Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [82]
I had stopped making lists, and there had been no insurmountable calamities. This was more a surprise than it should have been.
I spent a lot of time with Valerie, who was having difficulty recovering from Rachel’s birth. Since I didn’t work a typical nine-to-five, I was the only one of her friends available to help out during the day.
“You don’t know how glad we are for your help,” she said. “Jake especially. He worries too much when he’s gone.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Honestly.Without Zoë around I’d just end up home moping all day.”
Rachel farted.
“Are you making music back there?” Valerie asked, peering over her shoulder into the bassinet.
The baby let loose again. Valerie and I laughed.
I tickled Rachel’s taut baby belly. “What do you feed this child?” I asked.
“Just one hundred percent Grade A breast milk,” Valerie said. “She has my eyes and her father’s indigestion.”
Valerie and Jake were the kind of couple who made you believe in marriage. They were kind to each other in public, getting each other drinks and taking each other’s coats, doing all the little favors people normally reserve for first dates. He was a logical, quiet man, very reserved. She talked enough for the both of them. Their home was practical but artistic, an extension of their respective personalities. Abstract paintings hung in the living room and bedroom. They were the kind of abstractions that calm, not agitate.
“Are you still mad at her?” Valerie asked. Aside from the new baby, Zoë’s unpredictable moods had been our most frequented topic of conversation.
“Of course not. How could I be? All this time I thought she was upset with me and she was waiting for the doctors to give her mother a death sentence.”
“But she didn’t have to take it out on you.”
I set my tea bag on a spoon, twisted the string around the pocket of leaves. “I want to be supportive, but she’s so bent on her independence, she won’t let me.”
“She has to let her guard down first,” Valerie said. “It’s hard to love a person who won’t let you.”
Valerie considered Zoë judgmental and difficult. Which she was. Somehow this didn’t make me miss her less.
Valerie lifted Rachel from her bassinet. “I heard Eli’s living with Kevin.”
“He moved out last week.”
“That has to be a relief, both of them finally out of your hair. I know you missed having that apartment to yourself.”
I sipped my already lukewarm tea and agreed, yes, a relief.
After dinner I went for a walk. I didn’t need to be anywhere. I just needed to move.
The sidewalks were laced with salt. The smallest tree limbs overhead had frozen, their new spring buds encased in ice like beads in glass. When the wind blew, the branches clattered as if the forest were giving a hand of applause.
I walked to campus and up the hill that led to the Humanities Building. I hadn’t left with any intention of visiting the studios, but found myself walking toward the front entrance of the Fuhler Art Building and stepping inside. A few students sat on the floor at the end of the hallway, drinking coffee from heavy handmade mugs. An open office door cast light on the tile. Otherwise, the building was relatively empty, abandoned for the weekend. Dust covered the floors, and the hallway stank of strange chemicals. Cafeterias aside, there were two campus buildings identifiable by smell alone: those devoted to the sciences and those devoted to the arts.
I walked the second and first floors, taking time to patiently consider the prints and clay sculptures displayed behind glass cases. In the basement, I followed the sound of music to the single lit studio. Two long