.

Then she trudged down our front steps, turning to wave at the gate. She had her own special way of doing it, always the same for hello and goodbye, her palm rotating in a circle, as if there were an invisible pane between us and she was wiping it clean.

5.

---