Page 26 of Clever Little Thing

There was silence while Stella ate. Pete rolled his neck, probably stiff after the long flight from Atlanta. It was understandable he wasn’t thrilled to have to make conversation with a stranger whenhe was tired. Then I thought of something. I showed Pete the muslin cloth in which Irina had brought the bread. “Irina used this to wrap some bread she brought me. That’s cool, isn’t it? Her own reusable packaging.”

“Plastic is waste of money,” Irina said. “Cover bowl with plate, wrap bread in towel.”

“Down with plastic,” Pete agreed, relaxing. “Stella hasn’t enjoyed her dinner so much in a long while. Thank you, Irina.” He smiled at her, and I felt an unaccustomed ripple of pleasure. The four of us sitting around the table, Stella spooning up a proper meal without demanding we separate the components or taking minuscule bites.

“When can you come again?” I asked Irina, without planning to.

She smiled. “I decide. I come weekday afternoons until you feel better.”

“That would be amazing. Are you sure?” My heart lifted. “I know this is a lot to ask, but would you be comfortable getting her from school?” If Irina did pickup, I wouldn’t have to see Emmy and the other FOMHS moms.

Irina nodded. “I get her at school. I take break from hospice. I bring bread too.”

I still couldn’t quite believe it. “Really, every weekday?”

She touched my shoulder. “Is good for me. Child is hope. You know?”

“You can relax and gestate,” Pete said to me. I nodded. I could nurture my body so I would have a healthy pregnancy, and this wonderful woman would look after my child, and not like a babysitter, but like a grandparent.

•••

I’d told Irina I’d walk her out. On the porch, I paused. “Stella doesn’t know Blanka passed away.”

Irina peered at me. Maybe she didn’t understand the euphemism. “Stella doesn’t know Blanka’s dead,” I whispered, even though Stella was upstairs. “Would it be OK not to mention it to her?”

Irina looked almost savage for a moment. “I should say Blanka is fine, Blanka goes on holiday,” she clarified.

“Don’t lie,” I said. “Just don’t talk about it.” I realized that my request was both completely reasonable and absurd. Or rather, it was too much. I could ask her to look after my child or I could ask her not to mention her dead daughter, but not both.

Irina set off down the porch steps. Halfway down, she turned. “Children need truth.”

My skin prickled. Surely it was up to me to decide what truth my child needed and when. But Irina was already walking away. Because of the language barrier, she’d probably sounded harsher, more judgmental than she’d intended.

•••

When I went back inside, Stella and Pete were playing Connect Four. I poured myself a glass of iced water and sipped it slowly. Before I had Stella, my friends with kids told me that going for a pedicure would become a rare luxury. With a child like Stella, pedicures were gone forever. Their kids might scream if they didn’t feel like a bath, but they didn’t thrash about on the floor until their head thwacked the base of the sink and bled.

It was a miracle that Stella was getting better, and I would do what it took to keep Irina on board. Maybe I needed to rethink my parenting. Plus, Irina had barely left and I was already feeling sick again. When Pete said, “Relax and gestate,” he’d made it sound like the two verbs were equivalent. There was nothing relaxing about feeling sick 24-7. I was irked, but told myself to let it go. Pete only wanted to protect me, and our new baby.

When Pete came into the kitchen to make tea, I said very quietly, “You know, I think we should tell her the truth about Blanka. It might be good for her to experience something like this.”

“I don’t know,” Pete said. “She’s going to ask a lot of questions.”

I took another sip of water and thought. When our koi suffocated because we didn’t notice the pump got turned off, Stella cried until she vomited, and after that, the sight of the pond upset her so much we had to have it filled in. But that was a year ago, and though this might make Stella sad and even angry, if it meant Irina could keep coming, it was worth it. “Then we’ll answer them.”

We went into the living room, and Pete pulled Stella onto his lap. “Sweetie, we’ve got some bad news about Blanka.” He paused. “She died.”

Stella pressed her lips tightly together, and I felt the way I did when I saw her struggling through the water learning to doggy-paddle, her mouth and chin sometimes sinking below the surface, her little face set. I wanted to jump in and save her, but I knew I had to let her enter the deep end alone.

I blinked, and tears fell. But Stella didn’t cry. “Are you sure?”

Pete nodded. “We’re so sorry. I expect you have a lot of questions.”

But she shook her head. She looked so expressionless that I said, “Do you understand, honey? Blanka’s dead?”

She stared at me. “Oh yes.”

Those two words again, Blanka’s words. But now they didn’t seem like a way of agreeing. They seemed like a way of silencing me.

---