“Shit,” Angie says.
“I don’t know if I can talk about it anymore,” I tell her.
She nods, then reaches over and hugs me. I relax into it. Like seeing her, I hadn’t realized how much I needed it until it happened.
When Angie pulls back, she looks over at her baby. “I–I–It’s been kinda lonely, Autumn.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Guinevere is pushing herself up on her elbows. We both watch her.
“What about Dave?” I can’t call him “Preppy Dave” now that he’s a dad. It doesn’t seem right.
“When he’s not at work, he’s at school, and when he’s home, I need him to look after the baby so I can have a minute to myself, because somehow—even though I’m so lonely—I’m also never alone.” She looks from her daughter to me. “Shit, I’m scaring you, aren’t I?”
“It’s not that I wasn’t scared before,” I say, “but I’d kinda thought that you had it made. The perfect teen mom situation.”
“I don’t think such a thing exists,” Angie says. “The whole nature of the job is…” She looks up at the ceiling. “It’s a lot, Autumn. It’s worth it, but it’s a lot. You’ll understand.”
Everyone keeps telling me this. No one will elaborate. I don’t bother asking her what she means. I look at the baby practicing push-ups on the floor, and I count the months. She’s five months old. A year from now, I’ll have a baby a month younger than that.
I’d think that was impossible if it wasn’t for how much has already changed in a year.
“Have you been keeping up with everybody?” I ask.
Angie doesn’t answer at first. I glance over, and her eyes are closed, and for a moment, I think she’s dozed off while sitting up, then she speaks.
“At first, they all emailed or called from school once a week, and I was like, ‘Cool. That seems reasonable.’ But then it stopped.” She pauses again. Her eyes are still closed. “And I tell myself, ‘I’m busy too. We’re all going through stuff. Doing new stuff.’ And I know that we’ll hang out when they’re home for Christmas, but I guess I already know it won’t be the same. Because I’m not the same. And they won’t be the same, but at least they’ll be the same kind of not the same.” She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes.
I nod at her. Everything she has said makes sense, but I’m not sure what to say about it.
“I hope this doesn’t come off as ‘misery loves company,’” Angie says, “but I’m glad that I’m going to have a friend who knows what it’s like to be a mom.”
It has come off that way, but I know that if I voice it, Angie will only assure me that motherhood is worth it, that I’ll understand later.
Angie yawns again, rubs her face, and glances over at her daughter. The baby has fallen asleep on the play mat, and Angie brightens. She puts a finger to her lips.
“Should I leave?” I whisper.
“No, and you can talk in a normal voice as long as you’re quiet. She’s a deep sleeper. I’m lucky.”
“Okay.”
“So kinda like with the Finn thing,” Angie says as she picks at the upholstery. “I know I said it in my email back in July, but I had no idea about Jamie and Sasha.”
“I believe you,” I say. I have no reason not to, and I want it to be true.
“When they told me they were a couple, I was really pissed. I tried to tell them how shitty it was, but they kept saying ‘We know! We know!’ and talking about how terrible they felt about it.”
“They should have felt terrible,” I say.
“That’s what I said!” We both look at the baby who gives a little snore. “That’s what I said,” Angie says in a stage whisper. “That they should feel bad. It was a couple of weeks before Guinevere was due, so it was easy to avoid them. But then at the hospital—well, you said you didn’t want to talk about that stuff anymore.” She glances at me. “When I saw you at the hospital, you seemed great, and then I went home with the baby, and, well…” Angie bites her lip.
“What?”
“I feel bad that I let us go this long without talking,” she says. “I should have called you first.”
“It’s okay.” I haven’t told her about my hospital stay, but something tells me she knows. I’m not ready to talk about that yet. “So when you were hearing from everyone,” I say in my best casual voice, “how were they doing?”