OCR Text |
Show Motherlunge a novel 108 checked out from the library; they were so long overdue she may have decided to keep them. "Getting the house clean, setting up the baby's room." "The only thing I felt I urgently needed to do was get Dorothy in hand," she continued, eyeing the tub and tile cleaners with a shrewd gleam in her eyes. "And I've done it. I could feather the whole townhouse with paperwork from the lawyers." "Good insulation." "Maybe it feels that way for you," my sister said mildly. She gripped the grocery cart handle-revving, revving-then reached for something on the shelf. Overhead, the r speakers played a creamy instrumental version of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. I hummed along; something something something in the marketplace, something something singer in a band. From the comer of my eye, I was looking at my sister in the navy maternity dress she'd worn to work that day; my sister, balanced like Justice with a jug of bleach in one hand and a bottle of Mr. Clean aloft in the other, reading the label. In that moment I decided that Pavia, who with my help had managed to re-pull things together-including Dorothy, more or less-was going to be all right. She was! And so was the baby, responsibility for whom, I soon learned, Pavia and Jack had decided to share. "It's co-parenting." Jack explained a few days later at dinner. He rubbed his brow with his knuckles and looked sideways at Pavia, then reached for the salt and pepper. "Shared governance." |