Free Bird in Hand by Christina Baker Kline Page B

yours—what’s her name, Roberta.”
    “Dolores.”
    “Dolores. She’s snippy with me whenever I call there, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t give you all my messages, either. I get the distinct impression that she is not nurturing to those children.”
    Alison closed her eyes and shifted the cordless phone to her other ear, as if it might also somehow shift the topic. It was true that Dolores, a former English nanny who for mysterious reasons had been reduced to babysitting by the hour, was imperious and controlling, but Alison didn’t know what to do about it. Frankly, she was intimidated. And she didn’t want to think about that right now. She took a deep breath, calibrating words and tone in her head, and then said, “Mom, I appreciate the offer, but I think we’re okay.”
    “Honey, you’re not okay. You’re not okay at all,” her mother said.
    Alison had been a curious child. When she was ten or eleven she would read her mother’s correspondence and her friends’ diaries as well as eavesdrop on conversations for a mention of her name. She wanted to learn who she was, reflected in the eyes of others. And then something happened: one day when she was in the eighth grade she read one supposed friend’s note to another in school— Alison G. wears such weird clothes —with the scrawled reply, Yeah, and she’s not as pretty as she thinks she is —and Alison took the words to heart. I wear weird clothes and I’m not as pretty as I think I am . After that she stopped wanting to know.
    “You’re right. I’m not okay,” she said now.
    Her mother was full of questions: How fast was the other car going? Was it a licensed vehicle? Was the road wet? Was Alison speeding? What in the world was that mother thinking , in this day and age, having the child on her lap?
    After Alison hung up the phone she felt raw and light-headed. She’d been crying on and off for hours, but now her eyes were dry. It reminded her of how she’d felt after Annie’s birth: drained, bloodless, almost transparent, as if her body were little more than the empty husk of a cocoon.
    WHEN SHE HEARD the knock at the back door, Alison was standing in the kitchen looking around at the detritus of Charlie’s effort to feed the kids breakfast—half-crushed Cheerios scattered across the floor, spilled milk on the table, the plastic jug open on the counter with its plug missing, sections of the Friday Times in piles, an apple with two small bites already turning brown on a chair. The coffeemaker was on, but the carafe was empty. She could hear Charlie and the kids in the playroom.
    Somehow Alison had never gotten used to this. When she was with the kids, she was constantly picking up—wiping countertops, sweeping the floor, loading the dishwasher, folding mounds of laundry. Charlie just—played. And she came in later and cleaned up the mess.
    Alison could see Robin’s curly blond hair through the small glass panes at the top of the door. She felt a quick panic—the last thing she wanted to do was talk to her neighbor. But it was too late; Robin had seen her and was tentatively waving the fingers of one hand, anemonelike, through the glass.
    Alison took a deep breath and opened the door.
    “Here. I made banana bread,” Robin said, handing Alison a foil-wrapped loaf. “It was all I could think of to do.”
    The loaf was still warm, and somehow comforting in Alison’s hands: the solid heft of it, its mammal warmth. “Robin—thank you.” How kind. Alison felt a tickle in the bridge of her nose.
    Oh no; she was going to cry.
    “I won’t stay. I just—” Robin said.
    Alison shook her head, clenching her jaw. Despite her efforts, her eyes filled with tears.
    Robin took the loaf from Alison and placed it on the counter. Then she clasped her hand and led her to the table. “How about some coffee?” she said gently.
    Alison nodded, unable to speak. She watched as Robin rummaged in the cabinet for filters, washed out the carafe,